HUNT WRAPUP

Well, it was a Hunt, all right. Tom Shroder and I got the feeling that this year we might have made it a bit too hard. Here are a couple of reasons we felt this way:
-- Roughly 43,000 people came up to us and said, "It's too hard this year!"
-- It took a long time for the winners to solve it.
-- Stephen Hawking gave up after like 15 minutes.
Nevertheless we DID have winners, who will receive a fabulous trip to Amelia Island Plantation, courtesy of Visit Florida. And there were some fine highlights, the highest in my view being when the sheep flew across the stage over the symphony band playing on the big stage at the Arsht performing-arts center. The sheep paused in mid-flight and emitted two "baas," this being a tricky way of indicating tubas, which was a clue that...
OK, never mind what the specific clue was. The point is that there was a flying sheep.
Anyway, thanks to everybody who came out. We will make it easier next year, so everybody can tell us that it was too easy.

Update: Here's a video by the Miami Herald's Chuck Fadely explaining the Hunt.

Update Thanks to DiverDownDoc: Here's a video of the Greater Miami Symphony Band performance. The flying sheep appears at 6:53.

Update Thanks to Andy the TropicHunt.com Guy™: Here's a photo Andy took when I was explaining the Hunt to the crowd at the end. One of the puzzles involved giving Hunters a little plastic back-scratcher with a little hand on the end. As you can see, one of the Hunters modified his little hand slightly to provide some helpful feedback on the difficulty level of the Hunt:

Comments

[gjd]

BOOOO!

(I hope you don't have to actually be a participant in order to be able to do "boo".)

[gjd]

Where'd my comment go?

I repeat, "BOOOOOOO!"

[Meanie the Blue]

Not even the involvement of alcohol helped, eh?

[nora]

oh, that's what i forgot!

[wiredog]

And, of course, "Flying Sheep" wbagnfasymphony bandrb

[Siouxie]

I did not see the booing since ec and I were stuck giving out part of the last clue at a different location. But yes, there were a lot more confuzzled faces this year IMHO. Lots of fun though. ddd is on her way back and so is NSSJan.

Meanie, alcohol was involved at the AFTER party ;-)

[Siouxie]

BTW, can someone (a Presidential candidate would do) do something about the bot's constipation?

[Meanie the Blue]

See? Right there's yer problem, Siouxie.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

I think the flying sheep was trying to get on a Pink Floyd album cover...

The site updates will be coming throughout the day. LOTS of photos to get through. And early voting.

[Anthony James Barnett - author]

And I thought it was only pigs that flew!!!

[Margaritaville]

Yay and boooo!

[crossgirl]

The site updates will be coming throughout the day. LOTS of photos to get through. And early voting.

Posted by: tropichunt.com guy™ | 10:50 AM on October 27, 2008

after getting on the map, you better be voting for dave!

[judi]

here's another couple of vids:

the political clue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFrXweUZixk

the do-re-mi clue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0IKTz3ccUs&feature=related

[Siouxie]

judi's political clue

judi's do-re-me clue

[Siouxie]

um...pay no attention to the woman eating chips.

[biggin]

Great Scott!! That was a real sheep!!

[biggin]

Great Scott! That was a real sheep!!

[WriterDude]

So the tubas played "Three Blind Mice". Does that make the Beatles songs done during the other solos extraneous? (And WTFBBQ is up with the audience singing "When I'm Sixty-Seven"??)

[Siouxie]

WD, the answers were the songs that the (two baas) tubas and the (claire/net) clarinet played, which I can't remember at the moment. Andy will have every single second archived once he's done voting (which may be next May).

[Mark]

Just out of curiosity, did all the winning teams write the coordinates W-1 H-2 A-3 L-4 and E-5 on their pieces of paper as the phone message specified, or did you just accept anyone who went to the flamingo, in order to wrap up the Hunt?

[Siouxie]

BTW, on ddd's video...the very LOUD person yelling "RUN CLAIRE RUN!!!" IS ddd.

[Dave]

Mark -- Yes, the first-, second- and third-place teams all had the whale coordinates.

[WriterDude]

Excellent yelling, ddd.

The clarinet played "When I'm Sixty-Four", assisted by the clarinetist. Even my twisted mind can't connect that with "Three Blind Mice".

[Siouxie]

*was @ the whale coordinates*

Didn't particularly appreciate Tom asking..."ok, so you're the whales??"

pffft ;-P

WD, both numbers were the answer. Again, Andy will have the details for all the masochist enthusiastic hunters.

[judi]

two-baas played 3 blind mice
claire-in-net played when i'm 64

the answer was 364.

the clue page only uses certain numbers. there was (by design) no 67 and no 643 on the clue page.

[TheLimey]

As a member of the second place team, I can let you know we initially just had one coordinate, but when that was refused, we realised the mistake and rewrote the paper.

Great Hunt, and you have no idea how buzzed our whole team was (and probably still is), that we got second place.

[tropichunt.com guy™]

FYI, technically, after 2.5 hours, I DID vote.

I won't reveal my votes other than say that one of the congressional races did have a write in option, and I put Dave's name down. Gotta start small before you can go to the big office! :)

Okay, pics are edited, but not uploaded yet. Working on my Hunt wrap-up right now, so you'll get a bunch soon! Keep checking my site!

[Renee (the First)]

Does this mean the next Post Hunt will be easier? That's wonderful. I'm so glad we get to benefit from all of your suffering.

[Annie Where-but-here]

*sits and waits patiently for next Herald Hunt tuba gin.*

[tropichunt.com guy™]

Okay, the Hunt review is up, as well as the first pictures!

[Blake Ross]

Great hunt this year, Dave. Thanks for a fun tradition that always brings me back from California.

[Renee (the First)]

Aw, Andy, it wouldn't be the same without you competing -- but glad to hear you'll still be competing with us D.C. folk!

Note to Miami folk:

Andy's still competing with uuu-uuusss!
Andy's still competing with uuu-uuusss!
Neener neener neener!

(Just a small display of the maturity that has made the nation's capital what it is today.)

[Robert S.]

Thank you all (Dave, Tom, and everyone whose hard work make the Hunts happen), as always, for the great hunt!!! As a Hunter that started in 1996, I had read (on Andy's site) about parts of previous hunts with elaborate shows and in posh settings, and to have both theaters opened up with dazzling lights and flying sheep in all their glory actually gave me goosebumps. I also really liked how each puzzle worked and was meant to be solved, even though our team did not come up with all the answers (first Hunt since 2003 where our team missed any of the main puzzles, and we missed two!) As soon as Dave said the tiny back-scratcher was a "little hand," three of our team said "clock hands"...we just never had anyone say the phrase in our deliberations.

I made this appeal after the hunt to Dave and a few others, and I know it won't be popular, but as an amateur puzzle designer, I felt that these puzzles (including the final puzzle) were all exquisitely designed, above-board, and perfectly reasonable. I just hope that future hunts won't be made too easy because of the results of this hunt. Having said that, my family and I will continue to support the Hunts (both in South Florida and Washington, D.C.), regardless of how easy or hard they become...they're just too much fun! (as well as a refreshing breath of sanity in an insane world.)