Beachcombing

Jay Beeler

Outstanding. That’s the best word to describe the new Pacific Visions addition at the Aquarium of the Pacific. See Kirt Ramirez’s story one page one of this edition. The gala celebration held last Saturday evening was outstanding as well.

My wife and I attended the gala at the invitation of the Don Temple Family Charitable Foundation, a major contributor to the event as well as underwriting the cost of the new facility’s ticket booth. I’ve been to a few world-class events in major cities while doing public relations work for the International Insurance Society; this event ranked at the very top.

You need to see this two-story, 29,000 square foot addition for yourself.

It was amazing to see the downtown traffic jam last Saturday evening with the Pride Festival, Pacific Visions opening and Shoreline Drive restaurant patrons delayed enroute to their destination. I’ve never seen the city so vibrant and was full of pride to witness it.

 

Sometimes we are surprised to learn that senior citizens do not use a computer or have email. Given our experiences over the past two weeks, it is completely understandable.

Kicking and screaming, we were pushed into having our email accounts migrated to a cloud-based system, Office365. Soon we learned that it did not allowing forwarding of emails directed to [name or department]@beachcomber.news. It took a week to learn that this new program did allow for aliases, meaning that prefixes like letters, contests or calendar @beachcomber.news will still end up at editor@beachcomber.news.

But anytime you see a columnist’s or reporter’s first name @beachcomber.news, those will always come to my desk, requiring forwarding if intended for that person. Otherwise you may now see personal emails listed at the end of their story.

It also took a week to figure out why our GroupMail program for sending out breaking news alerts was not communicating properly with our new Office365. GroupMail is based in Finland, which meant waking up at 2 a.m. to tax the brain of a customer support technician to solve the problem, which I was finally able to figure out on my own.

We miss the IBM Selectric typewriters, fax machines and messenger services, but would be kicking and screaming if forced to return to the “good old days.”

 

Humor Time:

The room was full of pregnant women with their husbands. The instructor said, “Ladies, remember that exercise is good for you. Walking is especially beneficial. It strengthens the pelvic muscles and will make delivery that much easier. Just pace yourself, make plenty of stops and try to stay on a soft surface like grass or a path.”

“Gentlemen, remember – you’re in this together. It wouldn’t hurt you to go walking with her. In fact, that shared experience would be good for you both.” The room suddenly became very quiet as the men absorbed this information.

After a few moments a man, at the back of the room, slowly raised his hand. “Yes?” said the Instructor. “I was just wondering if it would be all right if she carries a golf bag while we walk?”

publisher@beachcomber.news

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