Mountain Views News          Saturday, January 19, 2013

5

AROUND SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

 Mountain Views News Saturday, January 19, 2013 


THE MONROVIA-ARCADIA-
DUARTE TOWN COUNCIL

MOVES TO WEDNESDAY

THE BIRTHDAY RUN 2013

By Christopher Nyerges

[Nyerges can be reached at Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 90041 or www.
ChristopherNyerges.com]

“What’s Going On?” 

News and Views from Joan Schmidt

 


January 16th marked the 
first Wednesday meeting 
held by the Monrovia-
Arcadia Duarte Town 
Council. It was at 
Pamela Park and much 
information was given.

 If you haven’t heard, 
the meetings have been 
moved to the third Wednesday of each 
month and will be held at one of three sites 
with the hope of attendance from each of the 
three areas. February’s meeting will be held 
at All Nations Church 1948 S. Peck Road, 
Monrovia on February 20th at 7pm, and 
March will be at the Kare Youth League in 
Arcadia. Notices will appear in this paper the 
week prior to the meeting to remind residents 
of the location.

 Last night’s meeting had representation 
from the Sheriff’s Department, Supervisor 
Mike Antonovich’s Office, Live Oak and 
Duarte Libraries and a report from Pamela 
Park Staff and West Hollywood Community 
Housing.

 The meeting began with Deputy 
Gonzalez who represents the county area. 
He reported that there has been a spike in 
stolen vehicles. He implored residents NOT 
to leave keys in the car or leave cars running 
and go inside! Deputy Gonzalez said it was 
surprising that the most stolen popular 
vehicles were NOT new pricey ones, but 
older cars, especially Honda’s (These are 
easier to open and start)

 Captain Chris Nee, Commander of 
Temple Station also warned NOT to have 
GPS, Lap Tops, I Pods, cell phones, etc. 
in sight- you are asking for a break in. The 
Captain also mentioned a meeting with the 
Undersheriff and Station Commanders on 
a regular basis where information is shared 
such as crime reports/patterns, neighborhood 
issues and solutions. 

 Deputy Art Valenzuela, Special 
Assignment Deputy, reported on Pamela 
Park activities. He has such enthusiasm and 
what he has done with area youth is awesome-
various programs and activities. One of the 
newest is a course in etiquette! But there 
have been leadership classes, volunteering 
at community events such as serving at the 
Thanksgiving dinner and assisting Santa with 
the Xmas Party. I was blown away.

 Irv Montenegro reported on the 
Cheerleading Program, After School, Teen 
and Computer Clubs, Solar Cup Event, After 
School Enrichment Field Trips-to Peck Water 
Conservation Park and a Valentine’s Day 
Celebration. In February, there will be a Black 
History Celebration at Maxwell Elementary 
and on March 23, an Easter Egg Hunt at 
Pamela Park. For Pamela Park info- (626) 
357-1619.

 Brian Mejia, Field Deputy for 
Supervisor Antonovich reported on the 
January 15th Board of Supervisors Meeting 
that attracted over 200 attendees, most 
speaking AGAINST the clean water tax. The 
proposal was sent out to residents in a VERY 
SNEAKY flyer that appeared to be a throw-
away! Only 4% of residents mailed it back! 
(I marked “No”. It proposes taxes SCHOOL 
PROPERTY!) ! Supervisor Antonovich had 
other proposals to attain the needed funding, 
but was opposed. This water problem is NOT 
unique to Los Angeles County and comes 
from Kern and Ventura Counties so it is 
a State Issue! For the time being, the issue 
was shelved for 60 days. Brian will give us as 
update then.

 The two libraries, Live Oak (Dina 
Malakoff) and Duarte gave excellent updates 
on programs. Please go to their websites for 
more info.

 Lastly Rose Olson, West Hollywood 
Community Housing, www.whchc.org and 
Erik Ten gave an excellent slide presentation/
report on the Live Oak Housing Project. It 
will be on the site of the existing Arcadia Bible 
Church, Live Oak Avenue/ Center Street, 
Arcadia. There will be 43 units. The housing 
will be for everyone- Seniors, Families, 
Handicapped. The proposal will have the 
buildings facing Live Oak and the parking 
south of the building facing residents. (This is 
a nonprofit group and a report of this project 
will be in a future issue of this paper.) Rose 
also said she would return to Town Council 
Meetings with updates. Currently the church 
property is in ecrow.

 www.facebook.com?MADTownCouncil. 

It had rained the day 
before my birthday, 
and the rain clouds 
blew away with the 
strong winds. Everything 
was new 
and wet, cold and 
fresh. In the morning, 
I went to my special spot in the Arroyo Seco 
to do my annual birthday run – dressed in running 
shoes, regular pants and sweatshirt, I carried 
my little notebook and pen in my pocket. 
Simple. Just run, I told myself. Get to the point 
of remembering. 

The birthday run is all about remembering, turning 
back the clock to year one and running a lap 
for each year, and letting the memories flow.

I felt a tingle of anticipation as I drove to the arroyo, 
and walked to the run site. No one else was 
there, which was better, because it allowed me to 
focus on my inner mind and inner seeing.

As I began my first year, a new memory emerged 
that wasn’t there in previous years (I’ve done this 
annual run for about the last 30 years). I became 
aware that a process exists whereby I was being 
“fitted” for a life, with a particular family, at that 
particular time, in that particular town. I’d presumed 
that this would be the life that I earned for 
myself, and I recall at the earliest age, expecting 
greatness. I was born expecting complete honesty 
and honorability from those others around 
me, and I remember that I expected this absolute 
honesty to be a very normal and natural thing in 
this world into which I was born. I assumed that 
everyone would work hard to aspire to greatness, 
that it was just the way this world flowed.

This memory helped me explain why I cried so 
much as an infant, and why my parents thought I 
was autistic. It was as if I knew of a world where 
greatness, and beauty, and grandeur, and cooperation, 
and goodness for the sake of goodness 
were normal.

But something was very wrong. I was obviously 
not in the world which I expected for myself.

These insights came quickly as I ran – it took me 
much longer to write this explanation that it took 
to run the half-lap in which this 
memory flowed.

So my insights and memories were 
of the big picture, not the little daily 
details that I’ve reviewed during 
most of my past 30+ years of doing 
the birthday run. 

 

I realized that I was born expecting 
greatness, and sadness enshrouded 
me by kindergarten when I sensed 
that no one Knows, and that 
schooling was boxing my mind 
into neat categories. As the years 
of school moved forward, my ideal 
of living life for higher goals was 
wiped away, as it became painfully 
clear that nearly everyone makes 
all their life decisions based upon money and 
monetary considerations. I felt pain, and learned 
to be quiet, as I was taught in school how to think 
small.

And though it was never stated explicitly, I was 
taught that the only activities worth pursuing in 
life were those which had a monetary pay-off.

I once asked my father, “He does that all day 
long?” referring to a man who did the same job 
over and over, every day, every week, year after 
year, and never seemed to rebel.

“Of course,” my father told me. “He has a family 
to support. Any job has its ups and downs. 
He may not like it every day, but he has to do it. 
Anyway, you’ll understand when you get older.”

I did find a few exceptional teachers and mentors, 
but I could still not help but note that even the 
best of them who helped me to “break free” in my 
thinking were still very much imprisoned in the 
world of money. It isn’t that I don’t understand 
the role and function of money. It’s just that I 
could never understand that anything is OK and 
justifiable because it pays the bills. What about 
growth? Or fulfillment? What about finding 
one’s purpose in life? What about spiritual evolution? 
I saw that art and truly artistic endeavors 
were one form of salvation in the prison-world in 
which I found myself.

As I ran on my birthday morning, lap by lap 
through the memories, it was clear that we are all 
already “lost” by first grade. I once had the acute 
awareness of the fact that I was a spiritual entity 
who was simply occupying this particular body.

But then, my society and peers taught me to worry 
about everything in life that conspires against 
us, things like sickness, accidents, disease, homelessness, 
divorce, bankruptcy, etc. And all of life 
was then a mad rush to overcome all those things, 
but we all die anyway. I’d seen way too many who 
died wealthy but no further along their spiritual 
path.

During my run, I saw that I succeeded and failed 
at my various attempts to do things that are fulfilling 
and uplifting, which could also support 
me. Additionally, I saw that there is no dishonor 
in 8 to 5 jobs, working for someone else. Everything 
is how we do it, and how we uplift others 
while living our lives.

I reviewed my many projects and endeavors, and 
at the end of my run, I came back to the very 
knowledge that I instinctively knew as a baby – 
we are spirit beings, here temporarily in bodies, 
to learn and to evolve. Everything else is fluff and 
time waste.

I walked back to my car, ready to continue with 
a busy day. I laughed at the beauty and newness 
of the day, and I gave thanks to my parents and 
teachers.


MARS ROVER PREPARES TO DRILL INTO MARTIAN ROCK

 
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity is 
driving toward a flat rock with pale veins 
that may hold clues to a wet history on 
the Red Planet. If the rock meets rover 
engineers’ approval when Curiosity rolls 
up to it in coming days, it will become 
the first to be drilled for a sample during 
the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

 The size of a car, Curiosity is inside 
Mars’ Gale Crater investigating whether 
the planet ever offered an environment 
favorable for microbial life. Curiosity 
landed in the crater five months ago to 
begin its two-year prime mission.

 “Drilling into a rock to collect a 
sample will be this mission’s most 
challenging activity since the landing. It 
has never been done on Mars,” said Mars 
Science Laboratory project manager 
Richard Cook of NASA’s Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The 
drill hardware interacts energetically 
with Martian material we don’t control. 
We won’t be surprised if some steps in 
the process don’t go exactly as planned 
the first time through.”

 Curiosity first will gather powdered 
samples from inside the rock and use 
those to scrub the drill. Then the rover 
will drill and ingest more samples 
from this rock, which it will analyze 
for information about its mineral and 
chemical composition.

 The chosen rock is in an area where 
Curiosity’s Mast Camera (Mastcam) and 
other cameras have revealed diverse 
unexpected features, including veins, 
nodules, cross-bedded layering, a 
lustrous pebble embedded in sandstone, 
and possibly some holes in the ground.

 The rock chosen for drilling is called 
“John Klein” in tribute to former Mars 
Science Laboratory deputy project 
manager John W. Klein, who died in 
2011.

 The target is on flat-lying bedrock 
within a shallow depression called 
“Yellowknife Bay.” The terrain in this 
area differs from that of the landing site, 
a dry streambed about a third of a mile to the west. Curiosity’s 
science team decided to look there for a first drilling target because 
orbital observations showed fractured ground that cools more 
slowly each night than nearby terrain types do.

 “The orbital signal drew us here, but what we found when we 
arrived has been a great surprise,” said Mars Science Laboratory 
project scientist John Grotzinger, of Caltech in Pasadena. “This area 
had a different type of wet environment than the streambed where 
we landed, maybe a few different types of wet environments.”

 One line of evidence comes from inspection of light-toned veins 
with Curiosity’s laser-pulsing Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) 
instrument, which found elevated levels of calcium, sulfur and 
hydrogen.

 “These veins are likely composed of hydrated calcium sulfate, 
such as bassinite or gypsum,” said ChemCam team member Nicolas 
Mangold of the Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique de 
Nantes in France. “On Earth, forming veins like these requires 
water circulating in fractures.”

 Researchers have used the rover’s Mars Hand Lens Imager 
(MAHLI) to examine sedimentary rocks in the area. Some are 
sandstone, with grains up to about peppercorn size. One grain has 
an interesting gleam and bud-like shape that have brought it Internet 
buzz as a “Martian flower.” Other rocks nearby are siltstone, with 
grains finer than powdered sugar. These differ significantly from 
pebbly conglomerate rocks in the landing area.

 “All of these are sedimentary rocks, telling us Mars had 
environments actively depositing material here,” said MAHLI 
deputy principal investigator Aileen Yingst of the Planetary Science 
Institute in Tucson, Ariz. “The different grain sizes tell us about 
different transport conditions.”

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.