LAST YEAR WE PRESENTED MY FATHER WITH A UNIQUE CHRISTMAS GIFT SIMPLY REFERRED TO AS CHALLENGES. WE GAVE HIM A FEW ENVELOPES, A RUBIX CUBE, A GPS UNIT, A COMPASS AND SOME SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS TO ONLY OPEN ONE EVERY WEEK AND NO MORE. IN SHORT, THEY WERE A SERIES OF PUZZLES WHICH LED HIM TO VARIOUS DESTINATIONS. WE THOUGHT THIS WAS A GREAT IDEA FOR HIM AS HE ENJOYS PUZZLES AND AS A RECENT RETIREE HAS SOME FREE TIME ON HIS HANDS. WE REALLY THINK LAST YEAR WENT WELL AND HOPE TO CHALLENGE HIM A BIT MORE THIS YEAR, WHICH I BELIEVE THIS COLORFUL MESSAGE PROVIDES A GOOD START IN THAT DIRECTION. THIS IS YOUR FIRST AND ONLY CLUE. GOOD LUCK.
12/25/08 – It’s all over but the shouting! Do you hear that fat lady singing yet? I got the big guns working! I got the smart one in my family working on it. Georgene saw your “2008 Christmas Challenge” post and has agreed to help me. She’s vowed not to come up with all the wrong answers and send me down dozens of blind paths like she did last year. I’m optimistic! A fellow U of I alum CAN’T be THAT bad two years in a row!
I guess we will see if the old adage “two heads are better than one” applies to dirt doctors.
Are you having fun yet Tom? I can’t tell you how happy it makes Paul to be able to spy on your progress. Hopefully you don’t want to kill him when this is over with!
Cute. I didn’t know you had a Dutch uncle.
You must be referring to the response to a wrong answer. That is the only red herring…so far. Also, I can’t help but notice the two U of I alum haven’t figured out the first puzzle yet.
Give us a break- I haven’t used BASIC since high school, so it’s been a lot longer for your Dad. And I’m not retired- I even have to work this week!
BTW- yes, I lead him down the Dutch dead-end, but I will redeem myself in the end…
Hint: Letters and punctuation are nothing more than place holders. Focus on the colors.
Hint time! If you had to hide a message using only colors how might you do it? Obviously Red Red Blue Green Green Blue…blah blah blah means nothing to anyone, but maybe the colors should be grouped together in some fashion to represent some letter/character. To determine how many colors should be grouped together you need to figure out how many letters/characters you think might be used in the encoded message. Given the colors to work with you could say you have 4 distinct characters, red, green, blue, black, which could lead to 256 unique combinations. This seems like a lot considering there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, but not outside the realm of possibility. Maybe further examination of the 4 colors would lead to a logical conclusion to eliminate one. Assuming you could eliminate one you would have only 3 distinct colors which lead to only 27 combinations.