HELTER-SKELTER?
According to our newest Red Badger, Ken Thomas, "it's not what you gather, but rather what you scatter, that tells of the life you've lived." Let your imagination run wild.
GUESTS
Rotarians
Don "Not Old Enough" Jenkins, Orinda
Mike Heller, Lafayette
Jay Lifson, Lafayette and Ruler of The Chamber
Others
Dana Fillinger Ashburn, here for an exposure
Her brood: Cole, Kyle, Devon
Krysten Laine's other (better?) half Rene Aguirre
John Rosso, friend of Gillett Johnson's
GRATEFUL VISITORS
District Foundation chairperson Don Jenkins thanked the club for its contribution to a District Grant project in Argentina having to do with converting sound to Braille. The presidents of the local clubs got together and decided to participate in this $15,000 project; our contribution: $500. Don will be going to Argentina this spring to check it all out.
Jay Lifson, head of the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, expressed thanks for our participation in the 15th annual Art & Wine Festival last weekend. He reported that this 
was the grandest festival to date, both for people (over 100,000) and for loot ($400,000 gross, about $200,000 net). He presented a check to President Peeks, but danced around the clear and obvious fact our august, peerless club won the bet with our Lafayette Nooner counterparts about level of volunteer participation.
OTHER GRATEFUL FOLKS
The club received hand-written thank-you notes from each end of the spectrum.
Hays Englehart's and Joe Bettencourt's intrepid HOME TEAMs were effusively praised by seniors benefiting from their services, as well they should have been what with five - FIVE! -- full teams deployed on Saturday and doing a variety of heroic, do-good tasks.
The ripple effect of the Dictionary Project continues. A passel of third-graders, as well as Springhill principal Bruce Wodhams, wrote notes. The kids' notes included a drawn picture, adjectives such 
as "super-duper," and a statement that the student actually used the dictionary in doing homework. What could be a better testimony ... save perhaps for a truth-corroboration clip on YouTube.
CELEBRITIES
Amazingly, once again, Grand Imperial Poobah Peeks and Kevin Croak had the same birthday (day and month, 
not year). Kevin went to a Rotarian-infested BBQ at Gary's that night. Thomas didn't reveal anything about his escapades. First Lady Yolanda was not present to confirm or deny anything.
Brad Davis celebrated his by going to Minneapolis to visit his daughter and grandson, and was lucky enough to get one day of good weather out of the six days he was there. He continued the celebration yesterday in a more moderate climate by playing golf at the Presidio in San Francisco, admitting to shooting a 90 (which could have been dangerous to his wallet). Brad was mum about what he shot on the back nine.
Brad, need we point out, is a celebrity in other ways. Pumpkin-carving time is nigh for Garden Park Apartments - October 26, to be exact. Also, he was on the recruiting trail for one more Ryder Cup caliber golfer for the Lafayette Golf & Wine event on Friday after next Friday, or Monday after next Monday, or whatever day October 4 falls on (hint...choose Monday).
Ernie Furtado and other-half Barb Pelletreau celebrated 21 years 
of bliss by dining at the Metro, which isn't a bad way to do it. That's the restaurant in Lafayette, not the subway in Paris.
Doing the math, it seems that Ken Kosich received his Red Badge exactly one year before Ernie and Barb were hitched. However, his big celebrity lies in the upcoming TGITLFOTM at his SONOMA digs -- Saturday, Oct. 2, between 11 and 2. Since Ken is doing the club the great honor of providing both food and 
beverages he needs a proper headcount, so please RSVP to kkosich@kosich.com or 284-3911. He assures us there won't be an undue amount of hard labor in the hot sun. Something about revarnishing the house boat or something like that, if we heard correctly.
EARLY EXPOSURE
High Highness Peeks warned that things might be a bit out of order this morning, and they were. Next at this early juncture was the Program, in the person of Rick Ashburn, whose family constituted a fairly large percentage of the audience. It seems that the three Ashburn kids had to get to school. School?
Rick started out with the usual visit of the Curse, but resident high-tech genius Mark Roberts fixed things by taking the cover off the projector lens, after which the pictures were amazingly visible.
It seems that Rick's family was from the famous state of North Carolina/Virginia/Maryland (before they seceded from one another), and he grew up in D.C. after being born in Roswell, NM, and spending the first six months of his life there, nannied by space aliens, who had taken up temporary residence in Area 51. If that isn't confusing enough, he then harked back to his English forebears, who, he avers, participate to this day in a traditional two-day soccer game, with each side of town serving as an end line (a.k.a. goal line).
His ancestry never was easy to follow, either for Rick or for us. On the paternal side were Grandma Mary Hogg (pronounced Hooooooooooag)) who married Van Ashburn the waterman, who was into oysters, crab and gill-netting. (At this point we learned, but maybe didn't retain, a few things about hand tonging, patent tonging, and skipjacking those poor oysters with the help of pushboating.) After the waterman, matrimonially speaking, came Page the welder. On the maternal side, a few generations back, was Doris, who "married a few guys," (presumably sequentially), then Grandma Mary, who worked at the Curtis Aircraft plant during WWII, then Mom from Baltimore, whose father had an antique (a.k.a. junque) shop. Rick's father was Richard. Or so we were lead to believe. Richard was a mechanic on the B-52 military aircraft, which was pictured. So was a '48 Plymouth. He worked on that, too, although did not fly it.
It was at least clear that Rick was born Oct. 3, 1960, in Area 51, and quickly - with his family, natch -- moved to Annapolis. He was thrown out of Catholic school, or to put it more delicately, "invited" to stop coming. His main distinction during this period was to befriend Steve Biscotti, owner of the Baltimore Ravens, who ended up owning a professional football team whereas Rick ended up owning a football. For the record, this is not the same Biscotti Italians dip into their cappuccinos.
Somehow he morphed from there into an economics major at the U. of Maryland where he was a cheerleader and twice won the Intramural Free-Throw Championship (unclear whether that was for the school or for the whole nation, and whether it was a full-sized basket or a nerf ball, but he apparently hit something 25 times in a row). It was made emphatically clear, however, that he was NOT, contrary to viciously circulating rumor, expelled on ground of moral Terp-itude. Rick's an upright kind of guy, far as we know.
Grad school at UCLA followed, but only lasted a year, for two reasons. First, he asked, "Do you guys actually believe this stuff?" Second, he met Dana, but moved on because he wasn't certain of two things: whether she was from a good family and had her green card.
Rick toiled for 15 years in investment banking. How he got from there to his present well-known occupation was, you guessed it, unclear if not altogether opaque.
He did see the error of his ways and married Dana in 1991, which resulted in three "issues," to wit: Cole in '97, Kyle in '98, and Devon in '02.
The rest of the program consisted of a bunch of fun pictures, capped off by a promo of Devon who will be in the Nutcracker next spring.
LET'S SAY IT IN BLUE - CONGRATULATIONS TO THE BLUE BADGER
Exchange student Arianne Anez skipped all the Red Badge malarkey and copped a Blue Badge straight away, proving she already has our redoubtable Prez wrapped around her Bolivian finger.
Her recent activities included working the Art & Wine Festival and hanging out with lots of other exchange students. Whether they exchanged anything amongst themselves or at Macy's was, yes, unclear.
But more importantly, Bolivia has been independent 200 YEARS (in English, TWO CENTURIES) today. She proudly showed pictures of the flag, motto and coat of arms of her Santa Cruz Province. She also managed to find a Bolivian flag among all those little flags peeking up from in front of the podium every Friday.
Did you know that Bolivia and Peru were previously one nation? Yup, says right here on WikiPedia. And YouTube. And Facebook. And according to one of the Webster's Children's Dictionaries we purposely keep for ourselves because none of us has full understanding of the word "service."
Arianne also showed pictures of the 17-26 de Septiembre ExpoCruz, a very big celebration back home. Dancing and art presentation were featured, as well as a parade which included a picture of lots of people from her class. Pictures of family and friends followed, as well as her two dogs Nala and Albina. Pictures, that is. The dogs are believed to be still at home. Or are they at the Wares'?
AND IN CONCLUSION...
On this out-of-order day, David Waal had the last word. First he made it crystal clear that LSR won the Art & Wine bet with the Noon club. He also recruited four people and one BBQ for the annual Westival, Oct. 9 from 3 to 7 at Lafayette Elementary School on Moraga Road.
,
CALENDAR
10/2 Ken Kosich, TGITLFOTM, Sonoma, 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. BE SURE TO RSVP! (See above)
10/9 Westival, 3:00-7:00
10/12 Board meeting, 7:00 a.m.
10/15 Josh Cooley, Pixar
10/22 District Governor
10/26 Pumpking Carving at Garden Park Apartments
11/4-7 District Conference, Old Town Sacramento
11/9 Board meeting
11/19 Candy Pierce, Rotary Foundation
