NELEM? New England meet?

[mixedgas]

Planters, I'd love to come, but this requires 1. Successful completion of a major project at work. 2. Getting to a train station in Cleveland at 5 am, an hour from home, and arriving in Boston around Midnight or later.

The reverse train home, also leaves Boston at like 4:40 in the morning.

I need 110 on the train to pull this off, for medical reasons.

Anybody have any localized knowledge of Boston city?
Can I get from the Station to a Hotel to MIT at those hours without spending a fortune on cabs?

Steve

[planters]

I need 110 on the train to pull this off, for medical reasons.

I don't understand what you mean.

If you had a little looser schedule then I'm sure there will be more alternatives for cheap transport.

This could be a little brutal if for all this long traveling you get one day @ MIT which itself will be a long one.
Possible to get the Friday or the Monday off?

We are looking at three possible Hotels; Hampton inn @ 5 min by car and less expensive, the Marriott- right across the street and another... I can't remember the name right now as my wife had researched it for "us boys" and it is elegant, overlooking Beacon hill and supposedly available with a MIT discount. Nonetheless, we will be spending very little time @ the hotel so cost and proximity are the drivers. Better to spend the money on food and frolicking.

[planters]

Krazer,

Can you give some idea of the space availability for projection? For example, 20 'x 20' classroom with 9' ceilings as opposed to a typical 200 seat lecture hall. What do you think will be available to place projectors on and the height of the projectors vs the wall/ screen/stage... whatever.

At SELEM the daylight thru the cafeteria windows posed a bit of a problem and either the windows, if they are present, need to be blacked out or the show stuff should wait until it gets dark.

Will we need a whole audio set up or just some of the components?

[planters]

Krazer,

We could use an up date now that the 26th is 10 days away. How does it look?

[krazer]

Sorry for the delay getting back to you guys, but I am back at MIT now and things are looking good.

As per gear, the classroom won't have anything, so if Fearless can bring a fogger and sound system that would be great, if others want to bring speakers that might be good as well (although we will probably want to avoid blasting too much loud music and going nuts with the fog).

I will work on checking out classrooms tomorrow, keeping an eye out for blackout curtains (I know some rooms have them), free wall space (for projectors) and the outlet situation.

Are there any people still trying to work out transportation? How about you mixedgas? FWIW if you can get a train to boston south station you can take the red line right to MIT (about a 10 minute ride, trains run about every 10 minutes), get off at the kendall station which is adjacent to MIT. Costs $2. Be careful though, it does not run between 12am and 5am, although a taxi from south station to mit should only be about $10.

Updated attendee/gear list:
Projectors-
Fearless - 5w RGB, smoke, sound, screen
planters - his trio of projectors, mystery pangolin demo
Bradfo69 - ???

people
Krazer/miters - ~5 people ish
Fearless - 1
Galvo - 1
Planters - 3..6
gabe - 1?
Bradfo69 - 1?
mixedgas -1?

[Fearless]

I can bring speakers as well. No problem.

[buffo]

Just a thought guys... Be sure the building doesn't have any particulate smoke detectors. Even if they are burried in the ventilation ducts, a fog machine can still set them off. Trust me on this, I've triggered lots of fire alarms at various LEM's over the years.

If they have a fire alarm panel, see if they will allow you to disconnect the phone line from it. That way if you do trip the alarm, at least it will only clear out the building. True, that still sucks, but it's better than having the fire department show up in full bunker gear looking for a fire... (Worst case, if they balk at yanking the phone line, have them call the monitoring company to say that they are "testing" the system, and to disregard all alarms for the next 12 hours, or at least to call the office before sending the fire trucks - that usually works.)

Sure wish I could get the time off to be up there with you all. Hope you have a great time! (Remember to take lots of pictures...)

Adam

[planters]

Amplifiers?
Projection screen.
Fogger? I have one, but unless there is a lot of air turn over, you don't need tons of fog.

I only have a limited number of shows downloaded from Pangolin Show space. Any ideas on content? We need music and shows. I do not have any of the pre-QS software and can not run any of that pre QS content.

The projectors are pretty powerful and even dialed down will swamp a typical class room. A lecture hall if available would be better.

I am working on the video application tonight and we'll see if it works.

Do we want to get into tech discussions/reviews re scanners, projection lasers, lab lasers or physics?

I will need to unload the van on Friday night as I don't want to leave the equipment in the cold hotel parking lot over night. Probably arrive 6-7PM with 5 people.

[Bradfo69]

I'm still not able to say with any certainty this will happen for me. My banquet captain is in Key West that week and doesn't get home until late in the day the
26th. I really need to formulate a step by step plan for my staff, get keys to the building cut, and make sure it can all work. It's rather stupid that I have to worry about covering cleaning up from a 250 person banquet Friday night to get reset for a 25 person baby shower and then a 50 person holiday party. Plus now I have two appointments on Sunday mid day so, I could be looking at a train ride out Saturday night. How the heck did I get lucky enough to do TexLEM, FLEM and SELEM last year???

[Fearless]

I have over an hour of shows and music, all in Quickshow. Nothing for multiple projectors. I can arrive in Boston bright and early Sat morning.