OldNews2011

Lunch: Thursday December 15th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Social/"Technical Meeting": Friday December 9th, 6:30 pm

Due to lack of input as well as former hosting sites such as p0wned having gone out of business, Tina is hosting a gaming night at her house. Email her if you need address and/or directions. Start time is 6:30 pm. Note that this is NOT our usual second Thursday, we pushed it back one night so people don't have to deal with getting to work in the morning.

We play whatever you bring. Please consider bringing a folding table and chairs, board games, card games, video games, video game system accessories, and/or snacks and beverages. RSVP's of the types of stuff you're bringing would be appreciated so we don't have overstocks of some items such as four people hauling their folding table and chairs, or everyone bringing chips.

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Name	# of self/family/friends	Electronic games	Board/card games	Food/beverage contributions	Other
Tina	3 players + 1 distractor	two tv's, a Wii with some games + 2 controllers, a PS2 with some games + 2 controllers + DDR with two dance pads	Pandemic, Ticket to Ride, Munchkin, Great Dalmuti, Fluxx, EcoFluxx	Candy cane pie (frozen->thawed)	two tables, ~7 chairs, lots of floor space, a large yard with some floodlights
Aaron	1 distractee	Scrabble on my iPhone :-P	I'll see if I have any vaguely Christmas-y games	Cookies baked with love by somebody at HyVee	A proton pack and ghost trap, to teach a lesson to any troublesome spirits that attempt to teach us a lesson. (Sorry, lame attempt at a Ghostbusters/Christmas Carol joke...)
Will Schmidt	1 player, 1 slimer, 1 supervisor (for slimer)	nada	ixnay	maybe	This will be stop number three of the evening, so will be late, but will attempt to make it.
Your name here	x	x	x	x	x

Lunch: Thursday November 17th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

CANCELLED Technical Meeting: November TBD

Traditionally we've had a swap/sale/recycling event, but this year we've had very little interest. Plus there's now other recycling options (some of them cheaper than what we have to collect for dropping off with the County). So we're looking for a speaker, volunteers please?

Meeting cancelled for a variety of reasons, including lack of a confirmed speaker.

Planned Social: November TBD

Ideas can be found here or invent your own. What would you like to do? Tell Tim or Tina.

Social: Saturday October 22nd

Updated Thursday October 20th, see new times

We submit for your participation a two part social on Saturday October 22nd. Flying pumpkins! We didn't get our act together to fling some pumpkins of our own, but we can watch Scouts toss them. Park back from the launch area, to avoid collateral damage. Dress warm, we've been warned it's exposed and windy terrain. Spectators are welcome at any time during the event. However, if you wish to hang out with your fellow K-LUGgers, here's our planned schedule

-Watch flying pumpkins starting at 1:30 pm

-At 2:30 pm, those who need to move for exercise, ADHD, or to stay warm are welcome to go for a hike with us. The hike will take the trail west out of the parking lot to the city/county property of the Gamehaven Reservoir Park. For those who need a goal to purpose their hike, there are several geocaches in the area. Snacks, water, and layered clothing would be appropriate.

Meet at the Gamehaven Scout Camp parking lot, 1:30 or 2:30 pm, Saturday October 22nd. 5015 Simpson Rd SE, that's next to "Stars - Fleur de lis" if you're looking at the geocaching map, http://www.geocaching.com/map/beta/?ll=43.951476,-92.432907&z=15&mt=hybrid .

Here's the Scouts full schedule for their event:

8:00 AM Registration Begins

8:30 AM Opening

8:45 AM-9:00 AM Leaders Meeting (SM, ASM, SPL)

9:15 AM-12:00 PM Setup and test fire pumpkin chuckers

12:00 PM-1:00 PM Lunch (bring your own lunch)

1:15 PM-??? The Chuck’n

???? Award Ceremony and cleanup will take place immediately

Lunch: Thursday October 20th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

October Technical Meeting: Thursday October 13th

Steve Connor Ability Built Computers & BEAM Initiative

ABC Has excess hardware...I have a large inventory of refurbished PDS P4 3.0GHz machines with 1GB RAM and 80GB HD for $75 with 15" flat screen monitors, keyboard, mouse, cables and no OS. If someone wants one loaded with a linux distro, I'm happy to look at it -- it'd probably cost $10 for the labor. I have a large inventory of 15" flat screen monitors for $25. Many have speakers, though I can't guarantee sound. I also have of random hardware including a handful of used Dell rack-mounted servers. I should note that qualifying individuals I can include a copy of Windows XP Pro on the machines. It requires an application and is only available for folks at 280% of poverty (actually quite a bit of money - $60k for a family of 5), individuals with disabilities, schools and 501(c)(3) non-profits. I'm happy to go through this with anyone in more detail if there's interest.

-> When: Thursday October 13th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Steve's slides are here

Social: Thursday September 22nd

A geocaching adventure...see http://www.activelivingrochester.org for details...are you in?

At 6 pm on Thursday September 22nd we'll be meeting for:

-Pursing the Quarry Hill Trails to Treasure geocache. This isn't an ordinary geocache, it's part of a contest sponsored by Olmsted County Public Health to promote trails and exercise. Our own Tim Massaro helped with hiding several of the caches in this contest. Contest does indeed imply potential prizes, including iPods, cameras, a GPS, and gift cards. Start at http://www.co.olmsted.mn.us/news/Pages/TrailstoTreasureContest.aspx if you want more details, or https://sites.google.com/site/trailstotreasure/contest-rules for the Trails cache locations

-Taking a walk for some outside socializing time

-Hauling along a camera, for a mini version of fall 2009's photo safari

Meet at the west entrance of Quarry Hill, the parking lot at the corner of 9th Street and 19th Avenue NE, near the playground and tennis courts.

If there's desire, the group can split after finding the geocache or all proceed to Kutzky park, to pursue another Trails to Treasure geocache if that's of interest.

No GPS or RSVP required.

Lunch: Thursday September 15th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday September 8th

When: Thursday September 8th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107

1926 College View Road SE, Rochester, MN 55904

We'll demo and discuss various tablet devices. Scheduled to appear are an iPad, a Pantech Android tablet, an HP TouchPad with Web OS and a Nook Feel free to bring your own tablet device and informally show off the highlights and lowlights

Planned Social: August TBD

Ideas can be found here or invent your own. What would you like to do? Tell Tim, he's in charge of all things K-LUG for July and August.

A social didn't happen this month, look for something next month.

Lunch: Thursday August 18th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday August 11th

The August meeting will be a two subject meeting Mo Holahan will present Google Sketchup and how to create 3D buildings in Google Earth Tim Schumann will present info on Bitcoins and how his bitcoin server is making out. The meeting will be Thursday August 11th at 6pm

RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 1926 College View Road SE, Rochester, MN 55904

Here is the scoop on the Google Sketchup portion of the meeting:

Sketchup has become a popular 3D modeling program for everything from origami to professional architectural rendering. Currently available in free and pro versions from Google, the program has continued to evolve since its initial release in 2000 by @Last Software founders Brad Schell and Joe Esch. This presentation will focus on the free version 8. We'll introduce the basic geometry construction tools and demo features such as components, materials, styles, fog, shadows, scene animation, and the use of Ruby scripts to customize and extend Sketchup's capabilities. We'll visit Google's 3Dwarehouse to download models, and geo-locate a building on Google Earth. Whether you dream of turning your personal fabrication vision into a 3d prototype or just want to virtually rearrange your living room furniture, see if Sketchup might become a useful part of your toolset.

Planned Social: July TBD

Ideas can be found here or invent your own. What would you like to do? Tell Tim, he's in charge of all things K-LUG for July and August.

A social didn't happen this month, look for something next month.

Lunch: Thursday July 24th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday July 14th

Speed Talks Something new for K-LUG, Speed Talks are a no preparation required, quick talk on a favorite App, Website, Hobby, Gadget, Upcoming Event or whatever currently has your interest. We'll limit the time to 5-10 minutes each and just open it to whoever has a topic to share. We'll have a pc hooked up to the projector, or you can bring your own if you like. This should work out well as we had a short similar session on favorite android apps after one of our recent meetings.

-> When: Thursday July 14th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 or nearby

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Planned Social: June TBD

We ended up without one.

Lunch: Thursday June 16th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday June 9th

Andy Tolbert and Chris Lohfink.

Wireless Device Connectivity with ZigBee – An overview of the ZigBee specification and demonstration of using an XBee Module with an Arduino and a Digi Ethernet/XBee Gateway to interface with the Arduino from the Web. The demonstration will include examples of controlling the Arduino via XBee in addition to monitoring device state.

If you have any other agenda items, please submit them to Tim as he'll be running the meeting.

Disc Golf Social: Thursday May 19th, 6:30 pm

Disc Golf at UCR. This is a new course to us and we didn't find hole #1, so we're just going to meet outside of the UCR sports complex and near the football/lacrosse field, at the NE corner of the parking lot, see the map.

If the temporary holes have been removed due to the end of the school year we'll revert back to the East Park disc golf course, map.

If you haven't played before and would like to borrow a disc that's usually not a problem, although it helps if we know you're in that situation.

Lunch: Thursday May 19th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday May 12th

Our May meeting is scheduled to be information about a new robotics league starting up in Rochester. Rochester Tabletop Robotics League is a "tabletop" robotics, all the robots should therefore be small and relatively inexpensive. Peter Shabino will describe this league and even demo a quick and easy robot he built from a $9.99 Walmart remote controlled car. See his website.

If you have any other agenda items, please submit them to Tim as he'll be running the meeting.

-> When: Thursday May 12th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 or nearby

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Lunch: Thursday April 21st

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Social/Service Opportunity: Tuesday April 19th (during Earth Week)

There will be an opportunity to participate in Rochester's Litter Bit Better. By doing trash clean up in coordination with LBB, the trash bags and hauling of trash are taken care of for us, we only have to actually put the junk and the recycling in the appropriate bags. Family and friends are welcome, this activity will also advertised to groups such as geocachers and the mentoring organization of Bolder Options. Talk to Tina for more details.

6:30 pm at Zumbro West Park, it's area 422 on this map. Here's the geocaching.com posting.

Social: Sunday April 17th, 2 pm

Rockets + kites! That way we can play if there's no wind, lots of wind, basically anything other than a rain/snow storm. This'll be at 2 pm, at Century High School in their field.

Technical Meeting: Thursday April 14th

Brent Vrieze will present a demo of Asterisk PBX software, using third party software requiring little manual configuring. He's provided the following description:

"PBX in a Flash (PiaF) is an easy to install (super easy) Asterisk distribution that can be set up in an afternoon on either a virtual machine or an old beige box collecting dust. Asterisk is an open source PBX (Private Branch Exchange) phone system that PBX in a Flash puts a web based GUI of there the top of to make management and upgrading extremely easy in comparison to 2 years ago.

If time permits I will show you an add on package to PiaF called Incredible PBX that using some free SIP phone providers and Google Voice will give you FREE, as in beer, phone service with a local number to anywhere in the US and Canada."

-> When: Thursday April 14th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 or nearby

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Planned Social: March TBD

Recent suggestions include:

-Artemis, a multiplayer spaceship bridge simulator for Windows

-SOLAR DEATH RAY!!! to burn stuff, like this.

But nobody's stepped up to lead these, let Tina know if you're willing to organize.

Lunch: Thursday March 17th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday March 10th

Dennis DeLorme will present on a paper tape reader.
"Want to move those 100's of bytes of data you put on paper tape back in your misspent youth to 21st century media? (Any time spent with paper tape was misspent.) Bring your paper tape and a flash drive to the K-LUG tape fest On March 10. I will briefly describe the set up and then will be ready to do transfers. I can transfer data as hex, binary, or binary with the parity bit ignored. For 7 bit character data binary with parity bit ignored is probably the preferred method."

Also:
-PCIG final nominations and elections
-Girl Scout cookies and pi/pie in an early celebration of pi day
-Jon T will bring his hacked pandigital Android ereader for a show and tell afterwards (no demo, just to show off)

-> When: Thursday March 10th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 or nearby

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Also, if you won't be attending the school district's only date/time for community input sessions on their superintendent search (same day at 7 pm), you can still contribute to the local school district by filling out their superintendent search survey by Thursday. Why can't you do both the input session and K-LUG? You can, if you leave K-LUG early, sessions are:

What: Community input sessions for new Rochester superintendent

When: 7 p.m. Thursday

Where: Gibbs Elementary School, 5525 56th St. N.W. OR Kellogg Middle School, 503 17th St. N.E. OR Willow Creek Middle School, 2425 11th Ave. S.E.

Social: Thursday February 24th

We'll be viewing the Linux documentary "Revolution OS". It runs ~1.5 hours, so we'll start at 6 pm. RCTC's Heintz Center, in or near our normal meeting room HA107. To try to make this a more "movie-like" atmosphere, please bring your own (non-alcoholic) beverage if you wish, and a quiet snack to share.

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Lunch: Thursday February 17th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

Technical Meeting: Thursday February 10th

Steve Severson has volunteered to present on Android apps at IBM and/or rooting an Android.

-> When: Thursday February 10th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA107 or nearby

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Social: Friday January 28th

We'll be bowling at Byron Lanes. Please try to be there at 6:45 so we can get through the ball/shoe obtainment process and hopefully figure out if we need any more/less lanes before it gets too crowded. Our reservation is for 7 pm, we've got 2 lanes at the moment.

Costs for bowling are $2/person/game, with shoe rental being $1. They have a full bar, and on Fridays they also serve pizza, if anyone is interested in a snack before or after the games.

This is a family/friends-friendly event, please let Tina know if you have young children coming so we can ask in advance for a bumper lane to be set up if necessary.

Lunch: Thursday January 20th

11:30 am, at the Apache Mall food court near B&N.

"Technical Meeting": Thursday January 13th, 6:00 pm

Next Meeting - Dennis DeLorme ZigBee Protocol and XBee wireless Communication modules demo.

-> When: Thursday January 13th - 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

-> Where: RCTC Heintz Center Room HA109

Room HA107 (or HA109 depending on construction issues)

Directions to Campus

Heintz Center Building Map

Also Elections! Please submit your nominations for president, vice president, and treasurer.