This Week's Program: 
Pediatric AIDS Symnposium
(Be sure you RSVP by Monday 3/26!)

Upcoming Events:
April 5th - Tony Zingale  --  Mercury Interactive

DISTRICT CONFERENCE
April 20, 21 and 22nd - Monterey CA

Register ON-Line.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
Salt Lake City Utah.

Register ON-Line

Greeting us today were BERRY GROVE, ROLAND PAYNE, CRES MCFALL, and KAREN OWEN.

JOHN ‘SILVER THROAT’ SYLVESTER led us in a rousing rendition of “BYE-BYE BLACKBIRD”.  That song ran through my mind for the rest of the day.

BOB ADAMS gave us wit and wisdom from THE WEEK magazine.  It was all very thoughtful.  Especially the one about the average beer drinker drinks a gallon of beer per day.  I rather doubt any of them belong to the LOS ALTOS ROTARY CLUB.

Guests today included Trish Bubenik, from the Palo Alto Chapter of the American Red Cross, Mady Kahn from the Kahn residence, and Lou Pesner, wife of the grandest pooh-bah. MADY was there for the aids symposium, which isn’t until next week.  Always better to be early than late. 

 Important for next weeks meeting
JOHN MOSS spoke about upcoming meeting programs.  Next week is the aids symposium and will be headed up by DUDE ANGIUS.  It is very important to e-mail your intentions of being or not being there to MATT CABOT, who is keeping count.  Our caterers need to know how many they will be serving that day. 
Also, DUDE asked that we be on time (12:15) or early and go directly to a table where a salad will be waiting.  No need to pay at the door.  Money will be collected at the tables and given to LEE LYNCH.  No need for badges either.  The program will be long and needs to begin on time.  We will hear two experts speak on different aspects of Aids including passing the disease on to children through childbirth.

About this time LEN MCBIRNEY stood up and told the best Irish joke of the St. Patty’s day season.  Sorry, you had to have been there.  It was all in the telling, which DR. MCBIRNEY does better than almost anybody.

Announcements
JACK KELLY reported on the Area 10 Speech Contest.  The young lady, SHEFALI LUTHRA, who won our club contest came in second in that contest.  For all of you that are interested she left the f--- word in her talk, but that wasn’t what did her in.  She ran overtime and didn’t show as much enthusiasm as did the winner. The next level of the contest will be held in Watsonville on April 28th.  Time and place to be announced.

DICK HENNING announced the GSE team from Argentina will arrive here on April 2 and be guests of our club on April 5. That, by the way, is DICK HENNING’s birthday.  You’ll have to ask him how old he will be.  Several members of our club will be hosting the visitors. 

DENNIS YOUNG gave another plea for contributions to LAREF.  It’s working as more of us are contributing.  Please make out a check for $1,000 to LAREF to become a GUY SHOUP fellow. 

DR. JACK HIGGINS told us a health committee meeting would be held immediately following today’s meeting.  It’s too late now for your contribution if you didn’t go. 

ROLAND PAYNE told us about the Los Altos Robotics team which did very well in last week’s tournament.  Robotics has surged in interest and number of clubs recently and Los Altos has represented us well.  LAREF has been a regular contributor to the team over the last number of years.

Trish Bubenik, a Palo Alto Rotarian, spoke about the Red Cross and their willingness to help prepare us for the big quake coming our way.  She congratulated Area 10 and our club specifically for stepping up to be a collaborator with carrying out three distinct disaster preparedness directives; Becoming educated ourselves on what our own families can do to prepare, then, reaching out to our neighbors with preparedness education, and participating on a team of volunteers for emergency shelter construction, are the three ways LARC can become an important influence in our community should disaster strike.

Believe it or not we actually had 5 min. of social time at this point.  It took 10 minutes to calm the club down after the 5 min. 

JOHN SINES, the king of one-liners, was our fine master.  Among the fines was MEL KAHN for his comment on MADY, the Diva.  JOHN says “It takes one to know one” and fined him appropriately.  MARY PROCHNOW gave $1000 to LAREF in honor of her first grandchild being born one year ago.  Way to go MARY!  PAT FARRELL gave up $51 for his brand new Beemer.  DWIGHT MATTHEWS told a story about his friend Mr. Lear of the jet.  Yep. That cost him.

Then JOHN got into historic national scandals and who was President at that time.  It was way too confusing for this writer.  Let’s just say MCFALL, KELLY, KAVALARIS, OWEN, JONES, and GROVES were fined exorbitant amounts for knowing or not knowing the proper president. 

If it weren’t for BARRY GROVES, we’d have never known that Alta Vista High School won the area championship under the leadership of the coach BOB ADAMS.  I think that’s a pretty big deal, BOB.

Katie’s Art Show Update
2007 is the year of the customer for “Fine Art in the Park.”  We know that artists love us because we take such good care of them.  This year, we’re trying to take equally good care of customers.  Here’s what we’re doing differently;

• First, we’re working to enhance “the customer experience,” if you’ll excuse the high-tech marketing term.  We’re going to make it easier to park, offering customers free parking and shuttle service from Los Altos High School. 

• We also want to make them feel more welcome – to have an interaction with customers that goes beyond our taking their money (from behind a booth wall, no less) and handing them a glass of wine as they walk away.  So DICK HENNING is heading up a new feature – a wine-tasting booth where customers come into the booth, taste different wines, and chat with Rotarians.  (If we get a chance to “pitch” Rotary to them, fine.)  

• We’re also working hard to offer a more varied food and beverage menu.  LOUIS BOREL is leading the charge here.  He went down to Santana Row in San Jose and found us some new food vendors.  And he’s persuaded Estrellita to provide Mexican food AND margaritas! 

• A second way we’re focusing on customers this year is to invest a whole lot more time and energy in learning about who they are, what they spend, and what they think of the show.  KATIE NUTTER went through all last year’s receipts and entered customers’ names, addresses and amounts spent into an Excel database.  This is really valuable information.  We’ve learned that only 40 percent of our customers come from Los Altos – with San Jose (9%), Palo Alto (7%), Mountain View (7%), Redwood City (6%) and Menlo Park/Atherton (5%) representing the bulk of the rest.  Ten percent of our customers spent more than $1,000 at the show last year.  These folks are getting personal letters from SAM PESNER, inviting them to the show and giving them complimentary tickets to our wine-tasting booth.  The largest portion of customers – 43 percent – spends between $100 and $499. 

• As for what customers think of the show, CINDY DAY has developed a quick survey that booth sitters will be administering during the show.  So we’ll learn a lot and incorporate the findings into next year’s show. 

Next year?  Surely, I must be mad. 

KATIE NUTTER - Art Show Director 

The Program
Our speaker today, Ted marston, who is retired from EPRI, (Electric Power Research Institute) was so well known that our speaker from two weeks ago, Gary Latshaw, CHUCK LINDAUER’s guest, came just to hear Ted. He spoke on nuclear power.  There are 103 nuclear plants in the U.S., mostly located in the South East where they are nuclear power-friendly.   There are 435 plants in the world today. 

Power for the U.S. in 2006 was generated by coal (52%), nuclear (21%) hydroelectric (8%), natural gas (14%), oil (2%) and other (3%). This power is generated by nuclear fission in splitting the U235 atom.  Fusion is still a long way off.  Reactors can produce either power or bombs, not both.  Ted says nuclear power is now very safe and is running 91% of the time.  Homeland security is very satisfied with the safety of power plants making it very difficult for terrorists to attack a plant. 

One of the biggest issues in nuclear power is what to do with the waste.  Currently all spent fuel is stored in 65 sites in 31 states.  Yucca Mountain in Utah will be the site for waste in the future.  Eventually we will recycle the waste.  Other uses for nuclear power are to generate hydrogen for processing heat for refineries, and more.

We are the CO2 emitters with electric power in the world, nothing to be proud of for sure.  He ended with the statement that if we are serious about managing climate change, nuclear power MUST be a part of the equation. 

The Joke
On a lighter note, PRESIDENT SAM’S joke was about old Earl and Mabel.  Earl decided to test his wife’s hearing once and for all.  From about 50 feet away, he yelled “what’s for dinner Mabel?” No response, so he went to 20 feet and repeated the question “what’s for dinner Mabel?” no response, so he repeated it 3 more times from closer and closer distances.  Finally Mabel turned around and said “for the 5^th time, Earl, its chicken!”