Date: Sun, 14 Nov 2004 12:32:12 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
From: Elspeth Kovar <ekovar at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Baltington?  Washimore?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

At 08:56 PM 11/12/2004, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>"Ted White" <twhite8 at cox.net> wrote:
>
> > Significantly, when Baltimore designed its subway it did so with an
> > eye to making it fully compatible with DC's Metro, and the lines will
> > eventually link -- either in Columbia, or, equally likely, at BWI.
>
>Sure.  Just a few decades after the first permanent manned base on
>Mars is established.  Perhaps my grandchildren will live to see it.
>Haven't you noticed how slowly Metro grows?
>
>Perhaps then it will make sense to regard DC and Baltimore as one
>city.  But not today.

While there isn't currently a Metro connection between the two there has
been a commuter rail -- and commuters -- for a very long time.  I live not
far outside the Maryland side of the D.C. Beltway and do my shopping and
socializing in both cities, and wouldn't turn down a job in Baltimore
because it "wasn't local".  And even when I lived in downtown DC or in
Annapolis I considered Balticon a local convention -- that was before I was
going to out-of-town conventions.

In the long run, however, I don't think that discussing whether or not the
Balt-Wash area does or does not exist is particularly productive.

>And how many people go to both WSFA and BSFS meetings?  Just one, as
>far as I know.

For the sake of information, not argument, Marc Gordon, Elaine Brennen, and
I also go to both, although not with the frequency that Michael does.  I
tend more towards WSFA, Marc, despite living in VA, tends more towards
BSFS, and Elaine shows up now and then at both.

>Plenty of WSFAns go to Balticon, but these are people who tend to go
>to other out-of-town cons, too.

Getting back to where this started, okay, is this an argument for trying to
grow Capclave into a three ring circus, a la Balticon?

Elspeth