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Today we will try out our new location in Downtown DC. I know this location is a compromise, and it probably is not “ideal” for anyone. Hopefully it is not too painful for anyone. I really hope it does not prevent anyone from coming. The idea of the new location is the everyone will be able to get here.

The best place I have been able to find is Caribou Coffee at 13th & G. I liked Metro Centro for the obvious reason that it is in the center of the Metro system. Plus the Red, Green and Blue lines seem to cover most of the the directions we are comming from.

The idea is to meet from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. Since this is the first time we meet there, I am guessing we might have some trouble getting the timming just right. I will try to be there early just to make sure.

Please let me know what you think about the new location in the comments.

I am sorry I have been so inconsistent for the last month or so. Since Luis de la Rosa organized the Cocoa coders get together, I have been doing the NSCoder Night thing in Silver Spring, MD at Mayorga’s. That location is closer to where I work, while Tyson’s is on my way home. We have a small but consistent group going at Silver Spring, but I really do not want to abandon the Tyson’s area. So I think I will start alternating. One week here one week there. It is not the perfect plan, I wish we had larger groups so that the meetings would go on even if I was not there. So far, most meetings would not be meetings at all if I wasn’t there

I will try to come up with a calendar or something to publish dates well in advance of where I will be at any given day. I have a couple of other ideas I would really like to implement. I definetly need to start an online group (google or yahoo group) to facilitiate notification of upcoming events and such. I need to seriously clean up this blog page so it is more informative. but most importantly I would like to give the meetings some more purpose. So far, most meetings wind up being just social get togathers where we discuss the latest mac/cocoa news. This is GREAT! never the less I want this to be more of a vehicle for learning cocoa and I feel I have made little progress in this respect. I am going to buy the new Hillegass book and I was thinking maybe we could all work on chapters together. I know a lot of the book might be repetition for the more advanced people out there, but still it might be a good excercise to refresh knowledge. The idea would be to anounce at least a week in advance the chapter for the week. Everyone would then be responsible to read the chapter, follow the tutorials and more importantly work on the challenges. We could then compare notes during the meetings and help each other out. Think about it, in a couple of months we would have a very strong comunity with know how in things like Core Animation and Core Data. Once we finish the book we could move on to coumunity projects… anyways… I’m getting ahead of myself.

Please chime in with your own ideas in the comments. I would really love to see this DC area comunity grow in the ways of Cocoa!

Ohhh yes… and in case you don’t know here are the directions to the Panera’s near Tyson’s Corner for tonite’s meeting (7:00pm)
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Sorry for the short notice. I am not feeling well so I can not meet tonite. I sent e-mail to those who were signed up for today, but everyone seems a little tied up today.

Once again, I plan on being at Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring for this week. It turns out, there are people interested in meeting out here (I work in this area, but live closer to Tyson’s Corner). So, as long as people in the Silver Spring area are interested in meeting, I will be holding the meetings there. If people are interested in meeting around Tyson’s Corner (or perhaps other places) please let me know and I will try to work it out.

I am really interested in meeting with as many people as possible. I think discussion and sharing ideas are powerful tools indeed. I don’t mind having to move my commute around (it’s already an hour long as it is… so what the heck!). I am even open to trying other days of the week.

So if you are in the D.C. area and you want to talk about Cocoa or Apple in general, you know how to contact me.

I am planning on changing the location for the meeting for this week. I plan on being at Mayorga Coffee Factory in Silver Spring for this week. Following Luis de la Rosa’s really cool meeting last saturday, I am trying to network some more with people from the meeting. So for this week I will change the location. If you, think the location should permanently change to this, or some other location, please let me know in the comments.

 I started the meeting in the Tyson’s area Panera because it is on my (long) way between work and home. And obviosly because it provides free WiFi. My biggest gripe with this location is it’s inaccesiblity from Metro rail. I have heard suggestions in the past of moving to Clarendon, but I have not seen enough commitment out there for me to make my commute even longer. If enough people were interested I would gladly try different places. I would event entertain the idea of a moving location. Something like, first week of the month is Tyson’s, second is Silver Spring, third is Clarendon…

So by all means, if you have a suggestion please let me know.

Tonite, I will start to play with the iPhone SDK. If you are interested in that or just want to talk about Cocoa in general, swing on by. I’ll be at the Panera Bread near Tyson’s Corner between 7:00pm and 9:00pm.

Here is a link to google maps with the address:
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I’ll be at the Panera Bread near Tyson’s Corner between 7:00pm and 9:00pm.

Here is a link to google maps with the address:
View Larger Map

Same as always, I’ll be at the Panera Bread near Tyson’s Corner between 7:00pm and 9:00pm.

Here is a link to google maps with the address:
View Larger Map