Happy birthday, Ucaoimhu!

[rhu]

Here is what I said last night at ucaoimhu's birthday party:

[In the style of Tom Lehrer] I never forget the first time I meet the great Ucaoimhu. In one word, he told me secret of success in writing puzzles. Unfortunately, that word was in Ugartic, and I still don't know what he said.

Uc's brilliance is exceeded only by his menschlichkeit. Whether I'm solving one of his puzzles, cosolving with him, or just hanging out, I'm never made to feel stupid by comparison; instead, I'm made to feel smart by association.

In academia, it's traditional when someone reaches a milestone for their colleagues and students to compile a festschrift of short papers in the style of or in the area of expertise of the honoree. As Uc never shows up to a gathering of friends without a variety cryptic, a bunch of us have reciprocated by assembling a festschrift of cryptics about Uc.

I wanted to title this collection "Iron Men of God: Church and Schism" but I was talked out of it. Instead, we went with "Debuts of unusual cryptics about our imaginative metrist (he’s ultrararefied), Kevin Wald". [At this point, I read off the titles of the individual contributions, because even if you don't intend to solve them, they're funny.]

I want to thank Qaqaq for his review of everyone's (I think) contribution; I was the production editor, but Qaqaq was the editor who brought us up to a level worthy of honoring Ucaoimhu.

Happy birthday, Uc!

Ucaoimhu received a hand-bound hardcover commemorative presentation copy; everyone at the party got solving copies; you can download your own. There are some great cryptics in there, if I may say so.