let's stumble towards success and pack some snacks for little breaks

My own writeup will be posted soon. In the meantime, here are some others:

First of all, especially if you weren't happy with the Hunt, you should read our leader's writeup. It might put things in perspective a little. This Hunt nearly did not happen, and I for one am astounded that it went as well as it did.

Members of Palindrome: Trip, Jeffurry, Squonk, /dev/joe (part 1 and part 2), dalryaug, Tinhorn, Debby, Hathor.

Members of the winning team: Thomas, Jenn, Spelvin, Tablesaw.

Solvers from other teams: someone from GroovyTron, Tahnan and 530nm330hz and Sax from II&F, someone from (I think) Death From Above, Wes (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5).

Newspaper articles: The Tech and Wicked Local.

Pictures: A confession from Just For The Halibut, Ennirol's Flickr photoset of the Bombers, Kat's photoset (if you only look at one of those, make it the one of Trip at the wrap-up in his Subservient Chicken head), Tinhorn's photoset, Debby's photoset.

And 530nm330hz's crossword hat deserves a paragraph of its own. I didn't get to see it in person, much to my chagrin, but it's utterly awesome, and its owner should keep a close eye on it if it ever enters my presence.

I'll update this list as I find more links. mystery_hunt may also provide further Huntish posts to peruse.

...is open!

Here is the registration page, which should have all the information you need. Room reservation information and FAQ is here. If you're interested in participating in the Hunt but don't have a team, go here. If you have any questions, send them to puzzle@mit.edu.

I can't wait to see you all in January!

( Recap with pictures )

Now I'm back in Penngrove, and officially starting my Pier 1 job in an hour and fifteen minutes...

Yesterday, we went to Golden Gate Park. That was the plan, anyway. I ended up spending so much time sifting through all the shiny shops on Haight Street that I had to head back to BART before we reached the park.

( San Francisco again. )

I BARTed to see rebbyribs, and then we went to the Equinox puzzle party.

( Luck o' the Iris. )

I got about five hours of sleep, then hopped on a plane home. I slept for most of the trip. I'm glad I'm not one of those people who can't sleep on planes.

( The trip home. )

I'm now back in Kansas City, and going back to school and work tomorrow. This trip was utterly fabulous in pretty much every way. Thank you so much to everyone who took some time to hang out with me; it was really awesome to see you all!

The two-time crossword puzzle champion of the United States is thoroughly unable to operate a can opener.

There are no words to adequately express my amusement at this.

My team won. It was one of the best vacations of my life. I have no idea how we're going to measure up to this standard next year.

I'll write up my notes from the weekend in a Post-Zilla sometime in the next few days. Right now, though, I have to sleep. I need to be at work in seven hours, meaning I get up in five, then I have my first day of classes. Deep breath, Julia.

I really need to control this crossword puzzle thing. It's getting out of hand. I've been doing it for hours every day since Wednesday or so, and I'm enjoying myself immensely, but I really should be doing other things.

hannahrorlove and I are writing a screenplay for NaNoWriMo. I don't know if it will be 50k words, but the energy in the writing community during November should help us move forward. It stemmed from a discussion of homosexuality in the media, during which Hannah said she'd like to see a burly, bisexual biker guy as a character in a movie. So we created the character, and his boyfriend, and a few more characters, and a vague idea of a plotline. The working title is "Catching Summer," and I'm sure I'll be writing more about it here.

No Rain this weekend, which made me sad, but Ethan spent the night. We went to Domo because he'd never had sushi, and I taught him to juggle. Also, he had the shit scared out of him by a vacuum cleaner, which was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.

I need to figure out how the heck I'm going to eat tomorrow, because my time is scheduled too tightly to walk anywhere to get food. I wish the PV cafeteria was open in the late afternoon.