if your on LI, you should join the LIRA. im a member and its pretty cool. you get frags for real cheap and you get to talk to a lot of cool people/ learn a lot of stuff.
if your in the NE area, i suggest going to NERAC. its at atlantis marine world on LI, march 10th and 11th and theres gunna be a lot of guest speakers/ raffles and overall interesting things to do there. let me know if anyone wants info on it.