[conspire] How does changing CABAL to 1-9 pm sound?

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):

> That may have been when CABALs began at the CoffeeNet, but that was
> definitely not the current CABAL. When that venue was no longer available,
> the current arrangement was substituted in haste, and as more and more
> attendees began to realize that it was a permanent arrangement (which,
> luckily, I didn't for several years), they stopped attending.

Just as an afterthought, in the case of CABAL's forced move[1] from SOMA to
West Menlo Park, there was an additional factor that has never
handicapped SVLUG, and never will do so:  _Most_ San Franciscans
(yourself obviously excepted) have a reluctance to go south of the city
limits.  Their idea of adventure is to either take Golden Gate Transit
to Muir Woods / Marin Headlands / Mill Valley or BART to Oakland or
Berkeley, but somehow the notion of going to anywhere in San Mateo
County seems almost completely unthinkable.  And no, I'm not talking
only about San Franciscans who lack cars and go only where Muni, G.G.
Transit, and BART reach easily.

I kept encountering this characteristic mental aberration during my long
years living in San Francisco, myself.  E.g., during the years I lived
in the Outer Sunset District, I would often propose to SF-resident
friends that we go to Joe's of Westlake for dinner -- a restaurant
that's a 5-minute drive two miles down Sunset Blvd / Lake Merced Blvd.
down to the latter street's intersection with John Daly Blvd.  Often,
the reaction I got was puzzlement:  "But that's in _Daly City_!  Let's 
go to Brandy Ho's, instead."  Brandy Ho's is in Chinatown, easily half
an hour-plus of slogging across town at the best of times. 

So, when CABAL landed in my kitchen, living room, and garage at 2033
Sharon Road, West Menlo Park in late 2000, I was disappointed but not
surprised when Doug Lym, Duncan MacKinnon, Joe Puig, and a bunch of the
other San Francisco-based regulars stopped attending -- along with, with
much greater cause, Mike Higashi of Pinole.  Because most San
Franciscans just _are_ like that.  (Londoners are that way, too.
Not to mention New Yorkers.)

(Note:  I really wish you hadn't crossposted the two mailing lists, as
you did.  Now, I'm going to be processing a whole lot of held mail from
followups by people non-subscribed to one of the two.)


[1] I honestly didn't think it appropriate for CABAL to move to Menlo
Park, because it _was_ supposed to be a San Francisco group, and I kept
hoping and expecting that someone would find it a venue in S.F.  I
eventually offered it the use of my house on what I really _hoped_ was
going to be a temporary basis, to prevent the group from dying while 
Doug, Duncan, Joe, or one of the other S.F.-based members found that
real long-term venue.  However, as you note, they elected to stop coming
or in any way participating instead, with the result that it remained in
Menlo Park and became, de-facto, a lower-Peninsula / Silicon Valley
group.  So, it was a "forced move" not in the sense of my doing any
forcing, but rather that I offered it a way to not die, when nobody else
seemed to able or willing to do so.