HAPPY NEW YEAR!
LAST WEEK: President JOE called the meeting to order promptly at 12:15--a first! . . . TED KRUTTSHNITT, unaccountably present for about the third time this millennium, tried manfully to lead our ragtag group in the Pledge of Allegiance . . . CARY KOH's invocation featured his adorable niece SARAH who, at the age of three, can already play the violin with more authority than our members, under TED's baton, can recite the 30-word Pledge . . . The gist of Cary's message: "Enjoy the present!" . . . Guest ANDRES VERA, from the San Francisco Club, regaled early arrivers with accounts of how Wikipedia is kept up-to-date. Andres would produce a terrific program . . .
"F" IS FOR FAKE . . . Our speakers, Diane Dwyer and Tom Vacar, took on the monumental task of helping us distinguish between truth and falsity in current affairs . . . Newspapers and electronic and broadcast media cannot always--or often--be trusted, admits Diane . . . She capped her lament with a chilling fact: "Walter Cronkite is no longer with us." . . . What to do? Unless you know the source well, take everything with a grain of salt . . . Your correspondent votes for Tom and Diane, with 40 and 20 years of straight talk behind them . . . Too bad that journalists like Diane feel impelled to move onto greener occupational pastures . . .
WELCOMED to that most exclusive aggregation The Half-Century Club: TED KRUTTSCHNITT, Past Club President, Wade Macomber Award winner, lavish contributor to Club projects, and--more years ago than even he can remember--Burlingame Rotary scholarship honore . . . Reports that Terrible Ted has already been retroactively blackballed are denied by frustrated agitator CHUCK ROSEBROOK. "The groundswell of support for Ted's removal collapsed when the two current Half-Century Members (PAUL NIEBERDING and MIKE KIMBALL) couldn't be awakened from their naps," Rosebrook complained.
COMING ATTRACTION: Cameron Crowe, Board Chairman of Ponga, will address us this Wednesday, January 19. He runs a members-only, web-based software service that makes it possible to organize pictures quickly and easily so that they can be privately shared with family and friends as free guests. Ponga pictures are all private and shared only by invitation. It creates a way to use pictures to capture research and crowdsource memories--and to curate a family legacy for future generations.
ENJOY THE PRESENT!