Thursday, October 28, 1999 4:24 PM Subject: [Encina Update] Encina Update (homecoming recap/donation/clothes/forms/siblings/search/laura simons/donna slavens/jennifer watson/tim benzo/aol/internet/whats new) ENCINA ALUMNI, Last Friday was Homecoming 99, the second Encina alumni homecoming party! Turnout was great, folks had fun, and I'm looking forward to Homecoming 2000. Many thanks to those of you who lent a helping hand. Rett, whose idea this was. Lorna, for organizing the alumni clothing and making arrangements with the Candlerock. The drivers who volunteered their cars. Those who believed and spread the word. Principal Myrtle Berry for inviting the alumni to participate in the halftime activites, Steve Palmer for spearheading the Encina virtual reality project and donating the lightsticks for the game. Those who helped decorate Kelly's car. Jeff Frei for inspiring us with his school spirit and leading the Apache Fight Song. Jack who flew up from San Diego. Lance who flew up from LA. Kate for her facepainting. Stafford for coordinating the rally and parade. We couldn't have pulled this off without all of your help. And to top off a great evening -- ENCINA BEAT GOLDEN SIERRA From the Sacramento Bee: "Encina 24, Golden Sierra 6 at El Camino -- Chris Jones rushed for two touchdowns, passed for another and added two extra-point conversions to lead the Bulldogs. Encina's defense held Golden Sierra to 81 yards rushing and 55 yards passing." HOMECOMING RALLY I arrived Friday morning at Encina about 1030am. When I went to the office to pick up my visitor's pass, I was taken around to say hello to JoAnne Smith, Heddy Crowder and Myrtle Berry. I spent a few minutes talking with Principal Myrtle Berry before heading over to the gym. Encina is undergoing modernization and the gym had just reopened after having the wobbly bleachers replaced. The homecoming rally was the first event held in the gym, which looked great. The gym was packed with students and there were banners welcoming Encina alumni. The alumni attending the rally were Steve Palmer 74, Kathleen Ketcherside 73, John Nunez 74 and Delfino Baeuerlen 96. Stafford Boyd 88, as activities director, emceed portions of the rally. We were the guest judges and ranked the four classes based on their decorations, pie eating contest, singing the alma mater, decorum, and overall spirit. The sophomores edged out the seniors and juniors but it was very close. We all thought the students displayed a great deal of spirit and the noise was deafening. It was very nostalgic. The one thing I would avoid next year is being the guest judges. Too much pressure! I would rather have sat in the stands with some of the other alumni who were there and cheered. After the rally, we found there were other alumni in the stands. Nina Shoman 98 (last year's senior class president) and her two friends Viva Asmelash 98 and Tien Huynh 98 came up and introduced themselves. We also met mother Deborah Young and her son Neil Young. Steve and I went out to the cafeteria where it was lunchtime. I was surprised to see the cafeteria now serves Taco Bell and Round Table pizza. Encina has a closed campus now and students are not allowed to leave the campus at lunch. We took a panorama in front of the cafeteria, next to the senior lawn, while chatting with Stephanie Woo and Myrtle Berry. After lunch, Steve and I went to Stephanie Woo's EBS class, where we got a tour of the EBS facilities. Then Stephanie assigned some students to help us take panoramas around the school. We did a major hallway, an art class, the well known Encina art gallery, Eric Dahlin's ceramics class, computer class, Stafford Boyd's entrepeneurship class, the two gardens, the front of the school, the administrative offices and the library. We'll be adding a virtual reality tour of the Encina campus over the next few weeks. Wherever we went, students wanted to know what the pictures were for. And those who were not originally interested, quickly became so when we told them the pictures would be on the internet. They wanted to know why we were doing this. Most were surprised to find we were alumni from the dark ages before they were even born. While in the office, I met business teacher Bob Kirrene, who was teaching back in my days, although I never took a class from him. I also met Stuart Freedman, who is the technology person for the school and keeps everything running. HOMECOMING PREGAME Steve and I arrived at the Candlerock around 4pm. Glow in the dark bowling was in progress to loud music. We wandered around and ended up in a lounge off the bowling floor, where I set up my Encina sign. We started assembling the nametags until Lorna Cline stuck her head in and told us we were in the wrong place. Moving to the much larger bar/billiard room area, we found Lorna had a table set up for food, along with a large box of alumni clothing all neatly tagged with each order. Organizing the alumni clothing orders was a lot of work and I hope those of you who ordered clothing appreciate what Lorna went through. Around 5pm the alumni started to arrive and soon the Candlerock was packed with four decades worth of Encina alumni. During the course of the evening I received a few interesting phone calls. First from Kelly Horine 88, explaining that her carefully decorated, VW convertible was having problems making it to the game. Fortunately, Kelly was able to nurse her car to the stadium, although she missed the pregame party. Then Jerry Burks 71 called, offering to give someone a ride in the homecoming parade on the back of his Harley! I don't recall ever seeing this done. Maybe next year. Kate Grebitus 75 set up her facepainting equipment and decorated all the alumni she could before it was time to leave. This was a great idea and I hope Kate offers to do this again next year. It was wonderful to finally meet all the faces behind the email I've received in the past. I think folks enjoyed the opportunity to mingle with alumni from other classes that they hadn't, in some cases, seen since graduation. Rett told me some commented that they enjoyed the multi-class homecoming party more than their own class reunions! When 7pm rolled around, it was difficult to get people to leave the Candlerock and go over to the game. In fact, some folks decided to forgo the game and spent the entire evening at the Rock. I didn't take as many pictures as I intended, so if you have some good pictures, send them my way. Lucia, are you listening? Thanks to the many folks who voluntarily chipped in to defer my expenses for the nametag and banners. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. And to those who thought the font I used for the nametags was too small, next year it'll be REALLY BIG. HOMECOMING GAME The parking lot at El Camino was packed. Attendance on the Encina side was very good and the Alumni had their own section which was marked with balloons and welcome signs. I would like to thank the students for their efforts to make the alumni feel welcome! Steve Palmer 74 and Randy Palmer 71 contributed the lightsticks and glow necklaces for the alumni. They are inventors who work with electroluminescent products. These items were very popular and we had lots of folks from the other sections (especially children) come asking. Steve and Randy are also licensed to do fireworks, if we can come up with some serious dough for some future homecoming game... We had enough alumni to fill our section to capacity! Next year I hope we can fill TWO sections. Stephanie Woo's EBS students filmed and interviewed the alumni, including myself. Kerry Shearer 72 also videoed the crowd and parade. I'll be adding pictures and videoclips as I have time. If you have any good pictures, please send or email them to me for the website. Thanks to Lorna Cline and David Knepprath and their alumni clothiing, the stands were filled with cardinal and gold... At halftime, the score was 8-0 Encina! HOMECOMING PARADE We had five alumni cars driven by Linda Weatherford 62, Kim Culver 76, Kelly Horine 88, Lorna Cline 72/73 and Greg Grant 75. Debbie Skalisky 73 and Lad Wentzel 76 were nice enough to drive Encina royalty. And when they were still short, Tom Mathews 61 got on his cell phone and had his daughter, another Encina alumni, drive over with her VW Beetle convertible to help in the parade. Do we have any 90s alumni who can drive in the parade next year? After all my careful passenger arrangements, folks basically did whatever they wanted and it turned out fine. Amy Francis 88 wore her cheerleader outfit and rode in the 80s car (I owe Amy an Encina alumni tshirt!). The alumni cars were first in the parade. Kelly had some friends "push" her car around the track to make sure it didn't get stuck. Our cars stopped in front of the alumni section and we all got out. Then Jeff Frei 75 led us in the Apache Fight Song (thanks to Janice Barnes 89 for printing up the copies of the Fight Song). I was very impressed by the students at the game, especially a few of the juniors. They were able to recruit about 30 or 40 alumni to walk behind the junior float in the parade, garnering them many points. Somehow the glowing light sticks got converted into Tomahawks and the Apache war chant was heard throughout the evening as the the Encina team gave the alumni a lot of cheer about, defeating Golden Sierra 24-6. I would have to say my one disappointment was the lack of teachers at the game, with the exception of Stephanie and Stafford. Chris Kojima wrote that she was very sad to miss the party and we hope to see her next year. POSTGAME PARTY I didn't get back to the postgame party until about 10pm. The party was in full swing as many folks had left the game early for the Candlerock. Lorna dug out the food she had squirreled away from the pregame party so that folks didn't have to drink on an empty stomach. I left around 1130 and crashed at my mother's house. From reports on the homecoming mailing list, it appears that Encina alumni closed down the bar! Sounds like there were some serious hangovers on Saturday... It's difficult to say exactly how what the attendance was. We pretty much filled up our section of the stands at the game. I would estimate we had 150 or more alumni along with children and significant others. DONATION Rett ended up collecting $410 as alumni were writing him checks all evening long. Rett gave the checks to Stafford to give to Encina. Many thanks to those who contributed! HOMECOMING CLOTHES Please take the time to write David Knepprath 74 and Lorna Cline 72/73 and thank them for their efforts to provide alumni clothing Lorna: lgragg@CIWMB.ca.gov David: david@davidkla.com They deserve a big round of applause! David Knepprath 74, official supplier to the Homecoming 99 Encina alumni clothing, has offered to do ONE MORE RUN of printing for those folks who did not get their orders in on time. Or would just like to order some alumni clothing. Here's the form: http://www.encinahighschool.com/homecoming/clothing_form.htm So if you are still interested in ordering Encina alumni clothing, submit your form and let Lorna know. Please indicate in the comment box whether yours is a new order or confirming an old order which didn't make it. I'm not sure that Encina Alumni clothing will be available next year for Homecoming 2000. So best to get your orders in now. You can wear your Encina alumni clothing anytime, not just at the homecoming party. Diane Schoenborn Kelly 73 wore her alumni sweatshirt the other night at Sac State and a guy came up to her and said he was an alumni. So this is a good way to find other Encina alumni! FORMS Starting this week, when I receive a contact information form from an alumni who was not in the alumni database, I will send out a brief notication to the appropriate class mailing list. I already do the same thing for bio forms. SIBLINGS Janet Poindexter 77 wrote: Whit Poindexter 76 Janet Poindexter 77 Nancy Kesterson 68 wrote: Nancy Kesterson 68 Perry Kesterson 70 Patricia Kesterson 72 Pepai Falck 73 is in contact with: Diana Templeton 69 Charles Templeton 72 Matt Templeton 75 Jerry Azevedo 72 Shane Thompson 72 Melissa Tovar 81 is in contact with: Sue Cantwell 81 Daphne Pechart 80 Angel Gottlieb Hill 80 John Auble 80 Lee Pratt 61 is in contact with: Tom Gardner 61 Sue Cantwell 81 wrote: Sue Cantwell 81 Steve Cantwell 85 ALUMNI SEARCH 1968 Tanya Rowe Susan Wiseman LAURA SIMONS 71 Sarah Sabia, daughter of Laura Simons 71, who received a heart transplant the weekend before last. Linda Piper Brown 71 wrote that Anita Creamer wrote a follow up article in the Bee on Monday: http://www.sacbee.com/lifestyle/news/lifestyle02_19991025.html Kathleen Ketcherside 73 wrote: "Hello, I got a message from Laura today and she encourages everyone to give blood especially AB and 0 negative as the blood banks are short. She is touched that our website has reached out on Sarah's behalf. She asked me to tell you that they are waiting for Sarah's biopsy to come back so she can move across the street. She wasn't sure if blood can be given in anyone's name but asks just that you give. Harlan, she has received cards, letters and flowers from alumni that saw the original egroups message. What a fantastic communication vehicle you have created. Thank you all for your good thoughts and deeds. Kathleen" DONNA SLAVENS 65 Denise Honea, daughter of Donna Slavens 65 wrote: "My name is Denise Honea and my mother graduated from Encina High School, Class of 1965. Her name was Donna Slavens. My mother, recently, died of cancer and left me with many unanswered questions. I was born in 1965 and have never known who my birth father was. My mother died with those answers. The only other living relative I had with any answers was my mother's adopted mother who passed away a year later. I do not wish to bother anyone, I just want to know the truth. I was hoping that someone from the class of 1965 may have known my mother, been her friend, or perhaps is my father. I sent this to you in hopes that there was a way to contact the class members of 1965 and forward my message. Thank you for your help in this matter. Sincerely, Denise Honea contact @ che32@aol.com or the address on this e-mail." JENNIFER WATSON 93 Last week Dennis Mulder 93 sent the Sacramento Bee article about Jennifer Watson 93 dying in a car accident. Brian Crall 93 wrote: "I don't know if you are aware but Jennifer Watson, class of 1993, passed away a week ago in a tragic car accident. She is survived by a husband of only two years and a one year old baby. The story is in the archives of the Sacramento Bee. www.sacbee.com. I know the family is taking donations for the child. Would you please add this to the update. I'm sure alumni can help. I contributed as well as my parents." Please write Dennis if you are interested: djmulder@ix.netcom.com TIM BENZO 86 Tim Benzo 86 submitted one of the more unusual bios I've received... Occupation: Adult Film Talent Bio: After travelling the U.S. from 1989 to 1994 (operating my own direct sales companies and doing motivational speaking/sales training in Denver, Seattle and Toronto), I returned to Sacramento to wait tables, tend bar and manage restaurants (both casual and fine dining). The travel bug hit again, and I moved to Las Vegas in 1997. There I spent two years learning all about PC's, operating systems and ultimately website administration and design. I met, fell in love with and married an exotic dancer working for the same company. After six months of marriage, we entered the adult film industry together, commuting to the San Fernando Valley for filming. After 12 films together, we separated (for unrelated reasons!) in February of 1999 (ultimately divorcing in July of 1999), when I moved to Los Angeles permanently to pursue a career in adult films. To date, I have appeared in over 70 XXX films for Sin City, VCA, Playboy, Hustler and many others. I have appeared on the "Jerry Springer Show" twice, and have also made appearances on Playboy TV's "Sex Court" and "Sexcetera" series. AOL PROBLEMS Robin Reade 74 received this message from AOL technical support about the problem AOL users have opening some attachments like jpeg files: "Dear Ms Reade, Hello my name is Douglas and I am writing to you on behalf of America Online in response to your recent email. I apologize for the delay in responding to your mail and for any frustrations you are experiencing. I understand from your email that you have questions about the email attachments being converted to mime files on America Online. I understand that you have questions regarding an e-mail attachment that appears to be an unreadable file when received on America Online (AOL). These files are often times encoded in MIME format and may have been left in their original format by the AOL software. When someone sends you a MIME-encoded file in e-mail, it needs to be translated back into a format that your computer can understand. Depending on the mail system that the sender used, the AOL software may or may be able to automatically decode the MIME file. If it was able to decode the file, the e-mail's file attachment will be in its original, binary format: such as .GIF, or .ZIP. If AOL left the MIME file coded, the attachment will be in MIME format, usually with a filename extension of .MME or .MIM (though the attachments can be named .DAT and .TXT). Download this file. You may need to rename the extension to .MME. Then, it is simple to use a utility to convert the encoded file back to a binary file. On America Online Please go to Keyword: MIME to download MIME translator programs from AOL. On the World Wide Web (WWW) Please go to the site below to download WinZip for Windows: http://www.winzip.com Please go to the site below to download a MIME decoder for Macintosh: http://www.etresoft.com/ After you've downloaded and installed a decoder, please follow the program's instructions to decode the attached files. When an attached file is sent from AOL to an Internet user, it will automatically be MIME-encoded. In order to use the attachment, the recipient of your message must have a MIME-compliant e-mail program or use software that can decode MIME files--to translate it back into a format that his or her computer can understand. If the recipient has a MIME-complaint e-mail program, the MIME attachment will probably be automatically decoded when downloaded. If not, the recipient can easily translate the file using a utility program. Thank you for writing America Online. We hope that you were satisfied with the service you have received. Please feel free to write anytime you have questions or concerns. Have a great day! Douglas E. Senior Consultant America Online, Inc." From the Walter Mossberg's question and answer column in the Wall Street Journal -- Q. My home Internet provider is America Online. When people send me graphics or executable files as attachments to e-mail from another provider, the files can't be viewed or executed. The attached files typically end in "mim". When I forward one of these same graphics files to my work e-mail account, the attachment appears as a picture file: I just double-click and I can view them. How can I view or use these files at home with AOL? A. Yours is one of a steady stream of e-mail messages I've received on this topic. Here's the problem. There's an e-mail attachment standard called MIME. It's a type of file that encodes varying kinds of documents attached to e-mail so that they can be sent and received more easily. Many e-mail systems automatically decode this MIME file type to liberate whatever actual document is inside -- a word-processing file, picture, or whatever. But, amazingly, AOL doesn't support this technology. Even though it's the biggest e-mail service in the world, it can't handle attachments sent in the MIME format, which is often identified by files ending in "mim". I talked with AOL officials about this last week, and they said they are finally taking action. They have two solutions planned: One is a complete solution, but is many months off, while the other is an interim solution designed to plug the gap. The interim solution is set to arrive in January: It consists of a software utility that will unpack these MIME attachments. Users will have to download this utility. Then, when MIME attachments arrive, they'll have to download the attachments, remember where they are, and run the utility to unpack them -- a two-step process. Next summer, AOL is promising to deliver the complete solution. This will be a seamless, automatic process incorporated in the next major version of AOL, version 6.0. It will handle MIME files internally and without user intervention. This is good news, but solving this problem in the year 2000 is way too late, in my view. If you don't want to wait for AOL's interim fix in January, you have another option. You can download a program called WinZip, which is widely available at download Web sites such as www.zdnet.com/swlib/ and www.download.com. Like AOL's planned utility, WinZip can be used to manually decode MIME files. INTERNET From Fred Langa's LangaList column. This is especially relevant to those of you with cable modems or DSL lines which are always on. FREE Internet Security Check Steve Gibson is a very smart and prolific guy--- he's been producing very cool, very useful software for, gosh, 15 years or more now. A lot of his stuff takes a unique spin or tack at solving problems, and often does a better job than some of the more widely-know apps from the giant software houses. Last week, I got a note from Steve describing a new free service he's offering: Hey Fred, I wanted to apprise you of my just-this-instant finished contribution to the Internet-connected Windows-based personal computer community: http://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 or http://grc.com/ShieldsUp When I recently switched my office from ISDN to DSL (our servers live on an off site T1 trunk), I did some research into the insecurity of typical Windows-based Internet connections ... which is exacerbated by "persistent" connections to the Net such as those now being established by DSL and Cable Modem technologies. I was SHOCKED by the number of people with insecure connections, and then by the ease with which Internet scanners can find, target, and penetrate their systems. (This is all documented in tutorial form on my new web site, but you can quickly peek here: < http://grc.com/su-nbscan1.htm > and also here < http://grc.com/su-nbscan2.htm >) On Friday of Labor Day weekend (9/3) I realized that when someone came to my web server, their connection gave me the IP address of their machine. This meant that I could perform an ACTIVE SECURITY ANALYSIS of their system on the spot and display the results as a web page. So I started coding and the concept grew into a comprehensive, free service and extensive tutorial -- including some freeware -- to quickly secure ANY Windows system. Given the inherent "default" insecurity of most Windows connections -- and the significant financial gain possible for intruders who can now easily install keystroke-monitoring Trojans into people's computers to capture online banking passwords, account numbers, etc. then eMail the results -- I worry that Internet Intrusion and Theft is a "growth industry." So I think this is a VERY important message to get out to the population at large. The ratios of exposure as shown by the graphs on the visitor history page demonstrate the extent of the problem! http://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh1akydu If you agree and wanted to help me spread the word that would be totally terrific! Steve's site attempts to sniff back through your internet connection and will show you everything it can find out about your system, your files, your printer and so on. Note that this is NOT the little JavaScript browser-sniffer that you may have seen. Steve's page is digging deeper and may uncover security holes you didn't know you had. I tried Steve's test---I have a cable modem setup here--- and was relieved to see that the security steps I've taken here keep me pretty well hidden from prying eyes. Steve's pages reported: "Unable to connect to your computer. All attempts to get any information from your computer have FAILED. (This is very uncommon for a Windows networking-based PC.) Relative to vulnerabilities from Windows networking, this computer is VERY SECURE...." Whew. 8-) I'll discuss security more in an upcoming newsletter, but for now, check out Steve's page---it just might save your bacon! WHAT'S NEW 10/27/99: Viva Asmelash 99, Tien Huynh 99, Whit Poindexter 76, Nancy Kesterson 68, Perry Kesterson 70, Patricia Kesterson 72 10/26/99: Ronald Mintle 65, Tom Gardner 61, Jon Sacchetti 62 10/25/99: Janet Poindexter 77, Whit Poindexter 76, Tim Benzo 86/bio, Melissa Tovar 81/bio, Sue Cantwell 81, John Auble 80, Lee Pratt 61/bio, Pepai Falck 73 update, Diana Templeton 69, Charles Templeton 72, Matt Templeton 75, Jerry Azevedo 72, Shane Thompson 72, Kimberly Hanks 81 bio 10/24/99: Joseph Stern 90 update, Cathy Kelley 82 10/23/99: Mark LaCoste 85 10/21/99: Kate Grebitus 75, Lynn Bradhoff 80 bio, Suzanne Starcher 75, Cathy Kelley 82, Teresa Lueras 82 10/20/99: Doug Booth 61, James "Rick" Hodges 65, Tom Janvier 70, Christina Plessas 75, Peter Plessas 78, Gina Sexton 2000, Fanica Trice 75, Erin Barbeau 75 Harlan Lau '73 Encina webmaster www.encinahighschool.com harlan@rambus.com