Subject: IMPORTANT summer travel information UPDATES as of MAY 5 in paragraphs enclosed by ****UPDATED**** flags. Hi again folks - Summer travel dates are coming up fast! Here are the dates I have for your teams. These are the work days; travel may (will) happen on surrounding days. rebull/cg4 - june 14-16 gorjian/agn - july 19-21 howell-hoard/sed - aug 2-4 howell-hoard/varstar - aug 6-8 We will take care of setting up logistics at this end (finding a place to put you and getting keys). BUT getting the rest of your travel set up is what the rest of this (long) mail is about. As is so often the case with travelling for work (where someone else pays), some parts of this may seem more complicated than it needs to be, but believe it or not, we're trying to make it easy! --> ***Please let me know if you'd like me to dial in to one of your group telecons to talk about these logistics. Since you all now have done this once, for the AAS meeting, you should have a general sense of how this works, the most important bit being the faster you send in your receipts, the faster you get your money back! However, for these summer visits, things are going to be a little different, mostly more complicated, than the AAS. In order to make the money work out, we need cooperation from you to live as cheaply as possible. Double up on hotel rooms where possible (especially for students). Coordinate your arrival times such that you can rent 1 or 2 vans rather than 4 or 5 compact cars. Moreover, several of you are bringing several students (some may bring more than we will pay for), and I'm sure you'll want all of your students on the same flight. (If we book travel, you could end up on different flights.) ****UPDATED**** As a result of all of this, the main, major difference between this upcoming trip and your past AAS experience is that YOU MAY WISH to book all your own travel -- at least planes and hotels. That way, you can synchronize everything and get everyone where they need to go, when they need to be there. (If you would rather not do this, if you'd rather have us do it, please let me know as soon as possible.) Regarding vehicles, this is turning out to be a little more complicated; read on! ****UPDATED**** ****UPDATED**** If you would like to drive instead of fly, please contact us separately. ****UPDATED**** You should plan on being here bright and early and ready to work on the first day listed above, which means traveling the day before. Likewise, we're expecting you to be here through 5pm on the last day listed above. If you want to come in earlier (or stay later), you need to pay for any additional hotel nights. Please note that we will not pay for spouses or more than 2 students per teacher to attend; any of those additional expenses are up to you. Real-life examples below. All of the general rules for government travel still apply, as follows. You will be covered for a round trip, coach class ticket on a domestic carrier. We will only reimburse the fare equivalent to a round trip, coach class ticket on a domestic carrier, as determined by JPL travel. Most non-refundable tickets available through the internet come in at or under this JPL level, but if you wish to be sure, don't book your travel until you get a cost estimate from our folks here; please email Mary Ellen Barba (meb@ipac.caltech.edu) with estimated costs you've found and general parameters (e.g., ORD-> LAX, on such-and-such a date & time, returning on such-and-such date & time). You should plan on flying into BUR (Burbank=Bob Hope Airport) or LAX; BUR is easier. Anything else in the area (Ontario, Long Beach, Orange County/John Wayne) is sufficently far away that you better be looking at some kick-ass airfares to justify the drive. You will be covered for a hotel at government rates in this area, which is up to $135 per night. Most online bookings come in cheaper than that. Just like for the AAS, you will be reimbursed the government per diem for food and ancillary items for the relevant (pro rated) fraction of your travel days, plus all the days spent at the conference. No need to save individual receipts; the per diem is what we will pay, and all we will pay for. If you are staying longer (or eating steak and lobster at each meal), then you must pay for that additional food. The government per diem for summer in Pasadena is $71/day ($53.25 first and last day, pro-rated). OK, now cars. It is at this point that you may end up holding your head in your hands. You can each rent a car, and we'll pay for it, but that's expensive, and historically some teachers have been unwilling to drive in LA, which I can understand. You'll be reimbursed for a rental car, standard class (no Lamborghinis but no need to do sub-compacts either). BUT, frankly we'd rather you live more cheaply, and as such have secured permission for you all to rent fewer but larger vehicles, e.g., one or two of you per team could rent a van and drive the others around. This will be probably more fun for the group anyway, as well as cheaper. However, JPL makes it somewhat difficult to rent vans, so if you would like to do this, we need to make the van reservation. Once you have set up arrival places/times, email either Mary Ellen Barba (meb@ipac.caltech.edu) or Wannetta Lockhart (wannetta@ipac.caltech.edu) with the driver's (drivers') name(s) and arrival times/places and she'll make the van reservations through JPL. This actually does work out to be a better solution, because if JPL makes the reservation, JPL also insures you. ****UPDATED**** Again, as before, the faster you submit your receipts, the faster you'll be reimbursed. AT THIS TIME, THE ONLY REIMBURSEMENTS WE CAN DO ARE AFTER THE TRIP, DUE TO RESTRICTIONS ON GOVERNMENT TRAVEL. Send them to Mary Ellen Barba (meb@ipac.caltech.edu), 1200 E. California Blvd, Mail Stop 100-22, Pasadena, CA, 91101. Students for whom we are paying will get their reimbursements faster if we can enter them into the system before they travel; please contact us separately if you have students for whom we are paying and for whom we did not book airfare in advance. ****UPDATED**** General information on your visit can be found here: http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_classroom/teacher_research/visit/ There are several useful links lower down on that page , with hotel suggestions, etc., but I encourage you to do a little web research. The Athenaeum (the faculty club on campus) is where we used to put people, but they have some bizarro policies and more importantly charge more than the government per diem. I would not recommend that. There are also, importantly, Authorizations/Medical Release forms for your students. PLEASE have your students fill these out and fax or scan/email/snail mail them to me (Luisa Rebull) BEFORE YOU ARRIVE IN PASADENA. (If you fax it, please actually put my name on the cover, and follow it up with an email to me to go get it -- I share the fax machine with the entire floor, and if I don't know to go get it, it will be lost.) OK, real life examples. (1) Teacher A brought a spouse to help with chaperoning. Even though the spouse was helping out, we only paid for Teacher A's half of the hotel room and Teacher A's food. The spouse did not rent an additional car, so no additional expenses were incurred. (2) Team X did some group web research and found that Santa Anita had some considerably cheaper hotels than Pasadena during that particular week, so they stayed out there and drove in every day (~6 mi, but in the direction of the rush hour flow, so I'm not sure how long it actually took them every day.) (3) Team Y managed to get 60% of their teachers into Burbank all within 2 hours of each other. They rented a total of 2 vans, and drove to Pasadena together. One teacher went back to the airport to pick up some of the remaining people later on that day; the others, coming from another airport, took a Super Shuttle directly to the hotel (http://www.supershuttle.com/). The two teachers whose names appeared on the rental agreements were the ones who submitted the rental van receipts and were reimbursed for that expense. Any questions? I'm sure there will be .. Please let me know. Please also let me know if you want to try to dial in to one of your group's regular telecons to talk through this. If it would help, please feel free to set up a wiki page to coordinate travel. There's a skeletal example page set up as part of the CG4 current research activities page: http://coolwiki.ipac.caltech.edu/index.php/CG4_Current_Research_Activities (see "summer visit"). I can help you do this for your teams if you would like. cheers, Luisa Dr. Luisa Rebull Research Scientist, Spitzer Science Center Caltech M/S 220-6 voice 626-395-4565 1200 E. California Blvd. FAX 626-568-0673 Pasadena, CA 91125