IT HAPPENED THIS WEEK ,September 15, 2010

It is one thing to take off with the President's gavel but it is quite another thing to steal the "clicker", a device that is crucial to the President's meeting. Without the power point presentation on the screen behind her she cannot run the meeting. Knowing this information, it is hard to believe that someone in the audience would abscond with the clicker and harder still to believe that the absconder would be a guest, but a guest it was, David Castro who is visiting from Florida. How it came into David's possession is anyone's guess. With the clicker back in her hand, President Linda got the meeting rolling with Jim Machado giving the Invocation, Ed Little leading the Pledge, and Bill Gardner (might he know how the clicker got into David's pocket?) singing the Patriotic Song. Our afternoon guests were John Black (fresh off the fishing trip and full of stories), Rotarian Rose Marie Joyce, who is the interim President of West L.A. College, Sandy Knowles, and the aforementioned David Castro. David is here in Los Angeles looking for a job, so if you know anyone who needs a good scientist, teacher, musician or clicker pilferer, keep him in mind. Joel Forman led the Welcome Song and then it was time for a break. Under the Health Update heading Harold Hanslmair, who heads up this Division, told us that everyone was fine but then we learned from others in attendance that Kit Betts was having surgery on her foot and that Lyn Caron's friend Bill Becker was recuperating from back surgery. Thanks for the update Harold and keep up the good work! The only two announcements concerned the 10K Brunch set for October 16th at Shanghai Red's in Marina del Rey and the Spouse's Night meeting scheduled for September 29th. We need to step up to the plate for both of these events – you know what to do. Bill Gardner gave a highly detailed description of all the goings-on at the Fishing Trip that happened last weekend. It was reported that the food was awesome, the drinks were plentiful, many fish were caught, and fishing rookie Keith Jones caught the largest fish on the trip. John Black interrupted Bill's report claiming that someone had "dropped a dime" on him by reporting to Linda that her own husband was passing on classified information as to the shape, color, and size of her little slips of paper within her "fining hat." Whether he was guilty of this infraction or not, he received a $50 fine. One other fine was handed out to Larry Knowles for a Catalina fishing trip (is there a theme here?) that he recently took. Our speaker for the day was Norma Zager, an investigative journalist, who gave a very interesting talk about the saga of the Beverly Hills High School oil well and the complaint filed by Erin Brockovich and her stable of attorneys. This was another reminder of the value of print media and its ability to provide another side to a story. Have a great week Rotarians.