Re: Need Oakland/Berkeley location for June SFPUG

All,

It's about time we visited the East Bay again.

We can always use Casa Donde, but it would be great to find a location a
bit more BARTable, and with a pub nearby.

Could we use UCB in June? If so, what's the parking situation?

Does anyone have a downtown Oakland location capable of holding 30 people?

Thanks!

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com

On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> It's about time we visited the East Bay again.
>
> We can always use Casa Donde, but it would be great to find a
> location a bit more BARTable, and with a pub nearby.
>
> Could we use UCB in June? If so, what's the parking situation?

The parking situation for UCB generalizes to the parking situation
throughout the BART system, given the extreme closeness of the
downtown Berkeley BART stop to UCB :)

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666 Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter XMPP: david(dot)fetter(at)gmail(dot)com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

David Fetter wrote:
> On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> It's about time we visited the East Bay again.
>>
>> We can always use Casa Donde, but it would be great to find a
>> location a bit more BARTable, and with a pub nearby.
>>
>> Could we use UCB in June? If so, what's the parking situation?
>>
>
> The parking situation for UCB generalizes to the parking situation
> throughout the BART system, given the extreme closeness of the
> downtown Berkeley BART stop to UCB :)
>
>
I think the critical reference is here: http://beerbybart.com/

I looked for the Cal Linux Users Group but it seems to be
inactive/defunct and the BSD group that I thought met in Berkeley now
meets in the South Bay. I know that Beckett's
(http://www.beckettsirishpub.com/) has private rooms of appropriate
size. I don't know what they charge or if they would be happy to have
the business (assuming enough participants would be willing to buy food
or drink). At least the meeting would be close to a pub. :) And it is
only a couple blocks from BART.

-Steve

David Fetter wrote:
> On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> It's about time we visited the East Bay again.
>>
>> We can always use Casa Donde, but it would be great to find a
>> location a bit more BARTable, and with a pub nearby.
>>
>> Could we use UCB in June? If so, what's the parking situation?
>>
>
> The parking situation for UCB generalizes to the parking situation
> throughout the BART system, given the extreme closeness of the
> downtown Berkeley BART stop to UCB :)
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>
BTW, since we are looking at a Ruby-oriented meeting, perhaps we could
arrange a combined meeting with the East Bay Ruby Meetup (and perhaps
both groups will gain members): http://ruby.meetup.com/81/

Cheers,
Steve

Steve Crawford wrote:
> David Fetter wrote:
>> On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 06:36:18PM -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
>>
>>> All,
>>>
>>> It's about time we visited the East Bay again.
>>>
>>> We can always use Casa Donde, but it would be great to find a
>>> location a bit more BARTable, and with a pub nearby.
>>>
>>> Could we use UCB in June? If so, what's the parking situation?
>>>
>>
>> The parking situation for UCB generalizes to the parking situation
>> throughout the BART system, given the extreme closeness of the
>> downtown Berkeley BART stop to UCB :)
>>
>>
> I think the critical reference is here: http://beerbybart.com/
>
> I looked for the Cal Linux Users Group but it seems to be
> inactive/defunct and the BSD group that I thought met in Berkeley now
> meets in the South Bay. I know that Beckett's
> (http://www.beckettsirishpub.com/) has private rooms of appropriate
> size. I don't know what they charge or if they would be happy to have
> the business (assuming enough participants would be willing to buy food
> or drink). At least the meeting would be close to a pub. :) And it is
> only a couple blocks from BART.
>
> -Steve
>

I can look into getting a room in a UCB building. I don't know if I'll
get permission or not. However, if parking around the NW part of campus
seems workable to people, I will ask.

Paul

Paul,

> I can look into getting a room in a UCB building. I don't know if I'll
> get permission or not. However, if parking around the NW part of campus
> seems workable to people, I will ask.

Please do. I've been told that the EB Rails group meets in Soda Hall.
We could meet there and try to enlist them.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:48 PM, Josh Berkus <josh(at)agliodbs(dot)com> wrote:
> Paul,
>
>> I can look into getting a room in a UCB building. I don't know if I'll
>> get permission or not. However, if parking around the NW part of campus
>> seems workable to people, I will ask.
>
> Please do. I've been told that the EB Rails group meets in Soda Hall. We
> could meet there and try to enlist them.

Yes, the RoR group meets in Soda Hall. It's pretty nice. However...
try to get the downstairs auditorium. The building has per-floor
security, which means if you get the Woz Lounge or another room not on
the main entry floor, then stragglers will be locked out. You can't
rely on cell phones to let people in, either, because the building's a
bit of a Faraday cage.

--
Quinn Weaver Consulting, LLC
Full-stack web development
http://fairpath.com/
510-520-5217

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:49 PM, Quinn Weaver <quinn(at)fairpath(dot)com> wrote:
> Yes, the RoR group meets in Soda Hall.  It's pretty nice.  However...
> try to get the downstairs auditorium.  The building has per-floor
> security, which means if you get the Woz Lounge or another room not on
> the main entry floor, then stragglers will be locked out.  You can't
> rely on cell phones to let people in, either, because the building's a
> bit of a Faraday cage.

There's a back entrance to the 4th floor of Soda that goes right by
the Woz Lounge, so if late-comers use that entrance we should be able
to see them. My cell phone pretty much always works at Soda, although
YMMV...

Neil

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Neil Conway <neil(dot)conway(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 8:49 PM, Quinn Weaver <quinn(at)fairpath(dot)com> wrote:
>> Yes, the RoR group meets in Soda Hall. It's pretty nice. However...
>> try to get the downstairs auditorium. The building has per-floor
>> security, which means if you get the Woz Lounge or another room not on
>> the main entry floor, then stragglers will be locked out. You can't
>> rely on cell phones to let people in, either, because the building's a
>> bit of a Faraday cage.
>
> There's a back entrance to the 4th floor of Soda that goes right by
> the Woz Lounge, so if late-comers use that entrance we should be able
> to see them. My cell phone pretty much always works at Soda, although
> YMMV...

OK, that's odd. On at least one occasion, I've come late to the RoR
meetup (skipping the open-forum and arriving for the talk), and I've
tried the back entrance to find it locked. Maybe it's locked some of
the time, but not always?

Anyway, if your cell phone works and you're willing to relay calls, I
guess that obviates the issue.

--
Quinn Weaver Consulting, LLC
Full-stack web development
http://fairpath.com/
510-520-5217

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Paul,
>
>> I can look into getting a room in a UCB building. I don't know if I'll
>> get permission or not. However, if parking around the NW part of campus
>> seems workable to people, I will ask.
>
> Please do. I've been told that the EB Rails group meets in Soda Hall.
> We could meet there and try to enlist them.

We have the OK to use a conference room in the data center building at
2195 Hearst ("Earl Warren Hall"). I will find out the capacity of the
room, but I would guess it is 2x larger than the room we used for the Pg
in the cloud meetup.

Pretty much every UCB building is going to have per-floor security. In
this case, the conference room is on the ground floor with ample windows
facing the front of the building right next to the main entrance, so we
should be able to see anyone. Phones work, and the conference room
entrance is literally next to the front door. The logistics of making
sure people get in should be relatively easy.

There is a parking lot nearby at Hearst and Shattuck, which I believe
charges a nominal rate of $.50/hr for parking. I can try and remember
to double-check that. There is also free parking to be found on Oxford
between Hearst and Virginia, among other places.

It's a very easy walk ~6-7 minute walk to/from downtown Berkeley BART.

I haven't checked on Soda Hall, but I can if that is strongly preferred.
If Hearst sounds OK, we can book it now. Let me know what the
preferred date/time would be. We may want to propose a secondary date,
just in the off chance the Hearst conf room is booked. My impression is
it is generally not booked after hours.

So - Hearst is ok? And if so, date(s) and time(s)?

Paul

Paul,

> I haven't checked on Soda Hall, but I can if that is strongly preferred.
> If Hearst sounds OK, we can book it now. Let me know what the
> preferred date/time would be. We may want to propose a secondary date,
> just in the off chance the Hearst conf room is booked. My impression is
> it is generally not booked after hours.
>
> So - Hearst is ok? And if so, date(s) and time(s)?

Hearst sounds fine. June 9, 7:30pm to 10pm.
If June 9 is impossible, we might do June 10 but we'd have to check that
with the speaker.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Paul,
>
>> I haven't checked on Soda Hall, but I can if that is strongly preferred.
>> If Hearst sounds OK, we can book it now. Let me know what the
>> preferred date/time would be. We may want to propose a secondary date,
>> just in the off chance the Hearst conf room is booked. My impression is
>> it is generally not booked after hours.
>>
>> So - Hearst is ok? And if so, date(s) and time(s)?
>
> Hearst sounds fine. June 9, 7:30pm to 10pm.
> If June 9 is impossible, we might do June 10 but we'd have to check that
> with the speaker.
>
>

Ok, we have the room for June 9, 7:30pm at 2195 Hearst #101A.

Paul