MEETING OF OCTOBER 24, 2002 By Wyatt Allen
Editor Dick Blanding
Webmaster Steve GruberBEGINNINGS
I have to be careful with this comment, but 42 Rotarians were "shot" before today's meeting. Thanks to BEN McGANN for making arrangements to have the Mountain View Rotacare facility staff come to provide flu shots to interested members. (We'll know who didn't get the vaccinations later duringthe winter by the absences!)
VICTORIA EMMONS started the proceedings by leading us in the Pledge.
ALAN LAMBERT, after uttering the seemingly required "Shut Up" phrase to get our attention, led us in "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" with some attempt at harmony. (With RICK GLAZE howling at the end, I guess the harmony part wasn't too successful!).
SHIV SHASTRI provided our thought for the day by reading Kipling's poem, "If." This poem was full of insightful thoughts on how we should allow our inner strength to keep exterior influences and pressures from changing our course through life.
Pres.-elect AL TRAFICANTI introduced visiting Rotarians and called upon members HASENPFLUG, YARBROUGH, PAYNE and GLAZE to introduce today's guests.
ANNOUNCEMENTS from President MARY PROCHNOW
MARY announced that we will hold our annual holiday event at the Jesuit Retreat House (thanks to BILL REWAK) on December 18. Be sure to save the date and sign up for this great social event.There will be a dinner in Monterey on January 3 for our current Rotary International president Bhichai Rattakul, who hails from India. Please let MARY know if you are interested in attending.
MARY also reported that our Board of Directors is encouraging each and every one of us to participate in the annual fundraising campaign for our Rotary Foundation. Although many double sustainers would be wonderful, we would certainly enjoy the opportunity to report 100% participation from our Los Altos rotary Club. To date, we have received contributions from 68 Los Altos Rotarians, which is about half of us. Half down, half to go. Please get your contributions into WYATT ALLEN, BOO BUE or JOE RENATI.
The club is still developing ideas for a "Centennial Project" to celebrate Rotary's first 100 years of existence. Please provide feed back to MARY or any of our Board members with your ideas. Once a project is designated, a committee will be formed to initiate our efforts for this important project.
The TRAVELS of ROTARIANS
ED SOX reported on the sister city visit recently completed by Rotarians CHUCK LINDAUER, PAUL NYBERG and ED SOX and their spouses to Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia. For those that may not know, Los Altos also has sister cites in Australia, England and Taiwan. If you have potential interest in visiting any of these areas or hosting guest from any of these locations, be sure to contact the Sister Cities organization.
KAREN FOX has been making the rounds to other Rotary clubs lately. She presented club flags from Iowa and Manchester, England as well as visited clubs in Ft. Bragg (CA) and Mexico. KAREN has certainly been experiencing a variety of cultures this Fall. She is leaving for her 10-month Fulbright Scholarship in St. Petersburg, Russia.
JOAN ROSSELL reported she completed a make-up in Singapore and was provided an opportunity to speak regarding our Rotary AIDS Project.
BAIDRA PROCHNOW MURPHY (her new name) is so dedicated she actually participated in a make-up meeting in Washington, DC during her honeymoon. She also had an opportunity to present information on our Rotary AIDS Project, including the newly available DVD of the "Los Altos Story."RECOGNITION by FINEMASTER JOHN McALISTER
Despite hearing the comment "nice knees" as he strode in his shorts to the podium, JOHN remained (relatively) kind today. After asking a show of hands for those in the room under forty years of age (the number obviously failed the Four Way Test!), JOHN first extracted a fine from STEVE YARBROUGH for what JOHN felt was far too commercialized introduction of his guest today. Others fined were AL TRAFICANTI, MIKE SCHNIEDER, ALAN LAMBERT, BECKY MILLER, and PAUL NYBERG. Members MILLER and TRAFICANTI joined the president's club.Today's topic was simply out of this world…literally. DR. JIM ZIMBELMAN, a Smithsonian Scholar, provided marvelous information, complete with slides, on the
exploration of our solar system in a talk entitled, "Voices of Discovery." He stated we are the first generation to really know what our solar system is like, due to the space exploration program and the photos and materials that have become available for study and examination.
Standing in the Garden House, he attempted to provide perspective as to the size of our solar system by holding up a quarter to represent the size of our sun. Earth would be nine feet away, Jupiter 47 feet, Pluto over 100 yards and the next nearest sun about 440 miles.
With the use of slides, he began a very informative talk with our sun and venturing out a planet at a time to Pluto. The following facts were provided those in attendance:
1. Our sun is a boiling cauldron of gases. If only we could harness a portion of the energy that is constantly being expended but our sun through surface explosions.
2. Mercury is moon-like about 1/3 the size of Earth. Its many faults and fissures indicate violent impacts from meteors in its past.
3. Venus, about the size of Earth, is too hot to sustain water. It's 'greenhouse effect" creates surface temperatures aver 900 degrees Fahrenheit with atmospheric pressure 90 times that of Earth. (Not very inviting unless you want a very quick tan.)
4. We have only had actual photographs of Earth since the 1960's to study. This is the only planet that sustains water in all forms (gas, liquid and solid).
5. Our moon has large areas of its surface where sunlight is never experienced.
6. Mars is about the size of Earth, with a thin atmosphere and frozen ice cap. It provides the most likely planet to sustain life other than Earth.
7. Material from the surface of Mars has been found and identified on Earth (most likely from violent collisions with meteors causing fragments to fly into outer space).
8. The "Asteroid Belt" is between Mars and Jupiter and has innumerable irregular shaped fragments orbiting the sun (For people living in glasses, this is definitely an area to avoid!).
9. Jupiter is some eleven times larger than Earth and was seen in the slide with a 300-year duration storm the size of Earth on its surface. It is unknown if Jupiter is entirely gases or has a core. It also has many multiple moons, many having active volcanic activity.
10. Saturn, slightly smaller than Jupiter, is the planet with rings that are made up of balls of ice orbiting around the planet's equator.
11. Uranus, some four times the size of Earth, takes 84 years to orbit the sun, making for 42-year long winters or summer. It is also tipped off its axis so its poles are not at the bottom or top of the planet.
12. Neptune, about the size of Uranus, is heated form the inside out so it is much hotter than expected being so far from the sun. It gives off twice the energy it receives from the sun.
13. Neptune's moon is frozen nitrogen, likely making it the coldest part of our solar system.
14. Pluto, about the size of Earth, is the only planet not yet visited by spacecraft.DR. ZIMBELMAN provided samples of meteors that have been found on the Earth's surface and are made up of rock, metal or part of both materials. Some meteors even have magnetic qualities. This can be confirmed by analysis of samples brought back by exploratory spacecraft.
It is likely that technology will continue to provide more and more information about our solar system to each successive generation. It may not be long before we know something about suns and their respective planets in systems that "neighbor" our solar system. Intelligent life may be out there somewhere, so the desire to continue our search for other forms of life in outer space is likely to continue during mankind's existence on Earth.
Programs and EventsOctober
October 31 - Rosalind Bivings: President: Fore Women Golfers, "Real Men Golf With Women"November
November 7: Valerie Faillace: "Working With Indigenous Indians of Peru & Bolivia"
November 14: Sandy Ellenberg: Plastic Surgeon , Rotarian & RotoPlast "Assisting Third World Countries With Surgery, Cleft Palate"
November 21: Don Allen: District Governor Elect 2003 / 2004 "Polio Plus Program"
November 28: Happy Thanksgiving: No MeetingNEARBY ROTARY CLUB MEETING PLACES
TUESDAY
Los Altos Sunset: The Echo Restaurant, Los Altos, 7:15 p.m.
Mountain View: Adobe House, Moffett & Central, Mountain View, 12:15 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Menlo Park: Menlo Park Recreation Center, Menlo Park, noon.
Woodside/Portola: Woodside Village Church, Woodside, 7:30 a.m.
THURSDAY
Palo Alto Sunrise: Scott's, Town & Country, Palo Alto, 7:15 a.m.
FRIDAY
Palo Alto University: Sheraton, El Camino, Palo Alto, 7:30 a.m.
"Information in this newsletter is intended for the exclusive use of the members of the Rotary Club of Los Altos to facilitate the work of the club and to promote club fellowship. It is not to be used for any commercial or outside, unrelated, non-profit purposes. No publication of material in this newsletter should occur without the express permission of the club President or the Editor of the Rotator."Copyright 2002 The Los Altos Rotary Club
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