Date: Friday, December 18, 1998 11:56 AM Subject: Encina update (vacation/40th anniversary lunch/basketball tragedy/hall of fame/store/experts/format/missing/what's new) ENCINA ALUMNI, VACATION I will be on vacation until Monday, January 4, 1999 as Rambus shuts down between Christmas and New Years. The next Encina emailing will be in 1999... 40TH ANNIVERSARY LUNCH The following alumni attended the luncheon on Thursday: Randy Palmer 71 Loni Whalen 73 Debbie Lopes 73 Steve Palmer 74 Bob Goosmann 74 Loni Whalen '73 wrote: "Debbie Lopes '73 and I attended the Encina reception today and truly enjoyed the nostalgia!! We ate lunch with 3 other alumni's and shared old memories. The student body president had us introduce ourselves and thanked us for the support. After lunch, the 5 of us took a walk down memory lane and walked the halls and visited the art gallery. I'm happy to say that things look good and not that different. (We missed not being able to check out our old lockers.) Students seemed proud of their school and all the programs that were being offered. We saw Mr. Dahlin, Ms. Esparza and the typing teacher (name?). We also saw an old sign in the art room,  "Encina Apaches". All in all, it was a great visit and reconfirms our fond memories of those 4 years. The pictures of all the student body presidents still hang in the main office hall for all to see. The student body president mentioned your web page and encouraged more participation from students, staff and alumni. Thanks again for all your efforts." Debbie Lopes '73 wrote: "Well there were only 5 or 6 alumni at the luncheon today. We were asked to stand up and introduce ourselves. The luncheon was a pot luck with food brought in by the students and faculty. They had homemade sushi, chow mein and wonderful enchiladas along with salad and desserts. The student body president and vice president spoke and thanked every one for coming and they even had a raffle. The library was pleasantly decorated for Christmas and every one was seated for lunch. The students that helped out seemed like great kids. They were very poised and enthusiastic as they kept busy taking pictures and greeting guests. They had put together a time capsule that they were going to bury and dig up in 25 years. One of the items they were going to enclose was the invitation to this event. We went to the office and got hall passes and took a little tour of the school. We had to get clearance from the principal. It's pretty depressing, but unfortunately representative of a lot of public schools today. For example, the physical plant of Rio Americano high school, whose student body is in a much higher average income bracket, doesn't look much better. Because my son plays high school sports I have seen a lot of other schools in San Juan and Sacramento City school districts (El Camino, Rio, McClatchy, Kennedy) and they all look pretty grim. The pool is gone and so are all the lockers (a lot of high schools removed their lockers because kids were hiding drugs and weapons in them). The student body of Encina is about 970 and I think part of the curriculum is directed towards trades. They do however have a fabulous art department with a locally known art gallery where they show works from  various artists in the community. They have turned the very back (north) section of the school in to the art facility which was the "shop" area when we were there. The students appeared very talented and committed. We noticed that when the lunch bell rang, the gates to the school were locked so no one could leave. When we remarked upon how empty the parking lot was, the maintenance guy said that very few of the students could afford cars. The faculty parking area had twice as many cars as the student parking area. I guess overall, I wasn't too surprised with the appearance of the place. I think it's admirable for the students to try and solicit funds to improve the school, but it seems like a BIG undertaking. I'd be curious to hear what other people's impressions were." Steve Palmer '74 sent me the following in response to my questions: How was the lunch? "Lunch was very nice. Students brought in various dishes, salads and they had a ham and some rolls (I brought 30 rolls and 40 cans of soda). The students had arranged nice table cloths with balloons, and center pieces to seat about 60 in the library. They had a short presentation, welcomed all including the 5 alum., and had a few prizes." What was it like to visit Encina after so many years? "I was a bit weird. I remembered more than I thought I would, and enjoyed meeting Loni and Debbie from '73. We walked around campus a bit after  the lunch. Several changes, but much as it was. They have 2 nice fenced in arboretum/garden areas between each of two sets of wings. The old wood, metal and auto shops are re-purposed for art and criminal justice/law. There are LOTS of portable classrooms out front for the teen mothers to go to school. The library and front office look pretty much the same as they were, but they may have moved some interior walls around in the office. We 5 alum briefly introduced ourselves, with name and class. Mr. Kirrene was at the lunch and we all knew him and he seemed to recall us." About how many people attended? "I would guess about 60-70 people attended, about half teachers/staff at Encina and the rest students and 5 alumni." Any pictures to email me? "I wish. They would not allow it without getting parent media release forms from a parent/guardian of every student in the room! Randy and I were ready, even had a QTVR pan head ready to send you VR, but couldn't. Big RATS!! It was nice to meet Loni and Debbie and great to see Bob. I would love to see us work to get more alumni involved. I think we could do a lot for the school. I spoke with Phyllis Palmer? in the front office about trying to figure out how best to help. I saw the plea from the Booster club, but wonder if there is a group focused on the entire campus (not just athletics)." BASKETBALL TRAGEDY Deborah Young writes: "I'm not sure if you have heard, but our current Head Basketball Coach (Reggie Vaughn) had a personal tragedy this past weekend. His ten year old son passed away on Sunday due to a tragic accident in the home. The Varsity Basketball Players are going to be pallbearers for the funeral services  on Friday. Needless to say the morale at Encina High School is very low, and the Basketball Program is in limbo as far as the momentum that was starting for the new season. We could really use the support of the Encina Community, to rally around the players during their games." HALL OF FAME Chris Kojima writes: "Someone wrote regarding Lynsey Paulo. I have a condo in Lake Tahoe and for the past two summers, I have seen Lynsey on the late night broadcast in that area. I don't know if she is still there." Tom Larson '74 writes: "Jim Eakins is class of '64. Also played with the Kentucky Kernels or something like that. By the way, I was the '64 mascot (the tall one) along with Mernie Younger (he played the female companion). It was great fun. If you look at the inside (1st page I think) of the '64 yearbook, that's me sitting on Karen Christian's horse. She was head cheerleader during the '64 season." Brent Welch 74 writes: "Cari Lazansky, Class of 76, has had some of her photography featured in Sacramento Magazine." STORE I've added a link to the Fogdog Sports website to the Encina store. Fogdog is one of the leading online sporting goods stores. The Encina website will receive 20% commissions on all sales until December 31, 1998. "Online shopping in U.S. surges during holidays CHICAGO (Reuters) - Online shopping in the United States was forecast to grow by leaps and bounds this holiday season, and early indications suggest the growth in Internet retailing is meeting those expectations. "There's an enormous run-up in traffic going to shopping sites," said Bob Ivins, a senior vice president at Media Metrix, which has been tracking online shopping trends. A Media Metrix study released this week found that online shopping rose nearly 80% during the December 4-10 week compared to the previous week. The study found that department store Web sites had the biggest week-to-week increase, but traffic remained heavy at toy sites as well. Books, music and movies and specialty clothing stores were also popular." I even got my wife to order from amazon.com and eToys this week. She ordered a coffee table book she saw at the store for 30% off from amazon.com. And a Gameboy linking cable from eToys for our boys' Pokemon games. eToys had Zelda 64 in stock briefly this week. Here's a direct link: http://www.etoys.com/index.html?08186&R=eg/eg_nin0093_001.shtml A friend at work bought the new Star Wars Rogue Squadron game for the Nintendo 64. If you buy the optional memory expansion pack (disclaimer: uses Rambus memory chips designed by my company on which we collect a small royalty) the resolution is four times greater and the game looks wonderful. For those who care, the resolution increases from 320x240 to 640x480. I bought the game for my "kids". I ordered last Thursday, game was shipped Friday and I received it Tuesday. Rogue Squadron (in stock) http://www.etoys.com/index.html?08186&R=eg/eg_nin0096_001.shtml Memory expansion pack (in stock) http://www.etoys.com/index.html?08186&R=eg/eg_nin0094_001.shtml The following internet stores are not affiliated with the website but here are my recommendations. www.buy.com  : fantastic store for computer products. Also sell books, videos, software, games and music. California sales tax. Shipping very reasonable. Good interface. Highly recommended. ordered a bunch of stuff from them. www.netmarket.com  : department store on the internet. carry almost anything you can think of. must pay $69/year to join to get member prices but they have three months trial for $1 which I signed up for. really low prices but California sales tax and outrageous shipping. I ordered a few items which were really cheap from them. not sure if I'll sign up for full membership when trial expires. www.shopping.com  : department store on the internet. very poorly designed website with great prices on some items. very hard to find things on their website. Nintendo 64 or Sony Playstation console only $95, which is about $30 cheaper than anywhere else. EXPERTS This week when I got stuck doing my Christmas pictures in PhotoShop, I thought, how am I going to find out how to do this? Then I thought about the Encina alumni who might be able to help me. I called Gregg Robles '78 who does web stuff for a living and he was able to point me in the right direction. Thanks Gregg! I'm going to start a new section which will probably be called Experts or Advice or something like that. If you have a particular expertise please let me know. If you have your own business it's okay to promote it in this section. I'm going to add inventors Randy and Steve Palmer to start with. If you have a business which does advertising or PR or law or websites or auto repair or jet chartering or whatever and would like to be listed let me know. This is meant to be a resource for Encina alumni. A place where you can consult with someone and maybe get some free advice. And on the other side of the equation, the free advice you give may turn into a paying customer if they like your advice. So both sides benefit and it promotes the welfare of Encina alumni. FORMAT I've sent the last few updates in html format to make it easier to read. However, this is probably not so good for those of you without html email software. If enough of you are having problems with the new format I'll switch back to plain text. MISSING Kerry Shearer tracked down Greta Miller 73 and Karen Miller 77. Heddy Crowder knew the whereabouts of Jessica Fister 88. No additions to the list this week. WHAT'S NEW Lots of new alumni in the class directories this week-- 12/17/98: Bill Johns 75, Rick Heltzel 75, Jim Johns 67, Greta Miller 73, Karen Miller 77, Laurie Lau 77 update, DeLynn Tjoelker 75, John Tjoelker 78, Loyd Brown Jr 69/bio Store: Fogdog Sports 12/16/98: Joe Perez 71, David Levin 71, John Kriege 71, Doug McGehee 71, Larry Tjoelker 71, Scott Plotkin 71, Rick Hanson 71, Stafford Boyd 88, Andrew Boyd 87, Kelly Boyd 84, Bob Goosmann 74, Jessica Fister 88, Mark Shumway 85, Geoff Shumway 89, JeriAnne Shumway 83, Michael Burns 88 Hall of Fame: Lynsey Paulo 86, Veronica Lew 76 Happy holidays everyone! Harlan Encina webmaster home: harlanlau@yahoo.com