SPUG: GSLUG - NO DECEMBER NORMAL MONTHLY MEETING

Thu Dec 8 15:48:17 PST 2005

THE NORMAL MONTHLY GSLUG MEETING WILL **NOT** BE HELD THIS MONTH, DECEMBER
2005.

This notice refers to the meeting that would normally occur on this upcoming
Saturday, December 10th, at North Seattle Community College.

Of course, participants are welcome, nay encouraged, to create spontaneous,
informal gatherings occurring at any convenient time and location, as Ian G.
has suggested (Ian organized a pleasant lunchtime get-together that he,
Paul, Rob and I enjoyed at the QFC in U Village last week).

However, the normal room at NSCC will not be reserved "on spec", at least
not by me.  There is currently a $50 rental fee that must be covered, and
someone must sign the contract, taking responsibility for the room and its
contents.

For those who may anticipate Lack-a-LUG, cold-turkey withdrawal DTs as a
result, here are some other possibilities for a Linux Fix this month, which
may broaden your horizons as well:

--------------------------------------------

SeaSLUG -- Seattle Unix User Group
(the UNIX folks who talk mostly Linux or O/S-agnostic subjects these days):

	http://www.seaslug.org/

This month's meeting will be held next Tuesday, December 13th:

Main Topic: Live from CD, it's Unix and Linux!

Main topic speaker: Glenn Stone

Time: December 13th 2005 (second Tuesday) at 7 p.m.

Location: Mercer Island Public Library
               4400 88th Ave. S.E., Mercer Island, WA
               (see directions on the website!)

Cost: Free

	http://www.seaslug.org/Meetings/2005/dec.html

This is a great group of genuine experts, and Glenn is a guru whose
presentation is bound to be interesting and useful.  Leave adequate time to
find the library, which is not so easy, especially in the dark, in the
unlighted boonies of Mercer Island.  Don't neglect to take a copy of the
directions with you!

This group meets on the Second Tuesday, recently at differing rooms within
the library.

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TacLUG -- Tacoma Linux User Group
Our alter egos to the south

The December meeting is a week from Saturday, on the 17th, to be the
Christmas Pot-Luck.

	http://www.taclug.org/wiki/Main_Page

TacLUG meets on the third Saturday.

The new President, Charles Mauch, would like to see more synergy between
TacLUG and GSLUG, an objective I have been also trying to promote for some
time.  A TacLUG/GSLUG joint Christmas (sorry, holiday :-( party that Charles
is suggesting is a great idea, but would require a strenuous effort,
probably including finding a venue on "neutral ground", which I estimate to
be somewhere around SeaTac or Kent/DesMoines (Federal Way is a little far
south, but still within the realm).  Any ideas?

Otherwise, whomp up your favorite casserole and mosey all the way on down to
the TacLUG event, which may be held at PLU (near McChord's latitude), or at
Wheelock Library (near UPS and Reston), or...  Meet some nice folks who
really know Linux, and begin the planning for a regional LinuxFest South.

--------------------------------------------

Seattle SAGE (System Administrators' Guild, with gratuitous "E" since "SAG"
was taken and, in any event, may be considered to have negative
implications)

	http://www.seattle-sage.org/

Their next meeting is next Thursday, December 15th:

Room 403 of the UW EE1 (Electrical Engineering) Building
at 7:00 PM

==>> New Features of Solaris 10 <<==

by Leon Towns-von Stauber
<leonvs at occam.com>

I have heard Leon talk about the innards of O/S 10, and guarantee that he
has his head screwed on right.  With Solaris now open-sourced, this could be
a really pertinent meeting.

Directions: http://www.ee.washington.edu/directions.html

Parking on campus is somewhat of a hassle, and still costs $4 after 6(?) PM,
but school is probably out at the time of this upcoming meeting, so that
will help a lot.

SAGE meets on the second Thursday of the month.  The participants include
many sys admins working at the UW -- "sage" is a good appellation for the
membership.

Again, Linux gets more play that UNIX these days.  See their meeting history
and materials at:

	http://www.seattle-sage.org/meetings.html

--------------------------------------------

SPUG - Seattle Perl User Group

	http://seattleperl.org/

The next regular SPUG meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, 20 December 2005
Time and location TBD. Topic TBD.

Hmmm.  This looks more like us :-(

--------------------------------------------

SeaBUG - Seattle BSD User Group

	http://www.seabug.org/

SeaBUG has been reduced to a "virtual UG" for awhile now, consisting
primarily of a mail list that is reasonably active.

--------------------------------------------

KPLUG - Kitsap Peninsula Linux User Group

The next meeting will be at 6:30pm on Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Special Meeting Place for December 20th at 6:30 PM
Anyone is welcome to attend bring a friend if you can!

The Family Pancake House
4115 Wheaton Way
Bremerton, WA 98310
360-479-0788

Regular meetings are held at 6:30pm on the third Tuesday of the month,
normally at:

North Kitsap High School
Room 105
1782 Hostmark Street
Poulsbo, WA 98370

Room 105 is in the brick 100 building, facing the big
parking lot at the corner of Hostmark and Caldart.

See their website for directions.

KPLUG has been a very consistent, well-organized albeit smallish group,
which has, along with TacLUG, been very active in LinuxFest and has a close
relationship with the High School's computing program.

It is a quite expensive ferry ride to get to their meetings by car, not to
mention the fact that even getting on a boat is a bitch at rush hour --
don't count on getting on the first one of your choice -- and that public
transport to the dock at 9:00 PM is problematic.

If there is interest, we might be able to persuade them to transport some
foot passengers to and from a meeting -- at least from.

--------------------------------------------

FwayLUG -- Federal Way Linux User Group

This is an offshoot of TacLUG and is currently rather small -- but
enthusiastic.

	http://www.fwaylug.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Regular meetings are held on the fourth Thursday of each month.

Of course, the fourth Thursday of this month is the 22nd, and so they are
wisely punting, but may have an informal get-together at a member's house.

Again, getting to Federal Way at rush hour qualifies as cruel and unusual
punishment.

--------------------------------------------

For ongoing information on these cited groups and others, I recommend
looking-up their websites and subscribing to their mail lists, which all of
them have.

-------------------------------------------

I apologize for the tardiness of this notice about the lack of a December
GSLUG meeting.  I have been overcome by events, circumstances, and
obligations, not the least of which has been an ailing, aging cat who, after
significant attention by the vets, now looks to me like a PowerBook laptop
with four paws  ($$$) :-(

In all, the E's, C's and O 's are usurping GSLUG's priority for my attention
as Supreme Organizer By Anarchistic Default (SOBAD) for the foreseeable
future, rather than vice versa, as has typically been the case in the past.

Furthermore, the Webmaster has been completely incommunicado, so this
meeting announcement may not show up on the website, for which I have
created a page, but to which I do not have access :-(

It has been discouraging to me to sense substantial ennui surrounding GSLUG
participation of late.  I have wondered if I am doing something wrong, and
it is personally embarrassing to me that some of the other groups have been
addressing their similar organizational issues more aggressively and
successfully, and are forging ahead with a renewed resolve and dedication
that is substantially greater than ours has been.

I am hoping that GSLUG will have new, augmented management -- particularly
addressing the monthly meetings -- in place for the January edition, and
that substantial attention to our web presence with appear shortly subsequen
t to that.  However, even facilitating such transitions and initiatives
without simply pulling the ripcord requires a substantial commitment of time
and effort.

One idea that came up at the recent TacLUG General Membership Business
Meeting was to have tech sessions at which everyone would work, hands-on, on
his or her machine, performing a single, focused project that would be the
subject of a presentation at that meeting, with individual attention by the
presenter(s).  Any comments or recommendations??

Please stay tuned and do not despair.

Contacting me to offer help would be the best Christmas present I could get
from you.

Ken Meyer
kmeyer at blarg.net