[TriZPUG] TriZPUG reminder - meeting this Thursday

[David Burton]

On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 6:43 PM, Joseph Mack NA3T <jmack at wm7d.net> wrote:

> On Thu, 26 Jan 2012, Paul Godley wrote:
>
>  What are my odds of finding a parking place on a game night?
>>
>
> 0
>
> I don't know UNC. I live in Durham and I can be at RedHat in 45mins and I
> only go that far for special events.
>
> It took 30 mins to get to Franklin/Moorehead Planetarium and another 45
> min to the Patient Parking lot (which cost about $2 for a day time lecture
> in Dec), to find it closed. Instead I was directed to the game parking
> which I found was $10. I already had 1h 15min time sunk in getting to the
> meeting. The printed map wasn't going to be a lot of help in the dark with
> the small font (I'd seen Raleigh St, but couldn't find it on the map while
> I was sitting at a light). It was 6pm and I had no idea how to get to the
> meeting and estimated at best I'd be there by 6:30. It shouldn't be this
> hard to get to a lecture.
>
> There needs to be someone at a meeting with a phone to steer in people who
> aren't familiar with the place, so in anticipation of problems like this,
> I'd asked Chris C for his ph#. It turns out the ph# is already on the ZPUP
> webpage. I called Chris C getting his message machine. I let him know why I
> wouldn't be at the meeting.
>
> I can't read a map of an unfamiliar place in the car in the dark.
> Instructions like
>
> o How to get to the parking lot (go to Franklin/Columbia..)
>
> o How to get to the meeting spot from parking
>
> would help
>
> Are the Carboro places not available anymore? They were easy to get to and
> had parking.
>
> Hope the meeting went well.
>


The meeting was interesting, but it sure was hard to get there!  Getting
around UNC on a basketball game night is extremely difficult.  My GPS
initially predicted that I'd be there 15 minutes early; instead, I got
there over 30 minutes late.  I spent nearly 40 minutes driving the length
of South Rd, which is less than one mile long.  Folks trickled in late for
most of the meeting.

Directions were hard, too.  I almost gave up finding the place.  Murray
Hall is not shown on some maps, including the big map-sign that I found on
campus.  Murray Hall is actually the west half of a building called
"Venable."  There's no sign for Murray Hall on the road, and *none* of the
buildings on campus seem to have house numbers, which makes street
addresses like "101 South Road" a lot less useful.  (Not completely
useless, however, because my GPS knew approximately where it was.)

I would not have found Murray Hall at all were it not for the kind
assistance of a sweet young thing named Chelsea, who happens to be taking a
class in that building.

I suggest adding the following to the "standard directions" for these
meetings:

On South Road, the sign to watch for is *Morehead Labs*, which is a big
building on the north side of South Rd, next to Kenan Labs, and just east
of S. Columbia St.  A few feet to the west of the sign that says Morehead
Labs is the entrance to a parking lot which is behind Morehead Labs.
 That's the best place to park; just don't use one of the "reserved" or
"handicapped" spaces.  The south side of the parking lot is the back side
of the Morehead Labs building, and at the east end of the parking lot is
Murray/Venable, which can be entered from the parking lot via a long,
descending ramp.

This Yahoo Maps
link<http://maps.yahoo.com/#q=21+South+Rd%2C+Chapel+Hill%2C+NC++27514-4117&conf=1&start=1&lat=35.9111333863541&lon=-79.04633045196533&zoom=17&mvt=m&trf=0>points
to the parking lot entrance; zoom in, and Murray/Venable is labeled
"Physical Science" on the Yahoo map.
Here's the Google Maps satellite
view<http://maps.google.com/maps?q=101+South+Road,+Chapel+Hill,+NC&hl=en&ll=35.910025,-79.050981&spn=0.003485,0.00574&sll=35.908693,-79.052079&hnear=101+S+Rd,+Chapel+Hill,+North+Carolina+27514&t=h&z=18>,
with the marker at the parking lot entrance, and Murray/Venable at the
right-end of the parking lot.

(I actually parked on the street, about 1/2 mi west of there, in a
residential neighborhood.)

I also wandered around inside a bit, and I'm still a bit fuzzy about where
in the building G201 is, but "G" stands for "Ground floor."

Dave



On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 5:02 PM, Joseph S. Tate <dragonstrider at gmail.com>
 wrote:

> On the October meeting page it was mentioned that the doors to the
> building lock at 7:00.  A 6:00 start time preempts the need to have someone
> watch the door or be on call.
>
>
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