Thursday, August 23, 2012

'Real' Treasure (or: The Power of the Mind)

Look here for buried treasure information

Last weekend, I was cleaning out some files and came across a clipping from January 1982's Omni Magazine (magazines, remember those?) about Masquerade (the first armchair puzzle hunt) and a much older treasure hunt, known as The Beale Ciphers.


This lottery ticket costs just 50 cents

The Beale Ciphers


As summarized in Omni, a man named Thomas Jefferson Beale went out West with some friends, found some treasure, took it back East and buried it in Virginia.  He left an envelope with an innkeeper for safekeeping, with instructions that it be opened if he did not return in ten years.  Beale never returned, and the innkeeper opened the envelope and found three ciphers he could not decode.  He passed them on to a friend, who deciphered #2 using a copy of The Declaration of Independence as a key (because Thomas Jefferson.  Ain't that clever).  The one he deciphered described the treasure:  millions of dollars in gold and silver.  But he couldn't decipher the other two, so he passed it on to another friend who published a pamphlet with all three ciphers.  Whoever decoded the other two (or at least #1, which detailed where the treasure was) would find millions in lost gold!

Or at least, that's what Omni told me.  This was back in the days before the Internet, where treasure hunters got their info from magazines and sending off SASEs and meeting with like-minded people in suburban pizza parlors to discuss theories.  Now, of course, we have Wikipedia, where we can figure out that, more than likely, this story is a load of 19th century hokum.

Let's start with sources and evidence.  Even if you believe the general outlines of the story, you're getting it, by its own admission, fourth-hand (Beale->innkeeper->friend->pamphleteer).  All the original papers were conveniently destroyed in a fire.  No evidence of the treasure has ever been found, and Thomas Jefferson Beale doesn't seem to have existed.  So it's doubtful from the start that you're getting the full story.

And then you start thinking about this full story.  Guy travels to what is now Colorado in 1819 -- that's decades before John Fremont, the Great Pathfinder.  He and some friends find loads of gold, and somehow get it all back to Virginia back before there are anything resembling roads between Colorado and the Missisissippi River.  Once in Virginia, he buries it and takes off back west, without, apparently, even taking a little bit out to help cover his expenses.  He leaves the secret to finding the treasure in 3 pieces (why?), apparently decipherable in 3 different ways.  Cipher #3, incidentally, tells how to find the heirs of the treasure finders.  Why even encode that at all?

On top of this difficult-to-swallow story, there are a few more interesting facts, such as that if take cipher #1 and use the same key as #2 (The Declaration of Independence), you get mostly nonsense, although you also get strings of non-random nonsense like the alphabet.  Sounds like someone was deliberately creating a bogus message.  And speaking of bogus messages, the pamphlet included some letters from Beale, supposedly dating from the 1820's, that include words like 'stampeding' that weren't used before 1850.

The pamphlet cost 50 cents back when it was published, roughly $10 in today's money.  Seems to me that someone was looking to make some relatively easy money off people's greed.


High tech treasure hunting, a century or so ago

Oak Island's Money Pit


I lived in Germany for a while, and took part in a puzzle hunt sponsored by a dictionary publisher. The prize was a Golden Book buried somewhere in the countryside.  After solving most of the clues, a friend and I took off to a location about fifty miles away to start digging.  We found what seemed like a likely spot, which I especially liked because a nearby tree had bark that looked like one of the clues, a number (I forget what number, say 17) that was crossed out, like so:

17

I pointed this out to my friend, who didn't know what I was talking about.  After a few minutes I finally got my friend to see the crossed out 17 as well.  We dug and dug, but never found the treasure, because we were completely wrong, and it was a hundred miles away.  It was only my mind that saw the 17 in the bark.

Which is to say that if you're hunting for treasure, you can find patterns that just aren't there.  For an excellent example, see Oak Island's Money Pit.

Like the Beale Cipher, I first read about Oak Island in a magazine (probably Games).  It all sounded so convincing:  kids find evidence of buried treasure, dig a bit, come back years later, dig a lot more and find suggestive log platforms and a rock with mysterious inscriptions.  Just when they think they're getting to the real treasure (more than 80 feet down!), they come back one day to find the hole has flooded.  Apparently whoever hid the treasure added some booby traps. Here's a good summary.

This treasure story is probably also hogwash, although this time it's nature, not a human being, who's fooling people.  Let's start with the first (purported) diggers, a boy or group of boys who go out to an island and find 'evidence' of buried treasure.  This sounds like a classic case of juvenile imagination gone wild.  As this article explains, all their supposed 'evidence' could just be natural phenomenon (sinkholes, tropical fibers deposited by the gulf stream, natural debris piles that look like they were placed there by people).  And the rock with its writing just sounds a lot like the bark on my '17' tree.  The 'writing' on the rock 'disappeared' years later, indicating it probably only existed in the minds of the original finders who, like Mulder, just wanted to believe.  No evidence of actual treasure has ever been found, and the theories as to who put this treasure here sound like romantic nonsense.  Captain Kidd!  Marie Antoinette's servants!  The Knights Templar!  Francis Bacon (hiding evidence that proves he wrote Shakespeare's plays --- why stop with one exotic theory when you can double down?)  Whoever hid it, why would these people dig down a hundred feet and install elaborate booby traps that make it all but impossible to extract the treasure?  At the time the treasure was buried, the area was almost completely wilderness.  So if you wanted to get the treasure back, you could just find any random distinguishing landmark and bury it a few feet deep without fear of discovery. And if you didn't want to get it back, just dump it in the ocean.


National Orienteering Day is September 15th.  Wear orange and white.

Upcoming


(italics = new since last time)
  • Premium Rush The Alleycat - August 24, downtown.  The opposite of a bum rush?  No, I think this is a poorly punctuated alleycat race related to a new bike messenger movie.  Damn you, Hollywood, was Kevin Bacon not good enough for you?
  • Amazing Ring Race - August 25.   Free entry.  Prizes:  a local jeweler puts up a ring purportedly worth $15,000.  If this is anything like past years, 2nd prize is also nothing to sneeze at.  You run around a small area downtown solving clues using a mobile phone application called SCVNGR
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #3 - August 25, North SeaTac Park.  Orienteering where you find as many checkpoints as you can in 75 minutes.  If you ever lose your bearings just wait for the next plane to come by and remember the airport is due south.
  • First Thursday Adventure Run - September 6, Green Lake. 
  • Rebel Without a Cog/Vagina Monocogs - September 7-8.  Alleycat + Time Trial + Lap race for single speed bikes only.  Unicycles count.  I totally want to see a unicyclist win this thing.
  • Orienteering Course Design Class - September 8, Lynndale Park.  Here's a class on designing orienteering courses, put on by Cascade Orienteering Club.  If you end up designing a course, you will definitely get a free entry or two (or three).  So have at it, cheapskate orienteering fanatics.  The fact that it's being held at a park makes it likely there will be some hands-on work assigned.
  • Hood Hunt Phinney Ridge - September 12.  The Hood Hunt is turning two!  But it is not terrible!  Like a Street Scramble, but absolutely free.  Print out your own map (that's one way they keep it free).
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #4 - September 15, Woodland Park.  It's National Orienteering Day, so get out there.  If you've never orienteered before, this is the event for you.  It's Woodland Park, so there are woods (duh), but you can't really get lost in them (just follow the traffic noise to Aurora or the sporty yelling to the ballfields).  Also, off-leash dogs, lawn bowling, and maybe a few bunnies.  Mass start at 11:15am.
  • Oyster Urban Adventure Race - September 15.  They also put on an outdoor adventure race in Bend, Oregon.
  • Redonkulous Scavenger Hunt - September 15, Seattle Center.  Sounds like an honest-to-goodness scavenger hunt.  First prize is a longboard (that's a type of skateboard, grandpa), but you don't actually have to know how to skateboard to compete.
  • San Juan Island Quest - September 22.  12 or 24 hour adventure race.  Mountain biking, foot and (quelle surprise!) kayaking will be involved.
  • Fremont Oktoberfest Street Scramble - September 23.  Course design by yours truly.  I'm halfway done, and it's already awesome.

Still going on


Puzzle cache of the week:  Jurassic Snakes Moan on a Plane. --- This one's for you, Samuel L. Jackson fans.

Photo Credits



Magazine stand: JulianBleecker via photo pin cc
Beale cipher and Money Pit:  public domain in US.
Orienteering: photo credit: owls-count via photo pin cc

Friday, August 17, 2012

Setting the Course

Mr. Sulu...
This Friday I begin a series of slow bicycle rides around Fremont and surrounding neighborhoods, traversing the Burke-Gilman and Ship Canal Trails, climbing and descending hills, peering at front porches, front yards, and little bits of art.  It's not an exercise program, I'm scouting out checkpoints for the Fremont Oktoberfest Street Scramble.

For the mythical newbie to this blog, a Street Scramble is an event where you're given a map of the area with around 30 circled checkpoints.  You mission is to walk (or, in some case, not this one) bike from checkpoint to checkpoint, visiting as many as possible within a time limit (in this case, 90 minutes), scoring as many points as possible by answering a simple question at the checkpoint.  Sounds like fun?  Of course it is!  But someone has to find those checkpoints in the first place.  That's where I come in.


I missed a spot.  [map data copyright 2012 Google]


Preparation

For these trips, I come equipped with some USGS maps (courtesy of Meridian Geographics, the company that puts on Street Scrambles), and a red pen, which I use to mark checkpoint locations on the maps.  Later, they will turn my marked up map into professional looking maps for the event.  I also use a notebook to write down checkpoint questions.  My first bit of real work you can see above:  I print out a Google map of the area and divide it roughly into zones.  Zone 1 (north of the Fremont Bridge) is near the start; my goal is to assign a number of checkpoints (4, say) to this zone, so that even teams with toddlers can find some checkpoints.  Surrounding zones might get 2 checkpoints, while the rest will get 1 or 0.  I usually aim to find 35 checkpoints, but won't use them all.  The extras are for backup, in case someone moves their pinball machine to the backyard between the time I saw it and the time of the Street Scramble.

Last year, on a whim, I deviated from my plan:  I found a series of good checkpoints at a set of 5 staircases west of Fremont Avenue near B.F. Day School, and decided to keep all of them even though they were so close together.   That many checkpoints so close together really drew people to that area (not surprisingly), and I think I'll do something similar this year in a different area (ooh, spoilers).


Last year's sadistic theme

Theme

I could probably find a few hundred good checkpoints in Fremont; everywhere you turn there's a piece of art on someone's porch or a touchtone phone attached to an electric pole.  The neighborhood exudes quirk. It has at least 6 iconic symbols (Bridge, Troll, Rocket, Sign, Lenin, Interurban...).  To make my job and the Scramble a little more interesting, I try to come up with a theme for the checkpoints.

Last year's theme was up and down - lots of stairs and ramps, as well as the Rocket.  Two years ago, in a tribute to the Troll, all the checkpoints were on a bridge, under something, or (best of all) under a bridge.  That one had the lovely side effect of making people think about the many levels of things in Fremont.  You could go to the checkpoint on the Aurora Bridge and pass directly over four other checkpoints on the way.  And did you know you can walk below the main intersection of 34th and Fremont?  Take the Burke-Gilman to the Fremont Bridge, then walk north through the parking lots, where you will eventually hit the former (real) bed of the railroad that was turned into the Burke-Gilman Trail.  Too bad there's nothing really interesting there anymore; I had to use a utility box as a checkpoint just to lure people to visit.

So what will it be this year?  Transportation?  Beer?  I have another idea, and you'll have to show up to find out.


Dude gets around

Scouting it out

With theme and maps in hand, it becomes a matter of just looking.  Finding good checkpoints in the area is not hard (except on the north face of Queen Anne, area 15 on the map above; the people who live there don't seem to have much imagination).  But you can't just rely on wind chimes made of beer bottles and Henry murals, you have to mix it up.  Plus, part of the mission of Street Scramble is to introduce people to the neighborhood, and there's more to Fremont than garden tools converted into fenceposts.   I look especially to find checkpoints in public areas that can be overlooked:  P-Patches, new staircases, school playgrounds, and, yes, forgotten railbeds under busy intersections.

Once you find a checkpoint, you have to make up a question about it.  Sometimes this is as simple as saying "What is here?"  The difficulty with this type of question is usually coming up with the two wrong choices (every checkpoint has a multiple-choice question with 3 answers).  Presumably the object is interesting if you made it a checkpoint, so it can't be something mundane like a tree or a mailbox (plus there probably is a tree or mailbox nearby, and you don't want to have 2 correct choices).  On the other hand, if you make it too outlandish, no one will believe your fake answers.

You don't want to make your answer Googleable, either, or something that might be common knowledge. Business names usually make bad answers, since they're often on a smartphone's map.  And if you ask a question about a famous piece of art (Q: What is in the Troll's hand?), a number of people are going to know the answer without going there (A:  A VW Beetle).  Minor details like dates or names often make the best answers.

When I first started setting courses, I was warned to avoid color questions.  Even people who aren't color blind argue about whether something is green or blue, or red or orange.  For purposes of a Street Scramble, there are 3 colors:  dark, white and red.  You also want to avoid trick questions (it's not a trivia quiz or a math test) and fancy wording.  Finally, I added a rule of my own:  No questions of the type, "What does [abstract shape] look like?"  Different people see different things; that tree stump that clearly looks like an elephant to you may look like a mushroom to someone else.  Sorry, Rorschach, you have to find another checkpoint.

The Fremont Oktoberfest Street Scramble is Sunday, September 23.  Come on out and see how I did.


The Geocaching hordes descend on Fremont this Saturday

Upcoming


(italics = new since last time)
  • Lauren Jackson Bobblehead Hunt -  through August 18.  Like the Sue Bird hunt before. Clues released via Twitter and Facebook.  Prize is tickets to a Storm game (plus a bobblehead).  At least on the first day, they also gave prizes to the first 50 people to show up where the bobblehead was.  All the Sue Bird prizes were found at businesses affiliated with the Storm.  Just sayin'.
  • Seattle Rep's Theatrical Scavenger Hunt - August 18, noon.   Win Seattle Rep tickets for life!  Instantly become Foursquare's Mayor of the Bagley Wright.
  • Bainbridge Street Scramble - August 18.  I assume this will be kind of like the Chilly Hilly, except with more checkpoints, better weather, and fewer people who fall over at the bottom of the hill because their derailleurs rusted out over the winter.
  • TRIOBA Sprint Adventure Race - August 18, Ellensburg.  20-30 miles of biking, 5-15 miles on foot, no paddling, 5-10 hours total.  If you're looking for the next step after BEAST races, this would be a good place to start.  Update:  The fire is on the other side of I-90.  Race is cancelled if the fire jumps I-90.  Expect heat and smoke if you go.
  • 2012 Geocaching Block Party - August 18, Fremont.  It's International Geocaching Day, so break out your GPS devices and head on down to Fremont, headquarters of Groundspeak, which runs geocaching.com.  Various urban geocaching activities ensue.  Other events take place during the week, including one the next day at Snoqualmie Pass...
  • Going APE at the Tunnel of Light - August 19, Hyak.  At the east end of the Snoqualmie Tunnel, on the John Wayne/Iron Horse Trail.  For those who like their geocaching more rural.  Or for those who like going into a 50-degree tunnel on a potentially hot day.  Bring a flashlight.
  • Scavenger Hunt - August 21, 3pm, Northeast Branch Library.  Ages 12-18 only.  Heads will roll if they don't visit Top Pot.
  • Premium Rush The Alleycat - August 24, downtown.  The opposite of a bum rush?  No, I think this is a poorly punctuated alleycat race related to a new bike messenger movie.  Damn you, Hollywood, was Kevin Bacon not good enough for you?
  • Amazing Ring Race - August 25.   Free entry.  Prizes:  a local jeweler puts up a ring purportedly worth $15,000.  If this is anything like past years, 2nd prize is also nothing to sneeze at.  You run around a small area downtown solving clues using a mobile phone application called SCVNGR
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #3 - August 25, North SeaTac Park.  Orienteering where you find as many checkpoints as you can in 75 minutes.  If you ever lose your bearings just wait for the next plane to come by and remember the airport is due south.
  • First Thursday Adventure Run - September 6, Green Lake. 
  • Rebel Without a Cog/Vagina Monocogs - September 7-8.  Alleycat + Time Trial + Lap race for single speed bikes only.  Unicycles count.  I totally want to see a unicyclist win this thing.
  • Orienteering Course Design Class - September 8, Lynndale Park.  Speaking of course design, here's a class on designing orienteering courses, put on by Cascade Orienteering Club.  If you design a course, you will definitely get a free entry or two (or three).  So have at it, cheapskate orienteering fanatics.  The fact that it's being held at a park makes it likely there will be some hands-on work assigned.
  • Hood Hunt Phinney Ridge - September 12.  The Hood Hunt is turning two!  But it is not terrible!  Like a Street Scramble, but absolutely free.  Print out your own map (that's one way they keep it free).
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #4 - September 15, Woodland Park.  It's National Orienteering Day, so get out there.  If you've never orienteered before, this is the event for you.  It's Woodland Park, so there are woods (duh), but you can't really get lost in them (just follow the traffic noise to Aurora or the sporty yelling to the ballfields).  Also, off-leash dogs, lawn bowling, and maybe a few bunnies.  Mass start at 11:15am.
  • Oyster Urban Adventure Race - September 15.  They also put on an outdoor adventure race in Bend, Oregon.

Still going on


Puzzle cache of the week:  Peace Sign Series #18 - Anagrams, Yea Or Nay. Actually a nice little word puzzle.  Part of a series of 43 puzzles, but you can just ignore that if you want.


Photo Credits

Captain's wheels: davew.wilson via photo pin cc
Stairs: John H Wright Photo via photo pin cc
Henry mural: bochalla via photo pin cc
Geocacher: [martin] via photo pin cc

Friday, August 10, 2012

Searchin' USA

Easier to find than a nanocache, you'd think

Although geocaching fits my definition of a PuzzleHuntContest, you aren't going to get rich doing it, or even come close.  But I still keep at it, mostly because it is fun.  But partly because I think it has a good fringe benefit:  it's good practice for other hunts where there are big prizes.  I've had trouble in the past finding a Canlis menu or key, or an Emerald City Search medallion, so I'm hoping my practice at finding small bison tubes and Tupperware containers pays off in the future.


It's around here somewhere...

Precision not guaranteed


Theoretically, geocaching should be easier than other hunts in that you have the exact coordinates (customarily, down to the thousandth of a minute of longitude and latitude, or a few feet).  But for a number of reasons, this is often not true.  Coordinates are usually read from the cache owner's GPS device when the cache is placed, and are thus subject to errors, especially if there are trees or buildings nearby.  In an urban environment, a check on Google maps could fix the coordinates, but most cache owners don't bother, probably because there is a 'tradition' of throwing out inexact coordinates and forcing the seekers to look around a bit (or, 'use their geosense').  In the woods, of course, a satellite view from Google Maps is unlikely to help much.  In addition, cache seekers can put the cache back in the wrong place, non-cachers can find the cache and move it, it could fall out of its hiding place, etc.

The net effect is that find a geocache is often a lot like finding a Canlis menu, in that you know the general location, but not exactly where.


Container?  I just met her!


Screwing with squirrel brains since 2000

Geocaches also come with a 'size' attribute (micro, small, regular, etc.), which also helps locate them, in much the same way that knowing what a Canlis menu or an Emerald City Search medallion looks like helps you find them.  At the very least, you know a 'regular' sized cache is not going to fit between a street sign and its signpost.  Geocaches, however, can come in any container (or no container at all), and special containers usually are marked as 'unknown' size, as finding the unexpected container is often part of the fun.  I've found caches in a toy squirrel, in a small plastic sleeve attached to a narrow strip of wood shoved into a crack in a piece of wood, and in a fake stick.  Geocaching.com has a small cottage business selling fake cache containers, such as rocks, logs, and even bolts.  I've found a cache that was a flat magnetic pad made to look like a common street sign.  The log to sign was on the back, and the cache owner just put the pad over a real version of the sign.


Hiding under an urban bench near you (the bison tube, not the dime.  Oh heck, I don't know, maybe there is a dime.  You'd better check 'cause hey, free dime)


Still, the most common cache containers by far are Tupperware containers and (especially in the city), small tubes, either plastic tubes with a cap or bison tubes, which resemble small Kleen Kanteen bottles (see above).  Usually the containers are painted or covered with tape so that they blend in to their environment.  So, for example, if you're going to hide a Bison tube under a black metal bench, you either paint it black or cover it with black electrical tape.

Bison tubes are tiny, but they are often one of the easier types of caches to find, as the most common way to hide them is to attach a magnet to them and then stick them to something magnetic.  So if you know that's what you're looking for, and you know the cache is, say, near a street corner, you can usually ignore nearby trees and concrete and look under and around all the metal objects (bench hardware, fire hydrants, sign posts...).  The plastic tubes can be trickier because some are tapered to a point at the end so that you can stick them into the ground.  With only a pea-sized cap to find, these can be extremely difficult to see, particularly if they're camouflaged in any way.

Tupperware containers are most often hidden either under permanent features (such as a boardwalk or a large rock) or covered.  A common method of covering is to find a cubbyhole (such as in an old tree trunk or stump, or a gap between rocks in a rock wall), put the cache container inside, then block the view with a single large item that looks like the surroundings.  So, for example, put a cache in a rock wall, move a big rock or two to block its view. Or put a cache in the hollow of a tree, then stick a big piece of wood in front of it.  Covering something with a pile of leaves or the like is usually not done, partly because it makes it hard to find, and also because water then tends to get into the cache, a big problem in the Pacific Northwest.  Containers usually start off mostly waterproof, but they wear out and sometimes they aren't closed properly, either.


Eye exercises


Let's play 'Find the Fishing Line'


Most interesting (and probably most transferable to the Emerald City Search and similar hunts) are the 'Something Out of Place' hides, where a small detail is what leads you to the hidden object.  For example, I recently found a cache that was hanging behind a sign on a locked gate; all you could see was the zip tie that attached the container to the top of the sign.  Some caches are hidden in cubbyholes that are in plain sight; you just wouldn't think of looking there.  For example, under a water meter cover, under the 'skirt' of a lamp post, or inside a capped pipe whose cap is easy to remove.

Finally, one of the most clever ways to confuse things is to use the third dimension, which doesn't figure into the GPS coordinates at all.  Some caches are hidden up high in climbable trees or hanging below sewer grates (look for a bolt that looks less weathered than the grate, or a bit of fishing line).  I've used this idea myself when choosing Fremont Street Scramble checkpoints --- on the map you can't tell whether the checkpoint is on top of the Aurora Bridge or underneath it, although we do specify the level in the checkpoint description; we try not to make 'trick' checkpoints in Street Scrambles.

Coming up  



Update:  In the Ready Player One hunt, someone claims to have broken the Atari 2600 Joust record, which would make them the winner of the DeLorean, if they get past the Twin Galaxies adjudication process.  Stay tuned.

(italics = new since last time)
  • Gumshoe 5K - August 3-12.  A charity event where you walk around Greenwood and solve a puzzle using clues you find along the way.  Times running out, but the above video might help.  Or not.
  • Great Urban Race - August 11, starting at Jillian's.  Amazing-race style event.
  • Lauren Jackson Bobblehead Hunt - week of August 18.  Like the Sue Bird hunt before, I assume, which means clues released via Twitter and Facebook.  Prize is tickets to a Storm game (plus a bobblehead).  All the Sue Bird prizes were found at businesses affiliated with the Storm.  Just sayin'.
  • Seattle Rep's Theatrical Scavenger Hunt - August 18, noon.   Win Seattle Rep tickets for life!  Instantly become Foursquare's Mayor of the Bagley Wright.
  • Bainbridge Street Scramble - August 18.  I assume this will be kind of like the Chilly Hilly, except with more checkpoints, better weather, and fewer people who fall over at the bottom of the hill because their derailleurs rusted out over the winter.
  • TRIOBA Sprint Adventure Race - August 18, Ellensburg.  20-30 miles of biking, 5-15 miles on foot, no paddling, 5-10 hours total.  If you're looking for the next step after BEAST races, this would be a good place to start.
  • 2012 Geocaching Block Party - August 18, Fremont.  It's International Geocaching Day, so break out your GPS devices and head on down to Fremont, headquarters of Groundspeak, which runs geocaching.com.  Various urban geocaching activities ensue.  Other events take place during the week, including one the next day at Snoqualmie Pass...
  • Going APE at the Tunnel of Light - August 19, Hyak.  At the east end of the Snoqualmie Tunnel, on the John Wayne/Iron Horse Trail.  For those who like their geocaching more rural.  Or for those who like going into a 50-degree tunnel on a potentially hot day.  Bring a flashlight.
  • Scavenger Hunt - August 21, 3pm, Northeast Branch Library.  Ages 12-18 only.  Heads will roll if they don't visit Top Pot.
  • Premium Rush The Alleycat - August 24, downtown.  The opposite of a bum rush?  No, I think this is a poorly punctuated alleycat race related to a new bike messenger movie.  Damn you, Hollywood, was Kevin Bacon not good enough for you?
  • Amazing Ring Race - August 25.   Free entry.  Prizes:  a local jeweler puts up a ring purportedly worth $15,000.  If this is anything like past years, 2nd prize is also nothing to sneeze at.  You run around a small area downtown solving clues using a mobile phone application called SCVNGR
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #3 - August 25, North SeaTac Park.  Orienteering where you find as many checkpoints as you can in 75 minutes.  If you ever lose your bearings just wait for the next plane to come by and remember the airport is due south.
  • First Thursday Adventure Run - September 6, Green Lake. 
  • Rebel Without a Cog/Vagina Monocogs - September 7-8.  Alleycat + Time Trial + Lap race for single speed bikes only.  Unicycles count.  I totally want to see a unicyclist win this thing.

Still going on


Puzzle cache of the week:  Anagrams, Anyone? - a little bit word play, a little bit map play.


Friday, August 3, 2012

Postscript (or, It's not over yet!)

Last week I talked about preparing for two (at the time) upcoming events:  The Seattle Night and Day Challenge, and the final gate in the Ready Player One challenge.  "Hey, Greg," (I know you're asking) "how'd they go?"  Well, let me tell you...

Night and Day


Not this time, bridge.  Not this time.


First, Night and Day went pretty much as I expected.  I had about the right amount of time to plan a route that hit all the checkpoints.  I was told by the course designer that they added a couple of checkpoints in West Seattle just so I wouldn't sweep the course.  And they were way out of the way, but I went there, anyway.  By 5 hours (out of 7) into the course, it was clear I wasn't going to sweep, but I kept on plugging, and ended up arriving back just on time with 3210 out of 3600 points, easily enough the top score.  I missed about 8 checkpoints, all near my work/home, and could probably have gotten them given another 45 minutes.  In all, I rode 78.5 miles.

Best moment:  there were 2 checkpoints on either side of the Fremont Bridge, and I just wanted to pop across the bridge to visit the south one, then go right back.  As I was crossing, I thought to myself, "I hope the bridge doesn't go up."  Then I saw a tall sailboat circling in the water near the bridge.  Uh oh.  But just before I left the bridge deck, I saw the answer to the checkpoint.  So I stopped, made a U-turn, and went back to the north side.  Just as I left the bridge deck, the bells went off announcing the bridge was opening.  Success!

Worst moment:  I was clearly not sufficiently trained, as I bonked at the finish and had to get a ride for the 2 miles back from the finish to my house.  Maybe next time, I'll pack another sandwich.

Ready Player One


Master the ostriches, win a car


The Ready Player One contest, on the other hand, I did not come close to winning.  But as it turns out, no one else has, either.  Coming home Tuesday night expecting to start a marathon video gaming session, I instead discovered that the final challenge (to win a DeLorean) was to beat a world record in 1 of 4 arcade games:  Joust, Robotron, Tempest, or Black Tiger.  With visions of marathon sessions (such as in the great documentary King of Kong), I quickly decided there was no way I would win.  As did many other people.

On further review though, there is hope.  First, other games have been added since the challenge was announced (Pac-Man and the Atari 2600 version of Joust so far), with promises of more to come.  Second, no marathon records have been chosen, so no 60+ hour sessions at a console wearing an adult diaper required.  Instead, Ernie Cline (author of Ready Player One and the man behind the contest) has chosen 'tournament' records, where the game play is harder and you have a limited number of extra lives.

Still, the challenge is formidable, not least of which because you have to set the record on original hardware. For example, there is apparently only one Joust arcade game in Seattle, 2 Robotrons, and no Black Tigers or Tempests (a fair number of Pac-Man consoles, though, and Atari 2600s are not hard to find).  Not only does this make it hard to set a record, it makes it very difficult to practice; unless you have an arcade console at home, the 2600 record seems much more beatable just because you can practice all you want at home (and also, the emulators for 2600 are apparently much closer to the real 2600 experience than emulators you can get for arcade consoles).

Once the initial reaction subsided, the most reasonable objection to the contest was voiced:  the most likely person to break a record is someone who's already broken a record.  Granted, you also have to pass the first and second gates, but these are trivial compared to breaking one of these records, so it seems likely that someone who already has a record catches wind of the contest, knocks off the first and second gates in a weekend, then sets to work breaking their own record.  A car worth around $20K is not a bad payoff for the work, and given the low (probably non-existent) salary of a professional videogame champion, I can't say I'd begrudge anyone who took that route.

Finally, today there was a final twist:  perhaps recognizing the difficulty of the task, or perhaps just hedging his bets, Ernie introduced a new rule that says if no one clears the third gate by September 30, he reserves the right to create a fourth challenge ('Extended Play').  Probably Ernie hasn't yet figured out what that fourth challenge is, but still, there's a fair bet I'll still be writing about this on October 1st (when the fourth challenge, should it come about, will kick off).


Coming up  

Geocache puzzle of the week

(italics = new since last time)

  • Gumshoe 5K - August 3-12.  A charity event where you walk around Greenwood and solve a puzzle using clues you find along the way.
  • Rabbit Hole Alleycat and Sprint - August 4, Cool Guy Park.  Put on by the organizers of the UW alleycat earlier this year.  Should be fun.
  • Choose your own Paddle Adventure - August 5, UW Waterfront Activities Center.  Canoe orientering.  Rent a canoe, or bring your own (kayaks are okay as well).  Don't forget the sunscreen, and watch out for thick lilypad patches and swans (those guys are nasty).  Note that this ends at 12:30, so the registration is open early (9-11am).
  • BEAST race #4 - August 7, Issaquah.  Did I ever tell you about the time I was on a BEAST race in Maple Valley and the course got me so confused I ended up going to the other end of the Cedar River Trail before I realized I was heading east instead of west?  Bring a compass.
  • Evening Orienteering - Wednesday, August 8, Luther Burbank Park, Mercer Island.  If it's sunny, bring your bathing suit and have a swim afterwards.
  • Pirate P"arr"ty - August 8, Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center.  For the kids, includes a treasure hunt.
  • Great Urban Race - August 11, starting at Jillian's.  Amazing-race style event.
  • Lauren Jackson Bobblehead Hunt - week of August 18.  Like the Sue Bird hunt before, I assume, which means clues released via Twitter and Facebook.  Prize is tickets to a Storm game (plus a bobblehead).  All the Sue Bird prizes were found at businesses affiliated with the Storm.  Just sayin'.
  • Seattle Rep's Theatrical Scavenger Hunt - August 18, noon.   Win Seattle Rep tickets for life!  Instantly become Foursquare's Mayor of the Bagley Wright.
  • Bainbridge Street Scramble - August 18.  I assume this will be kind of like the Chilly Hilly, except with more checkpoints, better weather, and fewer people who fall over at the bottom of the hill because their derailleurs rusted out over the winter.
  • TRIOBA Sprint Adventure Race - August 18, Ellensburg.  20-30 miles of biking, 5-15 miles on foot, no paddling, 5-10 hours total.  If you're looking for the next step after BEAST races, this would be a good place to start.
  • 2012 Geocaching Block Party - August 18, Fremont.  It's International Geocaching Day, so break out your GPS devices and head on down to Fremont, headquarters of Groundspeak, which runs geocaching.com.  Various urban geocaching activities ensue.  Other events take place during the week, including one the next day at Snoqualmie Pass...
  • Going APE at the Tunnel of Light - August 19, Hyak.  At the east end of the Snoqualmie Tunnel, on the John Wayne/Iron Horse Trail.  For those who like their geocaching more rural.  Or for those who like going into a 50-degree tunnel on a potentially hot day.  Bring a flashlight.
  • Scavenger Hunt - August 21, 3pm, Northeast Branch Library.  Ages 12-18 only.  Heads will roll if they don't visit Top Pot.
  • Amazing Ring Race - August 25.   Free entry.  Prizes:  a local jeweler puts up a ring purportedly worth $15,000.  2nd prize is also nothing to sneeze at.  You run around a small area downtown solving clues using a mobile phone application called SCVNGR
  • Choose Your Own Adventure #3 - August 25, North SeaTac Park.  Orienteering where you find as many checkpoints as you can in 75 minutes.  If you ever lose your bearings just wait for the next plane to come by and remember the airport is due south.

Still going on


Puzzle cache of the week:  Beet Code - identify some music, find a cache.  I don't like beets as a rule, but these beets I like.