Meeting Re-Cap - Remember, don’t worry about the world coming to end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia. Right, mate?

We had an out of this world meeting today. Paul Butler led us in the pledge. Seymour Myers gave us hope. Seymour told us how important it is to have hope and what a difference it make in people’s lives. It was a particularly poignant inspiration since Lesley Sagar from Hope Without Boundaries joined.

Our guests today were Lesley Sagar and Dr. Adam Burgasser.

Our club is still the happiest place on earth. How do I know? Check it out.

Randy Jones was $5 happy for being the only guys at a table with 5 beautiful Rotarian women. Then Venky Venkatesh joined the table and Randy added a dollar for him.

Venky then gave his own $5 for being in the presence of those five beautiful Rotarian women.

Richard Fogg gave $5 inquiring why Venky left his table to join the five beautiful Rotarian women. Venky had no explanation, excuse or justification for leaving his seat next to Richard and moving to a table with five beautiful Rotarian women. Richard, I will go out on limb here to try answer the melodic question: If Leaving Me is Easy [by Phil Collins]. The answer is: because the other table had five beautiful Rotarian women.

Jan Parsons made a donation of $28. Strange number? Not so. Jan went to Kauai and then to Las Vegas. It is a drag being Jan. Leaving Las Vegas, Jan dropped her last silver dollar in the slots and won $56. We got half her winnings. Question. If Jan won $56,000, would she have donated half her winnings to happy dollars? Answer next week.

Bill Murphy was $20 happy for the great care and insight provided by our resident doc, Seymour Myers. Seymour diagnosed Bill’s father with a blood deficiency and anemia and sent him to the emergency room. The er docs fixed the problem and got Bill’s dad back on his feet. Way to go Seymour!!

Zoran Knezevic brought down the house with $100 happy ones. Zoran was in the Big Apple and Paris for trade shows and business. It was all business Zoran. Just confirming my friend. It was all business. The difference between Zoran and Jan is that Jan is retired and traveling for pleasure. Zoran is still working and traveling for business. Zoran was happy to go and happy to be back. Everything is smelling roses for him.

Our fine master, Jan Parsons, was back in fine form. She dished out fines for various and sundry transgressions: like not shaking the guest speaker’s hand and welcoming him to the club; and failing to wear Rotary pins. Lessons learned John Benton, Ellen Griffin, Randy Jones, Art Mendoza.

Bill Murphy incurred a fine from the bocce tournament. Though he did a magnificent job as the public address announcer and DJ, Bill was off his game in one respect. Bill needed a bathroom break and put the mic on Pandora. A three-song set ensued. Mumford & Sons played one of their songs with a handful of expletives that had the kids from Just In Time and Reality Changers blushing. Bill spun the wheel of fortune and landed on 24. The question Bill had to answer was: In what year did the Rotary International constitution admit women to the club? Answer 1989.

Bill paid the highest fine of $24 after failing to correctly identify the year.

Now, this led to yet another fine, as the fine master observed Ken Barrett trying to help Bill out. Ken was signaling in 1987 to Bill. Either way, it was wrong. Ken spun the wheel of fortune and landed on 21. The Sargent-at-arms, George Sousa, was to levy the fine. After walking Ken through the 4-way test, George fined Ken $5.

Finally, to add insult to injury, Zoran Knezevic was fined $10 for missing too many meetings without making any up in New York and Paris. FYI Zoran, there are 20 Rotary clubs in Paris, France and 20 Rotary clubs in Manhattan. Perhaps, next time, you can find one. It will save you a fine.

Radia Benchiakh presented Lesley Sagar from Hope Without Boundaries a check for $2,000 from the club and Charles and Alicia Foster. Lesley told us what a difference maker the money makes for the kids from Carretas, Mexico. The money provides uniforms for the kids so they can attend school. Thank you Charles, Alicia and Radia for making this project a priority for our club.

Adam Burgasser spoke to us about all things in the universe and galaxies. He noted that the stars we see in the night sky represent a very small fraction of those that exist in the Milky Way Galaxy. A surprisingly large fraction of our Galaxy's stars are dim, cool, red ones invisible to our eyes: the brown dwarfs. An intermediate class of objects sharing properties of stars and giant planets, brown dwarfs were discovered only twenty years. We (me and Adam) are now finding that they are among our nearest Galactic neighbors.

He also told us about the science of brown dwarfs, illustrating how they have advanced our understanding of planetary chemistry and meteorology, and share some of our most recent discoveries, including "ice stars", a new class of low-mass pulsars, and systems that defy our conventional definition of planet.

Adam has not won a Nobel prize yet. His star will come in someday soon though. Perhaps a light year or two from now. We are all waiting in baited breath.

That pretty much was our out of this world meeting today.

Remember, don’t worry about the world coming to end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia. Right, mate?　

Steven Weitzen 
Del Mar - Solana Beach Sunrise Rotary