Whoa

Leave the blogosphere alone for half a week and it erupts into massive chaos.

Moreover, leave Tay alone to his own devices and he provokes massive chaos. I'm going to need to clarify a few things.

Tay's been speaking from a position he likes to call "Jason and I" when he really means "I." For whatever reason, he's figured that everybody is absolutely raring to go to do this treasure hunt and has decided to try to scare everyone by telling them that there are 50 clues and that the hunt will last 15 hours and that everyone will die. I've told him to "tease" teams a little with things like the materials list, but he took it overboard and basically started taunting everyone, so assured as he was that people were looking forward to this hunt.

Also, during the planning stages, Tay was ready to go completely insane with the clues. Whenever I'd suggest making a clue a little more reasonable, Tay would shout it down. We did work from a standpoint where we both had veto power, and usually we were able to come to a good compromise, but we'll just say that had I been alone on this hunt, it would've been a little easier, and had Tay been alone on this hunt, it may have ended up being the 8-hour marathon of death that he wanted. For example, Tay wanted to give the teams absolutely no hints at any time during the hunt. I worked it down to a lenient hint-buying system which I think will add an interesting strategical side. Suffice it to say that this hunt isn't going to be as absurdly difficult as Tay wants you to believe.

Let's chalk this up to me being a realist and Tay being just nuts.

For clarification:
If anyone takes 8 hours to finish this hunt (barring any Hufflepuffs), I'll be surprised.

We do have more clues than either of the previous hunts; however, as Tay alluded to in one of his previous posts, they are generally "clustered." We're not going to have the 15-minute cross-town drives that we saw in TH2. Whereas one of the previous hunts would send teams to New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis, we'll send you to Times Square, Madison Square Gardens, Rockefeller Plaza, the Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, the Metrodome, the Mall of America, and Best Buy headquarters. There are more hints, and the hunt will probably take a little longer, but it shouldn't double your time.

Tay and I will be visiting teams to assure that nobody becomes overly exhausted, dehydrated, or thirsty. (i.e. bringing refreshments)

The kicker here is the teams. We would've loved to have had 20 people sign up for this hunt, each one eager to dive right in to solving and finding clues. We could've accomodated everyone's wishes and had the teams you wanted and everyone would've been pleased.

However, we ended up with one of our captains dropping out of the race, one of our captains leaving in the afternoon, Capelle leaving early, another of our captains (Sam) recently becoming unsure of his ability to attend, Ashely and Jeff coming a little late, John being only tentative... needless to say, this has really screwed things up for a hunt where some prior knowledge is required - and no, I'm not talking solely about German. Interestingly enough, from our perspective, John's problem isn't that he can't have Ashley - it's that Doc Oc needs Kaitlyn. But I don't want to give anything more away.

Upon looking back at the teams, they are pretty fairly balanced. But, because I'm not a hardass like Tay, I will give Doc Oc the option: you can trade Kaitlyn for Ashley. However - and we have planned this as a backup - we normally would've given you a free half-hint to make up for knowledge lacking if a team member decided day-of not to show up (i.e. if teams were kept and Kaitlyn just wasn't there, we'd give you a free half-hint for the clue that requires her abilities), but if you opt to trade, we're not going to compensate you for your loss. Also, I'm only doing this because, except for that one quality, Kaitlyn and Ashley are fairly similar concerning qualities needed in this hunt. Don't expect me to bend the rules like this all over the place. Comprende?

At the same time, I should let you know that I wouldn't be surprised in the least if Doc Oc were to physically finish before Max had to leave.

Don't let the 10 AM start time fool you as to our expected length. I suggested it earlier but Tay vetoed it. Further along, we learned that a few people were leaving and so, with a helpful suggestion from Pammy, I was able to convince Tay that it was a good thing. Our goal was not to add two hours into the hunt so as to end around 5:00 like the other hunts have; we should (ideally) have all four teams finishing from 2:30 to 4:00. Also, there's a time sensitive clue (my team couldn't get in to Brekken's because the mall closed by the time we got our hint), so we're trying to compensate for business hours.

It took a lot of repairing to make up for the damage Tay did.

Finally, I just want to say that no matter how everyone enjoys this hunt - and we think you will sincerely enjoy it - I had fun designing it. Scouting, thinking up clues, creating the clues, even stuffing the envelopes - I had fun making this hunt. Our - well, at least my- goal was not to torture everyone to the point of begging for the hunt to be over, but rather to provide a challenge that matched the mental toughness and smooth flow-charting of the first treasure hunt with the physical derring-do of the second, while maintaining a high-octane level the whole way. Our thoughts were to have more clues spaced closer together to keep up the excitement and keep down the slow drive time, and I think we've succeeded.

Finally, Tay didn't want me to tell you this, but I'm adding to the materials list a phone book and scratch paper. Tay told me that teams should've figured out by now that they need this stuff, and that if they don't bring it, well, tough luck for them. But I'm not so big on tough luck.

I hope everyone's satisfied, since this is, after all, supposed to be entertainment.