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[KevinKorell]

One of the last items of business before I embark on my journey is where the group should meet each day. Looking at the 3 official Fest days, for those who are participating in the first morning activities, be aware of the following:

Friday, January 18: Our first train leaves Boston South Station at 8:56 AM. Start meeting around 8:30 AM in the main waiting room, near the board that lists the commuter rail departures. (There are separate boards for Amtrak and commuter!!) More than likely we will be standing, since this station features uncomfortable metail chairs. If not using mobile apps, make sure you have purchased the necessary fares ahead of time. As soon as boarding is announced, we will begin walking to the train. At that point, it is up to you to find the track and train, and find us. There is no guarantee we will be in any particular car, as some may not wish to walk up to the front of the train. If you text me, I can provide the number of the car we end up in, so you can search for it from outside.

Saturday, January 19: Our first train leaves Boston North Station at 10 AM. Start meeting at 9:30 AM in the main waiting room. Perhaps our Boston based people can recommend here the best place for a group to meet, but it should be within close sight of a departures board so we can walk to the train as soon as its track is announced. Again, anyone who arrives at the station after the track is announced, you need to find us. Same admonition as above applies.

Sunday, January 20: Our only morning "rolling meet", as people will hopefully board the same Red Line train as it proceeds south towards Ashmont. The itinerary now has 3 possible boarding points closest to where people are staying in hotels. If you board elsewhere you can figure out when the train will be coming to your particular station. Make sure you board a train headed for Ashmont. Again, given the weather especially at the surface level station at JFK/U-Mass, we may not wish to board any particular car of the train. If anything, we'll all meet when the train gets to Ashmont and we walk over to the trolley. Anyone who wants to know, again we can text the car number and approximate position on the train so we could adjust boarding accordingly, but if we don't, we can meet at Ashmont.

Finally, like many of you I'll be Tweeting where I am and where we are for the benefit of those who are NOT with us, and for myself to print later when doing the report. Do not rely on Tweets to hook up with the group, as I won't see them until that evening as my non-smart phone has them disabled so that I can pay college bills and my mortgage. Text me if you have any questions or comments. Please try to stay away from phone calls as there are "dead spots" involved such as tunnels we may go through where there is a weak or no signal. And don't mis-use Twitter with hooking up personally, that's what your text function is for. For those who do have you enabled, they don't want or need to see everything that has no interest to them. Those who do Tweet about the Fest should use the hashtag of #otolfest, so that all Fest related messages can be found later.