Northwest Lingustics Group

I'm forming a new linguistics group in Portland, Oregon: The Noon Academy. The first meeting is Saturday, January 22, 2005, at 12pm (more details at The Noon Academy web site). I've done study groups before, and my girlfriend/co-star has done a wonderful job starting and growing the Portland Chapter of the Church of Craft. She has over 200 members and the group has been meeting just over 14 months (once a month). She is definately at the right place at the right time: spritial crafting is big and is just getting bigger. A lingustics and ontology club, however, is a much narrower niche. Portland has some great people and projects going on. Portland is the headquarters for Linux, after all, and many smaller OpenSource and Linux companies like Tripwire. The arts community is thriving, there are more live theaters per capita than any city I know, and the live music scene is absolutely incredible. Any kind of music you want, live, any night of the week, and week-long music festivals where 300 bands play over 5 days at over a dozen venues all over town. It rocks. But how many linguists are there? The NLP Meetup group has only a few members, and only one that replies to email or group postings! I'm determined to keep the meeting schedule month after month until I get a core group of fellow language geeks together. I'm guessing our direction will be primarily determined once we have the core group. I do have ideas on experiments and development that I'd like to do, not the least of which is continued research into social networking software design and human transaction process design. I'm anxious to see the turnout. I have over 2 weeks to get the word out. I'll be ready! And if I'm the only one that comes, then I'll just have lunch and read some Searle.