unforum

[MarshallTeller]

Follow up to Stinji's post about LA... We had 3-4 different groups in different areas of LA. Our group was stationed first outside the ORIGINAL Flynn's arcade (The historic Hull building in Culver City) and we did a few photos and goofed around in front of it. I had arrived there at 9am... and slowly the sad truth dawned on us that we would have to wait 6 hours for the Los Angeles drop to happen.

We relocated to the TRON Pop-Up Shop at Royal/T cafe, and sat around and chatted, watched and tracked the other drops happen and generally had a good time. By 3 o'clock we were poised and ready to leave, only to find that the drop had happened near Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd, outside a burger joint. That's about 20 minutes away in LA traffic. 10 if you're smart like BlackFeathers and take the quieter surface streets.

So, what with traffic and my car engine overheating, myself and ShadowDragon1 arrived at the drop point at 3:20pm. There were 3 other FL members waiting to give us the news - The package had been picked up at 3:02pm. There was no indication that it had already happened, but we stood around looking at where the sticker had been, but then were then told that it was already over - Apparently, the operative was at a park around the corner, and as more FL members showed up, we had to inform them the sad truth of the pilgrimage. At around 3:35pm, an FL cameraman came back to speak to us, and took some footage of ObiShawn talking about why we are looking for Flynn. After that we dispersed, feeling slightly miffed.

Still, it was fun, I enjoyed chatting to other FL/UF members and goofing off at Royal/T, even without being included in the pickup.

[Daft Tron]

[KevinG472]

[davecobb]

A BIT OF PHOENIX, A BIT OF DENVER, and FINALLY LA!

[SkekTek]

Report from Philly:

I was in town, having taken a personal day off from work.

Elziard was in town somewhere, I was in 30th street station, and SlightlyChilled and his friend were at the Philly Public library, but I think were going down to South Street for food when the drop was announced. I hopped into a cab immediately and was at the drop area within 5 minutes since I was only 15 blocks away. There was a guy talking to someone in the building next to the drop, so I was afraid I was too late. But he seemed uninterested in me being there. So when I called the phone number, the guy at the end of the phone said something like "wow, that's an old tracking number". Then he got my name and address and told me the delivery was on its way. Elziard showed up just as I got the package from a nice woman with a Dumont shirt. I admit I was giggling like a girl at the time- so happy that I was really participating in my first ARG. She left, and we went through the stuff. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out the code, but it didn't work on Hello Flynn. I called my wife who was home with all the websites open. She helped out, but we couldn't figure out the code. The Dumont woman came back and I had to sign a form. Once she left, this time for good, we got another call with directions to the second drop location, and that's when Chilled and company showed up. The side effect of the second call was me hanging up on my wife, which led to a series of jibes on the Philly thread. Also a younger guy who came on his own (baloo) arrived. We all went as a group a little over a block to a cafe, where the operative had me type the code into the computer, and handed me the pin and shirt. That was it. Pictures all around of the shirt, the Asus laptop he was using for the codes, and of the group. We had a tron turquoise hoodie, a cool red flynn/recognizer hoodie, and I had my Encom badge and 89 and recognizer pins. After 10-15 min chat, we all went our own ways. I think most of us will see each other at the premiere, which will be cool.

Fun time!

We all went back to collect the sticker, and found another person in a car who had taken the sticker off thinking he was the first one there. We took pics of the sticker, and then Elziard and I took the train back downtown so we could go home.

I am so happy to see everyone out, more than anything. I really wish there was more stuff for everyone who helped... they deserved stuff for participating- the swag was the book, the FL pin, and a shirt. I never saw a Dumont envelope.

[skycycle]

San Francisco reporting in

[Euchre]

To add a bit to Flying Monkey's account of Portland, I have to tell you the perilous tale of the Second Squad.

We boarded the TriMet train and took our leisurely ride to Pioneer Square. There were a LOT of people around there, which made me a bit concerned about getting the drop in time. We walked around to the Starbucks and got seats at a table there. Trigger plugged in the laptop and nerves_end resumed monitoring twitter. As we sat and waited and discussed more strategy, VenarThompson got word from his friend that he would be coming to join us. This would later prove to be a matter of fateful fortune.

As we considered our location, we realized the crowded and busy Starbucks did not afford us a very good, quick exit. As there is wifi free all through the square, we decided to take up a post outside. We found a bench and waited for the drop to go live. As 2pm rolled around, we went live. Venar swore the drop looked like the east side, and we all pretty well had to agree. Trigger was working on translating the coordinates in Google Maps when the fine oracle enaxor called me and gave us the exact address. I repeated it aloud to the group and they all realized it was definitely on the east side, a fair way away. Frantic, we began making calls to the other squad and Trigger said 'what do we do?' to which I replied 'start running!'. We started to run in to the east, trying to discuss what options we had to get transportation to the drop.

In a less than elegant move, all of our vehicle bearing members were in the first squad back at Backspace. However, Kid Atomic was solo with a 4-5 seat car. I decided to call to see if she could swing our way to pick us up when Venar - on the phone with his friend - said he (Jack) would pick us up. I told Kit Atomic to cancel and just follow Flying Monkey to the drop. Only seconds later, Jack rolls up in a Honda Civic 4 door.
There were 4 of us.

So in we piled, Venar up front and the other 3 of us (myself, nerves_end, and Trigger) crammed in the back seat. I folded my arm over my back so we would fit better. We sped off, greeted Jack, and thus began the wild ride. Jack tells us he used to be a cab driver. With that, I knew we were in for an interesting ride.

We repeatedly encountered the usual logjams in traffic, often a slow, distracted, or lost driver. Jack was a nonstop stream of curses and beratement of less motivated drivers, keeping us all rather entertained. As this is all going on, calls and alerts are coming in on cell phones in the holsters and pockets of people packed like sardines. In particular, some vendor of 'gluten free bread' seemed to be disinterested in a speedy delivery. We have all sworn off the stuff.

During the ride as we drew near, we got word from the first squad that the code had been secured for us and sporkbot called the number. Not completely clear on what else had transpired, we didn't slow a bit. As we arrived and piled out of the car, a couple of people not from our group were looking around at the poles and such in the area. They told us someone already got it. I'm not sure where these people went, but its a shame they didn't stick around. Turned out we were faster than expected and the courier took a fair time getting to us. We didn't see sporkbot, Flying Monkey, and Kid Atomic, but soon found out they were down the block in a pizza joint. As we arrived and said hello to them and Flying Monkey's boss, sporkbot's phone rang and the now united team was off on a sprint back to the drop location again.

From there, it is as reported.

As a final note, we had to figure out how to best get several people back to downtown. I had a car parked at a relative's house not too far away, so in another round of clown car antics, we loaded 4 people in the back of Jack's car - myself, Trigger, nerves_end, and sporkbot. It was relaxing to arrive at my car and load into a normal, human, personal space friendly mode of transportation.

I'd do it again. Too much fun.

[IAmError]

My only account was ariving on the scene at Montrose and Grey, apparently momemnts late. The Dumont actor told me I had just missed the person who picked up the package. We were all sorta lucky we actualy found anything. The sticker was pretty messed up from rain. They were probably placed out there the night before, not permanent stuff. The ink bled all over the text, which is probably why i got the call in text msg wrong anyway

Great stuff though, and at least I got to be in the group when everything was solved hopefully we get something physical for our fast collective thinking.

[thename]

Well, nobody else appears eager to post the tale so I'll chime in with a Seattle observer's report. Sorry for the verbosity, written for own reference and only slightly edited for this venue.

After a good bit of time in the IRC I decided to hit the street with about 5 minutes to spare. Hoped my downtown office's location might be lucky enough to be within a walk of the drop and kept refreshing the Seattle.pdf until it popped up. Thought I recognized the corner depicted in the nighttime photos (one of my favorite pubs is there) but couldn't be sure so mapped out the lat/long and confirmed it to be just about 8 blocks away.

Got to the corner about 5 minutes after the drop and began the unfruitful search for the sticker. Over the next few minutes caught sight of another person alternately looking at a GPS and on lamp posts (sorry, missed the name!) and soon after Mrs. SeriousYes doing the same. Brief "so we haven't found it yet, is it that corner?" discussions and we wandered the surrounding sidewalks. Bit later I noticed a TRON jacket running up (turned out to be preppy) but missed SeriousYes (they both had been stationed a few miles away since the early hours of the day) until I saw him shaking hands with the missus who had found the sticker; it was about 2 feet off the ground on a post we had searched at eye level repeatedly. We converged as she called. That she managed to hear what the person on the line said and translated in Seattle's hefty wind that day was very impressive.

We milled for a bit while waiting for the package to arrive. A moment of excitement when, as the sticker was being displayed to the rest of us (6 in all by that point), the wind caught it, blowing it across the very busy street. preppy, disregarding his own safety, ran into traffic and retrieved it. Finally we noticed the Dumont Shipping shirt across the street (there was a rumor he had been spotted in SeriousYes and preppy's original vicinity). He came over and asked for SeriousYes, handed him the package and had him sign (the slip also briefly got away in the wind) before heading away around the corner.

While we waited for another call the shipping guy eventually came back around the corner advising us that we "should call Flynn" (much to our confusion) before putting on his jacket and silently waiting. Fortunately the phone rang a few moments later and Mrs. SeriousYes agreed we had found the package. We then followed the SeriousYeses on a roundabout way to a Cherry Street Coffee shop that turned out to be about a block away.

Down in the basement we noticed the be-sunglassed guy in a FL shirt sitting very passively with an open laptop and approached him and finally opened the package. To my "been here all afternoon" query he responded with the old "hey, I'm just here to help." SeriousYes opened the package and we tried to make heads or tails of the manual pages. The advice from the phone ("find a way to get a 7 digit number") led us to fruitlessly hold the perforations on the manual page up to the various pages. While we struggled one of our number tried to turn around the laptop to see the screen, prompting the operative to say "Sir, I'm going to need you to step away from the computer." Finally we realized there must be another item and discovered the blue highlighted insert and found the code. There was some confusion on the operative's part as SeriousYes scooted over behind the laptop (he couldn't hear the operative's "back away" admonishment) but he managed to enter the code and we all watched the "terminal 3 of 16 activated" message. Happily, the operative shook SeriousYes' hand and handed him the shirt and pin. Very exciting.

As Mrs. SeriousYes took pictures the FL operative covered his face before furtively heading up the stairs and away. The rest of us left the SeriousYeses to their fun (despite their clearly offering to share in the swag; I know I was just happy to have been in on the experience) and made our way out. Someone reported that LA had beat us to which we expressed the feeling that we had taken a bit longer than expected to a) find the sticker (probably 20-25 minutes) and b) solve for the activation code. Everyone seemed OK with it as I headed back to work.

I know most were photographing various pieces but I didn't. Anyone mind sharing their pics? All I've got is this:

[JCByrdman]

Just a piece of the Boston portion

[thebruce]

Well since we're making maps and all, here's how we happened to handle arriving at the Toronto destinations

The two of us rallied at the Starbucks by the theatre... good thing Traffic Jammer came to meet me at that bucks, otherwise he'd have been much much farther from the coordinates =) But really, like with other cities, we were lucky to be so close.
I'm not sure what exactly TJ did in the park, but that's about what I guess his route may have been by bike. Battlecat met up with us at the sticker after we'd called it in.
Anyway, so it's linked in this thread, my report is here.

[Gazbot]

[Waterborn2o2p]

Hey Byrdman, sorry we could not stick around. I had a meeting to get to, Avatrix had to get back to work and I know that Nikki had a sick wife at home. Would have loved to meet you. The cool thing about our local Boston crew is that we all worked together and even though Avatrix was first to the scene, he shared in the SWAG equally. I took the FlynnLives pin and felt bad that Nikki didn't get anything (he didn't want the TRON manual from the book), so I gave him my Sam Flynn 89 pin that I was wearing, which he lacked for his collection. This type of teamwork is what made this ARG so much fun. And to think, my friendship with Avatrix began because we were basically competing against each other to track down the COG tags from the Gears of War 2 "Last Day" viral campaign.

I know that Avatrix mentioned that he would post his report soon, so I will let him tell the story of the drop. Good times.

BTW, Byrdman, Nakki, Vajonna, Outcast, musecats, dvorak, tron_fanatic and anyone else from Team Boston who didn't make it to the drop, I am working to secure you some special TRON LEgacy SWAG for being such a great support team.

[thebruce]

Ok I've a list of reports and pics linked up on the wiki at http://tron.wikibruce.com/Digitalpulse#Reports -- if you know of albums people have shared from their drop, please link!

[Euchre]

Joining the mapping fun, here's the routes I know about that the Portland team took.

First was our journey from the Fuller's Diner rendezvous to the Backspace stakeout.

Next was the journey of the Second Squad to Pioneer Courthouse Square in 2 parts, as Google Maps can't seem to mix trains and walking right: Part 1 (the train ride) and Part 2(walking to the Starbucks).

I think I've mapped our wild ride for the Portland Second Squad stakeout to the drop location correctly. If VenarThompson or Jack could confirm that, I'd love it.

Flying Monkey or Kid Atomic would have to provide their route(s) to the drop.

Finally is the journey from Dumont drop to Flynn Lives operative. Note that Romas Pizza is where the Second Squad found the First Squad upon arrival.