Saturday, January 06, 2007

New CERT Team members at LVH

Today was final test day for 12 new members at the old City Hall. These folks have been attending classes taught by Newport Fire and Police Department, the US Coast Guard, Red Cross and Pacific Ambulance Service since September. Classes ran about 3 hours per session. All culminated today in a written and practical test with older members acting as victims and trainers under the direction of Assistant Fire Chief Toby Cole (who spent this day, his birthday, with the CERT team) and Ret. Police Sergeant Dean Sawyer.

What this means for our community at LVH is the addition of two more skilled team members. Both new members of our team have also been attending our weekly LVH CERT meetings for months. So, there really will not be a need for them to integrate and learn our procedures as they have been doing that all along.

Please congratulate Greg Pfalmer and Wayne Hill if you see them about the hill and know that you are looking at two fine men who have studied and trained to watch over the welfare of everyone in our community in case of a disaster. Good to know they are there for us.

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.'"

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'There are 350 varieties of shark, not counting loan and pool.'"

Friday, January 05, 2007

News - StatesmanJournal.com

News - StatesmanJournal.com: "'We're going to see the sites, visit friends, and relax on the beach,' Ralph Hernandez said. 'We just want to take a break from work and take in some nice weather for a change.'

What the Salem couple did not know as they stood in line during the noon hour at the U.S. Post Office on 25th Street SE is that beginning Jan. 23, they will be required to show a valid passport to re-enter the United States.

So will all Americans traveling by air to and from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. The new air rule does not apply to U.S. territories."

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.'"

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.'"

Photo in the News: Baby Elephant Eats Christmas Trees


Photo in the News: Baby Elephant Eats Christmas Trees: "January 4, 2007—Holiday leftovers aren't just for humans. Elephant calf Thabo-Umasai at Germany's Zoo Dresden joined camels, deer, and sheep in a traditional new-year feast of Christmas trees yesterday.

'Elephants around the country will enjoy a delicious lunch today consisting of about five Christmas trees each,' Ragnar Kuehne of Zoo Berlin told the Reuters news service on January 3"

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Really cold case: Why is man sitting on dead horse? - CNN.com


Really cold case: Why is man sitting on dead horse? - CNN.com: "This photo, provided by the Sheboygan County Historical Research Center, shows a man sitting on a dead horse. People want to know the story behind it."









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Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com

Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com: "By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Think Minnesota gets cold?

Try Titan, another land of a thousand lakes. Saturn's haze-shrouded moon may be an exotic land of liquid methane lakes, NASA scientists reported Wednesday.

First spotted in July in a flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, the lakes explain the clouds that cloak the mysterious Titan, researchers say. At minus 290 degrees on its surface, Titan's weather is a chilly replica of Earth's climate, with methane rains and rivers falling and flowing into the lakes, which evaporate once more to form the moon's clouds, says study lead author Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research in Rectortown, Va."

Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com

Lake-effect methane chills Titan - USATODAY.com: "By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY
Think Minnesota gets cold?

Try Titan, another land of a thousand lakes. Saturn's haze-shrouded moon may be an exotic land of liquid methane lakes, NASA scientists reported Wednesday.

First spotted in July in a flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, the lakes explain the clouds that cloak the mysterious Titan, researchers say. At minus 290 degrees on its surface, Titan's weather is a chilly replica of Earth's climate, with methane rains and rivers falling and flowing into the lakes, which evaporate once more to form the moon's clouds, says study lead author Ellen Stofan of Proxemy Research in Rectortown, Va."

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Magic Mag-net-ic
About Our top Header photo....
Click on picture to view full size!


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Donna Talarski took this picture at Fogarty Creek beach during a winter storm. You notice that when we use a picture as a banner it loses a bit or gains from the contortions we put it through to fit the page? Still both renderings are pretty darn neat.

Feds: Crisis Communications Subpar In U.S., Homeland Security Survey Gives Only Six American Cities High Ratings For Emergency Communications - CBS Ne

Feds: Crisis Communications Subpar In U.S., Homeland Security Survey Gives Only Six American Cities High Ratings For Emergency Communications - CBS News: "Homeland Security is under the gun to improve emergency communications among first responders, and Chertoff has pledged to achieve nationwide interoperability by the end of 2008.

The Department of Homeland Security study comes five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, revealed major problems in how well emergency agencies were able to talk to each other during a catastrophe. Many firefighters climbing the World Trade Center towers died when they were unable to hear police radio warnings to leave the crumbling buildings.

In New York now, the report said, first responders were found to have well-established systems to communicate among each other — but not the best possible.

Just over a year ago, Hurricane Katrina underscored communication problems when radio transmissions were hindered because the storm's winds toppled towers. "

Mysterious Structures Reappear on Central Oregon Coast Beach

Mysterious Structures Reappear on Central Oregon Coast Beach: "Mysterious Structures Reappear on Central Oregon Coast Beach
Ancient stumps once buried have reappeared

(Newport, Oregon) - Some three hundred years ago – so the prevailing theory goes – a massive tsunami hit what would become the Oregon coast, changing the landscape and leveling entire forests, not unlike the blast of Mount St. Helens 25 years ago.

The eerie remnants of this event are now visible again on Newport’s northern beaches, showing a series of strange structures and shapes on the beach that look like some sort of collaboration between Roger Dean (the man who did the Yes album covers) and Dr. Suess.

Head to Moolack Beach or Beverly Beach, on the northern end of town, and you’ll find giant octopus-like structures, the leftovers of root systems dotting the beach. There are currently about nine of the big structures at Moolack, with dozens of smaller tree points sticking out of the sand in various areas."

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'Orthodox medicine has not found an answer to your complaint. However, luckily for you, I happen to be a quack.'"

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Our calendar for the News letter..

What happens when the calendar person is away from home and gets sick? Oops! No calendar for the coming 2 months on your frig. :(

Sad state of affairs this. There may be a ray of hope though. We have noticed with the influx of new people to the community of new neighbors this year came people with more computer skills. Also, a few of us older nutz are learning computers too.

What we can do to stop this problem could be solved if I sat down and put to words the steps to get a calendar ready for our printer. Then those with the skills or those that would enjoy the challenge of doing something new on a rainy day could give it a try. I bet several of you can do it.

Now you new folks probably do not know about the LVH School House website. It is a place that Jim Dodds and myself developed to help residents learn computer skills. From time to time I should be putting lessons in that have value to the community. Haven't done that for a good while. But today,, it's raining, I'm recovering and there is a problem that can be solved.

So if you visit the LVH school house website you will find a tutorial on how to make a calendar suitable for printing or for your refrigerator yourself.

Here is how to navigate to the school room. On the left side of this page click the icon that says "LINK CITY". This index web page contains links to websites of interest to our community. In the first column you will see an icon for the school house. Click it and read the new lesson. Give it a try and next time there will be one more person who can make a calendar for the newsletter.

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.'"

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "Dwight D. Eisenhower
1/1/2007 5:00:00 PM [rss@quotationspage.com (Quotes of the Day)]

'I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.'"

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.'"

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 — Page 2

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 — Page 2: "ALUN ANDERSON
Senior Consultant (and Former Editor-In-Chief and Publishing Director), New Scientist

The Sunlight-Powered Future

I'm optimistic about…a pair of very big numbers. The first is 4.5 x 10ˆ20. That is the current world annual energy use, measured in joules. It is a truly huge number and not usually a cause for optimism as 70 per cent of that energy comes from burning fossil fuels.

Thankfully, the second number is even bigger: 3,000,000 x 10ˆ20 joules. That is the amount of clean, green energy that pours down on the Earth totally free of charge every year. The Sun is providing 7,000 times as much energy as we are using, which leaves plenty for developing China, India and everyone else. How can we not be optimistic? We don't have a long-term energy problem. Our only worries are whether we can find smart ways to use that sunlight efficiently and whether we can move quickly enough from the energy systems we are entrenched in now to the ones we should be using. Given the perils of climate change and dependence on foreign energy, the motivation is there. "

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 — Page 2

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2006 — Page 2: "CHRIS ANDERSON
Curator, TED Conference

Systemic Flaws In the Reported World View

Paradoxically, one of the biggest reasons for being optimistic is that there are systemic flaws in the reported world view. Certain types of news — for example dramatic disasters and terrorist actions — are massively over-reported, others — such as scientific progress and meaningful statistical surveys of the state of the world — massively under-reported.

Although this leads to major problems such as distortion of rational public policy and a perpetual gnawing fear of apocalypse, it is also reason to be optimistic. Once you realize you're being inadvertently brainwashed to believe things are worse than they are, you can... with a little courage... step out into the sunshine."

BBC NEWS | Health | Drink lowers blood pressure risks

BBC NEWS | Health | Drink lowers blood pressure risks: "Drink lowers blood pressure risks
Beer
More than three drinks a day can raise blood pressure
People with high blood pressure need not be teetotal and may benefit from a regular tipple, a US study suggests.

Men with hypertension reduced their risk of a heart attack by having a drink or two a day, the study in Annals of Internal Medicine found.

But experts warned too much alcohol can raise blood pressure and said the findings should not be used as a licence to drink."

Monday, January 01, 2007

Let's Save Bucks!!!

Send in your money saving ideas. Lets see if we can all stretch our retirement dollars a bit more. I'll start with one given to me by Dan and Sue Wilson a few years ago and I will testify it is a beauty.

Cancel your local telephone long distance service. They more than likely have been overcharging you for years and years. They could because they were the only game in town. Oh go ahead and keep your basic local phone. Just drop off the long distance service.

You can try this idea before you cancel just to prove to yourself it works. First go to COSTCO or have a friend go and pick you up an MCI long distance credit card. It costs around $20 and is the last card you will have to buy. They charge you 3.5 cents a minute for a call anywhere in the US. Dirt cheap.

How it Works:

This card has an 800 number on it which is a toll free local call. Call the number. A recording will come on and ask you to select "one" for English. Punch the 1 button. It will then ask you to enter your pin number that is on the card. Do it. The voice thanks you and asks you to dial your number area code first and tells you how many minutes you have left. Then you dial and are connected. That's it.

What are the advantages?
  1. Way lower long distance phone bill.
  2. Take the card with you when you travel. It works the same way wherever you may be... In a hotel room or an airport lobby.. Same low rate.
  3. We buy more minutes and keep the same card right over the phone. $60 worth lasts months and months. Jacky can tell you how long she usually takes to use up the time. Maybe she will in a comment.
  4. Staying at a friends house but want to call long distance for some reason? Use their phone and your card and they incur no charges on their bill and you get a better rate than they get anyhow.
Now that dialing sounds like a bit of a put off doesn't it? Well, if you have a home phone that has memory storage on it (usually that's a cordless phone folks) you can do away with getting the card out, dialing the 800 number, Then the pin number and finally your long distance number.
Most modern phones are set up to automate this operation for you. You program the memory on your phone to remember the 800 number then program it to remember the pin number that way you are only 2 key presses away from making your ultra cheap phone call.

Yes it is worth it.. I promise. Try it for the price of the card at COSTCO without risking what you have now. You won't lose a thing. You will use your $20 worth of minutes. No loss there. Nothing lost at the phone company... Win! Win!

Now we know that those that resist change or feel technically challenged will say no. I will help set up your phone if it can be set up and there are a group of people that will probably help if it becomes a large project.

What's your money saving tip? email me.

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.'"

NewsGator Online

NewsGator Online: "'I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.'"
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM UTAH.  Wish we were there at the Club House last night.   Marilynn and Jim McCrea

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Happy New Year!

Jacky and I wish you the best for the coming year and wish to confer this ancient blessing on each and every one of you, " May the cold nose of a camel thrust underneath your tent never reach your back whilst you slumber."

Attend the New Years festivities at the clubhouse this evening. We won't be there because the cold nose of a camel got us down with the flu and we fear we are contagious to other folks.

We will look forward to seeing everyone next year.
White & Nerdy

This is my son's favorite song... On the other hand he was a sergeant in the Marine Corps which he made in 3 years. He was decorated twice for his white and nerdy innovations to computer manuals and schools.
1week of art works

You might turn the music down a bit. It will change a lot after the first minute.. RT

StatesmanJournal.com - The News Source for Salem, Oregon

StatesmanJournal.com - The News Source for Salem, Oregon: "StatesmanJournal.com presents a weekly feature showcasing snapshots of the past submitted by readers. Click here to see the this week's gallery. Click here to see instructions on how to submit photos."

AP nation news - StatesmanJournal.com

YOU Got TO be Kidding???

AP nation news - StatesmanJournal.com: "67-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to Twins

By HAROLD HECKLE
Associated Press Writer

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- A 67-year-old woman has given birth to twin sons in the northern city of Barcelona, a hospital official said."

IN MY OPINION

IN MY OPINION: "For those who have never taught sophomores, the class year when most boys and girls turn 16, let me describe what happens when many get their driver's licenses."

Doctor and invention outlast jeers and threats

Ron says, "We have a friend that experienced this treatment and was cured. " A very good read, you may help someone you know!

Doctor and invention outlast jeers and threats: "Doctor and invention outlast jeers and threats
Vertigo - John Epley's chair conquers dizziness, wins acceptance and has a business plan, thanks to his daughter

Sunday, December 31, 2006
JOE ROJAS-BURKE

He is a doctor and innovator. Years ago, he took aim at a medical curse that has disabled millions of people and defied treatment. He came up with a cure that was astonishingly simple. No surgery. No pills.

Now, think: Would his colleagues cheer his stroke of ingenuity by spreading the news -- and practice -- of the treatment to relieve suffering?

No. Inexplicably, they rejected him, ridiculed him, heaved accusations that threatened his license to practice medicine."