This is my standard e-mail sent to non-NIH people that are attending the NIH AFNI bootcamp. ** Please let me know if you are still planning to attend! ** The classroom will be crowded, but should become more tolerable by the second day, as we find that some people tend to drop out. ** If you want to bring AFNI pre-installed for the class on your own laptop, that is OK and even good. Please contact Rick Reynolds (reynoldr@mail.nih.gov) about this subject, as you will need to have not only AFNI installed, but the sample datasets and the PDF handouts. Depending on how much you are willing to pay, there are various options for hotels. Downtown Bethesda, about 1/2 to 1 mile from here, is fairly expensive -- maybe $200 per night (unless you can snag a deal on priceline.com, which is not impossible). You can also stay farther away, about 10 miles north, up in Gaithersburg or Rockville near the Shady Grove Metro station, and come to the NIH by Metro (there is a Metro stop on the NIH campus). In the past, some visitors have stayed at the Red Roof Inn up there for about $80 per night: http://www.redroof-washington-dc-rockville.com/ Note that you want the Rockville Red Roof Inn, not the one in Laurel! I personally have not ever even seen this hotel, so cannot say how good it is from any firsthand knowledge, but have heard that it is OK. They have some sort of shuttle service to the Metro on weekdays (it's about a mile from the Shady Grove Metro station), but you may want to call them to find out more. Another hotel nearby the Shady Grove Metro is the Comfort Inn: http://www.comfortinn.com/hotel-gaithersburg-maryland-MD413 Or if you really want to save money, you could try finding a hostel at http://hostelworld.com -- wherever you stay, you want to be close to the Metro (subway system). More information about the Metro system (buses and trains) can be found at http://wmata.com/ The cheapest hotel option near the NIH is the American Inn in Bethesda, which is about halfway between the Bethesda and Medical Center (NIH) Metro stops -- about 1/2 mile in either direction. I believe it costs about $130 per night. The closest place to fly to would be Reagan Washington Airport (DCA). You can then take the Metro to downtown DC, change to the Red line at Gallery Place, and come up to Bethesda/Rockville. Or you could take a taxi (probably about $40-50 from DCA to here), or the SuperShuttle (about $30/person?). Or you could use an NIH airport shuttle, info about which can be found at http://dtts.ors.od.nih.gov/patient_shuttles.htm There are also NIH shuttles from the BWI and IAD airports, which might have cheaper flight options. (Note that if you take a shuttle to the NIH, you will be driven into the NIH and will have to go through a security and ID check at that time.) From IAD (Dulles airport), you can take a Washington Flyer bus to the Metro (about $10) and then continue on from there. A taxi from IAD to the Bethesda area will be about $70, I think. A taxi from BWI would be very expensive, since it is a long distance from here -- a SuperShuttle van would be much much cheaper. And of course, there's Amtrak to Washington's Union Station, from which you can take the Metro Red line. Or you could just drive to Bethesa from wherever you happen to be. However, parking at the NIH itself is NOT a good idea -- non-NIH-ers have to pay. To enter the NIH campus without an employee's badge, you have to go through something like airport security (but with shorter lines) -- magnetometer, X-ray of bags, ID check. Takes about 5 minutes. Do not bring knives, guns, archery equipment, or alcohol in your bag! There is a small unappetizing cafeteria in Bldg 12B and a larger more appealing food court in Building 10. Downtown Bethesda (1 Metro stop farther south, or about a 15 minute walk) is chock full of restaurants in all price ranges -- for dinner, Bethesda and Washington offer a huge range of choices. A campus map is attached, as an image; the class is room B51 (basement) of Building 12A. Unfortunately, Bldg 12A is not properly labeled on the map -- it is the small building to the upper-right of the numerals '12' in bldg 12 and to the upper left of bldg 22. Entrance to bldg 12A is from the covered walkway between it and bldg 12B directly to its left (at the south end of the parking lot to the left of bldg 50). The 'M' at the right of the map marks the Medical Center Metro stop. As you come up the escalators from the subway, walk straight across a 50 foot gap to the visitor's entrance (labeled 'Gateway Center' on the map). Once inside the security perimeter, then walk along South Drive until you pass Bldg 50 (a tall modern structure), then turn left and walk thru the parking lot to the Bldg 12 complex. You will need to keep your visitor's ID badge handy to show the guard when you enter Bldg 12A itself. Your visitor's ID is only good for 1 day -- you'll have to repeat the process every time you enter the campus, as you are obviously a suspicious person and need to be observed at all times. The classes start at 8:30 each morning and break up about 5:30 pm. If you want to bring a laptop preloaded with the datasets and AFNI version we will be using in the class, then that stuff (about 2 GB?) will be available for download sometime the week before the class. Otherwise, you will have to share a computer with someone else. You should contact Rick Reynolds (reynoldr@mail.nih.gov) about this subject as the time approaches. Note that AFNI runs on Macs and Linux, but not on Windows (not now, not ever, no how, no way). We will NOT be handing out printouts of all the class material -- we've decided against using up so much paper -- hundreds of pages per student. The material (PDFs) will be available for download late the week prior to the class (when we finish updating them, hopefully sometime before the classes actually start). All the computers in the training room will have the PDFs loaded on them. I have attached the schedule used for the LAST bootcamp (in Sept 2010). We will be following a slightly modified version of this plan, but I don't have that in a nice format to send you at this moment. The final class on Friday will probably break up earlier than scheduled, as pretty much everybody is brain-drained and semi-vegetative by then. If you plan to fly out Friday evening, you should be able to make a plane leaving from Washington National (DCA) at 8 pm or later, allowing about 1 hour to get to DCA by Metro or cab.