[Gslug-general] new to Linux

[Ken Meyer]

Travis et al --

Meetings of GSLUG have been held on the second Saturday of the month for
many years, with the exception of a total hiatus from late 2005 to late
2006, when no one had stepped up to take over organization of the meetings.
This user group has never had a formal officer contingent with even
formality elections that just bless the incumbents over and over.

GSLUG meetings traditionally began at 10:00 AM, but were changed by the
current group of organizers to begin at !2:00 Noon, with probably a period
at the beginning devoted to munching the pizza when it is provided by
Silicon Mechanics.  The meetings have been held on Saturdays to allow time
for a workshop session, and to make it more likely that the experts who can
provide the help will be on the premises for the formal meeting and will be
willing to stick around.

The meetings have been held at NSCC for more than four years, almost always
in the Instruction building, third floor, west side, in room IB 3319.  When
that room is unavailable, we have so far been able to reserve room IB 3420,
which is directly on the other side of the building from 3319 (shares the
inside wall).

We pay NSCC $50 for the room each meeting, but I personally don't feel that,
in years of keeping my radar on, I have become aware of any facility that
comes close to NSCC's in the total value of its location, accessibility
(parking), room size and capacity, equipment (projector and fast internet
access), facilities for hosting a workshop, and even cost.

The current group of organizers has been conducting regular meetings
according to the schedule above, but they have typically made announcements
to this mail list only a few days before the meeting.  Similarly, the wiki
does not get updated immediately following the preceding meeting, which is
pretty common for user groups.  Since the next meeting is scheduled for
January 12th, this is still two weeks away, which is an eternity for many
volunteer organizers.

For those who know about GSLUG and are counting on the regularity of meeting
occurrences, this is not a big deal, but for browsers such as yourself who
learn of the group by Googling the wiki at random times of the month, it
does not serve your interests well.  Hopefully, if a scheduled meeting will
not be held for any reason, and absent any sudden emergency, notification
will be provided with more lead time to allow one to make alternate plans.

The old website contains detailed directions to the meeting room, parking,
etc. as well as a lot of other useful and historical information.  However,
this information has not been transferred to the wiki, which is favored as
the communications medium by the current group, nor does the old site seem
to be available by link from the wiki.  Hopefully, this situation will be
rectified sooner rather than later.

In any event, here are a couple of links to the NSCC website that will
provide directions:

The main directions page, including info on buses:

	http://www.northseattle.edu/maps/

On the following page, you can see where the meeting room is located.  Per
the above, it is located in the "Instruction building, third floor, west
side, in room IB 3319".  This room is about midway between the IB's two sets
of elevator and machinery towers shown on the diagram:

	http://www.northseattle.edu/maps/locate.htm

According to this following page, parking is free on weekends (another
benefit of Saturday meetings):

	http://www.northseattle.edu/services/transportation/parking.htm

"Parking is free on weekends for students who are attending classes on
Saturday. Outside groups renting facilities at the college on weekends may
also park for free."

For those coming from afar, here is a map of the campus location:

	http://www.northseattle.edu/maps/directions.htm

Note that bus service from Shoreline is available via both Greenwood and
Meridian (and also Aurora, with a walk or bus transfer to go east to the
campus).  For people coming from other arbitrary locations, there appear to
be several bus routes that will allow a transfer from the well-served
Northgate Transit Center to NSCC, which is directly on the other side of the
freeway.  It's not far away "as the crow flies", but if the crow is
grounded, it's a little bit of a hike to get from the NTC to NSCC via 90th
Street, the closest means to cross the freeway.

	http://www.northseattle.edu/services/transportation/bus.htm

Any more questions?

BTW, did you have any interest in any of the Linux classes offered by the
CC's in the area that I identified?

Ken Meyer


-----Original Message-----

From: gslug-general-bounces at gslug.org
[mailto:gslug-general-bounces at gslug.org]
On Behalf Of Travis
Sent: Thursday, December 27, 2007 7:53 AM
To: Seattle Linux Group

Subject: Re: [Gslug-general] new to linux

Ian Gallagher wrote:

> Brian Hatch wrote:

>> At more or less 2007-12-25 00:37 -0800, Aaron Appelbaum uttered
>>
>>> I am new to this LUG as well. I see that the last meeting was on 12/08.
How
>>> often do meeting happen? Is there a new meeting planned?
>>>
>> They're generally the 2nd saturday of every month.
>>
>> I don't know if the Jan meeting has been scheduled with NSCC or not.

> The January (12th) and February (9th) meeting dates are planned and
> set-in-stone with NSCC.

This page (http://planet.gslug.org/) doesn't list meetings.

This page (http://wiki.gslug.org/index.php/Main_Page) says the next
meeting is December 8th.

Where is a good place to check for meeting dates, times and locations?

Thanks

--
Travis in Shoreline