Next Week's Program: 
Jean Newton Fraguglia - Retirement Living
 

Upcoming Events:

2/28:  WCS:  Northern Trust, Third St. 8:00 - 9:30 AM

3/2:  (EOC) - GSE Outgoing to Japan - Harry Abbott
•• LAREF:  2570 W. El Camino Real Suite 400 MTV  5:15 PM

See our Calendar for all of the important dates.

To see Neighboring Club meetings go to Clubs

To our Website

To District 5170

February:  District 5170 Community Service Month

February:  Rotary International:  World Understanding Month (Our International Service, is their Community Service)

Today’s Meeting:  LARC Annual Meeting – Election of Directors

Greeters Red Badgers, MIKE CABOT and NANCY SIMON,  

and always cheerful, Cashier LEE LYNCH. 

What a great privilege it was to have Past President FIROOZ GHAFARI lead us in the Pledge.  Good to see you up and about, FIROOZ.  Our spirits were further raised by Songmeister JOHN SYLVESTER,  who was not intimidated by our guest speaker (and ex-Los Altos Rotarian, but more about that later) Dr. Elizabeth Barkley. 

Redbadger MICHAEL STADLEN’S  Thought for the Day was missed by this reporter.  I was more interested in the use of his PDA, which for some reason fascinated me to no end.  But I do recall that it was something about Socrates commenting on the future of the elite media – or something like that. 

TABLE TALK
The weekly practice of socializing during the first 10 minutes or so of the meeting makes a lot of sense to me.  It is so infectious it becomes difficult for the President to grab hold of the meeting once let loose.   

ANNOUNCEMENTS:  KATIE NUTTER did take a straw vote on a field trip to the De Young Museum.  It looked like there was lots of interest, even though it required being in San Francisco at 9:30 on some future Saturday. 

JOHN MOSS (PE-E) reminded us that it is now ILLEGAL, right, not just unwise, but ILLEGAL, to throw away any electronic component or battery – including those hard to find, hearing-aid batteries.  Recycle centers will spring up as time goes by, - and – bye and bye. 

Speaking of FIROOZ, KAILAS CHIDAMBARAM is still looking for drivers for FIROOZ to help him get to treatment several times a week.  Call KAILAS (phone number in Directory) or Giti Ghaffari (again, phone number in Directory) if you can help. 

DUDE ANGUS NEEDS OUR HELP! The Los Altos Story now has Russian subtitles ready to be added to our other six languages on the DVD.  We have been unable to locate a company that will implant the translation on the DVD master ( our production company in San Francisco is not equipped to do this type of work ). Any references, anyone ? 

Kendra Gjerseth has a new email address.  Please update your Directory:

kendra@birchfinepaper.com
Kendra Gjerseth Co-owner, Birch
www.birchfinepaper.com
357 Main Street
Los Altos, CA 94022
650.948.5800 phone
650.948.5802 fax
415.425.1773 cell

PRESIDENT’S ANNOUNCEMENTS: Because ballots for new Board Members were emailed Feb. 15 and Club Bylaws require notice 1 week prior to election, the closing date of election has been extended to Wed. Feb. 22, 11 am.  If you have not voted, you can go to the website and pick up a PDF version of the ballot, print it out and mail it to our Club Secretary JOHN CARDOZA at Los Altos Rotary, Post office Box 794, Los Altos, CA 94022.  But John must receive it by this Wednesday, at 11 am. 

The three winners will be announced at the Feb. 23^rd meeting.  Election Judges will be President MARLENE COWAN, PE SAM PESNER, & PE-E JOHN MOSS. 

With deep sadness, PAUL NYBERG reports that his son Dan Nyberg passed away yesterday of bone cancer at age 47, leaving his wife Suzanne, two college aged kids and his two brothers and a sister.  

Los Altos Sunset Rotary Club will be holding a celebration dinner Tues., March 14, Michaels at Shoreline.  There will be a reception beginning at 6:00 PM.  Tickets are $35 each.  Please RSVP by March 10th to Carroll Jenkins, PE by email at  cjenkins@cfri.org or  by phone at 650-404-9977. 

A soccer coach still needed for Alta Vista’s soccer team during the month of  April only. See HERB MARSHALL or President MARLENE. (3 weekday practices + 1 weekend game) This could be shared between 2 people. 

Under the “News we Need”;  There were no signs of cannibalism found during archeological digs at Alder Creek near Donner Lake. Thanks to ROY JONES for continuing the saga with an article from Truckee Today newspaper which lists the menu for the George Donner families (separated from the cannibals by 6 miles) as consisting of deer, rabbits and small rodents, along with their family’s oxen and livestock. Thanks for the savory mention, Roy! 

PRESIDENT'S CORNER: What important event occurred on Feb. 23?  On Feb. 23, 1905?  Of course, it was the formation of the first Rotary Club by Paul Harris, “an attorney who wished to recapture in a professional club the same friendly spirit he had felt in the small towns of his youth,” to quote the Rotary website www.rotary.org.
That fellowship is warmly rekindled each Thursday at our Club meetings. We miss the friends who are absent and hope to encourage all to make Rotary a priority. We’re all entered in our new contest--“The March Lunch Bunch”. Members who attend 100% of the March lunch meetings will have a chance at winning a free lunch when we draw three lucky names from a hat on April 6.  Make-ups don’t count for this contest—we want to see you at Club meetings! Come celebrate the 101^st anniversary of Rotary with us next Thursday.

-President Marlene

FINE FINE TIME: Suavé Finemaster, PP DICK HENNING  grabbed many people.  He got six (to my count) new members of the Explorer’s Club.  After reading the above non-cannibal incident, none of us should be afraid to join the President’s Explorer’s Club.  Here are the one’s that I counted:

NANCY SIMON –   for relief from being called to answer the same question two weeks in a row, GARY ROSS because he was the answer, DAVID SMITH for rediscovering (as an Explorer), the Cook Islands, KELLY HUDSON for joining the management of Opera San Jose as Director of Marketing, and for the fact she will not have time to participate in the Tour de California this week, PAT FARRELL, for his first name, and last, but not least, SETH MANNING for showing his age as the youngest Explorer.

There were others, not Explorer caliber, but funny none the less.  Like CAREW MCFALL when asked who sponsored his brother CRES: (he did).  And PP DICK DUHRING who answered “GARY ROSS” before being asked the fining question.   

MUSIC APPRECIATION 101: Years ago when I was in college (yes, Sylvia, they had colleges back then), I took an Art Appreciation course.  It may have been because I was a Sophomore, or maybe I really did learn something, but I remember going around afterwards, showing off my new-found knowledge, saying dumb things (well, at least they sound dumb now) like “Can you see Chagall’s influence on that painting?”, or “that painting is in the Post-Modernist tradition”, and so on.  Before that art class, I definitely subscribed to the notion that all art was divided into two camps: “Ugh”, and “Oh”.  I judged all art by putting it in one of these two camps. 

Before the Dr. Elizabeth Barkley presentation at our meeting this past week, I lumped all music into those two same camps: “Oh” as in classic and “Ugh” as in most everything else.  Now, after the Dr. Barkley’ talk, I listen to music in a different manner.  The other night, I heard a piece of music while channel-surfing between ads during the Olympics.  I said to myself “There is an African percussion, and call-response influence to that Jamaican music.”  Thank heaven I didn’t say it out loud.  My wife would have thought I was back in college.  I really didn’t hear the micro-tonal pitch system, but then, as I said, I was channel-surfing.  

Dr. Barkley  explained (and sometimes demonstrated – thus the reference to JOHN SYLVESTER) some of the various influences on our music today:

Her thesis was America is a “Nation of Immigrants” and the music reflects this today.  Many of the “American” songs today had genesis elsewhere.  Our Star-Spangled Banner, for example, came from a popular British song, named “Anacreon”. See: http://www.bcpl.net/~etowner/anacron2.html for more information. 

Dr. Elizabeth Barkley has the distinction of being the first woman member of Los Altos Rotary Club.  She was inducted just weeks after the Supreme Court said we could.  She went on to be recognized by many groups, such as: “1998 Professor of the Year” by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, “1998 Innovator of the Year” for developing one of the first online music programs.  It was a great program.  It almost makes me want to go back to school.  Well -- no.