Gearing up for the season....

It’s the middle of the summer, so that means it’s time to get the kids signed up…the Soccer Board has some new members, and it’s time to get your kids on the roster – here’s more from Travis Ayers:

San Juan Island Soccer Association Announces New Board and Online Registration

SJISA announces new board members for the upcoming 2009 season.  They are Kevin Porter, President, Beth Nicholson, Treasurer, and board members Travis Ayers, Michelle Herko, and Declan Place.

“We would like to thank the previous board members who worked tirelessly for several years to help develop the great soccer program that we have on the island today.  They are Sherri Phelps, Gina Westrich, Beth Nicholson (continuing), Jenny Roberts, and Tom Pieples” Porter said.

The registration deadline of August 1st is quickly approaching, and online registration is now available at:
http://www.skvysa.org/home.php?layout=1045

If you have already registered using the paper forms for the 2009 season, you do not need to register online.

After the August first deadline, players are not guaranteed a spot on a team and are accommodated on a space-available basis.  The registration fees also increase after the deadline.

The Association is looking for coaches and volunteers to ensure a successful season.  Please contact Declan Place ([email protected]) or 378.2321 if you are interested in coaching.  Registration questions should be directed to Travis Ayers at 370.5612 or [email protected]

Jessica is a 2009 graduate of the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) program

Did you see the nice write-up in the University of Washington’s School of Nursing’s online paper about former islander Jessica Simpson, who is a 2009 graduate of the Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) program? It’s cool – check it out here.

Judd Cove - photo by Kurt Thorson.

Good news – the Land Bank is getting funds to help with Judd Cove, over on our sister-island Orcas. Here’s more from the Land Bank’s Judy Cumming:

Public Agencies Work to Expand and Restore Land Bank’s Judd Cove Preserve

The Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office announced this week that the San Juan County Land Bank will receive $650,000 from the Aquatic Lands Enhancement Account (ALEA) grant program for expansion and restoration at the Judd Cove Preserve near Eastsound on Orcas Island.
The Land Bank has already provided the funds to match this grant by purchasing 7 acres adjacent Continue Reading

The champs!

The Fire Department’s Ron Garner says we have some champs on the island:

On June 27, 2009 the Firewise Precision Drill Team World Championships were held in Friday Harbor, WA. A group of San Juan Island Firewise residents and Fire Department members joined together to create a team to enter the competition. In the only other competition three years ago, a Colorado team was the only entry and declared themselves World Champions. The local team took on the challenge by forming the San Juan Island Firewise Precision (easy on the precision) Drill (not much on the drill) Team.

After hours of discussion and planning (well at least 15 minutes) the team started their extensive days of practices (two half hour days to be exact). They became extremely skilled considering that only half the team showed up for each of those extensive drills. You can’t find a more devoted bunch in the nation.

Oh, that brings up the fact that the other entries were very limited. At the time of the judging, no other teams could be located so the San Juan team was declared the World Champions and presented with the first place plaque.

The Team thanks two local citizens for their financial support. They are a fellow Firewise Community member who donated donuts (you can’t have a team without donuts) plus those strikingly colorful green Firewise uniforms and Dave at the Trophy Shop for the plaque. The Team hopes that some of the folks that enjoyed their performance will consider joining the Firewise Communities protecting themselves from wildfire. For more information call Ron Garner, Firewise Coordinator, at 378-7722.

Fire Marshal Low (right) presenting Chief Marler with World Champion plaque

Sea Shepherd’s Traci Walter tells me that KING5 had a story about the Friday Harbor-based group – here’s more (click here to see the video.)

Standin' by...

Marie tells me this is your chance to give…and get someone to kiss the pig:

Vote on Kiss for the Cure!

Ian, now here is a really fun fundraiser to raise money for cancer research.  Who will be man enough to kiss a pig?  Sheriff Bill Cumming, Under Sheriff Jon Zerby, Elementary Principal Gary Pflueger, Post Master Dan Fleming and Fire Chief Vern Long have all volunteered to compete for votes in the Kiss for the Cure fundraiser.

Vote early, vote often...

Here how it works: Soroptimist ‘Pink Ladies’ Relay for Life team will sell tickets at the Soroptimist table at Marketplace this Friday morning July 17; at Kings on Saturday morning July 18 and Sunday afternoon July 19. Last chance to cast your votes will be at the Soroptimist booth at the Artist Street Fair on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Vote tickets are $1, 5, 10 and $20 for a potential pig-kisser.

The Grand Event is on Wednesday, July 22, during the break (between 7:30 or 8:00 p.m.) at Island Rec’s free summer concert series Music on the Lawn. All tickets will have been sold, votes counted, the pig kissers will be waiting, the winner will be announced, and the cute little pig will be kissed!  (Sorry, no tickets will be sold at the event.)

We hope this will be an unusual and fun event for the community, celebrating the notoriety of the Pig War, during Friday Harbor’s Centennial, while raising much-needed funds for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  You can also go to the Soroptimist Relay Team’s secure site to donate (click here.)

Thanks to all!
Marie DiCristina, Soroptimist

Standin' by...

Marie tells me this is your chance to give…and get someone to kiss the pig:

Vote on Kiss for the Cure!

Ian, now here is a really fun fundraiser to raise money for cancer research.  Who will be man enough to kiss a pig?  Sheriff Bill Cumming, Under Sheriff Jon Zerby, Elementary Principal Gary Pflueger, Post Master Dan Fleming and Fire Chief Vern Long have all volunteered to compete for votes in the Kiss for the Cure fundraiser.

Vote early, vote often...

Here how it works: Soroptimist ‘Pink Ladies’ Relay for Life team will sell tickets at the Soroptimist table at Marketplace this Friday morning July 17; at Kings on Saturday morning July 18 and Sunday afternoon July 19. Last chance to cast your votes will be at the Soroptimist booth at the Artist Street Fair on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Vote tickets are $1, 5, 10 and $20 for a potential pig-kisser.

The Grand Event is on Wednesday, July 22, during the break (between 7:30 or 8:00 p.m.) at Island Rec’s free summer concert series Music on the Lawn. All tickets will have been sold, votes counted, the pig kissers will be waiting, the winner will be announced, and the cute little pig will be kissed!  (Sorry, no tickets will be sold at the event.)

We hope this will be an unusual and fun event for the community, celebrating the notoriety of the Pig War, during Friday Harbor’s Centennial, while raising much-needed funds for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  You can also go to the Soroptimist Relay Team’s secure site to donate (click here.)

Thanks to all!
Marie DiCristina, Soroptimist

Environmentally friendly cars will soon cease to be an option…they will become a necessity.
Fujio Cho, President of Toyota Motors, 2004

You’ll remember I ran a couple of photos a couple of months ago of the FHHS Class of ’69, who are having their reunion this weekend…here are the links again (with photos), in case you missed them:

About the class in first grade

About the graduating class

Have a great time!

Fab Four, redux....

The Community Theatre has a great show this weekend – here’s more from them:

Don’t expect your typical Beatles look-alike tribute act when Abbey Road Live! rocks the Whittier stage. These four lads don’t have mop-top haircuts or play Rickenbacker guitars. Rather, this show is about bringing to life some of the more mature and complex Beatles materials in a raw and spirited fashion, while remaining true to the original recordings.

Abbey Road Live! is made up of all-star musicians from the famous Athens, Georgia music scene that gave the world R.E.M., Widespread Panic and B-52s.

Formed in 2002, initially as a tribute to the monumental “Abbey Road” album, the band has expanded its scope to include more than 100 Beatles tunes from all eras of the Fab Four’s career. And since the Beatles stopped touring in 1966, the Beatles themselves never performed many of these songs live.

Ticket ordering, and more.

Call if you see her...

Gail Thomas is looking for her dog – here’s the info she sent us:

LOST CHIHUAHUA!

IF YOU SEE HER PLEASE CALL:
378-5253
378-5259
SHE IS VERY SHY AND MAY NOT COME TO YOU SO PLEASE CALL THE NUMBERS SHOWN AND TELL US WHERE YOU SAW HER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.  SHE HAS NO TEETH BUT PLEASE TRY AND GIVE HER SOME SOFT FOOD AND WATER UNTIL WE CAN COME TO GET HER. SHE HASN’T EATEN SINCE GOING MISSING ON JULY 16.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Back in the ’80s, there was a movement to raise money to help the folks starving in Africa, and one of the more moving contributions to the effort was the song, “We Are The World,” written by Michael Jackson & Lionel Ritchie. Here’s the song, with all the stars of that time each contributing to the song. It brings back memories, along with serving as a reminder we have a heck of a lot of work left to do….

Here’s song, with who is singing each line:

There comes a time when we heed a certain call (Lionel Richie)
When the world must come together as one (Lionel Richie & Stevie Wonder)
There are people dying (Stevie Wonder)
Oh, and it’s time to lend a hand to life (Paul Simon)
The greatest gift of all (Paul Simon/Kenny Rogers)

Louis Johnson — Bass

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind...and in the sun.

One of my great friends, Jerry Gentemann, writes from Tokyo that the answer to reducing our energy consumption is right under our noses (and as we’ll find over the next century, includes using the free solar power just out the window).

There already are people on the island working to re-write neighborhood covenants & getting the clothes out there:

Fight for the “Right to Dry!”

What if legislators learned dryers use 10 to 15% of domestic energy in the United States!

What if they found out that this reduction could be obtained right away, at a negligible cost? What if they discovered that the savings would be obtained by using less power from coal-burning plants and dams, relying instead on energy from the sun? And what if they saw that the primary impediments to such a conversion were fussy provisions in the rules for residential subdivisions?

An unbeatable coalition of legislators would form. Crusaders against global warming and boosters of alternative energy would make common cause with advocates of consumers’ economic interests and defenders of property rights. Greens, blues and reds would join to support a House Bill and would then scramble to take credit for its approval.

Changing our mindset: This is a beautiful use of the sun, which could shut down the coal fired plants....

Apparently clotheslines are associated in some people’s minds with urban tenements and rural poverty. Such people don’t want to walk — or more likely, drive — through their neighborhood and see someone’s shirts and towels flapping in the breeze. Actually, the shirts and towels probably aren’t the problem — it’s the idea of underwear in plain view that induces waves of dread and fear of falling property values.

Opponents might change their minds if they knew that the U.S. Department of Energy reported that they could cut their electric bills by an average of 5.8 percent by spending a few dollars on a length of cord and a bag of clothespins.

Even if the weather permits outdoor clothes drying only half the time, the savings would be noticeable. About 17 percent of clothes dryers run on natural gas. These appliances are more efficient, but a clothesline still costs less.

Should we have to fight for the “Right to dry”? There is even a petition to get clothes lines up at the White House.

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind...and in the sun.

One of my great friends, Jerry Gentemann, writes from Tokyo that the answer to reducing our energy consumption is right under our noses (and as we’ll find over the next century, includes using the free solar power just out the window).

There already are people on the island working to re-write neighborhood covenants & getting the clothes out there:

Fight for the “Right to Dry!”

What if legislators learned dryers use 10 to 15% of domestic energy in the United States!

What if they found out that this reduction could be obtained right away, at a negligible cost? What if they discovered that the savings would be obtained by using less power from coal-burning plants and dams, relying instead on energy from the sun? And what if they saw that the primary impediments to such a conversion were fussy provisions in the rules for residential subdivisions?

An unbeatable coalition of legislators would form. Crusaders against global warming and boosters of alternative energy would make common cause with advocates of consumers’ economic interests and defenders of property rights. Greens, blues and reds would join to support a House Bill and would then scramble to take credit for its approval.

Changing our mindset: This is a beautiful use of the sun, which could shut down the coal fired plants....

Apparently clotheslines are associated in some people’s minds with urban tenements and rural poverty. Such people don’t want to walk — or more likely, drive — through their neighborhood and see someone’s shirts and towels flapping in the breeze. Actually, the shirts and towels probably aren’t the problem — it’s the idea of underwear in plain view that induces waves of dread and fear of falling property values.

Opponents might change their minds if they knew that the U.S. Department of Energy reported that they could cut their electric bills by an average of 5.8 percent by spending a few dollars on a length of cord and a bag of clothespins.

Even if the weather permits outdoor clothes drying only half the time, the savings would be noticeable. About 17 percent of clothes dryers run on natural gas. These appliances are more efficient, but a clothesline still costs less.

Should we have to fight for the “Right to dry”? There is even a petition to get clothes lines up at the White House.

Harry & the gang come to Friday Harbor on Wednesday....

You know that the movies at the Palace Theatre usually change each Friday…this week it’ll be a little different, as Aaron brings in Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince and keeps Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies a couple more days.

Then come Friday it’ll be Harry along with My Sister’s Keeper and The Taking of Pelham 123 for the next week.

Harry & the gang come to Friday Harbor on Wednesday....

You know that the movies at the Palace Theatre usually change each Friday…this week it’ll be a little different, as Aaron brings in Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince and keeps Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies a couple more days.

Then come Friday it’ll be Harry along with My Sister’s Keeper and The Taking of Pelham 123 for the next week.