I'm still a little woozy from the weekend. I feel like maybe I'm getting just a little bit old to pull an all-nighter, but when someone signed me up for the 2-10 am "puzzle devil" shift, how could I say no? I'm practically nocturnal here anyhow, so it was not much of a stretch.

So, we came in second by about 90 minutes. Once I learned that another team had won the Mystery Hunt, I decided to try to go home and get caught up on sleep. Little did I know that my team was hot on the trail of the solution and called it in almost before I was back to Kate's place.

The good news about being second is that you get to participate in the hunt the next year. The poor winners -- a team named Doctor Awkward -- have to BUILD the hunt next year which I think will be a lot of work, albeit fun work. In the meantime, I have some time to bone up on puzzling and see if I can hone my skills enough to be a benefit to the team in ways that aren't just organizational next year. Here are some links.

• The puzzles from this year's hunt.
  
• The MIT Mystery Hunt main page.
  
• My post about the Mystery Hunt on Vox.
  
• A few pictures of the hunt from me on Flickr and a few from other people.
  

jessamyn, abada abada, mystery hunt, mit, puzzles