Second quarter report: #TreasureOrTorture 2016

It was a big weekend on the month-long quiz front.

After hitting the first quarter-post with 50% of the answers, the halfway point finds us at . . . dare I say it . . . what looks a lot like 96% of the way through the Fourth Annual John H. Watson Canonical Treasure Hunt. (Get that engraved on a walking stick as F.A.J.H.W.C.T.H. and confuse people when you leave it behind in their flat!)

Of course much of that progress is due to some hard work on the part of someone other than me. My timing was pretty bad -- just as my team-mates went into high gear, I was working on a Sunday morning presentation (rewriting song lyrics, digging up quotes, all sorts of stuff you need to do when you're going to be in front of an audience and want to give them a reason to be glad you're up there), then going to see Pete's Dragon and Florence Foster Jacobs once that job was done.

Yes, in the tortoise and the hare race, I have a few hare-like tendencies. But we have a larger team this time around, which means strengths and weaknesses get balanced out among the members . . . which seems to be working so far.

Now comes the really hard part: finishing the darned thing. Going for the 100%.

Because those last few, they are apt to take up all the time we have left. I remember last year. And I've have stared at those last few questions. And stared. And . . .

. . . y'see, that's the problem with wandering off during the middle of the answering. When you come back, you have to deal with the really, really, really tough questions, one of which is a "Mixture" question, something new, I think, that my brain just can't seem to deal with. My team has had to pull the sledge for those burdens thus far. (See a theme popping up here?  I swear, I've answered a few questions for them!)

The thing about these #TreasureOrTorture questions is that sometimes they make absolutely no sense. No sense at all. For weeks and weeks. And then suddenly they do. In any normal testing situation, we could turn our results in now and be satisfied with the marks we get, definitely a passing grade. But this is a Sherlockian ordeal rite of sorts. Those last questions must be wrestled with, giving them as much attention as Holmes gave the St. Clair case or a three-pipe problem.

And on it goes . . .