Comments on: Craig McGettigan, Turkey Extaordinaire

By: Charline Hupf

Charline Hupf — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:13:55 +0000

High productivity mind mapping secrets – revealed

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:44:54 +0000

Please don’t use last names on these posts. People have careers to worry about. Employers do check these things and might frown on “halls of shame” posts and any involvement with treasure hunts.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 27 May 2005 15:32:45 +0000

I’ve come upon a way for Craig to redeem himself. We’ve figured out that the Caterpillar is at Lake Dardanelle State Park in Arkansas. According to Google Maps, it’s only a 12 hour drive. If you’ve got a phat Acura, half that.

By: Gabe

Gabe — Fri, 27 May 2005 13:37:42 +0000

Oh, you already knew the exact location? In that case, I’m torn between tar-and-feather and the less-showy, but also effective, pillory.

By: Korey

Korey — Fri, 27 May 2005 05:10:44 +0000

Wow, $12,000 — almost enough to buy a Sante Fe!

By: Johnnie Corcoran

Johnnie Corcoran — Fri, 27 May 2005 01:22:34 +0000

If the timing fits, you must convict.

By: Ted

Ted — Fri, 27 May 2005 00:41:49 +0000

Pshaw! I emailed him a scan of the tree immediately. It was pictured in the book. We also had the exact location of the token, which apparently the person who found the token wasn’t sure about. They wandered around searching a bunch of random trees aimlessly, taking over 2 hours to get to the right one. Andy’s brother, who arrived at the park in the middle of the night, when it was pitch black out, found the tree in about 45 minutes. Craig would have easily beat out the competition. He’s a marine for Christ sake!

By: Gabe

Gabe — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:39:01 +0000

Ted said he called Craig around 5:30 or 6:00. If he called in the middle of that range (Eastern time) it was 4:45 in Iowa. Printing out driving directions and preparing to leave work on no notice would take a minimum of 15 minutes, and according to Google Maps, it’s a 78-minute trip. So he could have gotten there by maybe 6:20pm. Starthinker arrived ten minutes after that.

So to get the token before Starthinker did, Craig would either have to find the tree just as soon after arriving at the park, but without any companions and without having seen the drawing of the tree. Or maybe he could have gotten hold of that and printed it out as well, but that would have taken more time back at the office. Add in a few more minutes if you had to explain to your boss why your college friend asked you to hunt for treasure in a tree in a state park, and you’d kill even that 10-minute head start.

The defense rests.

By: andy

andy — Thu, 26 May 2005 19:14:31 +0000

Yes, $12,000 would get us a wonderful patch of grass on St. John…. hehe, but of couse at the auction, the Snail would have going for $120,000 and we would be in fine shape, we could rent a nice house for a few summers. Speaking of St. John, next spring is coming up…..

I can’t believe we were so close, and that we had a chance of getting it! A real chance. This absolutely proves that you just have to GO LOOK even if people have been there- some lady looked in that tree 10min before Star Thinker did!

My brother is totally into the TT now, so if there are any other tokens within a days drive, we can get him to look.

Lastly, there must be one more in the NE, esp since MS lives around there. We will get it. We will.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 26 May 2005 19:07:17 +0000

Just to clarify, this is what starthinker posted: "We found the token at 8:10pm after arriving at the park around 6:30pm." I don't think Craig-o is getting nearly enough flak here.

By: Gwynne

Gwynne — Thu, 26 May 2005 19:01:02 +0000

“It was about 3:00 when I decided it was worth a shot to drive down to the park but I was leaning towards waiting for the morning and getting to the park at dawn. ”

Ah, if only he had waited ’til morning….Ted & Ana, Katie & Andy and Andy’s brother could all be on their way to St. John to retire on their $12,000 fortune. But we’ll never know for sure, not until they make “Sliding Doors: A Treasure’s Trove”.

By: Gabe

Gabe — Thu, 26 May 2005 17:50:22 +0000

You’re not serious about the Santa Fe, are you? Whether you are or not, I think someday they’ll teach entire advertising courses on the miracle of convincing the American public that all-wheel-drive is a safety feature, and that people who drive on paved roads will find it indispensable. Ten years ago I would have said it was impossible.

Matt, I agree that it is the power of the internet. I’d bet that never before has such a wide array of brains (I didn’t say deep, just wide) pounded away together on the same set of puzzles. It is to traditional puzzle books what SETI@home is to the Manhattan Project.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 26 May 2005 17:45:13 +0000

Laughing is all well and good, but when you’re talking about $12,000 down the toilet, crying is acceptable too.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 26 May 2005 17:14:44 +0000

I have to admit I laughed out loud at this. On the one hand, I can’t believe this whole thing is real. On the other hand, I can’t believe how relatively easy this book is. Weren’t you saying there are puzzle books that haven’t been solved dating back decades? This took 9 months!

I guess that’s the power of the internet.

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 26 May 2005 16:48:49 +0000

Make that “a few hours by Hyundai Santa Fe.” No way am I taking that old put-putter with me on a treasure-hunting road trip!

As for the New England idea, right now we’ve reasonably confident there might be one either (a) New Hampshire White Mountains (b) Acadia National Park in Maine (c) Cape Codd. Of course, it’s all random speculation until we decode the next of the puzzles. Andy and Doug are working on them furiously.

The treasure hunt has obviously been cracked wide open, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Tomorrow is my last day at Penn Press, so I’m scrambling to tie to together all my loose ends, pack up the apartment on 45th street, apply for my mortgage, finish all the co-op application paperwork. With all this craziness, how am I supposed to find time to blog?

By: Gabe

Gabe — Thu, 26 May 2005 16:19:49 +0000

This is awesome.

Seriously, I would probably have reacted the same as Craig did. But in retrospect it’s pretty funny.

I wouldn’t completely despair, though, Ted. At least one token is supposed to be within one day’s drive of anywhere in the continental U.S., but that’s a minimum of one token, not a maximum. There might be one in New England or Virginia, only a few speeding, nicotine-fueled hours by Pontiac Vibe from Westchester County.