Longest birthday party ever.
Friday: Took the day off. It was my birthday! And the first day of my first MIT mystery hunt. Very exciting. I may have spent most of the day hacking on one particular puzzle about celebrity ages, but I worked on other stuff too. Didn't actually solve anything myself, but like to think I helped people along with their own puzzles.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the birthday theme. Strangers were delighted to meet the jmac of Team jmac's Birthday Party (which was otherwise as much a non-sequitur as all the other teams' names, to them), and so I received many well-wishes. (Including from visiting professional puzzlers like Trip Payne, whom tahnan introduced me to. Stars in my eyes!) Was presented with a birthday cake! Cakes. Various hunt-mates had all taken turns with the lettering on both, it was explained to me, and colorwheel was especially proud of her lowercase "d"! I wish I had taken a picture of all this. I did take a photo of the last slice (on Saturday evening), and thought I blogged it, but my photoblog script seems to have eaten it soon before rikchik did, alas.
Still can't drive (have collected the right forms but haven't had a chance to visit the RMV in all this time, darnit) and so went home to sleep before the subway gourdimorphosed. (Many people slept right there, curled into the sleeping bags and comforters they brought along. This was not for me, I decided.)
On birthday: All communication from family (of which there has been a lot, in phone calls and cards) has concentrated very heavily on the decincrementation involved. This is a tough soup to swallow, for them! That li'l Jason is suddenly so old, and with the wife and kids and all, now.
Received a lengthy email from a friend I haven't communicated with in years. Haven't read it yet, due to the hectic circumstances; will do so upon finishing this entry. (Also had to send regrets to various people calling in their wishes, so busy was my immediate environment. Promised Aunt Jan I'd call her back Monday evening. Don't let me forget!)
Saturday: After checking in at the hunt, proceeded across the river and had the most efficient Arisia experience one could ask for.
12:30-1:00 Ran into local but not-seen-much-lately pal R immediately upon registration (which involved nothing more than saying my name to the elfin chap behind the desk, since I got a freebie for all my game demoing last year). Together we killed time in the art show, which was highlighting the delightful kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson. Probably the best art I've ever seen in the context of a sci-fi con. Also said hi to queue and treacle_well.
1:00-2:00 Followed R to the ballroom, to hear Tim Powers' speech. Said hi to R's husband G and listened to tail end of a talk by -- ESR?! That was random. Hooked up with cthulhia and Zarf, who wandered in when ESR finished talking about how stupid journalists are, and then listened to Powers' most excellent and entertaining talk (it was practically a monologue-comedy routine, once he got into it).
2:00-3:00 Played a game of Giant Mega Volcano with C & Z, and attracted a crowd in so doing. The giant Icehouse pieces are pretty winning for this purpose. Caught up with Zarf about our various respective game-(deisgn/programming) projects. (He had emailed me about Volity earlier in the week... exciting stuff. If you're me.)
3:00-4:00 Down to the Terrace with C & Z to hear Ganson in person talk about his strange and wonderful machine-sculptures, and narrate through several previews of his upcoming DVD. Enormously happymaking. Dropped a twenty on pre-ordering the disc before I left.
4:00-4:30 More game chat with Z at the Urban Pain, while eating a tasty sandwich.
Total time: Four hours. Managed to meet all my favorite con objectives: seeing friends local and remote, playing games, trading ideas, meeting famous and interesting people & buying their stuff, eating tasty food. I could do this every year.
Then, back to the hunt! Where things proceeded, for me, much as they did on Friday evening.
Sunday: Mystery hunt spent much of its time in not so much territory, for me. I think my desire to continually work on puzzles went away when I returned home on Saturday night, and I found it hard to summon the enthusiasm needed to begin a third day of (personally fruitless) puzzle-slogging. After a couple of hours I became burned out, but not unhappy, and passed the time doing non-huntish things on my computer for a bit, at one point stepping outside to call parents for a nicely unhurried conversation, to make up for juggling their call away on Friday. After eating something hot & reasonable, picked up a puzzle and hacked at it some more, again coming to no particular outcome with it, but getting to write entertaining Perl scripts nonetheless. Will return to jmac's Birthday Party tomorrow for the the last time, in order to witness the hunt wrap-up.
Because the hunt's still going on (core members of my team are working hard, even as I write this, in the wee hours of Monday) I won't say much in particular about it, except that I'm keenly interested in hearing the unofficial debriefing that I hope will happen at HoRGN on Tuesday (depending upon various people having recovered enough energy to show up for it).
As for me: I had loads of fun, and really couldn't have hoped for a nicer (or more appropriate?) birthday party. Much thanks and love to all who set up this thing: no kidding!
On the practical end of things, I don't feel I participated much with the solving, and hope I didn't disappoint anyone with my approximately 50 percent attendance rate. It might have gone differently had I a car, and therefore could come and go (and haul cargo) at my own pleasure, rather than restrict my schedule to the T's running times. Well... we'll see how things are aligned next year, I suppose.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the birthday theme. Strangers were delighted to meet the jmac of Team jmac's Birthday Party (which was otherwise as much a non-sequitur as all the other teams' names, to them), and so I received many well-wishes. (Including from visiting professional puzzlers like Trip Payne, whom tahnan introduced me to. Stars in my eyes!) Was presented with a birthday cake! Cakes. Various hunt-mates had all taken turns with the lettering on both, it was explained to me, and colorwheel was especially proud of her lowercase "d"! I wish I had taken a picture of all this. I did take a photo of the last slice (on Saturday evening), and thought I blogged it, but my photoblog script seems to have eaten it soon before rikchik did, alas.
Still can't drive (have collected the right forms but haven't had a chance to visit the RMV in all this time, darnit) and so went home to sleep before the subway gourdimorphosed. (Many people slept right there, curled into the sleeping bags and comforters they brought along. This was not for me, I decided.)
On birthday: All communication from family (of which there has been a lot, in phone calls and cards) has concentrated very heavily on the decincrementation involved. This is a tough soup to swallow, for them! That li'l Jason is suddenly so old, and with the wife and kids and all, now.
Received a lengthy email from a friend I haven't communicated with in years. Haven't read it yet, due to the hectic circumstances; will do so upon finishing this entry. (Also had to send regrets to various people calling in their wishes, so busy was my immediate environment. Promised Aunt Jan I'd call her back Monday evening. Don't let me forget!)
Saturday: After checking in at the hunt, proceeded across the river and had the most efficient Arisia experience one could ask for.
12:30-1:00 Ran into local but not-seen-much-lately pal R immediately upon registration (which involved nothing more than saying my name to the elfin chap behind the desk, since I got a freebie for all my game demoing last year). Together we killed time in the art show, which was highlighting the delightful kinetic sculptures of Arthur Ganson. Probably the best art I've ever seen in the context of a sci-fi con. Also said hi to queue and treacle_well.
1:00-2:00 Followed R to the ballroom, to hear Tim Powers' speech. Said hi to R's husband G and listened to tail end of a talk by -- ESR?! That was random. Hooked up with cthulhia and Zarf, who wandered in when ESR finished talking about how stupid journalists are, and then listened to Powers' most excellent and entertaining talk (it was practically a monologue-comedy routine, once he got into it).
2:00-3:00 Played a game of Giant Mega Volcano with C & Z, and attracted a crowd in so doing. The giant Icehouse pieces are pretty winning for this purpose. Caught up with Zarf about our various respective game-(deisgn/programming) projects. (He had emailed me about Volity earlier in the week... exciting stuff. If you're me.)
3:00-4:00 Down to the Terrace with C & Z to hear Ganson in person talk about his strange and wonderful machine-sculptures, and narrate through several previews of his upcoming DVD. Enormously happymaking. Dropped a twenty on pre-ordering the disc before I left.
4:00-4:30 More game chat with Z at the Urban Pain, while eating a tasty sandwich.
Total time: Four hours. Managed to meet all my favorite con objectives: seeing friends local and remote, playing games, trading ideas, meeting famous and interesting people & buying their stuff, eating tasty food. I could do this every year.
Then, back to the hunt! Where things proceeded, for me, much as they did on Friday evening.
Sunday: Mystery hunt spent much of its time in not so much territory, for me. I think my desire to continually work on puzzles went away when I returned home on Saturday night, and I found it hard to summon the enthusiasm needed to begin a third day of (personally fruitless) puzzle-slogging. After a couple of hours I became burned out, but not unhappy, and passed the time doing non-huntish things on my computer for a bit, at one point stepping outside to call parents for a nicely unhurried conversation, to make up for juggling their call away on Friday. After eating something hot & reasonable, picked up a puzzle and hacked at it some more, again coming to no particular outcome with it, but getting to write entertaining Perl scripts nonetheless. Will return to jmac's Birthday Party tomorrow for the the last time, in order to witness the hunt wrap-up.
Because the hunt's still going on (core members of my team are working hard, even as I write this, in the wee hours of Monday) I won't say much in particular about it, except that I'm keenly interested in hearing the unofficial debriefing that I hope will happen at HoRGN on Tuesday (depending upon various people having recovered enough energy to show up for it).
As for me: I had loads of fun, and really couldn't have hoped for a nicer (or more appropriate?) birthday party. Much thanks and love to all who set up this thing: no kidding!
On the practical end of things, I don't feel I participated much with the solving, and hope I didn't disappoint anyone with my approximately 50 percent attendance rate. It might have gone differently had I a car, and therefore could come and go (and haul cargo) at my own pleasure, rather than restrict my schedule to the T's running times. Well... we'll see how things are aligned next year, I suppose.