Pre-Dig Gig

Joseph's Grill (in the banquet room)
140 South Wabasha Street
Saint Paul, MN 55107
6pm-close

They'll have their pasta bar available, or you can order from the main menu as well.

20th Annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig
Joseph's Grill (in the banquet room)
140 South Wabasha Street
Saint Paul, MN 55107
6pm-close

Once again the annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig will be held at Joseph's Grill, in the banquet room, on Wabasha. 

The festivities begin at 6pm. As usual, we do have to spend $500 in food and drink at Joseph's for the room; with this group that won't be a problem though. The pasta bar will be available for us, for $17 tax and tip included, but it won't include salad.

We'll be taking a group picture at 9:00pm, with an additional picture taken at closing time. Tables will need to be moved for the group shot. Any help moving them back and forth is greatly appreciated. We will not be chasing people down to notify about the picture. However I may ask to use Joseph's intercom if possible. Don't forget to wear your best smiles (and Vikings gear) if you want. Let's warm up the winter with our Cooler Crew family photo.

As for the Park Pick Pool, we've changed it up a bit this year. Look for Allison Wonderland and the cash box at the Pre Dig. He'll be collecting money for the pool as well as money for the pasta bar. If you want to participate in the pool, he'll have pick slips with him. Take however many you think you might want. Each one allows you to pick a park and will cost you $5 when you turn it back into him. There are no restrictions on what park you can pick. You can even pick the same park multiple times or you can choose "Field" to cover all the parks no one else picked. Then make sure you put your name and some sort of contact info on it and give it (them) back to me with $5 (each).

You can make a pick at any time. There won't be any order to worry about. But once you have turned in a pick and paid your money, you can't change it (though you could make more picks). Also, you may not pick a regional park with the intention of covering multiple parks.

The way the prizes work is once the medallion is found, we will make a determination of what the winning park was. Then, depending on how many picks were made for that park, we will divide the pot that many ways. Consequently a favorite park like Como could have 10 picks for example and be divided 10 ways. A park like Newell might have 3 picks, in which case each pick gets a third of the pot. A dark horse park like North Dale might have only one pick and would win the entire pot if it was the right park. If you picked a park multiple times, you would get multiple shares of it (so if you had 3 of the 10 Como picks, you would get 30% of the pot).

We won't be posting how people have picked until after the sales have closed. So in addition to picking the park you think it will be at, you may also want to decide if you want to settle for a smaller share of a big park, or go for the long shot and win it all. Or maybe everyone will shy away from the big parks and you can be the only one to pick Como. That is the game we will be playing Saturday night.

19th Annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig
Saturday January 21, 2017
Joseph's Grill (in the banquet room)
140 South Wabasha Street
Saint Paul, MN 55107
6pm-close

Once again the annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig will be held at Joseph's Grill, in the banquet room, on Wabasha. 

The festivities begin at 6pm. As usual, we do have to spend $500 in food and drink at Joseph's for the room; with this group that won't be a problem though. We're working out a schedule of when we expect to take group pictures, and have the park pick pool and all the other events you've come to expect from the Pre-Dig Gig. We're certain though that noodling the first clue will be going on all night, with more wild ideas coming as the evening progresses.

The Annual D-Rex & D-Ng Medallion Hunt:
A Ten Clue Hunt, officially starting October 22nd
Kickoff @ Sweet Pea's 4pm - Free Snacks + Happy Hour = WIN
472 South Snelling Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105
Bonus: Finder keeps the 2016 Medallion!

Shamrocks Irish Nook
995 7th St W
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102

Come hang out and grab a late lunch with the crew! You can pay me in person here at the event if you want to register for the hunt. Clue release will be at 3pm, then 6pm daily after that.

18th Annual Cooler Crew Pre-Dig Gig
Saturday January 23, 2016
Joseph's Grill (in the banquet room)
140 South Wabasha Street
Saint Paul, MN 55107
 

I had originally planned to start my Mock Hunt in March, but then the Wild Announced there Gold Puck hunt that would be going on all month (worth a little over $5,000). So instead I bumped it back to April and it will now begin on Friday, April 8th. Clues will come out at 6pm daily (12 clues altogether) and Clue 1 will be released at Joseph's Grill in St. Paul (on Wabasha and Plato). Consequently we'll plan to meet there around 5:30pm.

Clues will be posted daily to this site and the Cooler Crew Facebook page. I may post it to the PP site if it seems anyone is on there. There will be a $10 registration fee which entitles the finder to win the entire prize (usually somewhere between $200 and $500). Otherwise an unregistered hunter can still find it and win $100. The medallion will be hidden in a Saint Paul park. It will not be hidden in water, up a tree, under ground, on a steep slope, in anything electrical, indoors, or anywhere else that might cause you to ask "Is looking here really a good idea?) We'll also exclude the locations excluded by the PP hunt such as Golf Courses and the Como Zoo and Conservatory.

Hunters can pay their $10 at the kickoff event or they can pay the money via Paypal to allisonwondrland@yahoo.com If neither of those options work for you, let me know and we can make other arrangements. The winner must turn in the medallion to collect their prize. The hunt will continue until the medallion is found, though I reserve the right to suspend the hunt in the case of extraordinary circumstances.