January 16, 2010 -- Obb's Bar, St. Paul, MN

Tonight marked the 12th annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig. Over the course of the evening, we figure some 125 people or more came through the room. There were lots of old faces, and plenty of new ones joining in the fun!

As in the past several years, Clue Master ran the park pick pool. This year the pool was a little different. Everyone involved selected the order that they would be picking, but rather than have a single board, Cluey put together a pair of picks. One entry got you one pick on one of the boards. There was a lot of interest outside St. Paul proper this year.

Mom and Dad had the annual Cooler Crew button, which can be seen in the Pre-Dig gig announcement. Having a Cooler Crew button gets you 1/2 off appetizers and $1 off bar drinks at Yarusso's during the hunt. If you don't have one, find Ares at the PP, Yarusso's or contact him on Ableminds (or this site, or Facebook) to get one.

Lil'Man hooked us up with all the music we could stand, all night long, from the DJ booth, while lilslim brought in the karaoke laptop and enabled folks to hook us up with all the music we couldn't stand scattered throughout the evening. Not surprisingly, the karaoke booth grew more popular as the night progressed, as people "worked up the courage" to sing. Wicked Nick and Cereal Killer provided us with a rendition of Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler", and we were treated to a wonderful performance of the now viral "Pants on the Ground" from American Idol.

On a more personal note, we had a moment of silence honoring Zephy and all the other troops serving overseas, putting their lives on the line for us, as well as a moment of silence and a collection taken up for Mystical_muzik, after losing her husband Mark. We raised over $400 for the cause, and Jimmy from Obb's kicked in another $1,000!

All in all, a great way to kick off a great two-week tradition!

Coolerheads will prevail!!!

During the hunt, get together at Yarusso Bros. Italian Restaurant on Payne Avenue. Your Cooler Crew button gets you $1 off bar drinks and half-price appetizers!

The Cooler Crew would like to thank the following great local businesses for their generous donations for Mark's funeral:

	Yarusso's Italian Restaurant 635 Payne Avenue (Across from Swede Hollow) for catering the food
	Lakeside Floral, Inc. for providing husband and father bouquets
Koehler & Dramm's Institute of Floristry for making a class project out of funeral arrangements and donating the results for the funeral

We'd also like to thank Obb's Bar for the location of the Pre-Dig Gig this year, and the setup they put together, as well as their generous donation to Mark's Memorial Fund. In addition we'd like to thank the many people who have individually contributed to the fund.

When you're out and about during this year's hunt and afterwards, please patronize these businesses as you are able to in gratitude for their contributions.

Congratulations to TMK on his find of AW's 2009 Mock Hunt treasure. According to AW, this is the fastest find for his hunt thus far! Way to go!

At about 9:30 this morning, the medallion was found in Swede Hollow Park. It was found by the father/daughter team of Joe and Jessica Horwath of Maplewood. The pair claimed the entire $10,000 prize, as well as the $1,200 in groceries from Cub Foods. They'd only been out looking for an hour or so when they stumbled across it. It was found several feet away from where it was originally hidden; someone probably tossed it away with their shovel. Ma Press has a great piece of poetry courtesy of the clue writer about it.

Before each night's clue comes out, many members of the Cooler Crew get together in downtown Saint Paul as a way to wind down at the end of a long day of digging, and to recover some strength for the night of digging that often follows the release of later clues. These get-togethers will either be at Wild Tymes or at the Bulldog in Lowertown. Stay tuned to the forums at ableminds for details of each night's gathering.

January 17, 2009
Obb's Sports Bar and Grill
Saint Paul

We've made it. Ten years ago, give or take a few days, we held the very first Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig at McGovern's. Tonight, we held the eleventh annual Pre-Dig Gig at Obb's. Over the course of the evening, somewhere between 150 and 200 people came through the doors.

Originally planned for Matty B's, the party was moved on the last minute to Obb's, who were more than accomodating. With the Pioneer Press publishing the first clue online and in the early Sunday edition of the newspaper, being downtown isn't really necessary anymore, since we all have the clue going in and don't need to go to the paper to get it.

As usual, Mom and Dad had the annual Cooler Crew buttons; there were plenty of them left over. If you didn't get one and still want one, contact me2. Lilman provided the evening's entertainment from his DJ booth, and there was even a little karaoke going on. For the last several years, Clue Master has orgainzed a park pick pool, and with a $155 total prize for the winner, this year was no exception.

One of the best parts of every pre-dig and every rehash bash, apart from catching up with old friends who we may not otherwise see during the year, is seeing all of the new faces in the crowd. Some of them are long-time lurkers on the boards coming for the first time to hang out. Others are folks who hear about the party and come on in. Despite where any of us comes from, or how we got here, we all share a passion for the hunt.

This year's pre-dig brought a special guest. Kat invited the Winter Carnival President and CEO, Beth Pinkney to the event. As it turns out, we've been relatively unknown to them, almost to the point of being a well-kept secret. Having been involved with getting access to the Carnival royal family in the past, and the difficulties associated with it, it was really good to see Carnival staff come out and mingle with the community that makes the Carnival the success that it is.

As many of you are aware, Clue Master is in the hospital, with surgery scheduled for Friday, 8/8/08 (hey, crazy eights. Gotta be a lucky day) to replace a heart valve.

For the $0.25 version of what's happened, last Wednesday he was in so much back pain he couldn't get out of bed. He went in to Woodwinds on Thursday where they did a full-body image set of him, and discovered something "fuzzy" in his bone marrow. Initially this was diagnosed as Leukemia, but the oncologist later corrected it saying that the rest of the symptoms weren't consistent with the GP's diagnosis; bone marrow tests would be required. After some more work, they determined he has a bacterial infection that's settled in his bone marrow, lungs, and heart.

The infection resulted from a previously undiagnosed prolapse heart valve, combined with dental work 6 months ago. The result is that the infection has eaten away at the valve to the point where he needs it replaced.

For updates, check out CM's family's web site. To send your well-wishes, check out the thread at AbleMinds. He's in there a lot from the hospital and responding to posts.

We are pleased to unveil to the general populace the new and improved Cooler Crew web site. There are some exciting new changes going on around these parts and we're glad you're a part of it.

The first thing you'll notice is the new look. After a decade of static web pages and a pseudo-content management system ares put together over the last few years, the site has implemented Drupal for managing the content. After spending a bit of time trying to work out a theme for it, the testers who provided feedback agreed that the "default" theme looks cool, so we're sticking with it.

One of the benefits of Drupal is that Coolerheads near and far will be able to submit their own news items to appear in the site. The Cooler Crew site has always depended on you to create the content you see here, and with the new software, that task is easier than ever to accomplish. Coming down the pipe, we're expecting to have an online photo gallery for you to submit your treasure hunt pictures to, as well as the ability to create your own blogs.

As always, the content of the site will be freely available. However, in order to create content, you'll have to sign up for an account on the site, but that's free and painless. And for those of you who have contributed material in the past, once you get signed up, we can attribute to you all that should be attributed to you, beyond just having a by-line in the story. Until then, well, let's just say we bring back an old name to be the nom-de-plume of everything not otherwise claimed, one Mr. Joe Medallion.