Thursday November 8th 2018, NY Times Crossword

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Time: 19:54
Thursday Average: 26:18
Best Thursday: 10:18

I'm beginning to suspect that the term "at sea" to mean confused is propped up entirely by the crossword industry. I was sure that 1-across "Put at sea" was something along these lines, but I still couldn't see ADDLE until I closed out this puzzle. The theme, on the other hand, came to me quickly, even though I'd never heard of Horace Greeley, who apparently uttered  the words GO WEST YOUNG MAN, words that I certainly LIVE BY, or did at some point. As you can see, the theme answers would end with L-A-D, but instead those have been shifted to the left, so the lad (young man) is going west, yielding -LAD POWER BAL-, -LAD ARMOR C-, -LAD TACO SA-, and -L AD SUPER BOW-. Fun stuff. And once you get it, you can plug those three letters in at the beginning of the theme answers and save yourself some time.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying a FIESTA of higher education, of sorts, a venue at which I'm no longer quite a NOOB, but still don't feel entirely at home. At times, I feel that I might  be too JADED for this work, but sometimes I'm great at it, so I'll SIT PAT for now.

I did not know that DECOCT meant to extract essence by boiling, so that will be helpful in the future. Tomorrow is my last full day away from the US, according to plans at least. 

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