Newsletter Spring 2001
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Happy News Year from Simcoe Communications Spring 2001

Printable version (PDF -- 8Mb)

Inside This Issue:

• Happy Easter / Ides of April / IRS Loathing Day
• Raising the (Handle) Bar
• Pleasant Grove Community Church
• Canine Companions for Independence
• Simcoe Communications
• Ashelby Pro Bono Productions
• Golden Moose Publications
• Wedding of the Year
• Editorial

Happy Easter / Ides of April / IRS Loathing Day

All best wishes to you and yours from the kids at Chez Simcoe. All is well here. There are still are too few hours in the day and too few days in the week, but boredom will never overtake us.

Sally continues to punch the (NT 4.0 / Windows 2000) clock at Hewlett-Packard. Sally celebrated 16 years with HP on January 2, 2001. She continues to wow the troops with her "Madam Wu" daily multimedia miracles.

Kent gives life to Simcoe Communications, which had an extremely busy year (see below).

Shelby loves her role as the world's finest dog and the executive producer of Ashelby Pro Bono Productions. Although most of her classmates have retired, Shelby maintains her puppy liveliness to insure that she continues to see her friends at HP each day. "A day without my fan club is like a day without sunshine…" Occasional threats of retirement make Shelby shudder.

Anyone else out there think that "Y2K" was a diabolic "right to work" plot by a bunch of old COBOL programmers? Ranked right up there with the "Spruce Goose" for a monstrous fizzle as far as we were concerned. We are just about out of our Y2K supply of old Sears Catalogs now. Howsomever, 2000 made up for its feeble entrance by exiting like an SR-71 heading for the stable -- at least around here.

April 2000 found us on the way to Las Vegas for the biggest toy event for folks in the video business, NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters convention). We packed up the Bird of Play (our 28 foot motorhome) and took to the road. What an extravaganza! And in two weeks we will be taking in the 2001 NAB show.

In late June we bought a new Honda Odyssey van. It's great. Power sliding doors on both sides make it much easier. The Voyager was becoming difficult for Sally to manage. Chrysler kept insisting that they were never going to use electric sliding doors. By September the Dodge and Chrysler minivans had them. But it was too late. We love our Odyssey.

Thanksgiving was with the gang. Sally started a tradition several years ago which is to "allow" everyone to help decorate the house for the holidays. "When's dinner?" they ask. "When the tree is up and we are in the Christmas spirit," she replies. As they say, many hands make light work. Now if there was some way to get everyone back to take it down.

Raising the (Handle) Bar

With the intent of being named "Coolest Granddad on the Block," Kent asked Santa Claus for a red Zappy electric stand-up scooter (Like the one that Dr. Sloan {Dick Van Dyke} rides around Community General on Diagnosis Murder.) Internet commerce being what it is, the scooter ended up being green, but machts no big nichts. "Just as long as it ain't purple," says Kent. Christmas came on Friday night, December 22nd to satisfy the scheduling requirements of the various multiply blended families present. Daughter Sherri had been forewarned, so she and her Cub Pack brought their helmets and pads. First thing Saturday morning, the neighbor granddads got a look at the competition. Grandpa Kent tried Señor Zappy first, followed by Sherri, Grandsons Ryan Vasquez and Lucas Jorgensen, and then son-in-law Rich. In keeping with the ecological imperatives of the age, Señor Zappy has become the vehicle of choice while Kent is running about the neighborhood, fixing neighbor's computers. Guess that makes Señor Zappy the Sun City Computer-Rooter Scooter.

Speaking of Christmas: We received a gift box from the Popcorn Factory. It did not have a sender's name, and the gift recognition box was blank. We are grateful to whoever sent it and would really like to know who it was. It was yummy.

Not content to let electric scooters recharge, Sally and her secretary Cathi Barrett created a dark blue super hero cape with the Sun City Computer-Rooter logo on it. Sally and Shelby contrived a Canine Companions for Independence benefit that doubled for Kent's 63rd birthday party (a day late) on January 20th 2001. Friends and neighbors gathered and waxed eloquent about what a fine dude Kent is. Daughter Sherri told of growing up with the "Ski Nazi" who taught her not to "wus out" when conditions were less than perfect. Ryan acknowledged that he had a "cool" granddad. Kent received his cape with aplomb and took it on a tour of the neighborhood aboard Señor Zappy to the shock and amazement of most present.

In Kent's honor, a CCI pup will be named "Simcoe II."

Show me more about the birthday party.

Tell me about Simcoe II

Pleasant Grove Community Church

Pleasant Grove Community Church occupied its new quarters in May 2000. Just for grins, the Simcoe kids installed all the computers and computer networking (actually, several guys spent several days pulling telephone and data cables through conduits but we got to hook it up and make it play.) Sally continues as webmaster for the church

Check it out! Look especially for Shelby modeling her choir robe. (Yes, Shelby IS a member of the choir as are Sally and Kent.)

The church has provided us several additional opportunities to be of service. We have done video slide shows and other multimedia presentations as well as providing video documentation of the dedication service, first baptismal service, and some of the musical presentations. And, "just because we could" we provided post-production talent for 200 copies of a piano music CD created by Jan Percy, our church pianist.

Canine Companions for Independence

The 2000 CCI Graduate Seminar fell on the weekend of October 14/15. The 15th is Sally's birthday. Kent decided it was the perfect time to surprise her (which is never easy). A social event was planned for the first evening. Before they could kick it off, the hostess announced a special treat. Everyone started singing and several cakes were brought in. Kent's accomplices (Sandy Winter and Deb Nöel) were able to sneak the cakes in without arousing Sally's suspicion.

Sally received a call one day in December from a friend asking if she would be interested in serving on the Board of Directors for the Northwest Region of CCI. How could she refuse? This is indeed a great honor. In January 2001 Sally became a member of the board. This provides us with a nice opportunity to lunch with friends in Santa Rosa every few months.

On Sunday evening April 1, 2001, Sally and Shelby put on an incredible CCI demo at Pleasant Grove Community Church -- a real multimedia extravaganza with CCI breeder / caretakers, puppy raisers, and graduates presenting the CCI story to a crowd of about 350 people.

In Kent's honor, a CCI pup will be named "Simcoe II."

Tell me about Simcoe II

Simcoe Communications

Simcoe Communications had an extremely fine year. Kent did a considerable amount of technical writing for Hewlett-Packard and Cisco training to Bank of America.

Our big video accomplishment of 2000 was the completion of Tina Smiles and La Sonrisa de Tina, the English and Spanish language versions of friend Tina Verduzco's story. "Nine years in the making…" Tina is a unique individual who has no legs and no handicap. It was our distinct pleasure to present her story to the "little screen."

A second big video project was a pair of videos featuring Jade Lai, a Chinese lady from Kuala Lumpur. Jade lost both arms in a bus accident when she was a young woman. Today she is extremely proficient with hook type prostheses. She is also much at ease with life. We have just begun shipping her videos. See Hooked on Jade and Across the Table: Tina & Jade.

Ashelby Pro Bono Productions

For many years, Ashelby Pro Bono Productions has been the charitable arm of Simcoe Communications. APBP is primarily involved in the production of Canine Companions for Independence documentary and promotional videos. APBP has now produced 32 graduation ceremonies for CCI. APBP also assembled the CCI 25th Anniversary Slide Show. (What a weekend: Three wheelers and four dogs plus three non-wheelers in the house.) The video presentation was given in September at the CCI Black Tie and Tails gala in Santa Rosa. Shelby provides the tail and always looks spiffy, but Sally and Kent clean up pretty well, too.

Still in production is a CCI documentary of a special twenty-fifth anniversary presentation given in November 2000. Many CCI graduates and supporters have hearing difficulties, so this production will be "open captioned" (subtitled.) Another volunteer is transcribing the edited program and we will insert the text when she is done.

APBP has been involved in a few other worthy creations. Some CCI dogs are placed as "facility dogs." These dogs usually find work in hospitals, hospices, and schools. A group in Sacramento, SOUL (Source Of Unconditional Love), visits the facilities of Mercy Health Care. APBP did a documentary salute to all forty SOUL dogs and their chauffeurs. It is truly remarkable to see the joy these dogs bring as they make their rounds.

APBP also produced a promotional video for the Green Pastures Walk 'N Roll Aware-a-thon. Green Pastures is a Christian home for severely disabled children in Mountain View, California. Friend Judy Squier provided the narration.

In addition, Shelby produced a video tribute to the memory of one of her favorite puppy raisers, Dean Kelly.

Golden Moose Publications

One request in late spring encouraged Ashelby Pro Bono Productions to create a subsidiary, Golden Moose Publications. Daughter Sherri Vasquez and her fiancé Rich Jorgensen were planning their wedding at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, California for the morning of August 5th, 2000. The venue would not support a crowd, so most folks were invited only to the reception in the late afternoon. Special instructions and directions were needed. Golden Moose Publications answered the call.

The entire moose saga is too long to repeat here, but suffice it to say, various moose memorabilia and imagery have provided an ongoing joke track between Sherri and Kent. Sally crafted the instructions. In keeping with the moose joke, Sally placed a yellow moose line drawing as a watermark on one of the instruction cards. Kent placed this card on the top of the stack, wrapped the stack in yellow paper, and sealed the packet with a return address label saying:

Golden Moose Publications
Post Office Box 819
Roseville, CA 95678-0819

The packet went into a small padded envelope with an identical return address label. When Sherri received the packet, she carefully opened it. Fully apprehensive, she gently removed the yellow wrapping. She was self-reportedly totally aghast when she discovered the moose on the first card. Pausing to realize the degree to which she had been set up with the Golden Moose label and yellow wrapper, Sherri correctly intuited that the remaining instructions were sans-moose. Carefully reassembling the package and envelope, she awaited Rich's return. Sherri was fixing dinner, watching Rich out of the corner of her eye as she asked him to check out the "package from Dad." Apparently Rich's look when he discovered the moose on the top instruction would have qualified for Candid Camera. After a long pause, he announced with trepidation, "There's a MOOSE on the card." Sherri burst out laughing and called Kent immediately to compliment him on the prank.

Wedding of the Year

And it did come to pass that there was a wedding at Hakone Gardens on the morning of August 5, 2000. And Golden Moose Publications / Ashelby Pro Bono Productions were there to record the joyous festivities. And Sherri Vasquez did marry Richard Jorgensen on the Japanese footbridge over the koi pond. And all assembled were exceedingly glad (including all the koi.) Grandsons Lucas and Michael Jorgensen started the wedding procession. Grandson Ryan Vasquez escorted Sherri down the path from the teahouse.

Check out the wedding pictures (posted June 17, 2001).

Editorial

"We has met the enemy, an' they is us" - social/political commentator Walt Kelly through his spokespossum Pogo (circa 1957)

One of the fundamental tenets of physics, chemistry, and engineering is the concept of the "conservation of energy." When one examines the totality of what exists before and after an event has occurred, the net difference is zero. For instance, Einstein's famous "E=mc2" tells us how much energy (E) will be produced when a mass (m) is annihilated in an atomic reaction. Common folk possessing good common sense usually understand "conservation of energy" as "There ain't no free lunch." Alas, California politicians are neither scientists, engineers, nor in possession of good common sense.

In the past, California has prided itself on being the world's ninth largest economy. Now it has placed one foot on top of the other and with a single bullet managed to shoot itself in both feet. California has become a third-world socialist paradise with unreasonably low cost, but unavailable electricity. Our largest public utility, PG&E has just filed for bankruptcy, and we have been promised at least thirty days this coming summer that we will be without power for substantial portions of the day.

The blame ultimately goes to the thirty million or so Californians who are neither scientists, engineers, nor in possession of good common sense. We allowed our politicians to do an extremely half-ass job of "deregulating" the power industry while freezing the price we had to pay. The result is cheap, but unavailable electric power.

The big kid here at Chez Simcoe remembers a price of 2.7 cents per kilowatt-hour back in Kansas City in 1960. Currently, our rate in Roseville, California is 7.98 cents per KWH, dramatically less than the inflation of all other prices in the intervening 41 years. Electricity production and distribution are not things that have benefited to any serious degree by the coming of the "information age," so we must assume that politics have kept our rates unnaturally low.

Our favorite villains in this "powerless" debacle are prior Republican Governor Pete Wilson (who should have known better), the ENTIRE California legislature which voted unanimously for deregulation back in 1996, Governor Moonbeam's protégé, Governor Gray(ed) Davis who continues to have his head so far up his back side that he can see out of his mouth, Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, Enron, and a host of lesser power companies who colluded with the politicos to escape the problems of trying to accommodate all of California's conflicting regulations.

But most of all, the real evil is the Sierra Club and its spawn who want the world to return to the fourteenth century. They are succeeding in California and much of the western United States. Hydropower facilities are being targeted for removal because they "impede salmon runs." California built many "wind farms" to provide "green energy," a so called "renewable resource." A massive wind turbine above Interstate 680 near Cordelia was removed because "it bothered the cows" a mile away. The giant wind-farm on the leeward side of the Altamont Pass on Interstate 580 is shut down because "birds and windmills don't mix." The Sierra snow pack is on the light side this year, so there won't be the normal amount of hydropower. (El Niño y La Niña weren't present this year.) Although the United States has an incredible abundance of coal, we cannot build coal fired power plants in California no matter how cleanly it burns.

To our friends outside California, remember the lesson of Troy -- If it looks like a horse, someone is going to have to clean up after it. Beware of politicians selling perpetual motion machines and cheap electricity. And do a really good job of understanding ALL sides of environmental issues. Gotta go. Have to build a fire to fix "spotted owl à l'Orange." Comments???

Love,

Kent, Sally, & Shelby Simcoe