Another AML lawsuit - sigh

Well, apparently there's another lawsuit. This time, AML is being sued for reinstatement of membership by a former (presumably expelled) member. However, AMC has decided, in its infinite lack of wisdom (IMO), to not state the name of the person who filed the case, what the jurisdiction is where the case was filed, or where we might be able to locate this typically public information.

I do not understand what the problem would be with giving any of the above facts. It is not admitting any guilt, not taking any position on the case or the merits thereof, nothing that could be used against AML in the court case itself. It would merely be stating the basic fact of what was alleged and by whom, and what our publicly filed response to the suit is.

I tried to find a record of it online myself and was unable to find any record where AML was the defendant in New York State, Tarrant County (where the National Office is in Texas), DeKalb or Fulton County (where Atlanta, GA is, former chapter of Barry Levine), Hawaii (former chapter of Eddie Conway), or Minnesota (a former webmaster out there, whose name escapes me at the moment). I don't know how long it takes for court filings in any of those areas to be placed online. Nor, obviously, do I know if I'm really even looking in the right places.

If someone has a Westlaw or LexisNexis account, it should be much easier to do a quick search rather than the hunt and peck method that is at my disposal.

Upcoming Test Sessions - Including A Major One

We have two tests coming up in the chapter. On January 28, at 10am sharp, we will start testing at the Centreville United Methodist Church. This is a very large venue where we will be able to handle many dozens of test candidates simultaneously. Spread the word to your friends and family who are interested in testing that this is definitely a great day to come join us; it's hard to believe that we would fill up to capacity. Registration for the test will start at 9:30am, possibly earlier if we've set up enough of the venue to accommodate the influx.

The other test session is February 19 at 9:30am sharp (registration starting at 9am). This session will see us returning to Marbles: The Brain Store, located on the lower level of the Montgomery Mall by Nordstrom. Given the size of the venue, this session is limited to a maximum of 6 test candidates.

For additional information on either of these tests or to RSVP, please contact our Testing Coordinator, Bob Pugh, at testing@mwm.us.mensa.org.

Mind Games (r) 2012 Hotel Info

We already have 75 rooms booked at the hotel on Thursday night (wow!), and we're well on our way to our 300-person ceiling of Mind Games registrations (226 as of yesterday); surely many of the extra people soon to register want to arrive early as well. The problem, as noted by several people already, is that our hotel will not provide any additional rooms for us on Thursday night. So, here's what we are going to work out with them:

The nearby Hyatt Place hotel (several blocks away, and unrelated, despite the common name) has rooms available. Yes, they are less expensive than the Mind Games venue. (Varying price, depending on what deal you take and whether you pay in full in advance, etc.) The Hyatt Dulles, understanding that we're putting on a pre-event on Thursday night and that we have a large number of people who are already slated to be in town by then, is willing to run their shuttle bus between the two hotels (which is something they would not ordinarily do). Similarly, they are willing to have their shuttle bus bring people from the Hyatt Place over on Friday morning with the understanding that these people are actually coming over both for the event AND to check in for a likely 2-night stay. They will NOT run the shuttle between the two hotels past that Friday morning.

We recommend that anyone who does not yet have a hotel room and wants one makes a reservation for Friday and Saturday night at the event venue -- the Hyatt Dulles. If you are looking to arrive in town Thursday (or earlier), make a reservation for those few additional nights at the Hyatt Place hotel located in Herndon. (Yeah, switching hotels mid-stay is annoying, but it's the best we can get.) We'll work something out a little closer to the actual event in terms of either scheduling a regular shuttle timing between the hotels on Thursday afternoon/night or at least making sure that the proper phone number to call is distributed so you can request a pick-up.

(Note: Availability of Double rooms at our event venue Hyatt Dulles is sporadic. Those currently with kings looking for doubles instead should periodically check back to see if they can change. That's the best we can do on that score, too, since there are so few Double rooms in the Hyatt Dulles.)

While we recognize the temptation of saving the difference in the room rate between the hotels, we think you would be best off staying Friday and Saturday nights in the event venue of the Hyatt Dulles for the most obvious reasons: you can stay up as late as you want playing games and be able to merely stumble upstairs to collapse in bed rather than have to wait however long to catch a cab between hotels; and in the morning, you can quickly rush downstairs to start playing again without need to wait for a cab or walk on Saturday or Sunday morning.

Looking forward to getting Mind Games 2012 started already. We hope you're as excited about it as we are.

Mind Games (r) registration going strong!

Registration for the upcoming Mind Games 2012 being held at the Hyatt Dulles hotel in Herndon, VA from April 20-22, 2012 is going fast. As of today, we have 215 people already registered, and registrations are capped at a maximum of 300 - which we'll surely hit before the closing date of March 25, 2012. (We'll have a waitlist to get additional members registered as people cancel registrations - there are always a few who cancel, for various reasons.)

We're even in negotiations with the hotel to expand our room block and figure out something for overflow space on Thursday night, as we already have 75 rooms on Thursday and, given their regular business, they're sold out for that night.

And with how well everything is going, we've secured a program room so people can bring games to play on Thursday night in a decent-sized program room. I'll bring many of my games (several past Mind Games winners), some MWM chapter games, and hopefully we'll have people driving in who are willing to bring down some of their own collections to play Thursday.

Go to mindgames.us.mensa.org to register and find additional information, and the link to reserving a sleeping room at the hotel, too.

Testing at Marbles: The Brain Store

We have just gotten the green light to conduct a Mensa Admission test session at Marbles: The Brain Store in Montgomery Mall, Bethesda, MD.

As of now, it looks like we will be conducting this test session on Sunday, November 20, 2011 from 9-11am.

If someone you know would like to take the test at this session, contact our Testing Coordinator at testing@mwm.us.mensa.org

Weem is next week!

I've heard about Weem for about 10 years now, but have not managed to get to Chicago for it yet. I'm finally going to see for myself what it's all about. The program looks great, and Oriel's logic tournament is surely going to kick my @$$ as usual - last time for an unknown amount of time that I have an opportunity to finish 4 of the 6 puzzles correctly in time. (I only ever get 3 -- grrrr...) And with 240 games in the chapter's game collection, surely I'll wind up missing many/most of the programs I might want to attend because of being involved in gameplay.

Hope to see some of you there.

Are You Smarter Than a Young Mensan?

Test out your own skills with these questions, put together by yours truly for this Mensan take on the Jeff Foxworthy game show that I emceed at MWM's RG - A Capital Time - last weekend. I'm doing work on putting together questions for future such "shows".

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1^st Grade Music:

True or False: The trombone is a woodwind instrument.

2^nd Grade Spelling:

How many letters are in the word which means the same thing as getting a check-up at the doctor or the type of education where you play sports outdoors?

3^rd Grade Ancient Cultures:

This was the name of the Egyptian god associated with chaos – the jealous brother of Osiris who killed Osiris, despite Osiris being the divine ruler in Egyptian mythology. It is also the name of an 81-card card game which won the Mensa Mind Games® Mensa Select® seal back in 1991. What is this name held in common?

4^th Grade World Geography:

What is the capital of Australia?

5^th Grade Measurements:

If the spherical grapefruit that you ate this morning had a diameter of 6 inches peeled, what was the volume (in cubic inches) of the fruit you ate?

6^th Grade Social Studies:

Shot by Charles Guiteau in Washington, DC on his way back to our alma mater, Williams College, for his 25th reunion, he was the third U.S. President to fall victim to what was termed “Tecumseh's Curse.” Who was this 20^th President of the United States?

7^th Grade Algebra:

Factor the following trinomial: x³+x²-x-1

8^th Grade Grammar:

The following is part of a description of a Runespoor, a three-headed snake mentioned in Newt Scamander's (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling's) Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them: “The left head...is the planner. The middle head is the dreamer... The right head is the critic and will evaluate the efforts of the left and middle heads with a continual irritable hissing.” This has at least three examples of what literary device?

[NB: OK, so I was told that "grammar" isn't quite right for this category. Maybe "Literary devices" is more apt?]

9^th Grade U.S. History:

With the invention of the internet, Twitter and various other social media outlets, and the ubiquitous nature of cell phones, Samuel F.B. Morse's observation regarding the telegraph in 1844 is as apt today as ever. What was the first telegraph message?

10^th Grade Chemistry:

What common substance has the chemical formula C₆H₁₂O₆?

11^th Grade Shakespeare:

What is the name of the character who speaks the last lines of the play in Hamlet, “Take up the bodies. Such a sight as this / Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss. / Go, bid the soldiers shoot”?

12^th Grade Poetry:

In Piers Anthony's “Juxtaposition”, the newly minted Citizen, Stile, was smuggled into the central court in a trash bin, given all those who are out to harm him. During the formalities, he emerges from the bin quoting “[h]is flashing eyes, his floating hair! / Weave a circle round him thrice, / And close your eyes with holy dread, / For he on honey-dew hath fed, / And drunk the milk of Paradise.” From what poem by what 19^th century poet does this verse originate?

College-Level Astronomy: Our Sun is approximately 29% less massive than this, the mathematical dividing line between where white dwarfs are massive enough to become black holes or not.

[NB: This is the original phrasing. Apparently, it's not as clear as I thought, as white dwarfs don't go directly from that state to black holes.]