RadiKS participation in the Doors 2000 game:
Images taken during the game
Here's a team photo from near the end of the event, minus Lyle, who
was behind the camera (and my face, which appears to be overexposed due
to me holding up my CD/badge).... That's Adam, Tricia, Chris, and
Lance, if my memory isn't wonky on me, in the "bottom" (i.e. less than
6'6" tall ;-) row.
Or, the alternate version... ;-)
The last RadiKS hunt:
Megahard Corp: Doors 2000 Debugging Team.
Since the RadiKS team is getting ready for another hunt. I
thought I would finally type up all the notes from the last hunt
so we people could refresh their memories on clue types...and
just reflect on a good time. This will be an unflourished
rendition (i.e., no funny stories about the hunt...just the
facts of the clues). Others may fill in the blanks where they
wish. This is just based on the running notes I took during the
hunt. - enjoy!
- We are given an employee handbook for Megahard Corp. In the back is
a crossword puzzle. The crossword solutions include sayings and
words that necessitate putting the entire word "hole" in a letter
box. ex: c-hole-r-a, b-l-o-w -hole, etc. If we then poke holes
through the squares that say "hole" we can mark letters and numbers
on the last page of the hand book which includes Megahard corporate
facts. When we do this it spells out an IP address. We pull it up
and get...
- 10 mazes where we have to escape the maze (we are a dot)
while being chased (by another dot). It was a "place Greek
hero's name here" and the Minotaur idea. As we solve each
maze it gives us a word: Go to Santa Cruz Ave in Menlo Park
- Back Door Ace Hardware. We go there....
- And find a bar code sticker. We give this to the cashier and are
given a water bottle with Greek letters adjacent to a number bar
from 1 - 24 that is supposed to represent fluid ounces. We
"struggle" to figure out it's "mod 27" (someone else can elaborate
how that worked) and it spells out: "Woodside Store". We go
there...
- We pay a kid $1.00 and he show us to a video tape. We take that to
the local fire department to borrow their big screen TV. The tape
has a series of silent commercial clips and a sound track of TV
theme songs. Using a phone to call a friend to access
"adcritic.com" (we noticed the site on a commercial clip)....we
finally identify all the TV show themes and commercials. (accept,
apparently "Matt Houston" - which is why the last part of our
decipherment was vague.). The tape label says this is video &
audio tape, with "video" being over "audio" on the label. When we
place the names list of the TV themes over the names of the
commercial brands they have the same number of letters (The number
of seconds a theme played or the a commercial clip played
corresponded to the number of letters in the name or brand - ex:
The Simpsons theme played for 8 seconds, telling us we should use
"Simpsons" [8 letters] and not "The Simpsons" [11 letters]. -Whew!
We then circle the all the letters that line up in the two rows of
names and brands. (ex: if two "A"s lined up we circled it. This
spelled out: "KINGS MTN ELEM SCD" (the "D" was because we missed
Matt Houston). We go there...
- And find a log jam of vehicles.....and an audio tape. when played
it says "wrong side" on both sides. Quick thinking Chris opens the
case and flips the tape to play the other side of the magnetic
coating. The first side then says, "close, wrong side". Played in
the other direction on this side it says, "54, 64, 77, 35, 55, 8,
22, 5, 8, 57". In side the tape case it also says: "it's
elementary if you go the right way". We take this to mean the
periodic table of elements and use the numbers as atomic weight of
a given element (did I get that right?) and the element
abbreviations spell out: "ALOBITOSCRBRIDGEX" - "Lobitos Creek
Bridge Crossing". We go there..
- To find an irate home owner yelling at a bunch of treasure hunters
that we are trespassing. Deciding she is not the clue we look under
the bridge and find a long series of colored wires connected into a
long string. The floppy (we find one at each location) tells us
there is a conversion error. We then measure the length of each
color in inches and then "incorrectly" convert it to cm by dividing
by 2.54. That gives us a series of numbers ranging from 3 - 11 .
Lyle then gives us the resistor codes for the colors of the wires
and we place those after the numbers to get ASCII code reading:
"Pescadero Creek Tunnel" We go...
- And get wet retrieving a bag (in the natural bridge now under a
rising tide) with two ball bearings with letters on the side. They
are anagrams for "Ponponio" and "Stage" (cross roads). We go
there...
- We find two boards with a hole on each end, one says "in" the other
"out". Using a magnet to guide the ball bearings we trace a ball
maze inside the boards. The board also reads " 1:1.5" and the other
"1:2". We learn this is how long each straight segment of the maze
should be (1.5 inches or 2 inches). Each board has 21 segments.
With one board as the left hand and the other the right, they make
semaphores that spell: "LA HONDA REFLECTION LAKE" (21 letters). We
go there...
- And find sheet music but no floppy. Each bar had notes with no note
repeating. There are seven notes (A -G) possible to use. Each bar
only uses some notes. So, If a bar only uses A,C, & E, those
spaces become ones and the "empties" become zeros. (1 0 1 0 1 0 0 =
a binary number). In total it read, "Go to Indian Rock in Castle
Rock St. Parking Lot".
- There we find (on top of India Rock - during a BEAUTIFUL sunrise
over the Silicon Valley, I might add!) a Megahard CD but no floppy.
There are various album covers without titles and the eyes of the
artists are masked. The 1st letters of the bands and the last
names of the artists (GoGos, Sinead O'Conner, Echo and the Bunny
Men, Bryan Adams, Sex Pistols, They Might Be Giants, Eagles, Willy
Nelson, and DireStaights) = "GO EAST END". The names of the albums
gives us: "Vasona Damn Road". We go to the East end of the Vasona
Damn and...
- Sleep......but also find a framed picture of presidential portraits
entitled "Megahard Board of Directors". We identify the presidents
and the number (1- 40) they were and notice a small math sign
between each picture in each column. The numbers and signs gives
equations that = a phone number. We call it...and it gives
directions to a boardwalk over salt beds in Fremont We go
there...
- And find a bag of peanut butter and jelly fixins (Bread, PB, Jelly,
and a knife with a "J" on it). We go to a fast food joint to eat
and eventually find a floppy wrapped in aluminum foil that doesn't
work 'cause it is soaked in PB oil. We call to get the next
clue....
- At the Niles Canyon Railroad Tressel There we find more lettered
table ware and an etiquette lesson . When table ware is placed
correctly we get a code, ex: "F1" = 6th row, first word of the
etiquette lesson. The words spell out "Pleasanton P.O. - west side.
main branch." We go there...
- And find an envelope with stamps. We arrange the stamps by
denomination and then by the date. Then we look at the cancellation
stamped upon the stamp and decide if it's the circular portion of
the cancellation it is a "dot" and if it's the squiggly lines
portion of the stamp it's a "dash" (or it was if it was a vertical
orientation it was a dot and a horizontal orientation it was a dash
(I forgot which....I know we tried both). This is Morse Code for:
"Old Danville RR Station". We trek on....
- And find an audio cassette. When played it gives a series of animal
sounds and a "homer" sound ("DOH!). We all write down the sounds we
hear and compare notes. We then use frequency analysis to determine
the corresponding letters, "Go to Kelly Moore paint store, N. Main
Street in Walnut Creek". We do...
- We find a length of card board with painted lines across it of
various colors with white in between. Above them in three colors it
reads "All Mixed Up". We decide the white sections are word breaks
and the others are made by mixing ratios of the three colors used
to make the words. These ratios, once determined gave numbers that
were some standard code (Somebody help me out here...I didn't write
it down!) that read, "Joaquin Moraga School Oval." We go
there...
- And find a series of small flags on the flag pole. Each flag is
from a different nation but each flag in the stack is divided into
progressively more nations (first flag is one nation, second flag
is in half with two nations, 3rd = three......etc.). We take the
first letter of the first flag's nation and the second letter from
the second flag's nations, etc....and get "Joaquin Miller Abbey".
We trudge on to..
- Find a small 5" X 7" piece of metal caked with flour (and some
bugs). We rub off the flour to find Braille It says, "San Leandro
Marina fishing pier." Driving there we find...
- Nothing. All the clues are gone. They were pipes hung from string
on the pier (apparently someone dropped one or more in the water).
We call to get the next location.
- At Krispy Kreme
Doughnuts in Union City we get a floppy with letters on
the back and a dozen doughnuts. The letters on the floppy
correspond to locations of the doughnuts. The type of
doughnut in that location gives us a clue (I don't remember
how.....I was too busy eating doughnuts!). It says, "Go to
reading park in Atherton". (Atherton Library). We do...
- And find a floppy that says go to Gil Bate's house. We go to quite
an elegant mansion in Atherton and find an ice chest with our name
on it and some food and drink.
THE END
My understanding was we got dead last (the first lace team
finished 12 hours ahead of us) but wecalled the help line around
8 times which was FAR less than any other team. I figure...if
you add 1 hour per call (which is about how much time is saved
when you do call) we probably did very well in comparison.
As I said, this is only based on my notes and feeble
recollections. Feel free to add in where necessary and maybe
someone (Chris?) will keep it for the RadiKS archives.
(Take me to team RadiKS or RoadRally.org)