Friday, May 23, 2014

Dastardly Bamboozlements!

Those contemptible, dastardly, abominable, abhorrent, revolting “friends” of mine!!! 

I’ve spent the entire evening freaking out, retracing my steps, calling colleagues who now think I am an idiot and all the time, little did I know, but my novel was in the hands of my so-called chums who thought it would be amusing to take it and hold it for ransom!

Apparently, these four think it’s funny to admonish me for writing something so non-academic. As if they haven’t already teased me enough, now they’ve taken the only draft of my novel and say that I’ll have to solve their little smug puzzles if I want to get it back. 

I have ten days to figure out which of them did it, when they stole it, where they’re hiding it, and what password they’ll use to encrypt the flashdrive. To think, I could find the thing and not even be able to open my file!

Knowing these smarty-pants, their challenges won’t be easy either. Luckily, if I can solve them I should be able to figure out which of them stole it. I’m hoping that blogging about it here (though I’m not sure that anyone but my aging aunt actually reads this) might draw in a few dear people willing to help.

So here’s what I know.

There are four suspects:
Each of them claims that they’ll share their little bamboozlements via some social media channel. I’ve managed to track down all of their accounts that I know of so I’ve listed them here along with a little background on each of them so you know what you’re dealing with. They’re a strange bunch to be sure.
English professor: Irene Peabody
Irene is an English professor who has a deep interest in 17th century English literature. In her spare time, Irene has been known to participate in live-action roleplaying games. She earned the moniker, Duchess, from her LARP days.

History professor: Casaubon Belbo
Casaubon is an eccentric history professor who can occasionally be spotted around campus in Victorian garb. He has a deep and abiding preoccupation with historical ciphers and unusual contraptions.


Telecommunications professor: Professor Morey Arte
Professor Morey Arte has studied a lot of things, ending up with degrees in Literature, Music, and Computer Science (can you imagine his school loans?!). Not quite the Napoleon of anything, the eclectic Professor Arte has found a home in the Telecommunications department where he has become fascinated by Hoosiers in the movies.


Biology professor: Melanie d’Anogaster
Melanie is a Biology professor who claims her research on the biochemistry of photoreception in fruit flies has nothing whatsoever to do with an elaborate and ambitious plan to cast doubt on poststructuralist philosophy. An avid photographer, she can often be seen around campus with her tripod and macro lens when the light is just right.

Opportunities:
I know that the drive was in my bag when I left the house today so I’ve tried to narrow down the opportunities that they might have had to take it. Luckily, though I’m a woman of the world, today was a pretty mundane day. Here’s today’s itinerary:
  • 8-12 pm Coffee in the Angles Cafe in the Art Museum: I had meetings with folks all morning so I set them all up there.
  • 12-1pm Lunch in the Wells Library Food Court
  • 1-4pm I enjoyed the sunshine in Dunn Meadow while grading midterm exams
  • 4-5pm I splurged on a drink with some friends at Nick’s English Hut (some non-novel stealing real friends!)
When I got home afterwards the flashdrive was gone.

Passwords:
These perverse professors have been kind enough to send me the passwords that they might use.
  • L33T B34T
  • Mellow Yellow
  • Allurbases
  • Baseball Rulz
Hiding Places:
The miscreants won’t actually hide the drives for me to hunt down like a dog looking for a bone until I’m able to solve all of their puzzles but they kindly provided the places that they’ll use when they do hide the flashdrive somewhere on campus.
  • IU Cinema ticket counter
  • Wells Library Interlibrary Loan Counter
  • Eigenmann Hall Document Services Counter
  • Wilkie Hall Central Residence Desk
They claim that they will start providing their puzzles tomorrow morning, May 24. Please, if you’re out there reading this and you can help at all...well, you’ll have my gratitude. Feel free to leave any ideas you have about the puzzles here in the comments or send them via Twitter. Even if you only have an idea or a partial solution, any help will be appreciated.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

NOOOOOOOOO!

If you've been following the laptop saga via Twitter then you know that my stupid laptop absolutely locked up last night and went blue screen of death on me. Unlike some of my geekier friends I only have one computer. After praying to the Gates God I managed to get it to work long enough to save my book to my flash drive but I haven't been able to boot it up since. It's in the hands of tech folks now but they've already told me that the hard drive is hopeless.
I had hopes today of moving my manuscript onto an office computer and backing it up somewhere online but I was simply too busy and had no chance to sit down and do it. I did manage to check out a loaner laptop but I didn't get a chance to use it today.
So I put the flashdrive in my bag and guarded it all day. At least i thought I did.
Tonight after coming home from a pleasant drink with friends I went to my bag to get my drive out and IT'S GONE!!!!!!!!
I've dumped out the bag. I've searched in the lining. I've unzipped everything and turned every notebook and file folder inside out and I can't find it. With only ten days to go until my final deadline I am without a manuscript. My editor is away and her admin is useless. And even if I did get their latest version I'll have weeks of rewrites to do over again! I'm sorry to be a blog-whiner but anyone out there who's ever written anything more than a few pages long should know what level of freak out I'm at. 300 pages gone! There is NOT enough wine in my fridge to solve this panic.
Time to start emailing everyone I saw today to see if they picked it up by accident or saw it on the ground.
Deep breaths and a little WWSD (What would Sherlock do) mantra.
Wish me luck!

Monday, May 19, 2014

Teasing and The Lord of the Hissy-Fit

I knew it would happen eventually. A few of my colleagues from other departments have heard about my novel and have begun teasing me about it.
"Will Fabio be on the cover?"
"Don't you have real work to do?"
"How will you list it on your CV?"
I even came back to my office after teaching today to find this taped to my door!
The teasing is all in good fun but after this prank, which my graduate assistant didn't understand, I wonder what's coming up next.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Making progress!

While most people know me as a mathematician, I've always wanted to write novels. It's been a bit of a secret but now that I've done it I'm ready to share. It's not exactly academic writing so I haven't told many people about it but now my publisher is encouraging me to "market myself" so I thought I'd start a blog to share a bit about me and my writing.
My book “Parallel Passions: Geometry of Romance” will be published soon. I'm making the final edits. It's such a relief to be so close to finishing it after years of thinking about it. Even though my colleagues have teased me endlessly, I'm still excited to see my book on the shelf in the near future.
Now, back to editing!