Wikipedia talk:Meetup/DC 1

= Original meetup discussion page =

Hey all!

Tentative Itinerary
Saturday: May 7
 * Noon–12:30p.m.: Meet at the Archives-Navy Mem'l-Penn Quarter stop on the Washington Metro
 * Find me at the Starbucks, right across 7th street. I've got coffee and poundcake : ) TTLightningRod 15:17, 7 May 2005 (UTC)

Sunday, May 8, 2005
 * 12:30 p.m.–6:00 p.m.: Museum treasure hunt; we split up and people make their own way.
 * 6:30 p.m.–Late: Dinner and discussion at Brickskeller (1523 22nd Street NW, off the Red Line near the Dupont Circle stop) (Note: Everyone must be 21 to get in.)
 * Whoa now! Not everyone here is 21 or over! Maybe a different venue, or is this the kind of place where 20 can pass for 21? -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 03:51, 2005 May 7 (UTC)
 * They may not card you. I'm pretty sure the crowd I went with last time I was there weren't all 21 (although some may have had fakes.) Sticking with some of the older-looking Wikipedians might also help. We'll work it out somehow. Isomorphic 04:04, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm just saying, they require 21+ after a certain time of day. I can't remember the last time I was there when they didn't card me in the evening. In fact I was there tonight and got carded.  &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 06:44, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * 9:00 a.m.–Noon: Trip to the National Zoo

Transportation & logistics
Recognizing each other: I plan to have a sign ("Wikipedians"), airport-style. Upstairs, downstairs, information booth, etc? -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 03:04, 2005 May 4 (UTC)
 * My suggestion &mdash; The Archives-Navy Memorial Metro stop, where everyone is meeting tomorrow afternoon, has escalators that lead to ground level. Take the escalators up and when you emerge at the top, you'll be at a large bricked plaza (the Navy Memorial).  You should see a tall mast/yardarm with flags flying from it (See first photo on the left on this page).  Meet here.  Tim has said he will have a large sign just in case.  Note that I probably can't make this portion, but will meet up later at Brickskeller. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 19:08, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions:
 * Take I-95 to get to DC
 * Park in Greenbelt Station (plenty of parking, free on weekends)
 * For those who are going to park at Greenbelt and ride the Metro in, some folks are aiming to be there at about 11:20 and ride in together. I'll be wearing a blue shirt. Since my cell phone number is already on the web, I don't mind giving it out here in case it comes in handy: 919-619-3584. -- Seth Ilys 18:05, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Buy a day pass for the Metro ($6, unlimited use for the day) and take the Green line in

National Mall and surrounding areas

 * The National Mall/West Potomac Park/Constitution Gardens
 * Lincoln Memorial
 * Vietnam Veterans Memorial
 * The Three Soldiers
 * The Wall
 * Vietnam Women's Memorial
 * Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
 * Jefferson Memorial
 * Korean War Veterans Memorial
 * National World War II Memorial
 * Washington Monument
 * Reflecting Pool
 * George Mason National Memorial
 * Smithsonian Institution buildings on the Mall
 * National Museum of American History
 * National Museum of Natural History
 * National Gallery of Art
 * National Museum of the American Indian
 * National Air and Space Museum
 * Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
 * Museum of African Art
 * United States Botanical Gardens
 * United States Capitol
 * Grant's Tomb (bonus points for finding out who's buried there)
 * United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Outside the Mall

 * Theodore Roosevelt Island
 * Embassy Row
 * United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
 * Georgetown
 * Georgetown University
 * George Washington University
 * Embassy Row
 * See List of Washington embassies; we need high-quality photographs of as many embassies as possible.
 * Washington National Cathedral
 * Union Station
 * Masonic Temple at 1733 16th St NW (does one-hour tours; highly recommended by a local freemason)
 * International Spy Museum (very cool but one of the few museums in DC that charges admission &mdash; $14) -- I get free admission as a museum employee, and can usually take one guest as a courtesy. So, if anyone is interested, let me know. Danny 00:40, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Capitol Hill
 * National Postal Museum
 * Congressional office buildings
 * Hart Senate Office Building
 * Dirksen Senate Office Building
 * Russell Senate Office Building
 * Rayburn House Office Building
 * Ford House Office Building
 * Cannon House Office Building
 * Longworth House Office Building
 * O'Neill House Office Building
 * Ford House Office Building
 * Library of Congress
 * U.S. Supreme Court building

Outside DC

 * The Pentagon
 * Arlington National Cemetery
 * Custis-Lee Mansion
 * Tomb of the Unknowns
 * USMC War Memorial
 * Netherlands Carillon

I'm Julie, your Cruise Director
OK folks. So you aren't only coming to DC to take encyclopedia pictures and geek out, although I'm completely in favor of that. There are also things to do (and drink). In that vein, I give you .... cool stuff to do this weekend.


 * 1) Take in a movie.  (E Street Theater has lots of good indie movies:  Friday and Saturday at midnight they'll be showing David Lynch's Blue Velvet.)
 * 2) See go, chess, etc. at the Asian Games exhibit at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery on the Mall, which opens Saturday:
 * 3) See the Modigliani exhibit at the Phillips
 * 4) See the Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre exhibit at the National Gallery of Art
 * 5) Stop by the National Cathedral's spring flower mart on Saturday; this year's theme is "A Salute to Switzerland" (features yodeling, alphorn blowing, fondue making, cheese making and Swiss folk musicians)
 * 6) Take in comedian Tom Rhodes at The Improv.  Tix are $25 I think.
 * 7) Jazz open-mic at HR-57, an historic jazz club on 14th Street NW (near U Street).  There is a cover charge.  It is also quite close to [http:/www.benschilibowl.com Ben's Chili Bowl], a DC landmark on U Street NW.
 * 8) Karaoke at Japone near Dupont circle.  Starts at 9:30 Fri and Sat.  Sure you can give me Wikilove, but can you sing Tom Jones for an audience?
 * 9) See the infamous flight of stairs from The Exorcist (near the Key Bridge in Georgetown)
 * 10) NEW:  OK folks, anybody going to be in town tonight?  A friend of mine's band is playing at the Grog and Tankard (2408 Wisconsin Ave, NW, Georgetown) at 9pm, anybody's welcome to stop by.  Email me and I'll give you my cell phone #.

Devilishly, &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 16:10, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * PS, you can AIM me at the same nick. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 21:30, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Requests for images and information
We will have an opportunity to get images and information from plenty of places. Place your requests here. Even if you can't come, we can find the perfect picture for your article.

Please upload all the pics you eventually take to a special category in commons, say commons:Category:Washington DC Field Trip, so we know where is the stuff. Thanks, muriel@pt 07:00, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Photographs from the fossil collection of the Smithsonian would be very welcome! Viel Spaß! muriel@pt 12:00, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) Gemini 7, Skylab backup, Clementine, well basically any space capsules and crafts that you see! Evil Monkey&#8756;Hello 00:31, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * 3) I've been working on List of Washington embassies, but need more and better pictures. - SimonP 03:09, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, that could get interesting... Some embassies maintain quite a security presence and might be jittery about random photographers. OTOH I don't think there's anything they can do about it. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 03:21, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * That doesn't mean we can't hide in a random dark alley and take photos alongside Russian spies. -- brian0918  &#153;  08:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * If you start taking pictures, security will come out and have a chat with you. I suggest a pre-emptive strike: Go up to one of the security personnel and tell them what you're up to ahead of time.  If that actually doesn't work, I'd go with the Russian spy/dark alley approach. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 16:02, 2005 May 5 (UTC)
 * 1) Anything related to ancient Egypt especially mummies would be highly appreciated on my part. If they have any such thing there of course. Mgm|(talk) 19:26, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) If you could get a bunch of shots of aircraft at the Air and Space museum, particularly ones that have to do with the Civil Air Patrol, I'd be much obliged. I'm talking stuff like the L-4, etc. Linuxbeak 22:46, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Howdy, would we do that by simply adding the "Category:" tag to the Image? Or is there a different process for uploading? And a related question, anyone know what the copyright policy is, if any, for various items in the museums? I'm assuming that most works of art are under some copyright or another, and any photos thereof probably shouldn't be uploaded to Wikipedia. Photos of other artifacts (such as masks, P-51 Mustangs, etc.) would seem to be in a grey area. And public places, buildings, etc. I imagine are free game. -- Gyrofrog  (talk) 17:23, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


 * First, you would be uploading everything to Commons, not to Wikipedia. All you do is add this text to the image:   .  As for copyrights, I'm not sure.  I think what you should do is take any photos you want while you're there, without thinking about copyrights, and we can sort it all out afterward. -- brian0918  &#153;  20:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Let's use ImageShack as the upload server. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack 15:48, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

Temporary galleries
We can upload images to http://ImageShack.us galleries for free and then haggle over copyrights later. Register your own and list it here (make sure to use the public link, otherwise your gallery becomes wiki-like):
 * Phyzome's gallery

Interests
Since there will be 6 hours to make your own way, list what you are interested in and find other wikipedians who are interested too! :
 * Raul654 - National Air and Space Musuem, American History Musuem.
 * Also, since I've seen everything before, if enough people express an interest, I'll do a kind of general-purpose tour for people who don't want to figure out their own itenerary.
 * brian0918, Casito - might be going to a free chamber orchestra event on Saturday at 6pm at the Kennedy Center next to Watergate. "Gershwin and such".
 * Isomorphic - would like to hit the Sackler Gallery and FDR memorial. I'll probably just follow a group though, as I'm local and the Wikipedians are more of an attraction than the city.
 * Phyzome (Tim McCormack) - I'd be interested in the Botanical Conservatory. But anywhere I can take useful pictures is also cool. -- Phyzome is Tim McCormack
 * Katefan0 &mdash; I am jaded and such, so I probably won't go to the zoo (I've been a bunch &mdash; they have two separate litters of really cute new cheetah cubs. The older ones you can see, but the tots aren't out for the public yet.) I might meet up for a portion of the Smithsonian on Sat...  But mostly I'll be available in the late afternoon/evenings to show y'all a good time.  (I'm even good for a round.) &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 20:48, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * I'll probably meet up with y'all at Brickskeller tomorrow night. Somebody wanna drop me an email, so we can exchange cell phones? &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 16:45, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Seth Ilys: I'm at least going to Arlington (for personal reasons) during the afternoon. Don't know what else I'll hit if I have time; I'd like to hit the new National Museum of the American Indian. -- Seth Ilys 20:12, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Capitol tickets
Tickets to tour the capitol building are given out chronologically, on a first-come-first-serve basis. If memory serves, they start giving out the day's tickets at 8:00 AM and run out by about 9:00AM. Someone should get there by then and get us the tickets. &rarr;Raul654 02:01, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * I could probably handle that. Isomorphic 07:22, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Do they still just release batches of tickets? I have a press pass so I just walk right in the Capitol building, but I see hordes of people out there waiting for tickets every day.  I think you have to be there to claim a ticket, don't you?  Because you have to go through security screening now at this little portable building outside the Capitol now before they even let you near the building. I'll check on this just to be sure.  &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 04:27, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Here's a Website with info on public tickets -- doesn't actually say whether a person can get tickets for a group though. Hm.  &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 19:19, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Can you call them and find out? -- brian0918  &#153;  17:00, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, they only distribute one pass per person. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 18:04, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
 * Are they willing to give tickets on Saturday to use on Sunday? -- brian0918 &#153;  02:39, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
 * That I don't know, but I would imagine not. They give timed tickets and I doubt they give them out a day in advance. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 15:52, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

In that case, I will probably go early (like 9 AM) to get a tour of the capitol (which is basically the only thing I haven't done in DC besides the White House). Anyone else interested? &rarr;Raul654 02:47, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * Just so you know, showing up at 9 doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a tour at 9. You show up, they give you tickets first come first served, and they are timed because they only take a certain number of people through at once.  So if you got there very early to get in line you might get the first tour time.  But otherwise you could end up with a later time for your tour. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 15:53, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Sign Up

 * 1) Danny 02:58, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 2) &rarr;Raul654
 * 3) Isomorphic
 * 4) Gyrofrog  (talk) Probably Saturday only.
 * 5)  brian0918  &#153;
 * 6) Casito
 * 7) Phyzome is Tim McCormack (from Charlottesville, Virginia)
 * 8) Finn-Zoltan, if I can make it.... Rats, have to work both days. Ah, well. -FZ 17:56, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 9) &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 04:22, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC) Yo.  I don't work weekends and I live on Capitol Hill, so I should have no excuse not to make SOMEthing.
 * 10) Seth Ilys 02:53, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC). I'll be coming up from central NC, so if anyone wants to work out ride-sharing arrangements, let me know.  (and I'll be sure to wave on my way from DC->Raleigh this weekend...too bad, a meetup sounds fun! --Morbid-o 20:26, 4 May 2005 (UTC))
 * 11) I will be there --Improv 16:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 12) Sounds great! TTLightningRod 01:56, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * 13) Mitsukai Hope to be able to make it.
 * 14)  &mdash;thames  I'll show up to Brickskeller, although I can make the events during the day.  How will I find you guys?  I live on the other side of Dupont Circle, so it's no problem getting to Brickskeller, but I won't know what/who to look for.
 * 15) *Look for a bunch of nerds. I guarentee at least one will be wearing a WIkipedia shirt. &rarr;Raul654 02:41, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * 16) **Tell the staff you're with the Wikipedia party. We'll presumably have a big table somewhere. Isomorphic 18:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
 * 17) ***I probably will only be able to disentangle myself for the Brickskeller portion of the evening. I reserved a table for 15 just in case, starting at 6:30.  There's an upstairs and a downstairs -- probably we'll end up downstairs b/c there are so many of us.  I told them it's for Wikipedia (funny enough, the server knew what it was and seemed impressed.)  Note:  Everyone must be 21 to get in. &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 18:56, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

Couch Crashing/Place to Park?
Does anyone have a place in DC, ideally with a parking spot, where I might be able to sleep on the couch for the evening and park? --Improv 18:17, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Depending on what you define as "in D.C." (I live in Wheaton, in the near suburbs) and depending on whether my housemates are OK with it, I might be able to accomodate you. Isomorphic 20:34, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * Sadly, can't offer up a space (roommate is not OK with random folks). But, you'll be happy to know that street parking in DC on the weekends is not illegal.  You can park pretty much anywhere on the street as long as the spot is legal.  Of course some neighborhoods are more difficult to park in than others, but Capitol Hill, for instance, has lots of parking (as long as you don't expect to park too close to the Capitol itself). During the week you often have to have a neighborhood permit, but not so for weekends.  &middot; Katefan0(scribble) 04:33, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)