Five Nights at Fluffy's (July 14-19, 2017)

[zoraster]

Assuming I'm in town whenever it is, I'll be there.

[zoraster]

So how'd you land on Santa Cruz? Don't get me wrong, it's a great choice for me as it's a 45 minute drive and Santa Cruz is pretty nice, but just curious!

[zoraster]

well. it's 2.5 hours from Sacramento and 5 from LA.

Beautiful Fresno is probably closer to halfway!

[zoraster]

where? San Luis Obispo?

Santa Cruz is actually terrific for wine tasting too. Just saying.

[zoraster]

I guess in the beverage world that makes me an ass-man.

[zoraster]

those two choices are great. i just didn't want our LA friends to think it was equidistant

[zoraster]

equinox, you might PM the people who indicated interest so that they fill out the form.

[zoraster]

ooop.

[zoraster]

speaking of which, it's worth pointing out that for Santa Cruz, the closest airport is San Jose (SJC), but both SFO and Oakland (OAK) work. If you use something like hipmunk it should give you those options if they're cheaper, but if you're flying southwest, you'll want to check each of those airports individually.

[zoraster]

Is that likely?

[zoraster]

I'll try and remember to actually do the survey tomorrow

[zoraster]

I did do it

[zoraster]

Yeah it's tough, but it's also tough for the organizers to organize without having any idea of what you're thinking.

[zoraster]

Is it worth doing the survey if you have absolutely no idea whatsoever what days you can come and aren't reliable to attend? My answers might just be white noise.

Yes, please. In hindsight, I should have asked for people's likeliness to attend again in the second survey. Anyway, I'm linking the data from the previous interest survey and this Airbnb one, so please fill that first one out here if you haven't done so yet. If there's something that we can do that would make you more likely to come, then please mention it.

Otherwise, zoraster is correct that we need to know what people are thinking, even if they don't know yet if they can come. If people cannot make the entire week, then that's crucial information because we then look at holding a shorter meet, which significantly lowers costs across the board. If the location is bad for a lot of people, then we can consider moving it. We'll ask again to refine details as time gets closer to the actual meet. This is so we can confirm dates and location for people to make travel plans.

Yeah it kind of depends on how people from out of town are feeling. I'm most likely to show up for a long weekend or something rather than a week long thing, but I understand if people flying in want to spend longer.

[zoraster]

You could always ask for a certain amount of money up front and either refund or charge extra depending on how much the housing actually costs. I find that having to pay some money -- even $20 or something -- tends to be clarifying as to people's intentions.

[zoraster]

The chance of my being in SF for residency is now fairly high. It's not locked in for a few more months, though.

Whether I have days off in that time-window is a separate question, but.

Nice!!!!! how do you know? I know the match list deadline was wednesday, but isn't match day march 17th? or is it different because of your joint program?

[zoraster]

awesome. where in SF? Psychiatry program of some sort?

[zoraster]

It's the same, but the program reached out and told me that I was in their top X students, where X is the number of slots available, so I could only end up elsewhere if they change their mind or they misrepresented my ranking in the previous interaction.

Cool. Come join us in the land of very reasonably priced real estate.

[zoraster]

No, it's generally the part of the coast that runs from Santa Cruzish to Ventura (so basically south of the bay area, north of LA). Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara are the big ones.

[zoraster]

It's a bit hard because it's not like it's obvious who's really hiring J1s to us.

But if you like skiing, I know what seems like more than half of the lift workers are on J1s. I was in Vail for Australia day and the chants of Aussie Aussie Aussie rang out from flag draped workers all day. That said, that's obviously winter time.

Anyway, California specific: you probably want to do your stay, from south to north, in San Diego, Los Angeles or the Bay Area. San Diego you probably want San Diego itself, but Los Angeles and San Francisco include other areas that would be fine if you're carless:

Los Angeles you might find places saying they're hiring in these places that would be good: Santa Monica, Venice, West LA, Westwood, Playa Del Rey, Brentwood, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Hollywood, Silver Lake, Los Feliz, Century City. Malibu is an option and likely offers seasonal employment, but know you'll pretty much have to have a car. Keep in mind that some of those areas it's easier not to have a car than others.

San Fransisco Bay Area: The Bay has way too many small towns to really be able to go into. San Fransisco is probably going to be the most ideal spot to spend a season, but you may consider East Bay (Oakland, maybe Berkely) too. The South Bay area (where I live and the location of Silicon Valley) is great, and there is access by train into the city, but my guess is that it's probably not where you want to be. Plus, there's not a lot of seasonal activity other than big tech firms internships.

Cities are pretty big and vary a lot within themselves. You can use a tool like Walkscore to be able to tell whether an area is developed, walkable, etc. or whether it's a more suburban, quiet location.

---

One thing I'd say is worth thinking about: if you're hoping to keep in touch with your folks or other friends, consider that the West Coast is usually 8 hours behind (it's 7 right now only because we just had our summer time switch and you haven't). That's actually a pretty huge difference vs. the 5 of the east coast and the 6 of Chicago. If you're working a full schedule and trying to do things at night, that makes it tricky to find time to talk to people back home.

Scale-wise, consider a bus or car trip from SF to LA is about 6 hours.

[zoraster]

If you can get a job at a big tech company, by all means go for it. Depending on the one, working for one -- particularly for a short time before you realize that they're still at their hearts just big companies -- can be kind of utopic (my wife works for Google and gets to do cool stuff all the time). But if you end up doing a J1 to work at a hotel or something, consider that the tech companies campuses are pretty startlingly boring for an outsider even during work hours much less in the evenings when everyone is gone.

[zoraster]

yeah, that's nonsense. Except you probably will get confused with one for whatever reason. Even though Irish and Australian are basically nothing alike.

[zoraster]

Eh. I don't think that's it.

I think it's about english, irish, australians, scots and new zealanders all getting rolled up into "those other guys who speak english as a first language"

We shall leave the Welsh out of this. As well as whatever it is they speak in Liverpool.

[zoraster]

don't residencies start in july? Not that I wouldn't be very happy to meet you, of course!

[zoraster]

I vote shorten it fwiw but that may be less appealing for those traveling far distances.

[zoraster]

that puts us in a very different area than Santa Cruz/Monterrey.

I do worry that we've kind of waited too long for Santa Cruz stuff as it's pretty heavily booked for summer now.

Equinox: if it makes it easier, you can remove me from the guest list (lower numbers are easier to find) and I can just make the 50 minute drive over to Santa Cruz.

[zoraster]

The train is like 10-11 hours from LA to SF and is more expensive than a flight right now.

Where are you thinking for a Bart friendly location? The Bart only goes to Millbrae down south. You can take the Caltrain all the way to San Jose though. And I'm not sure how excited people would be to come all the way to hang out in Pleasanton... kind of might as well pick a place in the desert to hang out in that case.

Don't get me wrong, a Bart location would be fine with me as I could stay at my own place. Just wondering at where you're coming from.

[zoraster]

[zoraster]

I mean... LA and SF aren't as close as people think. It's 382 miles that passes some mountains.

[zoraster]

BREAKING NEWS: CALIFORNIA IS A BIG FUCKING STATE

I thought Hawaii was bigger then Cali. My bad.

Well, it'll certainly take you longer to drive from one end of the state to the other.

[zoraster]

Said no one ever.

[zoraster]

California is the easiest place to drive in the country

Tell that to someone driving on I-10 near the downtown Los Angeles area for the first time.

It's just traffic. But it's like 8 lanes of, which is shitty, but not complex. Steps to drive in traffic: 1)do you have a neck? 2)do your blinkers work? 3) turn your neck, flip your blinker 4) let it open up, use your neck again to make sure you are not blocking traffic by being stopped when you should be 5)merge eventually.

Like y'all act like there is traffic in south carolina.

Most dangerous highway in CA is the i-15 from LA to Vegas due to drunk and distracted driving, and that's not even a highway problem!

dangerous and difficult are different things. LA traffic isn't dangerous because it's so effing slow.

[zoraster]

I took plan my day around driving at 2am.

Truth be told, when I lived there I didn't think that much of it either. Like... I just accepted that it took me an hour to get to my friends who lived elsewhere because that's just how it is during a large number of days. It wasn't until I returned to living elsewhere that I realized that no, life really is better when just avoiding rush hour means that you can get almost everywhere you want in short time.

Even here in NorCal, if I avoid rush hour I can get tons of places. I can get to Santa Cruz from my house here faster than I could get from my place in Burbank to my friends in Westwood.

[zoraster]

I mean, I've lived at USC, Downtown and the Westside too. My wife used to live in Hollywood and North Hollywood. My point stands no matter where you live because inevitably everyone lives everywhere and you're going to have to make those drives a lot.

Like... you have to have the most absurdly blinkered vision to think that driving in LA isn't a major downside to living there.

[zoraster]

I haven't found Norcal all that bad, honestly. Sure, there's rush hour traffic, but other than not having a north-south highway connecting the 101 up through SF to the golden gate bridge, it's fine (and not having that comes with benefits). Like... it's obviously not as nice as Dallas was, but it doesn't feel much worse than Austin, honestly.

[zoraster]

If you're renting a car or something, SJC is roughly as close as OAK, but will be significantly harder to use public transportation to get to Pleasanton.

[zoraster]

I'll be commuting in, for what that's worth. You might charge us commuters a small fee as we'll be using some of your communal space and what not.

[zoraster]

why wouldn't you just take megabus both ways? And it's not 15 hours for that. it's about 6-8 hours.

[zoraster]

7 wonders duel is great but as a two player game perhaps not ideal.

Anyone played Shadowhunters before? A pretty good large game with a semi-traitor element.

[zoraster]

Vi, I have Carcasonne I can bring so you don't have to, but it's only the base version. Most of my games are at my parent's place.

[zoraster]

what day are you planning on going out there, implosion? I'm not sure which days I'm going to go, but I'm happy to give you a ride if our times coincide.

[zoraster]

As I said most of my games (including my favorite games) are with my parents, but if anyone has interest in me bringing:

Ticket To Ride
Munchkin
Carcassone (will bring this so Vi doesn't have to)
Dominion (plus a number of expansions)
Pandemic: Rise of Cthulu
Snake Oil (never played this)

I have them.

[zoraster]

I've lived here for a year and never heard trivalley. Is that a thing?

[zoraster]

I readily admit to being ignorant of Pleasanton, Dublin and San Ramon. I've driven through them! And I think once I parked my car in San Ramon so I could board a bus to Tahoe, but... that's the extent of it.

[zoraster]

Peasantsmeet?

[zoraster]

I want you to understand how poorly suited that title is for a meet in Pleasanton.

[zoraster]

Anyway, Serfsmeet is better.

[zoraster]

I want you to understand how poorly suited that title is for a meet in Pleasanton.

You mean all of California isn't one long coastline full of beach bums and valley girls?

No but my bedroom is.

[zoraster]

I would like to if possible be picked up at basically any time on Friday (I'm happy to leave work early or not). I'm about 35 minutes away and am not sure when zoraster who lives right near me is planning to leave but if he's going at all on Friday then I'd like to hitch a ride with him? If not then if anyone else who is able would be nice, and barring that, I'll just take a lyft. I'd prefer getting a ride mostly just because it means i can stuff arbitrarily many board games into someone's car without feeling like i'm making a mockery of myself to society at large.

I still need to figure out

exactly

what set of games I'm bringing but it's probably going to amount to everything that I can fit in a suitcase + a couple more that i'll stuff in a duffel bag w/ clothes or carry by hand.

Trying to pin down my availability.

What time were you hoping to head out? Did you want to go from work or your house?

[zoraster]

Okay great. I'll let you know by tomorrow. I want to check to see if my wife is coming. If she is it might be easier to swing by your work (you're MTV and not sunnyvale, right?) late afternoon. If she's not, then early afternoon might help us beat the traffic and your house is fine.

[zoraster]

PS. You're welcome to cram as many games into my little Honda Civic as you want, but keep in mind I probably won't be around to take you back.

[zoraster]

I'm not sure I'd put it Vi's way, and I have nothing against meeting people's SOs at these types of things, but it sounds like you just met this guy? We're not like... a meetup.com group. It's not very considerate.

[zoraster]

Just updating that I should be good to go on Friday, and I'll bring implosion. I'll hang out until 10 or so.

Do we have a spreadsheet that has a list of when all the people who are staying are in? I think I'll probably come back up another day as well, and I want to make sure I don't miss anyone if possible.

[zoraster]

Okay. Assuming Equinox's bus gets in on time (around 5pm), she, implosion and I will probably get to the house between 6:30-7:30 unless we have space to get groceries on our way, in which case we might be a tad later than that. Make sure you send any grocery requests to Equinox.

Speaking of which, are people more beer or wine drinkers? Does anyone have any dietary restrictions (vegetarian, doesn't eat beef, allergic to pine nuts, etc.)?

[zoraster]

Seems like an especially bad idea, as cost effective as that might be.

[zoraster]

[zoraster]

knowing buses, my surprise level is low. I'm concerned that if i don't take you that the last ACE train is at 6:40pm.

[zoraster]

Our time table has changed. Assuming no more delays of Equinox's bus we'll leave the greyhound station around 6:15-6:30 which should get us in around 8. That's implosion, Equinox and me.

[zoraster]

When I get on, do I get off at West Dublin/Pleasanton, or Dublin/Pleasanton (last stop)?

Both are about the same distance but Dublin/Pleasanton doesn't require freeway travel so go with that one.

I dropped off Alisae at the west dublin one and wouldn't recommend it as it requires a bunch of turns and what not that make it deceptively long.

Glad to meet everyone last night. I think I'll be back out on Monday if people are around

[zoraster]

you wanted horchata. iec wanted brazilian sugar liquor. who else has a weird drink to procure?

[zoraster]

What time would be good to come over tomorrow?

[zoraster]

What time would be good to come over tomorrow?

Would it be possible to coordinate this (aka i go to the DP bart station at a convenient time for me to mooch a ride off of you)

Sure. Worst case I can run and get you, it's not like it's

that

far. How about shoot for the train arriving at 2:38? That leaves Coliseum at 2:13. If you're leaving from Downtown Berkeley the 1:48 train gets you to Coliseum at 2:10, so if you hustle you could make it or you could take the 1:33pm train and not leave it to chance (arriving Coliseum at 1:55)

[zoraster]

K. EP and I should be there around 2:50-3:00. You'll probably be in your 4th hour of the same game by then.

Btw I'm assuming the house will be fairly warm around 3pm?

[zoraster]

Btw I'm assuming the house will be fairly warm around 3pm?

Yes. We have a fan in the sitting room, but otherwise it is going to be quite warm.

Around what time will you be leaving? If you're leaving fairly late and going to be passing through San Jose, would it be possible to ask you for a ride back to the transit center?

I was planning on leaving around 9 but could be flexible. What time is your bus?

[zoraster]

Sure, then I'm more than happy to give a lift.

[zoraster]

Great to meet everyone. It had been a while since I've met anyone from the site, and you all were fun.

Thank you to llama and equinox!

[zoraster]

My biggest objection is that Five Tribes should really be a freaking five player game.