Where in the world is Tony O’Brien?

July 18, 2007 9:05 AM

Where in the world is Tony O’Brien?

Have you seen him? I have lost touch with an old friend and cannot find him. If you have met him you would know exactly whom I am referring to. He was born in Wales and came to America. I am unsure when he came from Wales but he traveled all over America doing odd jobs here and there and claiming that he loved the gypsy life! He was married and had a son and daughter. The last time that I was in contact with him was at least 8 years ago in Boone, NC and he was working part time at the Wal-Mart in the outdoor section. I called them to see if they had any information and they said he moved on to Pennsylvania to work at an environmental camp but they all missed him and hated to see him go. I called the camp and they said that he had moved on again and said something about traveling back across Europe. This was about 6 years ago. I used to get postcards from him about every 6 months letting my family know where he was and how he was doing. I had moved around a few times and I think that is where we lost touch. He was about 5’8 stocky, always happy and cheerful, loved a bottle of wine and a leg of lamb, I never seen him without a beard, he also had a real thick accent. If you have any information about him please let me know as much as you can and maybe I can piece it together and find him. If I recall his son’s name is Jon, his daughter is Claire.

Thanks for any help that you can give. He is missed and I am now married and have a three-year-old son that I would love for him to meet.

posted by scooters.toad to Human Relations (9 answers total)

Seriously though, scooters.toad, this isn't quite the right place for this sort of question.
posted by dersins at 9:25 AM on July 18, 2007

Try Craiglist's Missed Connections. Post in the cities where you think he might've settled.

Is this some sort of elaborate joke that I don't understand, or a real question from someone who doesn't get AskMe?
posted by cior at 9:29 AM on July 18, 2007

don't know, but i gotta plan 2 help. you know how people occasionally google themselves to rate their relative prominence on the internet? you know how cheap it is to reserve a url and set up a website these days? you get a bulk rate on 100 url's, and it doesn't really matter what url's they are. you get a bulk rate on hosting too. every single site you create will consist of the following:

tony o'brien, please contact scooters.toad, we miss you!

and on each site, you provide links to the 99 other sites, pretty much ensuring that your array will command the first 100 hits on google. googluck!
posted by bruce at 9:30 AM on July 18, 2007 [1 favorite]

You're looking for someone with an extremely common name, who has children with common names, and who is probably in either Europe or the USA, if he's alive. I'm afraid you're going to have to do much more specific detective work if you want to find him. bruce's idea isn't bad though.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 9:32 AM on July 18, 2007

Here he is.
posted by mattbucher at 9:43 AM on July 18, 2007

If you find him, I think he owes my dad some money. I tried to use the google to find him for you. I looked for "Tony O'Brien" and "Leg of Lamb" but no luck. Unless he plays golf in Ireland. I have never seen him without a beard also. I think he might be using the name Anthony O'Brien as an alias.

scooters.toad, you might have better luck creating a web page with your contact information on it, and some key information about him (e.g. name, age, places lived). If he stumbles upon it, he'll reach out to you. Best of luck with your search.
posted by enfa at 9:53 AM on July 18, 2007

You could hire a private detective, if it's that important.
posted by wubbie at 10:19 AM on July 18, 2007

Mod note: a few like 80% of comments removed. Take it to metatalk if you need to, but don't shit in the thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:39 AM on July 18, 2007

and on each site, you provide links to the 99 other sites, pretty much ensuring that your array will command the first 100 hits on google. googluck!

I think you grossly underestimate the sophistication of Google's ranking algorithm.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:04 PM on July 18, 2007