Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show July 21 2011

Our new President MONA opened the meeting with her warm, southern hospitality smile and began by thanking her foyer greeters, JOE LOCONTE, Past Pres Engineer ROY LAVE, and ROY JONES.  

In her Thought for the Day, BARBARA SMALL exhorted Rupert Murdoch (and all in attendance) to heed the advice of Mr. Rogers: remember that we all share one community, so act responsibly!  JERRY MOISON led our song, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, which he wished had instead been Mr. Rogers’ theme song.

Our boisterous PE JOHN SYLVESTER called for introductions which included a San Jose Rotarian and two escapees from LARC, Mr. and Mrs. Dick Hasenpflug and Katie Nutter, in from their Scottsdale and Phoenix Rotary Clubs to celebrate the wedding of Katie’s son. Guests of Rotarians included FRANK ELMER’s wife Shari, MARLIS MCALLISTER’s friend Alison Salisbury, JEANNE MACVICAR’s husband Duncan, CLYDE NOEL’s friend Paul, and a member of  Young, Craig + Co. introduced by LONNIE GARY.

ANNOUNCEMENTS – President MONA announced a meeting today at 1:30 to explore how LARC can support veterans.  She also noted that DAVID LUEDTKE had been mistakenly omitted from the list of Honorary Rotarians announced last week.

FRANK VERLOT, chair of WCS (World Community Service), our biggest committee announced their meeting would be held (as usual, meets the 4th Tuesday at 8am at the First Republic Bank, Los Altos) which this month is This coming Tuesday, July 26th.  EVERYONE is invited.

KAREN GESSERT our Social Chair, (the most popular committee) announced the next Wine and Cheese Social will be held at President Mona’s house THIS COMING Friday, July 29th at 5:30 p.m.  Please come and bring either a beverage of your choice and/or appetizer to share.
 

RECOGNITION Master STEVE FICK began by fining himself $100 for “sketchy attendance”, and announcing the Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament, to be held on Aug. 1st at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club.  He followed that with a glowing report of his son’s Gwendolyn Riches Award from Pinewood School which includes a partial scholarship to Pinewood. 

• A host of willing and some not-so-willing contributors followed.  
• ABBY AHRENS was fined $15 for Silicon Valley Business Journal’s full page interview with her regarding development and furnishings of her Enchanté Hotel.  
• BUD OLIVER announced that he will shortly leave for 2.5 months in his Michigan family cottage and craftily reminded us that he had already been heavily fined last week for his birthday.  BUD also stated that Judge Len Edwards should be on the Honorary Rotarians list.
• KAILAS CHIDAMBARAM was fined $40 in celebration of his 43rd wedding anniversary.  
• BILL PALMER topped that with a fine of $50 for his 66th wedding anniversary.  
• ANNE ARJANI paid $50 to recount the horrific interview selection process for her job-hunting daughter and allowed that she herself was happy to “just sell real estate”.  
• PE JOHN SYLVESTER offered $20 and owned up to having attended college with STEVE’s dad who also introduced him to his ex-wife.  
• JERRY MOISON announced that his son has completed French culinary school and is now chef at Plates Restaurant on State Street ($20).  
• RICK GLAZE shared his wife Nancy’s recent appointment as Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Arts Council ($20).
• CINDY WEMYSS was invited to tell about her son’s Little League triumph on the Los Altos All Stars Team and their District Championship (for $50).
• JEAN MORDO’s French name got him in hot water because he didn’t know the date of the first Tour de France: 1903.  
• KIM COPHER paid for the other American Tour de France winner’s name: Greg LeMond.
•  Secretary KENDRA GJERSETH got unrequested assistance from MARLIS who yelled that the Tour de France stage winner wears a yellow jersey.  
• JULIE ROSE complimented Finemaster STEVE for chairing the Chamber’s Golf Tourney and completing a “death ride” in the Sierra.  
• STEVE POMEROY guessed that Greg LeMond had won the Tour de France 6 times (actually he won 7 times), got fined $5 extra for complaining, and then gave the Finemaster a “royal bow” as his grand finale!
• Grandmother-President MONA presented new grandmother, BONNIE BURDETT with a Rotary baby spoon in honor of her new grandchild.

STEVE YARBROUGH introduced today’s speaker, Dr. Rabindra Mehta, speaking on the Aerodynamics of Sports Balls. This writer was impressed by Dr. Mehta’s elevated credentials, but actually didn’t understand many of his engineering graphs, so hopes his scientific findings are accurately reported here.

Dr. Mehta is Chief of the Experimental Astro Physics Branch at NASA Ames; he developed a web-based interactive school program on the aerodynamics of sports balls 10 years ago in order to interest children in science and math. His findings are based on experiments performed in the NASA Ames 40’ x 80’ wind tunnel.  

Back in 1672 Sir Isaac Newton already stated that he saw a tennis ball describe a curved line, but modern research on sports balls began only 40-50 years ago.

The roughness of the ball’s surface creates turbulence which results in a curved path. Therein, lies the mystery of various baseball pitches. This writer heard a chuckle near our rocket scientist members when Dr. Mehta joked, “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that a rising fastball is impossible.”  He elaborated on a two seam vs. four seam spin, the Japanese “gyroball”, and the non-spinning knuckleball.  

From the batter’s perspective, it is difficult to see the curved path of pitched balls. Tampering with baseballs is all about adding roughness to the ball’s surface (sometimes with powder or sandpaper) to create sideways movement.

On the topic of golf balls, he enlightened our devotees by assuring them that smooth balls only travel 1/3 the distance of dimpled balls, as proven by government research at Ames!  However every pro golfer uses golf balls specially dimpled for him/her which are not for sale to the general public.  

Balls with 180 - 500 dimples are available to the public.  Research in the 1970’s showed that Callaway’s dimpled balls have higher lift and lower drag.

Soccer balls traditionally have 32 panels, creating quite a rough surface and thus, a huge curved path is possible.  While 1/7 of the world’s entire population is said to watch men’s world cup soccer on TV, the resulting aerodynamics of the soccer ball incites widespread interest, a topic that limited time at LARC didn’t allow Dr. Mehta to fully develop.

THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM:

PROGRAM – Next week, Nicole Elovitz will speak on Fuel Cell Technology, specifically: "How Clean Tech Is Changing The Way Americans Obtain and Use Energy"

Nicole Elovitz currently serves as the Director of Marketing for ClearEdge Power. Ms. Elovitz is a dynamic and accomplished Sales and Marketing professional with 20 + years of leadership experience in agency and corporate roles.  Her extensive marketing expertise has brought tremendous value to top tier organizations through executed international, national, regional and local marketing and PR campaigns.  She has worked on international brands such as Nike, Pizza Hut, and Tetley. Each role has allowed her to bring creativity and energy to her company and her team.
 
In her tenure with ClearEdge Power, Ms. Elovitz has master-planned a brand awareness program to bring new alternative clean technology to Americans yearning to reduce their energy costs and improve their environment.
 
A graduate of Boston University, Ms. Elovitz also earned a Masters in Business Administration from University of Oregon. Significant accomplishments for Ms. Elovitz include the appointment of Oregon Executive MBA Spokesperson of the year in 2009 and the outstanding recognition of being awarded one of Portland Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2008.