SWCAMBORNE

Here is an idea: Postcards From Anywhere (PFA). For $5.00 PFA will send a postcard from anywhere in the world to anyone in the world. The transaction is done on line at the PFA website which shows the countries and postcard selection in each one. The sender fills in the order blank including the message and charges his or her credit card. The order is transmitted to the youth group at the appropriate site. The message is hand written on the card selected, stamped and sent. An appropriate time later the local group is credited with about half of the money and the rest pays to support the web site, promotion, and overhead. The basic requirement is for a reliable group of people who have organizations in lots of countries and people who would be interested in small transactions. The ones that come to mind are Boy Scouts, Catholics, Mormons and 7-11 stores.

I’m not sure if the idea would work but it could give a lot of young people a sense of community and purpose. The business would be pretty much self-financing after a relatively small initial investment.

Why would anyone use the service?
Maybe to impress someone with where they’ve been.
Maybe to send an unusual birthday or holiday greeting.
Maybe to give a unique gift to a young stamp collector.
Maybe someone is writing a school report on Paraguay.
Maybe, like the gnome in the movie Emile, to entertain.
Maybe to talk your friend into going to India. A card might make the place seem less forbidding.
Maybe to win an argument.
Maybe to create a mystery.
Maybe just because you can send a card from Tibet that says; “Wish you were here.”

These are stones four and five after they were cut.

The Howard with his new pickup and our rented rock hauling trailer. “Men of Stone” upgrade their technology.

These are stones two and three before they are taken up to be cut and drilled.

Progress is being made.

Nurit and I have have been visiting some baseball stadiums when we travel. These are some pictures from some of our visits;

We watched the Dodgers play the Phillies with Rebecca at “Citizen Bank Park.” The Phillies won.

We went to Petco Park in San Diego with Lillian and Heidi. The Dodgers were ahead by 5 runs in the seventh so we left to take the dog for a walk. The Padres came back and won 6 to 5. Nice new stadium.

Here we are at Dodger Stadium our home park and as yet not named. The Dodgers beat the Brewers 10 to 2. Good seats and a nice Sunday afternoon outing with John and Gloria Austin.

We may try to see a game at every major league stadium over the next few years. Three down and 27 to go.

When the owners ran my drycleaners they knew me by name. Now they have employees running it and they know me by my telephone number. I’m thinking about changing drycleaners.

Mistakes are how we pay our tuition in the college of life.

Dave Nobile

If you have ever had to wait with the mob in baggage claim hoping for a glimpse of your luggage coming down the belt, this is a product that you need.

With luggage finder you wait quietly away from the crowd and press the locate button on your handheld local GPS unit. Your luggage has an ID code transmitter in it. As the belt starts to move and the mobs surges forward the hand held unit points toward your luggage and tells you how close it is. It will save you time, help you avoid the mob in front of the baggage carousel and will keep you from getting the wrong bag. Retail price about $99.00.

Click here to see more pond cam photos

More than 100 years ago the Rose Parade was started in Pasadena so developers could illustrate to people in Chicago how magnificent Pasadena weather is in January. More than 70 years ago the boosters of our city built the Rose Bowl, the largest stadium in the world when it was built, at great financial risk to garner national attention by promoting an intersectional year end football game. Why? To keep Pasadena in the headlines in the Midwest. Both of these ventures succeeded far beyond their founder’s dreams and are two of the big reasons that Pasadena today is differentiated from, and in my parochial view, far superior to other large suburban towns.

What we see now as great civic minded works of the past were in fact developers and boosters acting to further their own interests. That they furthered the future interests of the entire community while doing it was the result but not the intent of their actions. The city was an active participant in both of the above-mentioned projects as were the newspapers. The same was true again in the 1970’s when after the Parsons redevelopment project razed many of the historic buildings in what is now Old Pasadena the city funded and guided the development of what is one of the premier non-mall shopping districts in Southern California.

Today the spirit of boosterism and the willingness to embrace change that built these institutions has been replaced by a timid conservatism that disguised as preservation tries to keep everything the way it was in 1930. The balkanization of our city into neighborhood interest groups that oppose all change is causing us to lose some historic opportunities that will pay dividend far into the future.

Three examples come to mind. First: The preservationist approach to rebuilding City Hall kept us from celebrating the architecture of our times. For less money than was spent to rebuild the past we could have hired one of the world top architects and built a monument to our future. The old City Hall, which is a beautiful building, could have been preserved as a museum. That opportunity is now past.

Second: When Ambassador College shut down the city could have led the way to attract a world-class university to what was already a great site for such an institution. Educational institutions especially research institutions are creators of long-term prosperity. They are clean, non-polluting and also create jobs. The city opted instead for a conversion to mostly residential and commercial use that will create tax revenue. Opportunity lost.

Third: We now have an opportunity to rebuild the Rose Bowl and pay for it by acquiring an NFL franchise. Taking this opportunity will enhance the image of Pasadena in Southern California and the region for generations. Yes, it will cause some inconvenience to the people of West Pasadena and to golfers at Brookside on nine or ten Sundays a year. It is possible to install an underground people mover to transport people from old Pasadena to the new Rose Bowl to mitigate this effect. But as the examples cited above illustrate bold actions now are needed to create a city to be proud of in the future.

These are the reasons I support Chris Holden in his efforts to secure an NFL Franchise for the Rose Bowl.

Pray as if everything depended on God.

Act as if everything depended on you.