| A Personal Rememberance by John Allen, League Board Member
In 1972, I was halfway home with a flat tire and walked into a bike shop that was just closing. Sheldon stayed late to fix it. That's how I first met him. There were 46 bicycles in or around his house "with a few shared wheels", by his recent count, mostly in his basement. He didn't buy bicycles off the shelf -- as a challenge to his mechanical ingenuity, and a way to spend less money and spend more time doing what he liked to do, he cobbled up customized bicycles from parts he acquired mostly through special deals, barter or secondhand, to suit himself or someone in his family. He often came up with a something unique, clever and useful. You may read about his bicycles on his Web site. He had an eye for style, but also, one or two rusty clunkers hung out by the back door getting rustier, for the quick ride to the convenience store, and several old hulks of bikes lived under the front porch.
Triathlete Royce Laine Jr. meets challenges head-on
Royce Laine, Jr., son of Royce Laine of Lake Isabella, has gotten a new lease on life through fitness, and has inspired people across the nation to get moving. A former triathalete who had planned on someday going pro, Laine had been honorably discharged from the Air Force as a disabled veteran due to cumulative back injuries when he had a freak accident that lost him the use of his legs forever. While at a local men's basketball game twelve years ago, Laine ran onto the court to celebrate his team's win and get on T.V. When he reached the floor, he dropped his t-shirt and slipped while picking it up, and was subsequently trampled by the crowd, crushing his spine. 'I got onto T.V. the wrong way,' he said. Until 2006, Laine used a power wheelchair that allowed him to get out of shape and become angry at the world.
International Brain Awareness Week 2008
In the early 1900s, Sigmund Freud, Alois Alzheimer and Harvey Cushing were building their careers in neuroscience. Freud published his groundbreaking work The Interpretation of Dreams, Alzheimer identified Alzheimer’s disease, and Cushing was establishing neurosurgery as a specialty. A century later, the Society for Neuroscience has more then 38,000 members and a Google search on neuroscience brings up more than nine million hits. Neuroscience has become one of the leading fields of scientific endeavor and almost daily scientific papers are published detailing new findings about the brain and its functions. .
Company leaders face complex problems
The good news? Salem has a number of factors working in its favor and can ultimately come out on top of this issue. Initiatives like NO Meth -- Not in MY Neighborhood and the Salem and Keizer chambers' Ready to Learn -- Ready to Work partnership with Salem-Keizer School District are just two examples of creative solutions that can have a long-term payoff for our community. Shifting demographics It is true that we face a shrinking population due to lower birth rates in the U.S. and across the globe, resulting in fewer future workers. This demographic trend is exacerbated in the U.S. by the looming retirement of the baby boomers. In fact, many employers in manufacturing, utilities, health care and the public sector indicate that as many as 40 percent of their workers will be eligible for retirement by 2010.
Tour of California - 2.1
It has been a long time coming, and now the North American cycling fans, as well as the rest of the cycling world, will know if the new Tour of California will live up to the hype to become the top race in the land. Finishing in Los Angeles, the race begins on Sunday with a prologue in San Francisco -- from the Embarcadero through Telegraph Hill up to the finish at Coit Tower. The start city is a little ironic with the last pro cycling race in San Francisco having been run out of town by the city. Regardless, one thing is certain, the cast of characters set to play out the drama on the roads past Hollywood shows that people are taking this race seriously. Without even glancing at the specific riders on the team list, the teams alone make for an impressive line-up. Of the sixteen teams in the race, half are ProTour squads -- the most ever to race on this continent.
December 2007
For those of you who don't know what a linchpin is, it is a pin that binds a wheel to an axle for support and stability. Unfortunately for Sarah that wheel is becoming very squeeky, especially after yesterday's Cape Cod Times editorial in the Cape Cod Times titled "A Failing Grade." Under the leadership of Sarah Peake the number of affordable units created was 10 times lower than it should have been, with over a third of the units only available to the elderly. What can I say, I warned voters in my radio ads about what happened when Sarah and her rich elitist gay friends promoted gentrification Provincetown by saying "Is this what you want coming to your town." I never expected that it would come so soon. I agree with the Cape Cod Times. Sarah, along with her close friends and campaign worker machine people who work at the affordable housing programs on the Cape, get an F. Of course there will be no affordable housing when the management of Cape housing organizations use their resources to promote their friends' political campaigns, just like when Sarah's best friend, and a manger at a Lower Cape housing organization, used her management status to smear opponents of Peake (including yours truly) to her subordinates and some of the organizations low-income tenants.
Off the beaten path in Beijing: where the rock stars, artists and ...
If you're planning a trip to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics, but you fear you may tire of Olympic fever and flag-waving throngs, don't despair. Beijing has rich offerings when it comes to art, music, groovy boutiques and quiet temples. Most of the capital city's guided tours are about awe and acquisition. Visitors are stunned into submission by the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, then quickly shuttled to buying sprees at the Pearl Market or Silk Street. The humbling grandeur of those imperial masterpieces is offset by the giddy empowerment of buying quality knockoffs of brands like Gucci, Marc Jacobs and Tiffany for a fraction of the usual cost. Few can resist the temptation. It is usually followed by a belly-busting Peking duck feast. But this kind of Beijing experience is not for everybody, and there are a wealth of unique, low-cost alternatives.
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