THE GAME
November 22, 2008
Family event at the Forest Club.
Details forthcoming

SAVE THE DATE:
David Frum will be speaking at a Yale Club luncheon at the Bayou Club on Wednesday, November 19, 2008. Please note this was originally scheduled for the 20th.

Dr. Amy Myers Jaffe will be speaking at the Baker Institute on October 15, 2008 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. This is a joint event with the Princeton Club. An invitation will be mailed to club members and details will be added to this blog in September.

Bill Guest's Antarctica Travels

Bill Guest, a long-time member of the Yale Club of Houston and current Board member, was gracious enough to share a clip from his journal on a trip to Antarctica, in 2004. If you have fond, interesting details of your travels you'd like to share, please send us a brief write-up and a picture. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The trip to Antarctica was with a group that met in Santiago, then flew to Ushuaia, Argentina, a small port-town located on the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego (which is a very large island, separated from the southern tip of South America by the Magellan Strait), boarded a cruise ship and sailed along the Beagle Channel out of Ushuaia into and across the Drake Passage (some 700 miles) to the Peninsula of Antarctica. The Drake Passage is the meeting place of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, known to have some of the roughest seas on the globe. The continent of Antarctica is huge, 90% covered year-round with ice. Its rainfall is comparable to the Sahara Desert, so the abundance of snow, icebergs, glaciers, and other ice displays is the result of accumulations over millions of years. Antarctica holds some 75% of the earth’s fresh water, locked up in ice. It is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. It doubles in size from the Antarctica summer (November – March) to winter. To make this happen, the freezing winter causes the ice shelves to expand at various edges of the continent. Does seawater freeze? Yes, by one of nature’s water miracles, which is that, when seawater is converted to ice, beginning a couple of degrees below the temperature at which fresh water freezes, a large amount of the salt content is expunged. Antarctica has the coldest temperatures on earth, and the fiercest, most stormy winds. Even in the summer much of the continent is not readily accessible. Except for some 20–25 modern-era research stations (only a few are maintained year-round) there is no history of human habitation.

This trip on a cruise ship (a typical one – the Orion was newly built, so quite modern), requiring 2½ days to cross the Drake, was to spend 5 days on the Peninsula (mostly the adjacent archipelago islands) which extends northward in a long curved “narrow” stretch of land, pointing toward the southern tip of Chile/Argentina. (By a meandering border, the two countries share the southern region of South America – a region known as Patagonia.) Virtually no islands exist in the passage between South America and the Antarctica Peninsula – one is Elephant Island (about a hundred miles north of the Peninsula). A thick chain of islands hugs the west coast of the Peninsula, relatively near the continent. The landings were mostly on some of these islands, with one landing on the continent itself. (A “landing” is a transfer by a zodiac boat, with a capacity of some 12 persons, from ship to shore; there are no facilities for ships to dock.) Ice at Hope Bay defeated the effort to make a planned entrance there. The southernmost reach of the trip was slightly less than one degree of latitude short of the Antarctic Circle (66, 33 minutes, south latitude), which may have been because of the amount of ice in the proximity of the Circle. So, the “trip to Antarctica” was to a small patch of Antarctica, compared to the huge size of “Antarctica,” and consisted only of “touching” the northwestern coast of the Peninsula and coastal islands. (One accepted definition of “Antarctica” is: that area south of 60 south latitude.)

However, this was, indeed, a lot. Animals were in abundance. The southern ocean and environs comprise an extremely rich feeding area for whales, seals, penguins, birds and other animals. (Vegetation, limited to appearances such as moss and lichen, is, of course, quite scarce.) The extremely cold water from the icy continent encounters the warmer Pacific and Atlantic waters, churning up low-level nutrients, feeding the growth of krill and shrimp, and so on up the food chain. The ancient continent, known as Gondwana, through the process of plate tectonics beginning some 180 million years ago, divided into South America, Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand and, of course, Antarctica. The drama and grandeur of the landscapes resulting from the geological dynamics are awesome. And the roughness of the oceans, the grand scale of ice formations exhibited in so many ways, and the animals: some whale sightings, birds, birds, birds, seals, seals, seals and penguins, penguins, penguins, penguins! There’s so much.

Some very important topics, such as global warming, the breaking up of the ice shelves, environmental concerns, political interests and scientific research, are not the focus of this trip.

2008 - 2009 Dues Information

It's that time of year again. Click here for a copy of the annual membership fee statement, or please e-mail Stuart at shudson@comcast.net.

For prospective members, joining the club and paying the membership fee gets you on our mailing list, discounts to club events and a host of other benefits. There's also a discounted fee for recent Yale graduates.

Risher Randall, Club President's Letter

Dear Local Yale Alums:

When you graduated, you probably expected to be finished with Yale, that you would move to the next chapter of your life and leave Yale behind. Little did you know that when you matriculated in New Haven your freshman year, a life long relationship began. Reunions and the AYA magazine immediately commenced, thereby facilitating the extension of our Yale experience. In addition, Yale Club’s around the country also foster those college relationships.

The Yale Club of Houston is attempting to create a dynamic and stimulating experience which will remind you of those four phenomenal years in New Haven. This year we are attempting to use the internet to invigorate the Houston Yale community. Please check our blog at www.yaleclubofhouston.blogspot.com. If you would like to post a comment, please let me know and I will provide you with the user name and password. In addition, we have a Facebook site as well, known as Eli Houston. All Houston Yalies are invited to join as “friends.” If you don’t have a teenager to help you get situated on Facebook, let us know and we will help. I myself am a novice, but several board members are “ole pros.”

I am pleased to announce that we have many exciting events scheduled this fall. In addition to old favorites such as “Wine Tasting” and “The Game,” we will host a conversation with Rick Noriega, U.S. Senate candidate, at the Briar Club on September 9th. Also on tap is David Frum ‘82, a prolific author and political commentator, who will be our luncheon speaker at the Bayou Club on September 18. With the presidential election knocking on our door, we are likely to hear unique insights about the election’s impact on the political landscape. Later, in conjunction with the Princeton Club, we will hear Amy Jaffe speak on energy issues at the Baker Institute on the evening of October 15. . Special thanks to Gilbert Garcia, Austen Furse and Wally Wilson for engaging these speakers.

These events are merely the “tip of the iceberg.” So please join the Yale Club of Houston and send in your dues payment today. There are several options for membership. The All Events Membership is the best deal, including the cost of membership and admission to all events. Save at least $100 on the cost of attending events by paying for them in advance. You can even buy a second All Events Membership for a spouse or frequent guest. Young Alumni discount pricing is available for both All Events and Regular Membership.

Please also consider sending in a Patron Donation with your membership dues. Since the Yale Club of Houston is a 501c3 organization, your contribution is tax deductible. Patron Donations support many worthwhile programs, including sponsorship of a Yale student as a Community Service Summer Fellow, Bulldogs on the Bayou, and provision of the Yale Book Awards.

Our theme this year is “many hands make light work.” We invite you to not only join the club but to also get involved. If we can enrich one another’s lives as undergraduates, why not as alums as well? Please contact myself or one of the board members if you wish to be more active.

Let’s not forget the words from Bright College Years:
…the seasons come, the seasons go
the earth is green or white with snow.
But time and change shall not avail
to break the friendships formed at Yale…

I hope that you will join the Yale Club of Houston and that I will see you at some of the events in the upcoming year.

Boola,

Risher Randall, Jr.
President, Yale Club of Houston

Immigration and the Border: Conversation with Rick Noriega, U.S. Senate Candidate

A native Houstonian, former Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard, Commander of Operations at the Laredo Border during Operation Jump Start, U.S. Senate candidate shares his views on the future of immigration reform and steps we need to take to secure our border. Join fellow members of the Yale Club for an informal talk followed by Q&A.
Biographical Sketch: Raised in Houston, Rick graduated from University of Houston on a ROTC scholarship and earned an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 1990, where he was editor of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy. Serving as Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard, Rick was deployed for 14 months and served a year in Afghanistan until 2005. Upon his return he served as Commander of Operation Jump Start at the Laredo Border in 2006. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Rick was asked by Mayor Bill White to work as the Incident Commander of Houston's relief efforts at the George R. Brown Convention Center. Elected for two consecutive terms to the Texas House of Representative, Rick is seeking election to the U.S. Senate in November.

Date: Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Time: 6:30 pm Reception
(hors d’oeuvres and cash bar)

7:15 pm Talk followed by Q&A

Location: The Briar Club
2603 Timmons Lane, Houston TX

Cost: $15 members
$20 non-members
(Event fee also payable at the door
but RSVP to shudson7@comcast.net)


Questions?
Email Chinhui Juhn
cjuhn@uh.edu

RSVP & checks payable to:
Yale Club of Houston
4810 Florence St.
Bellaire, TX 77401
713-668-4702
shudson7@comcast.net
http://www.yaleclubofhouston.org/


______

Wine Tasting 2008: California vs. France

On June 7, 1976, the unthinkable happened. At the Academie du Vin, a little known California winery beat out well-known French labels in a blind tasting. The moment is memorialized in the upcoming movie Bottle Shock, produced by Saybrook Alum, Marc Lhormer, and hailed as the new Sideways. See the trailer at http://www.apple.com/trailers/independent/bottleshock/trailer/

Come and sample the French and Californian wines especially paired for you by sommelier Debbie Ribar (Houston Wine Merchant). Can you pick out the best from the worst? Does the young spirit of California speak to your soul or is the elegance of Bordeux beyond compare? Help kick off an exciting 2008-2009 season with-- Bottle Shock II.


Date: Saturday, August 23, 2008

Time: 7 – 9 pm

Location: The home of Chinhui Juhn ’84 & Eddie Allen
1936 Sunset Blvd, Houston, TX
(On Sunset, between Hazard and Kent Streets)

Cost: $15 Young Alumni (Classes of 1998 – 2008)
$20 Members (memberships available at the door)
$30 Non-members


Questions?
Email Chinhui Juhn:
cjuhn@uh.edu

RSVP & make checks payable to:
Yale Club of Houston
c/o Ms. Stuart Hudson
4810 Florence St.
Bellaire, TX 77401
713-668-4702
shudson7@comcast.net