SPOTLITE

      Hi! My name is Pete Wiedman. I live in Stantonsburg, North Carolina and have a wonderful family : a wife, Peggi, two sons, two daughters and a couple of very special granddaughters. My pseudonym is Cryptopop and have been solving cryptograms for almost 50 years. I was introduced to crosswords by my parents at an early age and started doing cryps around 9 years old. My uncle taught me the basics, prompting me to read several books on the subject, and I've been hooked ever since.

      I was born and lived most of my life in New York and am a semi-retired Contracts Negotiator from the Aerospace Industry. Besides solving cryps, my hobbies include chess, other games, puzzles of all types, reading, sports and old movies. I also write short challenging cryps called "Zyptograms" which are aimed at the more experienced solver. A couple of people from this site have already tried my Zyps and one member solves them on a weekly basis. I was formerly a paid contributer of the old New York Herald Tribune crossword magazine, which is still in existence, but no longer publishes cryps--only crosswords. I have also contributed Zyps to several other web sites as well as creating a link called " Cryptopop's Hints" on http://www.freewebs.com/gidusko/cryptopop/"> which provides a complete summary of the basics for solving simple substitution cryptograms.

      I am glad to have found this site and look forward to doing the puzzles. Please feel free to e-mail me and exchange info. Thanks for the opportunity to introduce myself. Happy solving!

     Zyptograms are constructed or composed on two bases:

     1-Difficulty (unusual words)
     2-Word play (anagrams, charades, etc.)

     The Zyps offered on John's site represent a mixed bag. Another site (Contest Center),

http://www.contestcen.com/crypt.htm

offers category 1 Zyps. The blog site will concentrate on word play (category 2) and in general will not be as difficult, but hopefully will be more clever. One cryp will be published each week.

     I'd appreciate it if you'd visit my page and give the Zyps a try. I hope you enjoy! For those of you who are not familiar with blogs, it is a shortened form of web log.

      --Cryptopop (Pete Wiedman)

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>