First Meeting for 2008 — Off Site at Newport High School

This first meeting of calendar year 2008 for the BBRC was arranged by John Martinka. The Glendale Country Club was not available for our normal Friday meeting so John arranged for the Club to meet at Newport High School, with focus on visiting the Technology and Culinary Classrooms on campus.

Our day started out at 7:00 AM with breakfast prepared and served by Ms. Tracy Green’s culinary students. Breakfast included bacon, sausage and scrambled eggs, along with delicious handmade pastries, cinnamon rolls, and almond pinwheels. We also had orange-mango juice, coffee and tea.

The buzz at the tables revolved around the results of the Iowa Caucus that occurred the night before. One table-mate — who will remain anonymous — noted, “I’m sure glad I don’t live in Iowa! You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a politician!”

At about 7:25 we moved to the newly renovated auditorium. It is a beautiful facility with plush seats, beautiful oak trim and excellent acoustics.

Opening Greeting, Invocation & Pledge

At 7:30 President Phil opened the meeting by asking us if deja vu had hit us, telling us we are all back in high school again. Phil then continued to welcome us to Newport High School and extended a happy new year, as we start our second half of the Rotary year.

Phil reminded everyone that the next meeting on January 11th will be at Newport Yacht Club.

Bill Brooks and his son Garret extended a Happy New Year to all of us and then read a prayer for the New Year. We then stood to salute an “improvised US flag.” Ahem, it actually didn’t exist but we recited the pledge with dignity and decorum anyway.

Visiting Rotarians & Guests

No visiting Rotarians were noted, yet there was a comment from the audience that they were over at Glendale!

Our guests included Garret Brooks, son of Bill Brooks; Tom Duenwald, the new principal at Newport High School; and Jeff Johnson, son of Howard Johnson.

Northwest Harvest Moves!

Howard Johnson stood and discussed the situation with Rotary First Harvest. Northwest Harvest has moved its operation from Pier 91 to Kent. There is also another facility available called Food Lifeline Warehouse on 150th in Seattle. Our club has the option of our monthly contribution at either the Food Lifeline Warehouse in Seattle on the 4th Saturday of the month or on the 2nd Saturday of the month in Kent. The BBRC has selected the 4th Saturday in Seattle; however, anyone is allowed to go to the 2nd Saturday at the Northwest Harvest Warehouse in Kent.

The addresses for these locations are:

Food Lifeline Warehouse
4th Saturday (BBRC Focus)
1702 NE 150th St
Seattle, WA 98155
GOOGLE MAP

Northwest Harvest Warehouse
2nd Saturday
22220 68th Avenue S
Kent, WA 98032
GOOGLE MAP

New Member Classification Talk — Bob Crosby

One of our most recent members, Mr. Bob Crosby, took the stage to give us his classification talk. Man, was he FAST!

Bob was born in Brookings, Oregon, and attended Oregon State University. He met his wife Carol in college and they’ve been married for 34 years.

Bob spent most of his career in the grocery industry; however, most of the companies and chains he worked for have been closed or absorbed into the other larger grocery chains. Bob is now in the Reverse Mortgage Business and finds it very rewarding.

Bob lives in Sammamish withhis wife, 3 kids, 4 Labrador Retrievers, kittens. He said he was drawn to Rotary because Rotary’s focus on Service Above Self is very meaningful for him.

In closing, Bob said, “I love helping people, love being part of Rotary, and thanks for letting me join!”

Welcome aboard, Bob! It’s great to have you with us!

Looking for 3 RYLA Candidates
Ruben LadLad

It is that time of the year again! Once more we need your help to provide us with three candidates for this year's RYLA. Any junior or senior in high school can qualify. You can nominate your neighbors' and friends' kids or your own.

Deadline for sending applications is February 29th, and the program this year will run from March 6 to 9. RYLA will again be held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma.

Registration will be from 3 to 5 pm, Thursday, March 6, and finish is around 11:00 am, Sunday, March 9.

To strengthen the RYLA Program, for 2008 RYLA is following the Australian custom of asking Rotarians to be present at the RYLA Seminar. The Rotarian Observers may share fully in the experience with the young people and provide counsel and assistance as needed. Primary prerequisite for Rotarian-Observers is interest in helping young people.

If you are interested in helping as an observer, please let me know. There is a form to complete and a $60 per person fee to cover board and registration.

Some RYLA observers prefer to stay off campus (you make your own arrangements), and others bring their own sleeping bags and "camp" on the floor with the young people.

Let me know if you have any questions. I will have the necessary application and release forms ready.

"Newport High School Tour," Jeff Mason & Tracy Green, Newport High School

John Martinka took the stage with President Phil, Jeff Mason and Tracy Green. John told the story that he was aware of a need for an offsite meeting on January 4th and thought about his past work with Jeff Mason on Computers for the World (C4W) projects in Turkey and Slovakia. As a result, John was able to arrange for our breakfast and visit to the newly remodeled school.

John introduced Jeff Mason, a teacher at Newport who runs the computer networking program at the school. He has helped out with C4W projects and has a great and rewarding time teaching kids how to set up networks, run the Cisco Routers and Cisco operating systems and help set them up for meaningful and financially rewarding work upon graduation. Jeff even mentioned a story that his students have set up a VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system from scratch — a very meaningful technical feat.

John then introduced Ms. Tracy Green, who runs the Culinary Program at Newport High School. Tracy was once the Sous Chef for a 4 Seasons Hotel and a Fairmont Hotel. As she said, one day she took a “fork” in the road and wound up teaching high school students. (By the way, Phil, that’s a PUN!”)

President Phil thanked Jeff and Tracy for their time and presented Jeff with our Thank You Gift Card for Rotary First Harvest.

7:45 AM – Adjourn

We then broke up into two groups for tours of the Technology Classroom with Jeff Mason and the Culinary Classroom/Kitchen with Tracy Green.

Culinary Classroom / Kitchen

Tracy Green gave the group about a 15 minute tour of a brand-new, commercial grade kitchen. It was complete with work tables, commercial grade cooktops, convection ovens, refrigerators and even dishwashers. It was pretty amazing and quite complete.

Tracy said that she has students who take basic cooking classes to introductory culinary skills all the way up to three years of Culinary Arts classes. The students come from a wide geographic area beyond the Newport draw, at least seven different school districts. She mentioned that one student is from Mt. Si, another from Mercer Island.

College credit is also available for some of the students through Lake Washington VoTech and Renton Technical College. Some of her students have gone on to the Cornell University Hotel Institute or to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America.

The class duration is two periods long to allow for project work and cleanup. They usually go through about 50 pounds of flour and sugar per week with all their projects. Their different projects can focus on breakfasts, desserts, dinners, etc.

Finally, one fact that Tracy raised was quite interesting and showed the need for such a program in the high schools. Over 95% of citizens have worked in some job in the hospitality industry at some time of their lives.

Overall, it was great fun to see the facilities and meet the kids who made our delicious breakfast for us today.

Technology Room Tour

The group then moved to the Technology Room where Jeff Mason gave a short presentation to us.

Jeff noted that the program he teaches starts out as a basic computer networking program, using equipment you’d find in a mid- to large-size enterprises. No prerequisites are necessary; anyone can come into the class, where they learn the basics and move up to different CISCO certifications.

The Newport program is the only high school in the nation to offer the CISCO Advanced Certification, which now includes 25 Newport students.

The room is built around $2M in donated equipment. Also, the lectures are all videotaped so students can log in and view past classes at their convenience or for a refresher.

Jeff noted that the students are even learning Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6), which, for those of you who don’t know, is very, very impressive! This knowledge will definitely give the students an awesome competitive edge for new jobs and for the country.

Again, the tour was very impressive and it was very fulfilling to see the kids troubleshooting network problems just like the “real world.”

Web Fun

Holiday Movie Quiz Results

Congratulations to John Smolke and Chris Monger for getting the highest scores in the Holiday Movie Quiz. There's no prize, just just personal satisfaction, knowing that you've got it all over the other BBRC members.

As for the rest of you, I hope you got movie gift cards for Christmas so you can bone up for the next quiz.

• • •

Get Out of The Car
Courtesy of Chuck Barnes

This is a true account recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, Florida.

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her lungs, "I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!" The four men didn't wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then she realized why ... it was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12 packs of beer in the front seat. A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down.

She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.