PastSocialMeetings

Tuesday March 17th, 2009: Irish Heritage Day and Rube Goldberg device

Pictures - Social Meetings

Celebrating Irish Heritage through potato guns, plus construction (outside) of a messy Rube Goldberg device.

6:30 pm at Tina's house, directions via email. We need people to bring a potato gun (Dennis?), potatoes, and a target. For the Rube Goldberg device, we need people to bring ideas of what useless/useful thing we want it to accomplish, plus all sorts of interesting things to incorporate into it. Snack food contributions and lanterns would also be good.

Name	# of self/family/friends	Idea for RG	RG supplies	Potato gun supplies	Food/lanterns
Tina Wood	2	Fire the potato gun	??	??	Carrots, pumpernickle bread, spinach dip
Dennis DeLorme	2	x	x	potato gun
Tim M	1	x	Rope, heavy junk, pvc pipe, vice bench, duct tape	potatoes	chips&dip
Your name here	x	x	x	potato target	x
Aaron Albertson	1	I expect inspiration to strike when all materials are assembled	diet Coke and Mentos + nozzle	x	umm... Still thinking...
Will Schmidt	2 (?)	waiting for that inspirational moment before deciding	x	x	lantern/spotlight
Kevin Arhelger	3	hmmm, I'll see what I can find...	x	x	girl scout cookies
Luka B	x	x	x	x	x
Your name here	x	x	x	x	x
Your name here	x	x	x	x	x

August 14th, 2008: Potluck and Games

Thursday August 14th, 6 pm

Park near Steve Fox's house, (Jon calls it Pine Ridge Park) same place as our July social last year

Bring your friends, family, food w/ serving utensil, frisbees, kites, boomerangs, juggling stuff, badminton net, etc, plus your own beverages and place settings. Sign up below. No wiki privileges? Contact Tina or Steve Fox to get privileges or to write in for you.

Name	# of self/family/friends	Food	Games/toys
Aaron Albertson	1	Pizza	Frisbee
Steve Fox	3	Unsure	Ladderball, Volleyball
Tina Wood	1	carrots, pumpernickle bread, spinach dip	boring kite if I can fish it out of the closet
Tim Massaro	1	Veggies	yes
Jon Tollefson	0	na	no
Dennis DeLorme	2	Pizza,brownies,fruit	none
Your name here	x	x	x

July 11, 2008: Star Wars at the Science Museum

Carpools will depart the Walmart North parking lot, on the east end of the Gander Mountain area (just south of Kwik Trip) at 8 am and 1 pm.

Tickets
You are responsible for purchasing your own ticket(s), and the website highly recommends purchasing tickets in advance due to high demand. Tickets should be purchased with the same or similar entry times for the special Star Wars exhibit if we want to enjoy the exhibit as a group. Allowing for assembly/carpooling, parking, entering the museum and getting to the exhibit, I estimate we should not buy exhibit tickets less than 2.75 hours after the carpool departure time. This means:
-8 am carpool should purchase tickets with exhibit times of 10:45 am or later.
-1 pm carpool should purchase tickets with exhibit times of 3:45 pm or later.

The SMMN website recommends allowing at least 4 hours for the whole visit, and states that most visitors spend about an hour and a half in the Star Wars exhibit. They want you to arrive at the museum no less than a half an hour before your first show (Star Wars or omnitheater) time.

Mayo (but not IBM) has Science Museum discounts, however the Mayo discount at least is only possible if you wait and purchase your tickets in person. Not sure about IBM's discount. http://www.smm.org/ , https://www.smm.org/tickets/ Non-members tickets are $24 for adults and $21 for kids/seniors, including the Star Wars exhibit, regular exhibits, and omnitheater showing of "Special Effects". Without the omnitheater showing, price is $19 and $16.50. For purchasing online to meet their suggestion of purchasing in advance, they burn you for an additional $3/ticket. If you purchase online, you will need to print out the tickets and bring them with you. Also, you may want to consider a museum membership https://www.smm.org/account/membershiplevel/

Directions to the Science Museum.

Other activities could easily be selected to make a full day of it, please provide your input. Possibilities include:
-GameWorks (large video game arcade / bowling/ restaurant)
-IMAX at the zoo, now playing Kung Fu Panda and African Adventure 3D
-woods paintball at Pro Paintball

Sign up

Name	# of self/family/friends	Drive a carpool? (# open seats)	Ride in a carpool?	Departure time	Exhibit time	Omnitheater time	Limitations	Other activities interested in
Tina Wood	1	Yes, room for 3 on the way up to relieve congestion, but then not going back to Rochester so must put you in a different vehicle to get you home.	No	8:00 am	10:45 am	2:00 pm	Not going back to Rochester on Friday, planning to leave Cities by ~5 pm	Anything, although paintball sounds the most fun
Tim, Alex Massaro	2	Yes, (2)	Could	8 ?? am	?? am	?? pm	Still Flexible on museum time. Would rather carpool from Zumbrota ideally.	Would like to hit GameWorks probably for late lunch?? Disc golf on the way back, cannon falls?
Steve Fox	2	Will bring Eldon, 1 extra seat available	Could	8:00 am	10:45 am	2:00 pm	Don't get me started	Gameworks sounds fun
Eldon Nelson	1	No	Yes	8:00 am	10:45 am	2:00 pm	Don't get me started	Gameworks sounds fun
Aaron Albertson	1	Will pick up Tim & Alex on the way, room for 1 more	No	8:00 am	10:45 am	2:00 pm	-	Riders in this car should be prepared to do disc golf/GameWorks as Tim suggested
Will Schmidt	2	?	?	@ 8am	10:45 am	2:00 pm	Will probably drive myself, and wander the metro area afterwards.	Gameworks
Your name here

April 18th, 2008: Video Game night

Our April social will be a video game night at Mike Migliacio's and Lisa Walkosz's.
6-10 pm
4640 Banff Lane NW, which is too new for getting directions off Mapquest, Google Maps, etc, so Lisa provided directions:
-From 52 north (i.e. from IBM)
-Take the 19 St Exit and go right (west).
-About 2 miles and right after you pass Cinemagic movie theatre there will be Ashland Drive right after, take a right (north).
-Up the hill on Ashland turn left on Artic Fox Trail (west).
-Not even a block turn right on Heartland, next right turn is Banff Lane.
-They're on the south end of the cul-de-sac. 4640 Banff Lane. You can park on any of those streets.
Map

RSVPs not required; tribute should be paid in the form of life-giving sustenance.

Available systems and games include:
-Mortal Kombat Arcade Cabinet
-Neo Geo MVS 4 Arcade Cabinet (Samurai Shodown II, King of Fighters 2003, SVC Chaos, World Heroes Perfect)
-Dance Dance Revolution (Stepmania) with selection of songs from most domestic and Japanese mixes
-Rock Band / Guitar Hero 2 / Guitar Hero 3
-NES, SNES, N64, PS2, Dreamcast, Gamecube
-Wii (Super Smash Brothers Brawl), Xbox 360, PS3

If you have extra controllers, please bring them (Wii, 360, Gamecube. Not guitars, though, they have enough of those).

People are welcome to bring stuff as well, they have 2 HDTVs and a CRT. If older consoles are desired, they do have a couple of smaller TV monitors to attach to but you will need to bring the consoles themselves.

March 1st, 2008: Winter geocaching in Bear Cave Park, Stewartville

1-4 pm
Cost: gas, food?
A simpler event than what we did in August, in that there won't always be puzzles for you to solve before you get the coordinates, and we'll be using pre-existing geocaches. It will be more complex in that it's winter. We can go out afterwards for warming food/drinks if anyone is interested.

The possible caches, overview map
Specific possible caches (Selected caches that have been found since snow has fallen this winter, so they should be do-able)

    -Vitis Vulpina
    -Bear Bait, someone should solve the puzzle in advance to see if it ends up being in the park or not..., also so we spend less time with cold fingers outside
    -Total Recall, another puzzle cache
    -Rise to the Challenge
    -SYAA
    -How Sharp Are You?, another puzzle cache
    -Scotcharo Bars
    -Dora's Spooky Forest
    -Stewartville Auto Dealer (themed cache, does anyone have a matchbox type car for trade?)
    -Frisbee Golf
    -Hidden Hill Coin Exchange (themed cache, does anyone have any foreign currency for trade?)
    -Over the river and through the woods
    -Don't Disturb the Neighbors
    -Elmer's Cache, another puzzle cache
    -Lake Florence?

Then if anyone is feeling masochistic, there was one cache that hasn't been found since the snow flew... Bear Cave Hideaway

At least one person besides Tina might want to bring printouts of these caches for both the coordinates and the clues, or you might want to program them into your GPS ahead of time if you have one. Don't worry if you're borrowing a GPS, we'll make sure you have the coordinates we're hunting for.

Parking appears to be at:
N 43 51.752 W 092 30.353
Which according to the map is on 10th St NW, just east of 11th Ave NW, on the west side of the park.
Other caches list parking as being available via Florence Park or ball park parking, since the gates to the park will be locked during the winter. If anyone has good parking information for this area, please share.

Trading of small items (take something, leave something) is typically done at a cache, along with signing the log. The trade items should be fairly small. Specific trade items called Travel Bugs are also trackable, and should be moved on to other caches according to their goals. Tina has two travel bugs that need to move along, they are Kwaak and Need For Cold. Kwaak's goal is "To hop around", while Need For Cold's goal is "This Travel Bug likes to stay cold, so its goal is to continue North or to chilly environments", both of which should be easily achievable in any cache large enough for them in Bear Cave Park. We may be able to pick up some travel bugs at the caches we find, but we won't know for sure what's in the caches until much closer to the date.

What to bring

-Warm clothes and boots
-GPS
-2 AAA batteries if you're borrowing a GPS (Garmin Geko 201, manual can be found here if you want to read it in advance)
-Cache coordinates and hints
-Pen/pencil
-Small trade items and/or travel bugs

Sign up

Name	# of self/family/friends	# of GPS units
Tina Wood	3	2-3
Bill Marshall	1	10
Your name here

February 17, 2008: Ice skating at the Rec Center, North rink

6-9 pm
Cost: $4/adult, $3/youth (youth=ages 5-18)
Skate rental available for an extra $2/person

February 2nd, 2008: Intro to curling

1-3 pm
Owatonna
Cost: donation towards ice maintance if you're willing, gas, food?
It's ~1 hour drive each way, we can run past 3 pm if people are interested, and/or we can also go out for food afterwards.
The two hour session will include both classroom and hands-on instruction, hopefully we'll also have time to attempt a game. From feedback last year, we will post most of the background/classroom information here, so we spend less time having to listen to Tina talk and more time on the ice. That does mean you have more homework (reading) to do prior to arrival, however. There need to be at least 3 people besides Tina signed up by Thursday January 31st, otherwise we'll cancel due to lack of interest.

What is curling? Curling is a sport played on ice, involving both physical skill and strategy. The basics can be picked up quickly by anyone, from kids to retirees. For the purposes of this introductory session, please do not bring children who do not have at least a 2 hour attention span. Those weighing <90 pounds may find it frustrating, as you have to shift 42 pound stones.

There is no direct cost for this instruction, although donations towards ice maintenance would be happily accepted. Indirect costs include gas to get to Owatonna, a meal or snack out afterwards if anyone desires, and signing your life away (waiver). You also have to put in the time in advance to clean the bottoms of a pair of tennis shoes that you can *carry* into the curling barn for use on the ice, and read the classroom material. Once there you will use the stones, slider, and broom provided by the curling club.

What to bring:

-Clean tennis shoes to be CARRIED in (you must wear a different pair of shoes/boots to get to the curling barn). Attack the soles of your shoes with a letter opener or other mildly sharp and pointed object, removing every little stone from between the cracks. Then wash the bottom of your shoes using soap and water. Dry thoroughly. This is to remove anything that can scratch or melt the ice surface. I recommend doing this the night before.

-Wear loose, warm, layered clothes. We're going to be on ice, and want to use as much flexibility as our bodies have. Jeans don't work well, sweat pants are a much better choice.

-Family, friends, coworkers (sign them up ahead of time)

-A smile!

Other items to note:

-There is no smoking in the curling barn

-You MUST have clean shoes to be allowed on the ice

-Curling is a gentleman's sport. Good sportsmanship will be practiced at all times, and therefore cursing is not allowed.

-Carpooling is encouraged. A good place to carpool from is the south east corner of the Cinemagic (Stadium 12) theatre, near Westfire.

-Tina's not a certified curling instructor. If you want a certified instructor, there are certified instructors who occasionally teach at Burnsville (http://www.dakotacurlingclub.org/), but these happen rarely. Usually people join the sport by attending semi-organized or impromptu introductory sessions taught by other experienced curlers, such as this one.

Directions: The drive takes about an hour. Do NOT use Mapquest to find the Owatonna Curling Club, you'll end up in a residential district. The curling barn is in the Steele County Fairgrounds, immediately north of the 4 Seasons Ice Rink. To get there:

-Take Hwy 14 West to Owatonna

-Take the County 45 (Cedar Avenue) exit (I believe this is the second of the three Owatonna exits), go north (right)

-Take the second right (east), onto County 39 aka 18th Street SE. This is an intersection with a stoplight.

-Go one short block, turn north (left) onto South Elm Street. You should now be going by the grandstand at the Steele County Fairgrounds (on your right).

-Just after the stop sign, and immediately north of the Four Seasons ice rink, turn left (west) into the parking lot. It's the unassuming building set back from the road with a sign that says "Owatonna Curling Club", and the traditional multicolored concentric circles (called a house).

-Come on in! Please wipe/stomp your feet as much as possible as you enter, keeping debris out of the curling barn is important.

To sign up, please add yourself to the sign up sheet (below). If you need wiki write access, please email the list. Otherwise you can send an email directly to Tina with this information, she can update the wiki for you.

Name	# self/family/friends	Carpooling? Driver/passenger/either
Tina Wood, Dick Redman	2	Yes please, either
Tim, Alex Massaro,	2	Probably not, leaving from Zumbrota
Your name here	x	xx

Prep material
Never seen curling before, and want an idea of what the sport even looks like? Try watching this video, relavent content is from approximately 0:40-2:20.

Please read the following introductory/classroom material prior to arriving at the curling club so we can spend more time on the ice.
Very short overview, please also follow the links to read the PDFs on: all of USA Curling, the first page of Delivery, the first page of Sweeping, the first page of Strategy, and all of Curling Spirit. You're welcome to read them in depth and/or read the other links as well.
Some additional materials may be posted.

November 16th, 2007: Arcade and Games

Video games, MAME, and whatever board/card games you bring to MJ's house. Friday, November 16th, 6:30-11 pm.

MJ currently has:

     - MAME cabinet with light gun and DDR pads

     - Attack From Mars pinball

     - White Water pinball

     - Fish Tales pinball

     - MegaTouch Force 2006

     - Pachislo (Japanese "skill" slot maching)

     - electronic dartboard for a bar

     - Xenon pinball - being fixed/cleaned/restored, may or may not be playable

     - Robotron 2084 video game - needs some work, may or may not be playable

But that could change by the event, because he actively trades. Pictures can be found here. If there's something in particular that you want MJ to make sure he's got up and running, email him using the link from the bottom of his webpage.

There is only room for 10-12 in the arcade room at a time. Please sign up:

Name	# of self/family/friends	hang out in arcade room	hang out with board/card games	board/card games you will bring	food/beverage you will bring
Tim M	x	Y	x	x	Pop
Jon T	x	x	x	x	x
Aaron A	1	x	x	Roborally, Great Space Race	x
Steve Fox	2	x	x	x	Bowl of lard
Mike Nelson	x	x	x	x	x
Your name here	x	x	x	x	x

August 4th, 2007: Geocaching and potluck

Geocaching please email Tina if you can make it, but we have room for last minute geocache crashers

Who: K-LUGgers, family, and those strange enough to be willing to count themselves as friends of K-LUGgers

What: Geocaching and/or potluck social

When: Saturday August 4th. 9:30 or 10 am for geocaching (see below), 1 pm for social

Where: Essex Park, 5455 W River Rd NW, Rochester map

Follow the driveway around to the right, park in the parking lot, and we'll meet in the vicinity of the shelter.

You can participate in either event, or both. Sign up tables below are independent.

Schedule

Geocaching

9:30 am Training in GPS usage. Need all those loaning and borrowing GPSr's to be present for this. If you're loaning out equipment, it would help if you knew how to operate it well enough to teach those who are borrowing. Anyone who wants to refresh their memory on how to use their own equipment is also welcome to attend for a warm-up cache hunt.

10:00 am Instructions, division into teams, distribution of coordinates, start caching!

1:00 pm Geocachers regroup at the shelter area, winners of bragging rights determined

Potluck social

1:00 pm Social begins at the shelter area

Geocaching

Bring your friends, family, GPSr's, something to drink and a rain coat because it'll be either hot or raining while we run around, plastic bag for CITO (cache in, trash out), plastic bag for retreiving your geocaching finds (using temporary caches, so no trade items required), paper, writing utensil, plus your knowledge of computer history and other intellectual trivia.

Please use one row per team if you have lots of people coming who would like to cache together. I'll group people into teams as equipment and time to hide caches permit, unless you leave other instructions.

Name	# of self/family/friends	# of GPS units for s/f/f	# of GPS units to loan out	Geocaching experience level
Tina Wood	1	NA (organizer)	NA	NA
Eldon Nelson	2	0	0	None
Chris Abbey	0, 1, or 2.99... depending on when the baby decides to show up, and how Cory's feeling on the day of	1	0	found ~20, hid 1
Tim Massaro	1-2	1	0	not much
Clayton Arndt	2	1	0	some
Bill Marshall	3 (2 short distance only)	1	3	x
Kevin Arhelger	2	x	x	x
Elzain?	x	x	x	x
Will?	x	1	x	x
Your name here	x	x	x	x

Potluck social

Bring your friends, family, food w/ serving utensil, ladder/monkey golf, frisbees, kites, boomerangs, juggling stuff, badminton net, folding chairs, etc, plus your own beverages and place settings. If it's not already been claimed by a group when we get there, there's a bunch of picnic tables and a shelter, but don’t count on their use.

Name	# of self/family/friends	Food	Games/toys
Tina Wood	1	fruit salad	frisbee, boring kite
Eldon Nelson	1	chips and salsa	-
Chris Abbey	0 or 2.99, as above	not sure, will update later	?
Kevin Arhelger	1-3	No Idea	Soda Bottle Rockets, Juggling Stuff
Tim M	1-2	chicken?	x
Your name here	x	x	x

Questions? Email Tina or Kevin Arhelger. Need help signing up on the wiki? Email Tina or Steve Fox. Hope to see you there!

July 12th, 2007: "technical" meeting

Social/potluck of sorts/outside time

Thursday July 12th

6 pm

Park near Steve Fox's house, same place as our June social last year

Bring your friends, family, food w/ serving utensil, frisbees, kites, boomerangs, juggling stuff, badminton net, etc, plus your own beverages and place settings. Sign up below. No wiki privileges? Contact Tina or Steve Fox to get privileges or to write in for you.

Name	# of self/family/friends	Food	Games/toys
Tina Wood	1	vanilla ice cream	frisbee, boring kite
Steve Fox	3	unsure	ladder golf, frisbee, duct tape
Dennis De Lorme	2	Pizza	chairs
Tim Massaro	1	Diet Coke & Mentos, Cookies	Frisbee Glove
Jon Tollefson	5	?	Kite
Aaron Albertson	1	?	Probably
Your name here	x	x	x

March 24th, 2007: Bowling

The March KLUG social will be bowling at Recreation Lanes (100% smoke free), on Saturday March 24th. Bowling will be noon-2 pm (Thunder Alley style, with loud music, blacklights, strobes/light show), arriving slightly early will allow us to get a lane together, get bowling shoes, pick out balls, etc, and take advantage of the entire 2 hour window for bowling.

January 20th, 2007: Introduction to Curling

The January KLUG social will be an introduction to curling. As the nearest curling barn is in Owatonna, it will require a minimum of a half day commitment. It will be Saturday January 20th from 1-3 pm (plus 1 hour drive each way). This may be extended slightly past 3 pm if there is continuing interest and stamina as well as ice availability, and/or socializing afterwards at an Owatonna restaurant. (IBM Crew suggests hitting Cabellas restaurant for Buffalo Burgers afterwards!)

The event on the 20th was a success, here are some CurlingPics

What is curling? Curling is a sport played on ice, involving both physical skill and strategy. The basics can be picked up quickly by anyone, from kids to retirees. For the purposes of this introductory session, please do not bring children who do not have at least a 2 hour attention span or are under ~90 pounds (you have to shift stones that weigh 42 pounds).

The two hour session will include both classroom and hands-on instruction.

There is no direct cost for this instruction, although donations towards ice maintenance would be happily accepted. Indirect costs include gas to get to Owatonna, a meal or snack out afterwards if anyone desires, and signing your life away (waiver). You also have to put in the time ahead of time to clean the bottoms of a pair of tennis shoes that you can *carry* into the curling barn for use on the ice.

What to bring:

-Clean tennis shoes to be CARRIED in (you must wear a different pair of shoes/boots to get to the curling barn). Attack the soles of your shoes with a letter opener or other mildly sharp and pointed object, removing every little stone from between the cracks. Then wash the bottom of your shoes using soap and water. Dry thoroughly. This is to remove anything that can scratch or melt the ice surface. I recommend doing this the night before.

-Wear loose, warm, layered clothes. We're going to be on ice, and want to use as much flexibility as our bodies have. Jeans don't work well, sweat pants are a much better choice.

-Family, friends, coworkers (sign them up ahead of time)

-A smile!

Other items to note:

-There is no smoking in the curling barn

-You MUST have clean shoes to be allowed on the ice

-Curling is a gentleman's sport. Good sportsmanship will be practiced at all times, and therefore cursing is not allowed.

-Carpooling is encouraged. A good place to carpool from is the south east corner of the Cinemagic (Stadium 12) theatre, near Westfire.

-I'm not a certified curling instructor. If you want a certified instructor, there are certified instructors who occasionally teach at Burnsville (http://www.dakotacurlingclub.org/), but these happen rarely. Usually people join the sport by attending semi-organized or impromptu introductory sessions taught by other curlers, such as this one.

Directions: The drive takes about an hour. Do NOT use Mapquest to find the Owatonna Curling Club, you'll end up in a residential district. The curling barn is in the Steele County Fairgrounds, immediately north of the 4 Seasons Ice Rink. To get there:

-Take Hwy 14 West to Owatonna

-Take the County 45 (Cedar Avenue) exit (I believe this is the second of the three Owatonna exits), go north (right)

-Take the second right (east), onto County 39 aka 18th Street SE. This is an intersection with a stoplight.

-Go one short block, turn north (left) onto South Elm Street. You should now be going by the grandstand at the Steele County Fairgrounds (on your right).

-Just after the stop sight, and immediately north of the Four Seasons ice rink, turn left (west) into the parking lot. It's the unassuming building set back from the road with a sign that says "Owatonna Curling Club", and the traditional multicolored concentric circles (called a house).

-Come on in! Please wipe/stomp your feet as much as possible as you enter, keeping debris out of the curling barn is important.

To sign up, please add yourself to the sign up sheet (below). If you need wiki write access, please email the list. Otherwise you can send an email directly to me with this information, I can update the wiki for you.

Primary date: Saturday January 20th

Name	# including family	# of nonfamily	Carpooling? Driver/passenger/either
Tina Wood	1	0	Not this time
Jim Evans	1	1
Eldon Nelson	1	0	either
Tim Massaro	1	0
Amber