ares's blog

As February begins, and the 2017 Winter Carnival and Treasure Hunt are behind us, I think it an appropriate time to reflect on the past hunt, the fact that the Cooler Crew has been around for 20 years now (in person versus just online), and what's in store for the future.

The 2017 Hunt

Wow. Just wow. After back to back years outside of the city, there was a lot of speculation that the medallion would have to be back in St. Paul this year. The masses on the Pioneer Press boards were visibly agitated after Snail Lake was followed up by Bald Eagle/Otter Lake, which came on the heels of Tony Schmidt only 3 years earlier, since it is after all the St. Paul Winter Carnival, not the Ramsey County Winter Carnival. If 2015-2016 were unprecendented, 2017 was one for the books. Ma Press hid the puck in Keller Park, leaving the city for three consecutive years, and when including Tony Schmidt, leaving it four out of the last six years. As of this moment, a full half of the hunts in the 2010's have been outside of the city.

When you think about it though, it is rather necessary. With thousands of people searching the clues would have to be spectacularly (and disappointingly) vague in order to have a longer hunt in a smaller park, since we all know far too much about the parks in St. Paul. We'd have nine clues of obscure references around the park, one clue of street names, one clue saying this is the park, and finally the x marks the spot. That's not the makings of a fun hunt. At the same time, we know way too much about the "prime" hunt parks (Highland, Como, Hidden Falls, Crosby, Cherokee, Phalen, Indian Mounds, and Battle Creek) to have an effective hunt in one of them either. And if one of them were used, hunters would be complaining about how Como is overused. Yes, Highland is overdue, but so are Phalen, Crosby, and Beaver Lake for that matter.

Beaver Lake could actually make for an interesting hunt, although its size is mostly the lake. The medallion was last there in 1964, when it was known as Lincoln Park. We've had a Mock Hunt there too. At the same time, its not one of the top contenders for a hunt. Why? I know not. Perhaps it should be. Perhaps one of us should plan another Mock Hunt there. We'll have to see.

What's that leave? The suburbs. To the naysayers, I say "get used to it". No one has gone around and landmarked and geocoded every single thing in the larger suburban parks. And there are a lot of them, making up a lot of space. The parks are ripe for the picking to use. Its going to be very interesting indeed to see if, after another two years, the title for the 2010s page on this site changes to "When the suburbs became the stage" to go along with "When the city was the stage" from the '60s.

20 Years of the Cooler Crew

Well, yes and no. We had our 20th annual Rehash Bash this year, and I think everyone agrees that having the thing indoors is far superior to having it in a frigid park. We all remember how bone chilling Phalen's rehash was in 2004. having the 20th annual of anything means 19 years from end to end. Really the number to use is the number of Pre-Digs we've had, since the first one of those didn't happen until 1999. But the thing to remember is that's how long its been that the first Coolerheads cautiously braved the cold for a winter potluck picnic where no one knew anyone else, save for the online relationships that had been forged.

With an attendance of about 60, it was nice to see that we're still bringing in newbies, both before and after the hunt. We welcomed 5 adult newbies and a few kids to the group this year at the Rehash, with our famous rubber chicken initiation ceremony. No one around really knows what the bottle of rubbing alcohol or white towel are really supposed to be for, but it sure is fun to watch the look on people's faces when we tell them they need to provide them. It must be the humor factor that it provides, since none of the intitiates actually brought their own.

Aside from myself, keeping this website running and growing and enhancing it, there are so many people within the group who need some credit for keeping things running smoothly. Shout outs go to Clue Master for setting up the pre-dig at Josephs for the last several years, to him and Barefootguy for handling the Park Pick Pool. Thanks to Allison Wonderland for organizing the room rental for the Rehash Bash for umpteen years, and to everyone who chips in for the room rental fees. Thanks go to Mystical Muzik, AW, Red Bear, Cluey, KT, and everyone who now and in the past has run the show at the Rehash Bash every year. To everyone who has contributed door prizes through the years, thank you!!! And thank you to everyone who has in the past done anything to make the group and this web site viable over the last 20 years. That includes everyone who finds new city hunts throughout the year and sends them to me to include here. There really are too many of you to name

That said, next year will be the 20th anniversary of the Rehash Bash. You gotta admit, that's pretty impressive. I can't wait to see everyone!

The Future

Something I've noticed over the last few years is folks lamenting "the good old days" of the  Ableminds / Peoples Forum / Water Cooler discussion boards. After the Water Cooler shut down in 2002, there weren't a whole lot of Coolerheads who cared for the more "modern" forums that were explictly threaded with boatloads of topics, as opposed to individual posts with up to thousands of comments. Its understandable then that the lamenting is becoming more and more pronounced; the Facebook groups are a lot more like those threaded forums with boatloads of topics.

I've had my eyes on developing some sort of Ableminds-esque forum to incorporate directly into this site (and to incorporate the entire discussion board archive into it). And I still plan to do something along those lines; the general layout has been in my mind for quite some time now. The reason I haven't done anything with the idea is that a couple of years ago the software that runs the web site got a major core upgrade. I've written a lot of code to handle various aspects of the core site. Out of the box, Drupal has no knowledge of Treasure Hunts. Being our bread and butter that's kind of important. Unfortunately, its not a simple drop-in to move the code from the old version to the new, it has to be re-written. As such I've faced a dilemma. Do I write the code for a forum, only to have to rewrite it before I can migrate the site to the new version of the software? Or does it make more sense to migrate the site and write forum code only once? It seems that the latter is the far preferable option, so that's what I plan to do.

So what have I done to customize the site?

• The logo up in the top of the page you may have noticed changes on holidays. Big G created the logo that's there normally, and East Side Digger did the holiday ones. I wrote the code that allows the logo to change. 
• When you go to a treasure hunt page, particularly ones for the Pioneer Press hunts, you may notice that there are links to other pages within the site containing newspaper articles relevant to that hunt. Without going into too many technical details, I wrote a separate module to create that.
• The calendar. While it wasn't really a huge amount of code, this does consist of enough to create a Calendar Event content type, and a view to show the calendar. 
• The code to handle treasure hunt pages. This is where a lot of the meat of the custom code is.
• Finally, the overall look of the site.

In order to make a migration, I'm thinking that the Related Content module, the Calendar Event module, and the Treasure Hunt module (and the associated sub-modules) are absolutely necessary to migrate the site over. If the logo is static for a while, and if we can't necessarily have a calendar on day one, even though the events are there, I can live with that (though I'd prefer to have the calendar very quickly if we don't). Of these, the code for related content is complete. I've made some headway on the Treasure Hunt code, and hope to have it finished up before the Summer of this year. Hope is a big word since I've got a lot of projects on the house to work on between now and then too. But hey, we'll try. And to be perfectly honest, I'd like to be in a position to have the code up to snuff for all of it before Summer. If that ends up being the case, I can work to migrate the site to the new version of the software in the downtime between the end of the Summer hunting season and the 2018 medallion hunt.

Speaking of the summer hunting season, one of the things I decided to do last summer was to restrict access to the clues for active hunts on this site until afte the hunt is completed. If you have an account and are logged in, you get to override this restriction.It may sound like we're being rude, but being a hunter myself, the clues on this site are more for the convenience of this group of hunters than anyone else. With the exception of a very small handful of hunts, the clues can be found on Facebook or some other web page by anyone else. After discussion with several hard core summer hunters, this just seemed like the right thing to do. If you need an account, feel free to hit up the contact link at the bottom of the page. I'll need an email address and a name you wish to be known as (we all have a history here of using pseudonyms, though you're free to use your real name if you so choose). For the moment, we don't allow access to the account creation page in order to avoid spammers on the site. With an account, you can also click on the stars underneath clues and give your opinion on them, and even create blog entries like this one, and comment on posts that allow comments on them.

After I get things ready for migration, I do intend to dive in to creating the Cooler Crew forum. While it would be really nice to have it in place for the 2018 hunt, I don't think that's a realistic possibility. This is one of those things I want to have a good amount of testing on before we go through wiht it. But, for the 2019 hunt it could definitely happen. And that's where you'll need a site account to participate. Because no good web site that requests a password does so without using encryption, at that point I'll consider taking donations to pay for the SSL certificate annually. If there are enough donations, we can contemplate moving the site into the cloud rather than having it hosted in my basement. We have one now and you can use https instead of http if you'd like, but you'll have to accept the security warning to do so, because its a freebie certificate that's not from a mainstream certificate issuer.

Joining the Group and Coming to Events

Many of us have known each other for the better part of the 20 years the Cooler's been around, and as such there are some incredibly tight friendships that have formed. That said, we're open to anyone. If you're on Facebook, join the groups. Join in the fun too. We have plenty of get-togethers throughout the year that anyone can come to. Obviously there's the pre-dig gig and the rehash bash wrapping around the Pioneer Press hunt, and during that, you can be sure you'll meet at least a few of us wherever the Pioneer Press decides to distribute early editions of the newspapers each year. Just show up and ask "you dig?". You'll find us. We also have get-togethers during the year for our Mock Hunts. There's usually 3 or 4 of them each year, and they're posted here along with the kickoff events. They're open to anyone so feel free to show up; no invitation is needed.

I think that about wraps up my immediate thoughts on the past, present, and future of the crew. Until next time, I shall return to obscurity on the site by posting as Joe Medallion.

It isn't often that I break character as the webmaster of this site, and my stolen persona of Joe Medallion and write as myself, but since there's a wide variety of opinions on the subject, and I'm not presuming to speak for the Cooler Crew, for this I am breaking character.

There's no doubt that this year's hunt was a quickie. Not the quickest hunt for sure, but going 5 clues leaves your head scratching as to where you went wrong and how the guy who found it got there so fast. Going five clues with Snail Lake, a park that's never been used before, leaves you scratching your head even more. The irony of the combination of finder and park isn't lost on me. In fact, I gave Steve a hard time about putting all that effort into writing the Treasure Hunter's Guide, covering most of the parks in Saint Paul, only to have all that work be for naught because his find was outside the city.

Now because the find was so fast, there's a lot of conspiracy theorists out there and that's to be expected but people, you don't have to be jerks in order to have theories. But jerks we have. And I've seen an awful lot of comments like "why do the same group of people keep finding the thing" and "I'm tired of seeing these guys' names in the paper about this". I'd like to know where people come up with that. This year was the first time Steve found it. I hope he writes the extended Ramsey County edition of the guide. I really do. I'll buy one. Maybe more. And when I do you can bet money that I'll have him sign them, just like my other copies are. Then there are Jake and Rob. Their names have shown up a time or two over the course of the hunt, and they are the names people have got to be talking about. I have to wonder if people said the same thing about the Longtin family in 1959 and 1961. Maybe Peggy Fritzke and Iola Mossbrugger caught flack in 1972 after finding 1966's medallion. Let's not forget about Kirk Condie's finds in 1984 and 1992. Probably, but we'll never know about it because there was no internet back then.

Let's have a bit of a look at the three names that people are talking about now:

• Steve Worthman: Prior to the 2015 hunt, Steve appears in four stories that we have copies of here on the site. These were in 1998, 1999, 2005, and 2009. Why? Because like I said earlier he wrote the book on the parks in Saint Paul. He's done his homework. If anyone deserves to find this thing, its Steve. Finally, this year, he did.
• Rob Brass: Rob's name appears in a few more stories, and only in regard to his find in 2010, and the tip that led Jake to the medallion in 2007. There's a bit on him right before the 2008 hunt in a story about he and Jake trying to get a back to back in 2008.
• Jake Ingebrigtson: Jake's name appears more than the others here. That's not surprising. He's also one of the most vocal pushers that Ma Press has for the hunt. And he probably has most of this site committed to memory, and then some. Jake's life revolves around this hunt, so much so that he wouldn't accept a job that wouldn't allow him to participate. You'll find that quote somewhere in this here site.

The last time we heard any of these names connected with the hunt was with the non-find in 2012. Since people won't ever be convinced of anything, I'm not going to discuss the matter here. Contrary to popular belief their names aren't always mentioned in connection with the hunt. Believe it or not, the press has actually interviewed other people as well. Jay Kuehn has been searching for the entire time the hunt has been going on; she was interviewed by the PP this year. Jake's and Rob's names haven't even come up in the media since the 2012 hunt.

So where does the hate come from? Beats me, but its totally unnecessary. I imagine a lot of it stems from the pseudo-anonymity of the internet. One can post something and bask in the fact that unless they've made themselves known to the group of people to whom they are speaking, one is anonymous, except for in the server logs of the website in use.

But let me say this to the questioning masses out there. There are very few, if any, people out there that I can say deserve this more than these guys do. Not because of a sense of entitlement, but because they've worked their tails off for it. Jake has pretty much dedicated his whole life to the hunt. Rob almost has. Steve spent years researching the parks in Saint Paul, writing and updating his beloved treasure hunter's guide. To those who say that their presence in the hunt is detracting from the family aspect of the hunt, Jake and Rob are bringing their kids into the hunt as soon as they reasonably can, creating the next generation of treasure hunters, just as those of us with older kids have done before them.

Someone on one of the boards somewhere noted that Steve started looking this year the day before the hunt started, and wondered how you can do that. Its really easy. He got in his car and started driving to parks. Its called scouting. Professional sports teams aren't put on the spot making their picks on draft day; they go scouting. They're evaluating potential players for skills they're looking for and whether the player would be a good fit for a team. In the hunt, scouting involves checking out park conditions; things like snow cover and recent changes are at the top of the list. Apart from the times it was found by a spontaneous hunter, I'd bet a lot of finders in the last couple of decades have spent a lot of time doing just that. And we know Steve's been "scouting" for nearly 20 years.

For a good deal of us, this treasure hunt is a passion. Look at this site. When it started out in 1998, it existed solely because of the Pioneer Press hunt. We've greatly expanded our scope since then. Today, in addition to clues for mock hunts, this site collects clues on at least 45 different local hunts around the Twin Cities and in greater Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. And people in this group have found several of them. Just look at the Hall of Fame: 28 finds. And all the information we can gather is right here. Available for free for anyone who wants to check it out. That information will always be freely available. What's not free is the discussion board site that the Cooler Crew uses. It's at a site called ableminds, a site which hosts many more discussion groups than just the Cooler Crew. They are the ones that charge a fee to post. As a group we have decided to allow access, even read-only access, only to those people who have chosen to support the site we post at, because page views aren't free. At some point in the near future we hope to have our discussion boards integrated into this site. At that point, I may set up a donation portal because I'll have to move the site into the cloud from my basement, but the content here will still be available gratis. How we'll handle the discussion boards is a question that will be answered at that time.

I don't know how many times I've said it in the past, nor do I know how many more times I'll say it in the future, but for a not insignificant number of people in the Cooler Crew, the treasure of friendship outweighs the treasure of the medallion. Maybe its easy for me to say that since I've never found the thing. But I know several people who have said that exact same thing or something similar.

The Pioneer Press this year ran an article on balancing camaraderie and competition during the hunt. Apart from the professor at the U and a former PP staff writer, the only people quoted in the article are Cooler Crew. I can only speculate that the reason for this is that no one else answered the open call for comments. When you read that article, you learn that while the Cooler Crew is all about the hunt, we're about a lot more than just the hunt. It should come as no surprise that if and when one of us finds the treasure, more of us are nearby when it happens. Why? Because coming full-circle, the greatest treasure a lot of us have found has been a good number of friendships that exist far longer than a mere 12 days a year. And because they exist for more than just 12 days a year, we're bound to be even tighter during those 12 days a year.

With that, I'm gonna go put my webmaster hat back on. Joe Medallion has a few features to add to the site before next year's hunt.

Every year, I try to make at least one improvement behind the scenes to the Cooler Crew site. Over this past year, we've added in as many of the small-town treasure hunts as we could get our hands on into the site. This has involved a lot of googling and other tracking down of articles from smaller newspapers, contact with the folks who run the various hunts, etc. As of right now, we have 633 distinct pieces of content on the site, dating back to some of the original writings of Greg Sax back in 1999, and including all of the hunts we know of that took place in 2013. I hope to keep that particular tradition up. I'm also in the process of trying to make the url names of each of the individual pages more consistent, something along the lines of content_type/source/year/name. 

On the back end of things, I'm tweaking the code that powers the treasure hunt section of the site. One of the more prominent things you'll notice is the addition of a Google Map to the hunt information section of the treasure hunt pages where we have GPS coordinates for the location of that particular treasure hunt. On that same note, I'm working to change the way the summary maps work on the site. As of right now, the summary map pages, e.g., the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt map are relatively static. Yes, they update based on hunts being added, but the underlying database structure isn't very conducive to maintenance, and all of the boundary data for cities, and hunt location data are sent to you, regardless of whether they're visible in the map you're looking at or not. I'm working to change that.

Finally, I'm actually working on a replacement for our forum. I think its kind of obvious that with Facebook, there are a lot of people who can't justify the $10 per year to maintain their membership at Able Minds. The last post in the Cooler Crew boards at the time I write this took place on September 25, nearly three months ago. A while ago, I started a conversation with many of you on Facebook just as a brainstorming place. I got a lot of good ideas from that. While I can guarantee that there won't be a forum hosted on coolercrew.com for the 2014 hunt, I'd really like to have something in place for the 2015 hunt. Don't be surprised if you see invites from me to test out a development site sometime over the summer. As for the history at Able Minds, well, you know we've got our boards from 1998-2005 archived here. I'm working to get the Ableminds content archived here too (as well as to keep it updated as people post). 

Oh and don't forget, with an account, you can create content here too. At the moment that's the only reason you need an account. As a result, accounts can now only be administratively created. When the forum comes online, you'll need an account for that as well. Until then, if you don't have an account, and would like one, follow the contact us link below and we'll set you up. We've done a major purge of "inactive" accounts, so if you had one before, or even thought you had one before, you might not now. Once the forum is back online, account creation will be re-enabled.

What a way to close out a milestone year for the Cooler Crew! Coincidence or not, after a slew of red herrings from the clue writer, we ended up digging back in the birthplace of the Crew -- well, the in-person birthplace of the Crew anyway -- Cherokee Heights Park. Of course things have changed since those early days. After two weeks out in the frozen tundra, we've decided to wimp out for the rehash, and nowdays have it indoors, typically in the shelter at Newell Park, and this year was no different.

Just as with the Predig, we met a lot of new friends, and welcomed back some old ones. After a years-long hiatus, KT returned and assumed co-MC responsibilities with Redbear. Those two just make a great comedic team when it comes to justifying which door prizes go to which winner. This year's door prizes were rounded out with plenty of PP swag, rightfully "acquired"  from the press conference and winner's party at Gabe's (and from the Vulcan Victory Dance the night before), along with the requisite clue-related prizes: a copy of Joel Barker's Paradigm book, plenty of Vinyl from the band "Head East" and Bing Crosby, and DVDs of the "movie" Mashed Rice, er, Archimedes, and crazy food items like Yellow Mashed Rice, Morton Salt, and Little Debbie Honey Buns.

Since, of course, this Crew knows how to eat, and no Rehash would be complete without a smorgasbord of yummy food, there was also a healthy dose of clue-related food, all of which was served at the aptly-named "Generally East Buffet". Red herring abounded, from actual picked herrign with red food color added, to Swedish-"herring" infused red Jell-O cups, "bluff"alo wings, Jumble-aya, "Barked Fences", and Me2's, Jake's, and BFG's "I'll eat my right nut" meatballs and "I'll drink my own pee" Lemon bars (you had to be on Facebook to understand where that came from). Let's not forget the absolutely beautiful cake Blackmamba decorated to look like the part of Cherokee Park the medallion was discovered in.

As has been customary, the finders joined us, a really sweet couple those two are, and were presented the annual Golden Pick award, and Cluey handed out the prizes to the winners of the Park Pick Pool, Redbear and the combination of Jake and Leelabell (whose prize was accepted on their behalf by Art Vandelay).

All in all, it was a great close to a decade and a half of the Cooler Crew, and a week and a half of hunting on the tundra. We're looking forward to an even better second fifteen years, and lots more weeks and a half worth of hunts. But if you really haven't got enough of a hunting fix, stay tuned for AW's mock hunt which will be starting just around the corner!

The 2013 Predig Gig was arguably one of the best we've had to date. With over 60 people in the group shot here, we probably had somewhere around 150 people come through the doors over the course of the evening. We had the entire banquet room at Joseph's Grill on Wabasha, plus as the room cleared out, we had a huge portion of the dining room. As always we welcomed back old friends and welcomed in new friends!

Joseph's provided their $15.00 pasta bar: all you can eat pasta, cooked up to order with whatever veggies, meat, pasta, and sauce you wanted. Great food for a great deal! The plate is sure a lot bigger than it looks when you're making your selections for sure. After people ate in the banquet room, the tables were rolled up and the lights dimmed as the room became a dance floor. For people preferring conversation, the dining room was available and coolerheads mingled back and forth between the two.

Mom provided the annual Cooler Crew button, while Lil'man's son provided the DJ services for the evening. Clue Master organized the two park pick pool boards, each worth $125. Thanks go to Allison Wonderland for organizing the whole event! Everyone is looking forward to reprising the location next year!

Follow the hunt on our 2013 treasure hunt page.

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!!!

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.