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Friday Program
Eric has been working his way up the TV reporting chain for approximately ten years, starting in the Wassau, Wisconsin, moving to Madison, Wisconsin, on to Pennsylvania and recently to Seattle/Tacoma which is the No. 14 sized news market in the United States. It seems that any TV news person has a store of anecdotes, and Eric was no exception. He recounted one incident in his career while he was in Wassau, Wisconsin, where he intended to say at the end of the newscast on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend that highway construction delays were possible and might affect Memorial Day celebrations. Somehow that came out simply as “construction celebration” which raised quizzical looks from his colleague. Also, at that station he recounted a sports reporter who intended to say that scores and highlights of local games would be coming up next. Somehow it came out as “whores and skylights.”
Jimmy Z called the meeting to order. Chris Rasmussen provided the invocation and the pledge of allegiance while Ercan Turkarslan introduced visiting Rotarians and guests.
Rotarian of the Month: John Armenia
Surprised by the award, John wanted to take the opportunity to give recognition to the many BBRC and Eastside Rotarians who teamed with him to provide home hospitality to each team member; tours of the areas historical, recreational, and cultural sites; presentations by local political and business leaders; and face-to-face study sessions and visits with professionals that could give focus and direction to the GSE Team Members job and career. Host families for GSE Team 2770 were:
Bellevue Rotary Club Members who assisted with the planning and hosting activities of the GSE Tour included: Leslie Loyd, President of the Bellevue Downtown Association; drivers Jim Price and Charlotte Ellis; and former Councilwoman Margaret Doman. Many others met with the GSE Team to provide them with important civics, cultural and vocational information, including Brad Miyake and Steve Sarkozy of the City of Bellevue; Tom Ikeda, director of The Japanese Legacy Project; and Thomas Armijo, Director of The Boeing Companies Global Partners, Commercial Airlines Division
Crossroads Community Water-Spray Park Update Norm Johnson recapped the history of the Centennial Project Water-Spray Park. BBRC’s efforts started in 2003 with a goal of raising $1 Million to fund a portion of the park. Norm announced that the BBRC had reached its goal of over $800,000 and gave special thanks to Jim Owens, Dean Pollock, Colin Radford, Jane Kuechle, Jeanne Thorsen, Rick Klobucher, Alan Pratt, John Martinka, Wayne McCaulley and Fred Barkman for their efforts. Norm then presented Bellevue City Councilman Phil Noble and Bellevue Parks Coordinator Pam Furman with a check for $250,000 for the Spray Play Park. This is a fantastic achievement for the BBRC.
Previously ... Bellevue City Countil Meeting, May 21, 2007 The BBRC led off the Council Agenda for the Bellevue City Council on Monday, May 21st, as a "Big Check" was presented to the city representing the culmination of four years of energy and effort on behalf of the club to sponsor an accessible Spray Play Park in the Crossroads Community Park. The club grated $85,000 from the presidencies of Brian Evison, Norm Johnson and Jim Zidar. An additional $60,000 was contributed by individual club members. Major sponsors from outside the club include the Jordan Fund, the Sterling Reality Organization, and Ron Sher's Metrovation. This large commitment from the private sector allowed the city to gather "matching funds" from State agencies and King County bring the total amount raised to $810,000, and insuring that the Spray Play Park will become a reality.
BBRC can be proud of two outstanding representatives, who not only used their BBRC grant, but actually parlayed it into $11,000 for community services.
Classification Talk: Ercan Turkarslan
Ercan recounted how he was born in a small town in Turkey and worked in the software industry, also in Turkey. He decided to take his family and go international, heading for Canada. His Turkish GPS system apparently did not work entirely correctly and he ended up in Redmond with Microsoft. He said that winters were difficult to get used to. Being at a higher latitude, there is less sun in the winter than he grew up with.
Also receiving his blue badge was Ron Black.
Friday Program
Eric has been working his way up the TV reporting chain for approximately ten years, starting in the Wassau, Wisconsin, moving to Madison, Wisconsin, on to Pennsylvania and recently to Seattle/Tacoma which is the No. 14 sized news market in the United States.
Eric had a serious theme to his remarks. The “Truth” part was simply that reporters have an obligation to report the news as accurately as possible. Eric said that it is not uncommon for him to make 20 telephone calls to verify accuracy of a story. At the same time he conceded that given the time restraints on getting news stories prepared, mistakes not only occur but are inevitable. He said that Truth is a goal and mistakes can help to do a better job next time. He also said that it is sometimes difficult to simply report, rather than become a participant, but that is part of the job.
As far as “Adjectives” are concerned, Eric’s observation is that they can be overused in a reporter’s desire to tell a powerful story and they can actually skew the story. A reporter’s job is simply to tell the story, in Eric’s view. The third part of the title “Hair Care” is a nod to the reality of the television industry. The image of TV persona is important and makeup is a fact of life for people who appear on air.
Despite Eric’s interesting comments and observations he did not answer this reporter’s burning question: why do television reporters covering rising rivers and floods stand knee-deep in the water to report? Perhaps on Eric’s next visit he can explain this phenomenon.
ENGLISH PHUNNIES Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in "high school" essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners. 1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. 2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. 3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. 4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. 5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. 6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. 7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree. 8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine. 9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. 10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. 11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p. m. Instead of 7:30. 12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. 13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. 14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p. m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p. m. at a speed of 35 mph. 15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. 16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. 17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River. 18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut. 19 The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. 20. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. 21. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something. 22. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. 23. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools. 24. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
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Rourke O’Brien introduced Eric Schudiske, a reporter for KOMO TV. Eric was accompanied by his girlfriend, Tairsa Swenson, who is a news producer for friendly rival KIRO.
Preliminaries 
BBRC members received a few emails from Sayoko Kuwahara, the leader of the District 5030 outbound GSE team to Japan. As a result, BBRC members know quite a bit about the activities of a GSE team, including the fact that team members rarely have a minute of rest. Well, District 5030 has also hosted a visiting GSE team from Japan which was equally busy. The BBRCs own John Armenia was the Eastside Zone Coordinator for the inbound GSE teams activities, and as a result of his excellent efforts, was presented the BBRC Rotarian of the Month award for May. Way to go, John.
BBRC Members who assisted with the planning and hosting activities of the GSE Tour included: Sayoko Kuwaharea, Jim Zidar, and Mike Ralph; Brian Evison, who secured tickets for the Mariners Baseball game, and Evelyn Cogswell, who arranged the tour of the Bellevue Botanical and Japanese Gardens, with guided tour by Sherry Katsuhisa of the Bellevue School District; Steve Lingenbrink, who introduced to the Team, Project Agros, Computers for the World, and other BBRC Rotary Projects; Elena Howell, who hosted Yukos vocational visit at UBS Financial Services; Curtis Cummings and Ercan Turkarslan, who planned and hosted the GSE Team's visit to Microsoft; Juan Hernandez, who hosted the Team's visit to the Bellevue Center for Hope Link; Phil Salvatori, and Tim Leahy.
Tim Leahy introduced Ashley Shull and Rachel Hernandez, students at Auburn High School who are in a DECA program. DECA is a college and high school association for students studying marketing, management, and entrepreneurship in business, finance, hospitality and marketing sales and service. 
The Vocational Services Committee provided Ashley and Rachel with a $2,000 grant. They prepared a community service project involving the American Cancer Society and its Relay for Life, in which they raised $11,000. They were the highest donating team in that competition. They then wrote a 30-page summary of their community service project and competed at the North America DECA competition in Orlando, Florida, three weeks ago. They know they placed in the top 20 but as of this date are not sure where.
Ercan checked off the last two items on his Blue Badge ”to do” list. Not only did he introduce visiting guests and Rotarians, but he presented his classification talk. 
At Microsoft Ercan is a software engineer responsible for debugging on the Operations Managerial Team which is responsible for internal software. Ercan brings a commitment to international service and a healthy sense of humor to the BBRC.
Rourke O’Brien introduced Eric Schudiske, a reporter for KOMO TV. Eric was accompanied by his girlfriend, Tairsa Swenson, who is a news producer for friendly rival KIRO.
It seems that any TV news person has a store of anecdotes, and Eric was no exception. He recounted one incident in his career while he was in Wassau, Wisconsin, where he intended to say at the end of the newscast on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend that highway construction delays were possible and might affect Memorial Day celebrations. Somehow that came out simply as “construction celebration” which raised quizzical looks from his colleague. Also, at that station he recounted a sports reporter who intended to say that scores and highlights of local games would be coming up next. Somehow it came out as “whores and skylights.”
Eric also commented on the fact that news seems to be filled with negative stories. His observation is simply that news is anything that is new and out of the ordinary. Since all of the good things that people normally do are really commonplace, it would be unusual to report on them. In fact, he said that he would become concerned if good news stories began filling the airways since that would indicate to him that good news stories are unusual.
Eric’s schedule is anything but a 9-to-5 job. He typically spends all day out of the office on assignment and is consequently quite familiar with fast food restaurants. One powerful experience he had in his career was covering Hurricane Katrina while being imbedded with a search and rescue team from Pennsylvania. The team arrived in Mississippi and Louisiana shortly after the hurricane and he got a first-hand look at the devastation.
Wendy Fischer announced that the annual Rotating the Wheels dinner, where the leadership baton of the BBRC is passed, will be held on Friday, June 29, at the Hollywood Schoolhouse in Woodinville. The theme will be Florida Keys, an oblique reference somehow attempting to link Jimmy Z to Jimmy B (Buffet). Price is $40 per person. RSVPs are encouraged 
Kim Shrader provided an update on the golf tournament at the Eagle Talon course at Willow Run, starting at 8:30 a.m. on July 30. Sponsors for the golf tournament now include Bellevue Lincoln-Mercury/Kirkland GMC, Microsoft, Seattle Boat, Helsell Fetterman, Kornfeld, Trudell, Bowen & Lingenbrink, the Ballard Insurance Agency, Chase Home Finance, Powell Development Company, Standard Insurance, the Law Office of Thomas D. Smith and Tom Helbling. Congratulations to BBRCers who brought these sponsors in.
