September 20, 2013

             Reporter: Rich Shearer     Editor: Ron Brown         Photographer: Leander Hauri                   

President:  Hays Englehart 2013 - 2014          

September 20, 2013 (the 150th anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Chickamauga, a very bloody battle south of Chattanooga which the South won)

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Sell, sell, sell!

Ron "Mr. Pithy" Brown exhorted us all to show up over the weekend to sell Rob-Roy tickets at the Lafayette Art & Wine Festival.

VISITING ROTARIANS

Susan Wait - Orinda (She won't want us to mention that she is a Past President of Lamorinda Sunrise and a Past District Governor of District 5160, but she is both of those things and deserves the recognition whether she wants it or not.)

Mike Heller - Lafayette

GUESTS OF OTHER PERSUASIONS

Lisa Riggs - More from her later

Jeff Mooers - Friend of Don Jenkins

BIRTHDAYS, ANNIVERSARIES, AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS GOODIES

After last week's "o-fer," lots of B&A shenanigans this week, courtesy of Claire Roberts, this year's Club Director of Shenanigans. 

Water, water everywhere, eh Paul?

Paul Bettelheim was tagged for both his birthday and his and Bryn's anniversary.  Something about a Water Bar in San Francisco(even though a bar featuring different waters sounds ever so much more like Los Angeles). Paul chipped in $50 for the general "recognition" pot and an extra $100 to the Lamorinda Sunrise Endowment fund, thereby belying his claim of the expense of going to said Water Bar.  (Hey, how much can a couple bottles of Aquafina set you back anyway?) 

Dan Herbert was on an entirely different continent

Good guy Dan antes up anyway

when Annette's birthday came around.  No fool Dan, though - he flew their daughter out from Virginia to share in Mom's birthday.  Well played, sir.  So well, in fact, that King Hays the First absolved Dan of any "recognition" obligations, but Dan played Gaston to Hays' Alphonse by putting some shekels in the bucket anyway in honor of the Oakland Strokes kicking some Canuck backside in a regatta held somewhere in Canuckistan. 

Jenny Kallio had a birthday.  Hubby John had the good sense to do something about it, that "something" having something to do with the Little River Inn. 

Spike tells it like it is

Spike Speicher spent his birthday at his Happy Place.  No, that is not another way of saying "Better Living Through Chemistry," it is a reference to the special family cabin on the shore of Lake Michigan that has been the summer gathering place for generations of Speichers, the place he told us about during his Expose Yourself a few months back.  Since then, Spike and Linda spent their 50th anniversary in Jacksonville, Florida.  Spike could not recommend Jacksonville lowly enough, and one gets the distinct impression that neither he nor Linda would have been there but for their nephew's wedding that just happened to be on their special day.  Spike was so grateful to be back in more temperate climes that he made contributions to the Rotary Foundation and/or the Club's Endowment fund. 

Don Jenkins' recent birthday was the very definition of the good news-bad news scenario.  The good news is he got to go sailing, which he loves.  That bad news is he threw his back out in the process, which he loves quite a bit less.  Despite the Club's utter lack of sympathy (hey, Don, it's a tough room), he still chipped in $100 for his birthday. 

Enunciate, Kevin

Kevin Croak hadn't yet gotten around to his birthday celebration, but he was looking forward to dinner at a tapas restaurant, although a sizeable portion of the Club could have sworn he said something other than"tapas." 

Thomas Peeks had an okay birthday - golf and dinner at Chez Pannise.  He chipped in a buck a year.

MEMBERSHIP RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION BEGINS WITH US

Claire is doing stellar work as Hays glady attests

Membership Chair Claire Roberts demonstrated that she is nothing if not active.  She let us know that: (1) we are now linked to the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce website; (2) Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary is now a member of the Orinda and Moraga Chambers of Commerce (we already were a member of the Lafayette Chamber); (3) we have new wallet-sized breakfast cards to hand out inviting prospective new members to breakfast (hint: they work best when you actually hand them out to a prospective member - they don't do nearly as much good staying in your wallet); and (4) we have new larger card handouts that also invite prospective members to breakfast and have some additional info on them (hint: these also work best when you actually hand them out to prospective members). 

Thanks, Claire, for pulling this together.  Also, thanks to Polly Bernson, the Grand High Poobah of Diablo Rapid Print, for printing up the cards for us. 

SPEAKING OF THE DISTRICT CONFERENCE . . . .

Not only will Rob Roy be at the District Conference from October 16-18 in Chico, six or so of your fellow Lamorinda Sunrisers will be there, too.  And you can join them.  Go to the District 5160 website (there is a link from our website, or google it) to register.  It's a great way to learn more about Rotary and make friends in other clubs.  It also means brownie points for President Hays in some mysterious way that has never been adequately explained. 

If you have never been to a District Conference before, you should go to this one.  If you have been to a District Conference before, you should go to this one.  Questions?  Ask Hays, 

SOMETIMES, THE RIPPLES IN THE POND FROM WHAT WE DO JUST KEEP RIPPLING

As many will recall, we did this "build and raffle off a canoe" thing once before.  Norm and Janet Pease won the raffle, and Tippy the Canoe is theirs.  When their names were pulled in 2011, they were so delighted, and so impressed with what we do in the community and around the world, that they donated $1,500 to our Endowment fund, which we used to buy many of the materials used to build Rob Roy.  

Hays was very pleased to make this announcement

Well, guess what?  President Hays announced that the Peases sent a lovely letter along with another $1,500 donation.  As this reporter likes to say, when you throw the pebble in the pond, you never know where the ripples will go.  Sometimes we get to find out.  This is one of those special times.  Thank you, Norm and Janet, for joining our Rotary family and helping us continue to do what we do. 

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED, REDUX

Walt fast talked this one!

Kathe Nelson has been named the new Executive Director of the Moraga Chamber of Commerce.  President Hays tried to fine Walt for this, mainly because it appeared in the local press, but changed his mind when Walt cogently argued that, technically, Kathe is not required to wear a Rotary pin or mention Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary when she appears in the Fourth Estate. 

VOCATIONAL MINUTE - SIXTY SECONDS WELL SPENT

George's impressive minute

What is there to say about George Chaffey that hasn't already been posted on post office walls?  Just this.  He's a lawyer.  He graduated from Boalt Hall School of Law (affiliated with UC Berkeley, according to rumors).  He and Carol served together in the Peace Corps (in Liberia, if memory serves), where George taught law and Carol taught useful subjects.  He is a partner at Littler Mendelson, the biggest employment law firm out there.  George works out of their Walnut Creek office, and his practice has evolved into primarily working with companies looking to secure government contracts or already in government contracts, navigate the myriad diversity requirements and related issues that are involved in such contracts. 

IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENTS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT

There is a bunch o' stuff coming up you need to know about.  Here they are.

Chuck promises a great event

Friday, September 27, TGITLFOTM will be at the lovely home of Chuck Bove and Stacy Kataoka, 3425 Shangri La Road, Lafayette.  There is a Greek theme going on.  Please let Chuck know sooner rather than later if you are attending. 

Saturday, September 28 - HOME Team strikes again!  Meet at Gary Fulcher's man-cave at 8:00 a.m. 

There will be NO BOARD MEETING on Tuesday, October 8. It will instead convene on Thursday, October 10. This is an annual Special Board meeting with Steve Lack, District Governor (DG), at Alex and Mary Jane Arnold's, 23 Idlewood Court, Moraga.  This 5:30 pm gathering is most decidedly not limited to Board members - all Club members (with the possible exception of Rich Shearer and Brad Davis) are welcome to meet the DG and listen to him grill President Hays and his Bored Directors.  Let Hays and Alex know in advance if you plan to attend. 

Friday, October 11 - Fresh off being scared witless from learning what the Board is planning for the year, DG Lack makes his official DG visit to Lamorinda Sunrise Rotary.  Every year, the DG has to visit every Club in District 5160. From San Ramon and Berkeley to Weed, Hayfork and Burney.  Every year, we do our darndest to make Lamorinda Sunrise stick out in the DG's mind, and maybe become the stuff of ongoing nightmares.  Be there, or we will talk about you behind your back.  Or worse yet, we will sign you up for a District-wide committee.  

PROGRAM - DREAM APPRECIATION

Dreams.  We all have them - in fact, all mammals do.  They can be fun, funny, scary, seemingly bizarre.  And most of us know very little about them.

Lisa is a very good teacher

Today, Lisa Riggs tried to change that for us.  As a result, we all know a bit more about this phenomenon that we all experience.

Ms. Riggs first informally surveyed the room for their dreaming experiences.  Like the general population, many of us dream but do not remember our dreams when we wake up.  However, more women remember their dreams than men do. 

What men and women do have in common is that everyone dreams both during non-rapid eye movement sleep, or NREM, the deepest sleep state, and during REM sleep, which is less deep.  There are multiple REM sleep cycles when we sleep, with each getting longer over the course of the night.

So are there things one can do to increase one's memory of their dreams?  Yes, it turns out. Here are some tips.  Get enough sleep.  When you wake up, don't move quickly, physically or mentally - ease into wakefulness.  Actively tell yourself to remember your dreams.  Jot down notes about what you can recall of your dreams when you first awaken.  Increase your vitamin intake, especially vitamin B-6.  Join a dream group.  Decrease your alcohol intake (booze decreases Rem sleep). 

Ms,. Riggs next gave us an introduction to theorists who have explored the world of dreams.  Not surprisingly, the Big Two of early psychiatry, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, did a great deal of work trying to uncover the importance and impact of dreams  and many others have followed in their wakes.  More recent work has focused on doing brain scans on the sleeping and dreaming brain.  While there is hardly unanimity in the field, it does appear that dreams are important components of emotional processing of events, memory formation, problem solving, and even conflict resolution.  Some researchers believe that dreams can be healing and can help bring received information into sharper focus. 

Ms. Riggs did not spend a lot of time on dream analysis - with a group this goofy, that was no doubt very wise - but she did note that the dreams are metaphorical, not literal. 

There are also several major types of dreams.  Prodromal dreams indicate illness in the body.  For example, a dream involving burning in one's abdomen can mean cancer or some other problem in the digestive tract.  True prodromal dreams are often recurring dreams rather than one-time events. 

Precognitive dreams are dreams predicting future events.  These do not have to be important or traumatic events; precognitive dreams can be predictive of mundane every-day occurrences, too.

Lucid dreams are ones in which the dreamer is aware they are dreaming.  Tibetan monks believe this is the highest form of consciousness. 

Sometime we dream of visits from someone who is no longer alive.  These are visitation dreams. 

Fun dream examples

Dreams can also help in solving a problem.  Ms. Riggs provided several examples.  A dream Jack Nicklaus had in 1964 helped him correct a flaw in his golf swing.  And a dream showed Elias Howe the design breakthrough he needed to perfect the first sewing machine.  The tune for "Yesterday" came to Paul McCartney in a dream.  (Reporter's note: The words obviously required more work during the waking hours, as for some time the working title for the song was "Scrambled Eggs."  And no, this reporter is not making this up.) 

Want more info?  Try the International Association for the Study of Dreams, www.asdreams.org.  The Dream Institute of Berkeley's website is www.dreamscience.org.  You can also sign up for Ms. Riggs' class, "Dream Appreciation," through the Acalanes High School District's ed program, www.acalanes.k12.ca.us/adulted.  The class starts October 3 and meets for four weeks, two hours per week.

Thank you, Ms. Riggs, for letting us know more about the squirrely stuff that goes on in our heads when the lights go out.