I was on a long flight last fall and ran out of reading material. I wished I had a crossword puzzle to do. Then I thought, "I think I'll make one — how hard can it be?" That was the beginning of the journey that ends with my puzzle appearing this Sunday in the Times.

This was actually my third puzzle; the first two got rejected. Joel and Will showed endless patience with me as I worked through four revisions to finally get this one right.

The first revision strengthened the theme clues. It also forced me to make my own grid, something I hadn't tried before. That ended up being funner than I expected as I like the aesthetics of the grid designs.

The second revision had me eliminate boring entries like ALDA and TEPEE and strive for words not commonly seen. Unfortunately, while adding more vibrant and interesting words, I allowed some weaklings to sneak in as well.

Revision four ruthlessly eradicated all those words Will identified as unacceptable or unlikable. Perseverance paid off and I finally got the coveted "yes" from Joel.

I love language and often think about turns of phrase. There is often humor, sometimes unintentional in the things we say, and that is what inspired the theme. My favorite entries are FAT FARM and BOBOS.

And a little about me: I work for the National Park Service as the superintendent of San Juan Island National Historical Park in Washington State. I grew up in a family that bought multiple copies of the Sunday New York Times so that everyone could work on the crossword puzzle independently.

Debut! And from a fellow Washingtonian. Lee found some nice pairs of common maxims … which give exactly the opposite advice. I've heard "Knowledge is power but IGNORANCE IS BLISS" many times before, but the others were newish to me.

I liked how each of the twelve aphorisms are pretty well known, with the notable exception of FOOLS SELDOM DIFFER. I struggled mightily with that middle word, and even after uncovering it, I struggled to figure out what it meant. Fools tend to think the same thing? Really? Then why does no one ever agree with me?

(rimshot)

Anyhoo, interesting layout, with two sets of interlocking answers. It can be a neat effect when answers happen to fortuitously lock together — it's often so tough because even if you can make it happen on one side, the symmetrical spot must also work. Here though, the lower MAN crossing MAN isn't terribly elegant. I usually don't care about small words duplicated in a grid, but to have them crossing each other is not ideal for me.

One really nice clue: [Pairs are often seen in it] for POKER. Made me think of "pairs" as in (human) couples. [Handles] for ALIASES was also clever, in that it refers to the noun version of handles, not the verb. This puzzle played very hard for me, well over my average solving time, I think mostly because of the opacity in cluing. Hardly a gimme in sight! Good workout, although I would have liked more clever clues to keep my interest level up through the frustration.

Sunday 140 word puzzles are so tough — I think it's the roughest way to make one's NYT debut. That very low word constraint makes it tough to avoid gluey bits like TESHES (gah, TOSHES!), APORT, the usual OGEE / AMAH kind of stuff. So tricky to make a super-smooth Sunday 140 worder.

Interesting theme idea with a couple of nice pairings.