Friday, October 19, 2012

CLUE #93 - FOUND?

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*UPDATE*


I'm heading out of town for the next 24 hours, and I'll be taking some dinosaur paintings with me to hide. I'm stoked to have the opportunity to get out of town and hide some more paintings for you to find!

I'd like to ask if you have already found a painting to NOT go look for these next three paintings. Let someone else have a chance, please.

I'll be posting clues as soon as I'm out hiding them. Thanks for participating!

Friday, August 17, 2012

CLUE #92 - FOUND!


Congratulations to Jim Espinas for finding Dinosaur #92!


Here's what Jim had to say about the hunt:

I've been tracking the dino hunt for some time now. Sometimes I got really close (I think). When you posted Clue #92, I printed out the puzzle and looked it at on my commute home. Someone next to me asked what I was doing and I explained to him that there are no additional clues so everything you need to figure out the puzzle is on the page. I started at the star and figured out the chicken sandwich clue and immediately knew you were referring to Bakesale Bettys. I've been falling in line for chicken sandwiches for years! Five hours later I visited Bakesale Betty's and found the old man clue. 
 
 
 
I took a picture then worked on it this morning on my commute to work. I unscrambled it and made the connection to Hoopers right as Bart pulled into MacArthur station and impulsively decided to jump off then take a taxi to find the next clue. 
 
A woman watering the lawn at Hoopers asked what I was looking for when I found the Hooper clue. (the clue was "The Kanadian khamp, Khris Eyres of New Westminster, BC, ate 18 in 12 minutes in 2001.") I read it out loud and she said, "well, I know a hot dog contest takes about 12 minutes." The things people know! So I asked her if there are any hot dog places in the area and she said "Sure, there's Kasper's across the street but its closed" All the while I'm explaining to the cab driver what I'm doing so when we arrived at Kasper's he jumped out of the car too. I found painting #92 then feeling victorious I asked the driver to take me to work. 

I'm so glad to finally get one. My 4 year old son will be so thrilled to add the T-Rex to his wall.

Friday, July 27, 2012

CLUE #86-90 FOUND!


*This is a long hunt with a lot of clues leading to five different paintings. The paintings are all hidden in different locations. PLEASE do not remove the clues, EXCEPT for when you come to a clue later in the hunt. Without giving too much away, its something round. Please email me or tweet at me if you find a clue has been removed or destroyed: xadamdx(at)gmail(dot)com / @XAdamDX

This clue leads to the starting point, 1916 Webster St in Alameda. I originally had the clue leading to 1913, but before I even had a chance to fix it someone had found one of the paintings, so I guess it didn't effect the odds too much. The original Skippy manufacturing plant was at this location, and now all that remains is a small, easy to overlook plaque. On the back of the plaque I left directions:




If I was a billionaire, I would live in the house located at 1601 Central (which faces onto Paru) and I wouldn't change a thing about it. From the domed turret and the gryphons over the doors, to the weird orange paint job, it's such a cool looking house.


The directions from here led hunters through an old section of Alameda. The street names have all been changed, but the North-South streets used to be all named for birds, and the West-East streets were all named for fish:


I left a trail of clues to help hunters orient themselves, but I didn't space them out well enough. The trail of clues dried up toward the end.


Nearly everyone found themselves turned around toward the end, thinking they needed to head into the marina instead of down Buena Vista. I wound up having to give a little bit of help to help get people beyond this point, which meant checking my emails and twitter a lot this weekend. (That's the toll of trying to set these things up as a new parent on limited sleep. Try your hardest and wind up messing things up. ahh well.)

Also, several people didn't realize exactly how small the shack would be:


On the roof of the shack was a pterodactyl, and if you arrived in the dark, you would have found ominous glowing lights shining down onto the clue, a substitution cypher. Even if you didn't find all of the bread crumbs on the way here, it was still solvable. The clues just made it easier.


This decoded to SHORELINE DRIVE across, and PARK STREET vertically.
Arriving at this intersection, taped to the bottom of a pole, was a phone number: (510)522-9901
Hunters who called this number found that no one answered, but a payphone nearby started to ring! Inside of the phone book clam shell case, was another substitution cypher:


This decodes to ELSIEROEMER.
Elsie Roemer has a bird sanctuary nearby, about a block from the payphone.



On a small pier that juts out into the sanctuary, I made a small nest, and I filled that nest with dinosaur eggs! (this was the "round" item I eluded to at the beginning)


Each of the eggs had a small plastic dinosaur inside, and attached to that dinosaur was a small strip of paper, giving the location of a painting. These were the locations where I hid paintings #86-90:
 


  • Fountain at High & Encinal (this painting was sitting out in the open, leaning against it)
  • Leftmost fence post, facing Lincoln Park (the iron work outside of this park is amazing)
  • Rightmost fence post, facing Lincoln Park 
  • End of Chestnut, at Clinton (a small parklet next to the lagoon, under a dilapidated bench)
  • Old Service Station, Corner of Santa Clara & Oak (hung from string, into the mail slot)

 





TEN MORE PAINTINGS TO GO!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

CLUE #81-85 FOUND!


This hunt took place in Oakland. QR codes were planted that led to these videos:





These videos were all edited down from the video for the song Marvelous Mess, by my old band DESA. I wanted to revisit the locations from this video. I lived in Oakland for almost ten years, and working on this hunt brought back a lot of memories.

My friend Andrew Juncker filmed and edited the original video, which he screened at Cannes!




Ron Bullock is the actor. He's an all around rad dude, and actually tried to complete this hunt. Wouldn't that have been weird to run into him during this hunt?

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

CLUE #78 - FOUND!


Update: I've determined that the current clue is too hard, and is also missing a piece. 

Here is a key:

xXXXx = o

Also, between lines 4 and 5, this is missing: XxxXX

Hope that helps!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

CLUE #61 - 65 (5/5 FOUND!)



This clue leads to FIVE paintings, please don't be greedy, only take one.

Congratulations to  Megan, Dave & Christine, Johnny, Sonia and Mark for finding dinosaurs #61-65!



Here is a breakdown of the hunt from Mark, who found the final painting:

I deciphered your morse code on Sunday,  hoping to find my daughter Kira a dinosaur painting. But I went to Julie's expecting to find a painting, and when I didn't find anything, I thought they must be all gone. It wasn't until I saw your updated blog posts that I realized the intricacy of your puzzles. It was then remembered the tiny drawer in the patio table at Julies, which I though was too small to hold a painting, but not too small to hold a clue. So I had a friend check it while he was there.
Of course I was delayed by my daughter's nap, but we finally got to Julie's at 6pm, finished the puzzle, and made the call. I must have listened to the message 10 times. I needed my wife's help to decipher the word "lagoon". 
(Here is a transcript of the message: Attention. Listen Closely. Exit the cafe. walk toward the bay. when you see the clown made of balloons, turn right. at the next corner, I left you some flowers. cross the intersection diagonally and continue up the street. I trust you are wearing some comfortable shoes, as you will need to walk several blocks. no, I'm not sure how many. I lost count. when you reach Tugboat Bill, salute the flags. turn left. another left before you reach the end. its the second house on the right, with a clear view of the water. If you lose your way. this might help. follow our forty second president not to the year of the snake, or the year of the rat, but the year of the monkey.)




There were quite a few houses with flags but my wife spotted the real flags and we found the spot where the paintings were hidden. Of course, by now it was very dark and finding a Dino painting in the dark is kinda hard. I looked all over, half expecting it to be under the dock, but I finally found it!

Friday, February 17, 2012

CLUE #60 - FOUND!


Congratulations to Clare for finding Dinosaur #60

At the mouth to the Posey Tube, I pasted up another photograph:


The entrance to Neptune Beach was at Central and Webster in Alameda. There is currently nothing there, so I hid the painting underneath a bush inside of a purple suitcase.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

CLUE #59 - FOUND!


Congratulations to Sarah for finding Dinosaur #59!

The bay shore of Alameda is now just a small canal between what used to be the island, and what is now landfill. This house sits at the end of oak, and I hung the painting off the post on the edge on the canal.