A raucous bunch. (And no, I’m not talking about us for once…)

Day 34 - Thursday, May 1, 2008

Another day, another sunrise Rotary club! I remember seeing this on the very first draft of the schedule that we received and thinking, "wow, they're getting their money worth here! We're up for a 6:30 AM meeting on our second last day!" What I didn't realise at the time is that some of the members of the very same club we were visiting would conspire to have us out to a late hour the night before the meeting! Nice work guys... :-) Thanks for that! At least one member of the co-conspirators from the club didn't make the meeting, but all of the GSE team did. So I think that means we win!

Jeff & Howie out flank a pair of unsuspecting Sunrise Rotarians

To be honest, I was never in any danger of not making it. If we'd been absent or late, then Chris would have been fined even more than he already was! I was pretty safe... Actually, Chris and I had an interesting trip to the meeting. Chris has a mate (that's "friend" for you Americans) in the club who is from Ghana. They joke that no one can understand either one of them, so they translate speeches into American for one another. I haven't heard this, but I suspect it would be hilarious! Chris and I decided we'd do something similar. I'd speak int eh most incomprehensible Australian I could muster, and he would translate. Now, Chris is a Kiwi, but that seems basically like a cousin when you are as far away as Modesto, so this seemed like a good plan to me. I had brainstormed a little, but hadn't written anything, so Chris and I drafted a speech in the car park before we went into the meeting. We made sure to include gday, drongo, flat out like a lizard drinking, thong, maggotted... etc. Slipshod preparation like this would normally spell disaster, but I think we were a success. (Success meaning that I was totally incomprehensible, and Chris' translations only made things worse...) Fun!

Southern Hemisphere Chris x2 are dwarfed by Jeff

Other noteworthy items from the meeting:
Glen presented his speech without any notes whatsoever. And it was arguably his best of the trip! Why didn't we do this earlier? He was great!
The 'board of cynics' at the table in the back had smart alec things to say about every speaker. They were funny! Thank goodness I couldn't hear them when I was up front...
Scholarship awards were presented to several local students who were completing high school. They from a range of ethnic backgrounds, and were off to study chemistry, biology and engineering (forgive me if I've mis-remembered these!). My overall impression was one of awe at the capability and fantastic presentation of these young women! Not sure about Australia, but if these girls continue on their way, then the US is in good hands...

Right... Well I've just written 3000 words, and we're not at 9am yet! I'm going to have to hurry things up a bit here... Fortunately today was a vocational day. This usually makes for easy blogging because either team members write their own entries, else they are really short! There are also never any pictures unfortunately... It is usually inappropriate to be happily snapping away as we tour a business!

Here's a quick run down of what we got up to:
- I visited newly completed Enoch high school and checked out how they've used ICT. interesting to see that they keep their PCs for a very long time, and that purchasing decision making and support are almost all centralised. Then Chris and I visited a hospital and had a good time checking out their ridiculously big data centre. We also think we might have recruited a new GSE member, Tim. I'm definitely barracking for more ICT blokes to go on GSE!

- Glen saw a million dollar laser cutter that can cut 100 sheets of 5 mm plate. he says it's the most modern and advanced piece of technology he's seen so far. And on the last vocation visit of the trip! Impressive....

- Michelle looking at training programs with the local program director. He is a Lions member, but I suspected he'll be crossing over to the dark side (Rotary) after meeting her!

- Sarah went helicopter flying (again). This time all the way to Sonora. (Get a map... that's a long way! Took us hours in the car). I can't remember if this was city, county or CHP. I'm thinking county, but I could be wrong. There are a lot of choppers here...

How many choppers do the California Police own?? Just ask Sarah!

Well, we finally made it to lunch time! What an epic blog entry! This was a big day. Lunch was at St Stan’s brewery. I'd been eyeing this place off our first night here, so I was pleased to be able to finally try the beer! The beer was OK, but more impressive were Michelle's onion rings,m which I think were the world’s largest. I haven't got a photo, but imagine this; I tried to wear one as a wrist band, and it only broke right at the last moment! These things were big...

Gallo maturation barrels. All 600 of them are in this cellar...

In the afternoon, we went on some industry tours. We saw two businesses, Gallo wine and Sciabica's olive oil. It was a study in contrast. Gallo is big. Very big. We had a tour run by a couple of charming young ladies who were employees of the winery. They were able to explain that the winery did in deed make wine, that it had been open sine just after prohibition ended, that it was successful, and that it was very, very big. This was the main impression we were left with. I would have liked a little more detail, but I guess there is only so much you can do in an hour when you have that many gallons of wine to worry about! They had one storage tank that was one million gallons, and that was one of many... Altogether they make about a litre of wine for each person in the US each year. Think about how many kids and teetotallers there are. That's a lot...

On the way out of the winery, Terri gave us the opportunity to visit the staff only store to buy wine at discout prices. I couldn't buy anything because I'm already overloaded for my flight home, but it was cool to see all the products available. Including some dodgy imported Aussie brands. These were from the salubrious wine region of 'South East Australia.' When I read the fine print, this could mean barossa, murray river or hawkesbury river regions, depending on the bottle! There was a promotion happening at the store. Several attractive young ladies were dressed as brides and were spruking the wine. They looked great. As a special treat, if anyone proposed at the shop that very afternoon, then they would receive 10 cases of wine for their wedding reception. Sarah considered phoning Bobby and popping the questions, but it didn't eventuate...

Sciabica's olive oil business on the other hand was a small family business that focused on high quality and low volume. One of the grandsons of the founder gave us a personal presentation on the production process, on types of olive oil, and the company history. We also tasted 6 fantastic olive oils. Tasting oil by simply dipping bread into it was a new experience for some of the team... We told him it is pretty common at home!

It is possible to flavour olive oil by adding flavours after it is pressed, but Sciabica's oil is flavoured by adding fresh ingredients before pressing. Some of their fantastic infused flavours include jalapeno, basil, lemon and garlic. Have I given away the fact that I enjoyed them yet??

Sarah chatting up April & the 2nd most attractive guy in the bar

Last stop for the day was a reception at Gallettos. This is a Gallo owned bank converted into an up market (up scale) restaurant and bar. For those of you who have been following the blog since day one, you might remember that we wandered through here on our first night in the US. We were very impressed that Terri arranged for us to be able to come back here!

We had a great night. Lots of fun, lots of nice people to talk to. Lots of photos too. I'll leave you with some of those...