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#1: Bryan (Cyclone) on Jan 8, 2014 [HINT]

This actually is more challenging than I expected it to be. I took a first crack at solving it and it took longer than expected; I almost quit to finish later, but decided to just finish the line logic through. A beautiful solve it should be!

For anyone having trouble starting, work out where to begin the blue by filling the obvious starting clues, then work out the blue with the help of the black clues around them. You'll eventually be where I paused briefly with the top complete and can then work below, where it's all black and moderately challenging.

Poor you. I hope you are covered by home insurance.

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whoa, pipe is a good start but it's the rest of it that the water damaged..good luck bryan

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Bryan, my sympathies. Water damage isn't fun! :(

hope it gets warmer for everybody affected by this cold..yesterday started out at o degrees,with a high of 5 and today it started at 5 degrees here...always good to have a friend who can help :)

Here in Ottawa we had one day just at the freezing point, so we had glare ice on the roads, and now it's really cold again. Florida, here I come!

Bryan, you certainly have my sympathies. I hope the damage to personal things is minimal. Walls,etc. can be fixed. When I was in high school our house burned down and it was the loss of personal things that hurt the most.

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I'm glad you didn't lose too much, but sorry you have to wait so long to complete the work. But one thing most of humans learn is how to cope. :)

I'm going to post pictures later on Facebook, but are you ready to hear the cause of the mess?

A wasp nest.

Yes, a wasp nest. They ate the pink stuff and that exposed the pipe. With the pipe open, all that was needed was freakishly cold temperatures. It got below 32ºC and froze, and nature took its course.

Not going to even try to make a puzzle out of that. If there are any volunteers, however, by all means.

That's terrible! It was mice in our attic that chewed through the wiring that caused a spark to set off the fire. Blasted rodents and insects.

My sympathies Bryan. I have been where you are and it's not much fun. Get some sleep and things should look better when you get up. Great puzzle by the way

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Not to downplay your problems Bryan,and I do feel for you,but I'm going to tell you my story now. We went shopping the other night.It was warm for a change,and raining hard.We came home to find our bedroom ceiling coming down and water leaking from the roof. We have to sleep in the living room on the couches now,until we can get the roof fixed.:(

Oh my. I'm so sorry Aldege. I hope you can get it fixed soon.
Glad you weren't in your bedroom when it happened.

You know, things tend to happen in threes. Anyone else have a leaky anything? And sorry to hear that Aldege.

Also, just woke up after a sudden nap. In the middle of a hockey game. Now...if anything is non-Canadian, it's that. We love our hockey. But one hour of sleep in - I think - 38 finally caught up with me, especially because I was roused from sleep extremely early the prior morning (maybe three hours of sleep, likely less, plus daytime naps) before the entire busted pipes occurred. I need a good sleep this evening or I'm going to stay out of whack.

Al, there are *still* houses near me with blue tarp on their roofs, from Hurricane Gustav (2008).

Bryan, re #10 and on a sad topic, my mother was a pathological hoarder and I am sorry to tell you from experience that these are people who psychologically *cannot* learn a lesson. The urge and the behaviour are ingrained and powerful. May I respectfully suggest that you quietly "disappear" some of the junk now that you have the chance. It won't be missed, I promise.

Re #20, the comment you are probably referring to is learning a lesson - and I mean that as something she's never experienced in this sudden pipe bursting situation that, next time there's a cold snap coming, we try to get the valuable items out before something happens and another pipe goes squirt. That was not meant in a mean-spirited way.

As for the other comment that you might be referring to - that in being a packrat - I actually share that tendency, which is why I can identify it. I do sometimes throw things away, however, maybe because of my very limited space in comparison. Neither of us has it as bad as anyone on that hoarding show on TLC; we just don't like to throw things away and would rather store it to deal with it later. I won't comment further beyond that since I agree the behaviour will never change for either of us - though when I finally have a job and my own place again, I hope to go through and throw out some stuff.

If you were referring to something else, please let me know.

My favorite packrat story was about a woman who was going through her mother's things after her mother passed. Her mother was also someone reluctant to throw things away and when going through one of her mother's closets she found a box labeled "Bits of string too short to use."

That's funny, Norma.

Bryan, I myself have those same tendencies, i.e. keeping things, papers, clothing, and stuff in general to deal with later or in case it might be useful some day. I have researched the problem and have discovered that in the children of hoarders it can be a learned behaviour. I keep things I have bought or been given as gifts but have never used, papers (especially papers!), and clothing, as well as stuff I have had for years but don't use now, to deal with later or because it might be useful some unspecified day in the future. But knowing what I do about myself I am constantly watchful, and every couple of years I have a binge of getting-rid-of-most of-it. It goes against the grain and I find it painful, but I get it done. I don't want my children to have to spend the same 5 months cleaning out my house that it took me after my mother died. Sorry for assuming that pack rat means hoarder; my mind goes immediately in that direction.

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