blokhead,
Thanks. I doubt I have your skill to expand on it. Perhaps the idea will begin to haunt you at night depriving you of sleep (as it has me) and you won't be able to rest until you come up with a solution.

Background:

Having solved the riddle itself at least 2 different ways myself, I began wondering how many ways there were to solve it and how one might automate that. Since I couldn't work out in my head a smart way of doing it - I figured I would post it here as a challenge.