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Vol. 19, No. 16, OCTOBER 17, 2006 |
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| THE FRIDAY PROGRAM: A Contrarian's View of the World (Mike Dunlop) | Friday Potpourri | Student of the Month: Jeff Langdon | Rotary Foundation | Preserve Planet Earth | Flashback! | Agros Report | Proposed Member: Mike Dunlop | Web Fun | |
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Struck by something ironic, Friday the 13th is usually considered unlucky, however, Morris Kremen is feeling lucky today, we all are very lucky. Appreciate all that you have been given, friends, family, and yes, material goods. Let’s make a difference for the world around us. Fuel our work with vigor, stamina, and ... let us be thankful for our good luck. Bob Bowen greeted our visiting Rotarians and guests. We had six visiting Rotarians. Our visiting Rotarian from Beverly Hills finds Friday the 13th lucky as that's his birthday. We also welcomed two guests and LeeAnn Woods. Leanne is not actually a guest, but a fellow Rotarian returning from a leave of absence. Welcome back, LeeAnn!
Larry May introduced Jeff Langdon from Bellevue Christian High School. He was joined by his parents, Brian and Nancy Langdon, and Principal Bill Safestrom. Jeff has a 3.8 GPA, is an Eagle Scout and ran a special project making crosses for Veterans. Jeff received a merit badge for First Aid which started his interest in medicine. He then attended the Lead America Medical Conference which furthered his interest in medicine. He hopes to go into medicine and will be attending Pepperdine or Stanford. Don Chandler and Dick Brown stepped up to recognize Paul Harris Fellows. Today we honor Brian and Nathan Evison. Brian is already a Paul Harris Fellow and is bestowing his second Paul Harris Fellow on his son Nathan. Paul Chapman, one of our newer members, donated $1,000 right off the bat. We now (finally) have his plaque and pin to honor him. Thank you, Brian and Paul, your contributions make a difference in the lives of many people.
This year, while you shop at the grocery store instead of standing out front, or you have dinner with your friends instead of writing them a letter, consider giving a little extra to the Foundation. What we do makes a significant difference. We are getting water into villages without clean water, we are bringing computers to kids in the world who have no computers, and we are sending kids to school who wouldn’t have that opportunity without our help.
Clean water is a huge issue in many parts of the world, and yet, it is an easy problem to fix. Kira Lopez, with Agros, visited our club. She says, “You are making a difference beyond your borders, thank you.” Agros works in five countries. They do not give donations, but rather give the people an opportunity to have dignity and the chance to buy a piece of land for each family. Then the land needs to be irrigated, and Agros helps with that, too. They train the people to work in community banks; they are learning to save. The women who run the banks do not speak Spanish, but they know numbers! Steve Lingenbrink is taking another trip to Xeucalvitz in November and will have a full report for us. All homes do have a sink now, with running water, which has made a huge difference for the people. The BBRC Board has approved Michael Dunlop for membership. Mike is the owner and president of QPM Aerospace in Bellevue — which happens to share a floor in the same office building with Cary Kopczynski and Company. Mike, his wife Karen, and their two daughters are long-time Bellevue residents. Mike is also a long-time member of Seattle #4 Rotary Club, but he is transferring to our club because it's so convenient and because, well, we're just so darned fun. Mike's classification will be Aerospace Manufacturing. Mike is sponsored by Tom Smith and Cary Kopczynski. If you have comments on Mike's application for membership, please contact Club Service II Director
Friday's Program:
In 1982, Steven Dunphy, business editor for the Seattle Times, wrote an article on the coming depression. On the same page was an article on restriction of growth. "Over the years, I have used Dunphy’s column as a guide. Whenever he wrote that something was going to happen, I planned on the opposite. Interest rates, oil prices, inflation, manufacturing — every prediction was 100% wrong. Contrarians have a better track record and it’s a lot more fun. "In 1995, I heard that manufacturing “was finished” in the US. What the pundits meant was that manufacturing in the Midwest with punitive union contracts and old equipment is not competitive on a worldwide scale. I think Homer Simpson would say, 'Duh.'
"Somewhere we got the idea that debt was bad. This normally comes from wealthy people who don’t need to borrow. Debt to a contrarian is confidence in the future. Savings are fear of the future; look at Japan with ½% interest rates. When I came to the US, I had $300, debt allowed me to grow here. "On a glorious day in October 1973, when I arrived in Seattle, everyone said I picked the wrong place. Boeing had just laid off 60,000 people, Seattle was closing, there were much better places to be. I thought that was actually a good time to be in Seattle. I asked people which businesses had huge problems? Everyone said 'aerospace.' Boy, were they wrong. (QPM grew from $300,000 to $25 million in six years!) "I hope that when I die, my epitaph will read: He was still accelerating at the finish line. I figure I have 20 years left, if I amortize my wealth I need to spend faster and faster!
"My second metric applied to the country as a whole: how many people try to get in and how many try to get out. When people start swimming from Miami to Cuba through shark infested water, I will look into businesses in Cuba. Maybe the solution to Iran and North Korea is to offer visas to their leaders; we might be surprised at how many of them take us up on the offer!" In a strange turn of events, Rourke stood up waving the gold card people fill out when they are interested in joining the club. Tom Smith stood up and said we have an application as well. Sayoko stood and waved a Red Badge with Mike’s name. Jim Zidar asked for a motion from the Board. There was a motion to approve Mike Dunlop as a new member; it was seconded. The Board resoundingly approved Mike as our newest member. There was some concern that, being a contrarian, Mike might change his mind and not want to join the BBRC, but he didn’t. We proudly welcome Mike Dunlop as the newest member of the BBRC! George Carlin's New Rules New Rule: Stop giving me that pop-up ad for Classmates.com! There's a reason you don't talk to people for 25 years. Because you don't particularly like them! Besides, I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days: mowing my lawn. New Rule: Don't eat anything that's served to you out a window unless you're a seagull. People are acting all shocked that a human finger was found in a bowl of Wendy's chili. Hey, it cost less than a dollar. What did you expect it to contain? Trout? New Rule: Ladies, leave your eyebrows alone. Here's how much men care about your eyebrows: do you have two of them? Okay, we're done. New Rule: There's no such thing as flavored water. There's a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket: water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt. That's your flavored water. New Rule: Stop messing with old people. Target is introducing a redesigned pill bottle that's square, with a bigger label. And the top is now the bottom. And by the time grandpa figures out how to open it, he'll be in the morgue. Congratulations, Target, you just solved the Social Security crisis. New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the jerk. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf, grande, half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet 'n' Low and one NutraSweet, you're a huge jerk. New Rule: I'm not the cashier! By the time I look up from sliding my card, entering my PIN number, pressing "Enter," verifying the amount, deciding, no, I don't want cash back, and pressing "Enter" again, the kid who is supposed to be ringing me up is standing there eating my Almond Joy. New Rule: Competitive eating isn't a sport. It's one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the US Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too exciting. What's next, competitive flatulation? Oh wait. They're already doing that. It's called "The Howard Stern Show." New Rule: I don't need a bigger mega M&M. If I'm extra hungry for M&Ms, I'll go nuts and eat two. New Rule: If you're going to insist on making movies based on crappy, old television shows, then you have to give everyone in the Cineplex a remote so we can see what's playing on the other screens. Let's remember the reason something was a television show in the first place is that the idea wasn't good enough to be a movie. New Rule: No more gift registries. You know, it used to be just for weddings. Now it's for babies and new homes and graduations from rehab. Picking out the stuff you want and having other people buy it for you isn't gift giving, it's just a version of looting. New Rule: and this one is long overdue: No more bathroom attendants. After I zip up, some guy is offering me a towel and a mint like I just had sex with George Michael. I can't even tell if he's supposed to be there, or just some freak with a fetish. Don't want to be on your webcam, dude. I just want to wash my hands. New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to know in months. "27 Months." "He's two," will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.
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Second quarter invoices were emailed October 4. No hard copy will be (snail)mailed. If you cannot locate the email with the invoice attached, please contact your
immediately. 
Student of the Month: Jeff Langdon
Last year at this time, we were getting our final dollars in for the raffle. We were joyous to finally be through writing letters to friends, standing in front of grocery stores, and we were calculating the dollar amount we still needed to write a check for to meet our commitment of either $800 or $1000. 
Dave Spicer, from the University Rotary Club, experienced what Rotary does first hand. It opened his heart and made him close his law practice and go to work for Agros. 
Bob Holert introduced our speaker, Mike Dunlop. He is a natural contrarian. As the President and owner of QPM Aerospace, a Bellevue-based components supplier to such industry giants as Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, and Airbus, Dunlop has built his business and career by defying conventional wisdom. Mike came to the US from the UK 33 years ago. He is a contrarian by heart; he will show you that you can be a US manufacturer and succeed. 
"I also continually hear that the trade deficit will kill us. Number one, I have serious doubts that anyone has a clue as to what the deficit is. At best it is an extremely inaccurate statistical guess. We have had a trade deficit for almost all of our history. The best trade deficit numbers were during the Great Depression, and the highest deficits have been during our most prosperous times. People say the budget deficit is the one that is really going to get our children. We will be leaving our children approximately 125 trillion in assets that were created with 8 trillion in debt, what a deal! 
"To end, I have two observations: To judge the wealth of a nation, I look at the total amount of money that given to charity. As a nation, we give close to 300 billion dollars a year, more than the GNP of all but the top ten countries. There has never been a nation that has done this or will do this. If you place a value on the time of volunteers, like Rotarians, this number is significantly increased.