From: "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Capclave
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 23:07:52 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 10:31 PM
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Capclave

> "Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>
> > One important change should be the Program Book (or booklet).
>
> I agree, even though it can't be responsible for the poor turnout,
> since nobody saw it before they arrived.  I had volunteered to
> proofread the thing, but wasn't given the chance.  I did catch a
> couple errors in what little I did see ahead of time, and was assured
> that my corrections had made it into the program booklet.  But they
> did not make it into that booklet.  For instance one of the artist's
> names was misspelled in the booklet, and, probably by someone relying
> on the booklet, also on the "tent" with her name on it for panels she
> was on.  Also, the map of the function space was wrong.
>
> I don't know anything about the copyright notice.  Possibly the author
> intended the work for the public domain?  But under current law isn't
> everything copyrighted even if it has no copyright notice?  Some SF
> books I own contain absolutely no copyright notice of any kind.

No author wishes his work in the public domain.  To be copyrighted, a work
must have a declaration of copyright ("copyright 20-- [name]"), and it used
to be required that copies be registered with the copyright office, but for
now the declaration alone is sufficient.   Republication without including
the prior copyright notice is a violation of that copyright.

[...]
>
> > Getting to the hotel involves learning an almost Byzantine route
> > (and leaving to get back on eastbound Route 7, a different route,
> > as well) for those of us who use cars ...
>
> I would have thought the hotel was at a very convenient and easy to
> find location for motorists, as it is adjacent to a Beltway exit.
> I mentioned on the web site which exit.  (47A, Route 7 westbound.)

Yes, but.   The most obvious exit (for a car) off westbound Route 7
(Leesburg Pike) is via, through, or next to the service station which
flanks the roadway and stands apparently directly in front of the hotel.
This leads only to a service entrance for the hotel which is not accessable
to hotel guests.  One must instead go past the service station to the next
intersecting road, turn right on that, and watch for the almost-hidden
entrance to the hotel parking lots.   If one then turns right, to swing
around the hotel entrance, one will find little or no parking in the full
lot.  A left turn brings one down to the "B-1" level, where there is some
outdoor parking and (by turning right again) the entrance to a parking
garage built under the hotel.  This includes a handy entrance to the hotel
directly next to the elevator bank.  But that garage is only one level and
fills up fast.  One drives *out* of it, into an open back lot, which
usually has spaces.  Beyond it is *another* garage, down another level,
which I did not explore.

Exiting any of these -- garage, back lot, or lower garage -- requires one
to drive back through the first garage (via a different route), to gain
access to the side lots I mentioned earlier, and the side road one came in
on.  But if you're headed back on eastbound Route 7, you can't take the
side road back to Route 7, because there are no left turns onto Route 7,
and no break in the median.  Instead you must turn right on that side road
and continue in the direction you were originally headed, to make yet
another right for a bridge which takes you *over* Route 7.  A series of
right turns will return you to Route 7, eastbound.  But if you don't want
to get shunted onto the Beltway at that point, you have to scoot over three
lanes to the left to *stay* on Route 7.

If you're coming to the hotel via eastbound Route 7, access is even
trickier, and involves turning in to the Tyson's Corner Mall, and following
its peripheral road back a ways until you can make a right onto the road
which ultimately takes that bridge over Route 7.  You get off that road by
taking a right onto the side road which curves past the hotel.

I have to imagine that a weary traveller coming from the west would find
that a difficult route to suss out.

The Capclave section of the WSFA website offered no directions of its own,
but a link to the hotel's website, which shows the hotel *straddling* Route
7, but maybe on the south side (it's really on the north side).   The
written directions were obscure and confusing and of no value to me -- and
I *live* in this area.

--Ted White