The coordinates at the top of this page are not
the actual coordinates of the cache! You must determine the actual coordinates by
reading the story below and solving the puzzle contained in it. Note: not even the degrees and
minutes listed above are guaranteed to be correct. However, the actual
cache location is within a 2.5 mile radius of the given coordinates.
Jif and Fy Team, after a hot, dizzying day of shopping for new tile for their bathroom, went to an outdoor-seating seafood restaurant, called AMB’s Place. It was a local landmark that first opened during the Great Depression. Jif was glad to sit down, as he had been lugging an ever-growing collection of tile samples all over town. He set the collection of samples down on the empty chair next to him. With tile colors and patterns filling his mind, he paid special attention to the interesting design on the patio floor. Most tiles were a pale tan color, and a smaller number of pink and blue tiles formed an interesting diagonal pattern. This pattern seemed familiar to Jif, but he couldn’t quite figure out why.
Fy ordered fish and chips, and Jif ordered a plate of Krab Louie.
While waiting for their order to arrive, they decided to find a micro cache hidden nearby. Unfortunately, it took them longer than they hoped, and when they returned to their table, they saw that their order had been delivered some time ago.
Fy wisely ordered a new plate of fish and chips, but Jif decided to eat the plate of Krab Louie already at the table. Bad idea! - the food had warmed in the hot sunlight, and as we all know, Krab Louie is a dish best served (and eaten) cold!
Poor Jif quickly became delirious. He started mumbling odd words, and then fell on the ground, knocking over the bag of tiles, spilling seven of them onto the ground. Fy called for an ambulance, and Jif ended up in the emergency room of the hospital.
For the next two days he was in and out of consciousness, and was not allowed to see any visitors. When he finally woke up, with a clearer head, he had no recollection of the past few days.
He asked the nurses who watched over him what had happened. They indicated that he had acted strangely, and sounded a bit paranoid. He kept repeating the same things over and over. They had taped his words, hoping they would make some sense to him when he recovered.
Unfortunately, Jif couldn’t explain what he was saying on the tape. Only two short sequences could be heard clearly - the rest was garbled.
The first sequence is this, Jif speaking: “Blackjack game! A red herring! But a best score points a way to wordy play in San Jose! I...!”
After the “I...!” the recording breaks off.
Now a nurse’s voice is heard: “Mr. Team, Mr. Team... trust us. We are here to help.... we are here to help.”
To which Jif deliriously replies with the second sequence: “Not so fast! I’m on to y’all! You’ll never archive my puzzles! You won’t get away with this!”
As Fy met Jif at the hospital to take him home, they both talked a bit about what he had said during his delirium, but they could make no sense of it. Nonetheless, Jif apologized to the nurses, in case any of the cross words he spoke while he was delirious disturbed them, pointing out how he appreciated that they had gone to dizzying lengths to help him.
Exiting the hospital, Jif paused and breathed the fresh outdoor air of the clear spring afternoon. As Fy and he walked down the sidewalk to their car, he took her hand in his and turned to her. Seeing the clear, simple love in her eyes reminded him again why he was so happy he married her. Finally remembering what they were doing before he got sick, he asked “So - what tile did you finally choose for the bathroom?”
Fy smiled and replied, “Oh! A very pretty pink one - it has a single large black star in the center!”
Jif was stunned. He imagined seeing a grid of tiles with that bold pink pattern covering the bathroom walls and got nauseous... he felt that he was in the restaurant all over again... he imagined someone shouting at him, taunting him and mocking him: “Are We Dizzy Yet? Are We Dizzy Yet? Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You shouldn’t waste time looking at the Little Picture! Just use A Little Logic! Bwha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!” In the distance, in his dreaming, he could see a newspaper with the headline “Ransom Note found!”
Fy saw Jif stagger, and alarmed, she slapped him and shouted “Snap out of it!” Fortunately, this Cher-esque moment pulled Jif out of himself, and his problem ended as quickly as it had begun. They got in the car, and drove away.
Jif never again was troubled by the bad dreams.