LocSec News by Sandy Halby

Volume 28, Issue 10 NOVEMBER 2011

In This Issue

What’s Up In Our Region................…2

Plains and Peaks Officers…................2

2011 Holiday Gala.............................3

Birthdays..........................................3

Anniversaries....................................3

Welcome & Farewell........................3

Cryptogram......................................3

Cripple Creek Mini-RG................4 & 5

Holiday Gala Invitation.......................6

November Calendar...........................7

Wow – big news at the Halby House – we adopted another dog! Say “Hello” to Otis, a rescue Newfoundland. He’s 4 years old and a real sweetheart! He and Chance (the German Shepherd) are still working things out, but every day, they get a bit better about playing together. Feeding time with 4 large (very large) dogs literally fills our kitchen with wall-to-wall dogs – check out my photos on Face-book of them all eating dinner and then sitting for biscuits (a word which, by the way, we spell at our house). Don't forget Plains & Peaks Mensa is now on Facebook. If you are a Facebooker, request to join the group - which is private. We're shar-ing photos of the Cripple Creek Mini-RG and the Fairview Cemetery Tour via FB, as well as our thoughts on the Friday Five questions. (Thanks, Sean, for posting those!) Speaking of the Mini-RG, there’s an article elsewhere in this newsletter about our week-end at “The Creek.” Boy – did Al time this one right – the aspens were at their peak and the scenery was spectacular. And, everybody who came to the Mini-RG had a wonderful time! And, although the turnout was low for the Old Colorado City Fairview Cemetery Tour “Art for the Afterlife,” the tour was very edu-cational and entertaining. It was interesting to see changes in tombstones designs over time – and how unique and personal tombstones can be. There were even a couple of tombstones

with Quick Response Codes – those boxes that you can scan (if you have a camera phone with the reader app) that link you to an obit or web-site about the person. Oh, big news for our Mensa group! During October, American Mensa ran a testing cam-paign called “Mensa Brilliant.” Our group ran 4 test sessions in October – and the one that was held at the USAF Academy tested 21 po-tential Mensans – a record for our group. (Huge thanks to Art Cartwright for setting that up!) By participating in the “Mensa Bril-liant” promotional at the maximum level, our group will receive an extra $65 for our treas-ury! Coming up in November for our group – our ExComm Meeting and Dinner, Give Into Beer Pressure, a Mensa Mix & Mingle, Trivia Night and an afternoon at Kimball’s Theater. That’ll fill our calendar as we approach the holiday season And … while the topic is the holiday season … Our annual Plains & Peaks Holiday Gala Party will be Saturday, December 3rd, at the Stage-coach Inn in Manitou Springs. Please plan on joining your fellow Mensans and their family members and guests for an evening of holiday cheer, festivities, and a really great dinner. Check out the flyer in this newsletter and be sure to RSVP with your dinner choices. Big thanks to Connor, Betsy, Jenny, Sean, Windy, Al and everybody else who helps make our group so successful! You all are the best! If you’re receiving this via snail mail, The lat-est Plains & Peaks membership roster has you as a “PRINT” receiver … so we will print your newsletter and mail it to you. However, in light of postage and copying costs, I ask that you consider changing your publication pref-erence to electronic newsletters and commu-nications. It costs about $1 per issue of PlainsPeaking to copy and mail to you (not to mention the time involved in folding, etc) … and that cost is going up as postage rates are slated to rise again.

To change your publication preference, go to www.us.mensa.org and update your member-ship profile. Under “Edit Profile” you can se-lect “Publication Preferences” and make the changes there. You can also call American Mensa at 1-800-66-MENSA to update your profile. Plains & Peaks Mensa does not release mem-bers’ e-mail addresses to anyone, including other members of Plains & Peaks Mensa, without your permission. That’s all for now … hope to see you soon at a Mensa event!

~Sandy

The Newsletter of Plains and Peaks Mensa, Southern Colorado

http://www.plainsandpeaks.us.mensa.org/

Sandy & Mike in Cripple Creek

Page 2

Thanks-Giving Month YOU are the reason Mensa is so successful. Yes, YOU. THANK YOU for being a member, and/or for volunteer-ing to help out, and/or for being an officer, and for con-tinuing to be proud of Mensa. YOU are so appreciated. Truly. YOU are our future. Thanks to YOU this month and every month. Colloquium in Our Region! Region 7 is so proud to announce that Mid-America Mensa is hosting the next Colloquium “Bioterrorism Strikes Home” from May 4 to May 6, 2012 at Kansas State University in Olathe Kansas. Visit http://www.colloquium.us.mensa.org for all the details. High-est-level intellectual stimulation right here in our Region. Reserve now before it’s sold out (yes, this happens!). Member Primer For NEW members, for OLD members, for ALL members … there’s a nifty Member Primer waiting for you online at http://www.us.mensa.org/learn/primer. Want to see 11 easy things (and 1 hard thing) YOU can do to get more out of Mensa – and help your group while you’re at it? Check it out. The website has been updated and is LOADED with cool stuff. Welcome New Officers! SHARON SWAN TIESZEN, Local Treasurer, North Da-kota Mensa BEN NEMENOFF, National Leadership Development Committee, Mid-America Mensa KATHERINE CAMPBELL, Recording Secretary, Kansas Sunflower Mensa KAREN KOZAK, Proctor, Nebraska/Western Iowa Mensa JOHN NEWCOMB, Proctor, Denver Mensa RENEE BEAVERS, Proctor-in-Training, Denver Mensa

What’s Up In Our Region

Plains and Peaks Mensa Officers

Sandy Halby (LocSec/President) 6066 Del Rey Dr, COS 80918 719-528-5483 mandshalby@comcast.net Jennifer Browning (2nd Vice Pres. for Membership) 2034 Devon St, COS 80909 719-591-0189 JennyReal@aol.com Connor Baker (Treasurer) PO Box 514 Florissant, CO 80816 (719) 646-2660 connor.baker@usa.net Sean McCormick (Gifted Children’s Coordinator) 4220 Ruby Dr Colorado Springs, CO 80918-5058 (719) 651-6706 sean.mccormick.us@member.mensa.org Betsy Ogan (PlainsPeaking Editor) 1061 Hummingbird Ct, COS 80921 719-481-1199 Bogan54@aol.com Windy Haddad (Webmaster) 1465 Stella Dr. COS 80921 719-201-4743 windy@windyhaddad.com Al Ackerson (Past President) 3627 Hayman Court, COS 80910 719-635-4910 Alackerson@msn.com

PlainsPeaking

Peggy Pannke-Smith

Regional Vice Chair

Heartland Region 7

Please send your announcements and photos

of Region 7 happenings to

Mensa@pegmadsen.com

http://www.region7.us.mensa.org/

I’d love to hear from you!

Contact me at RVC7@us.mensa.org.

Volume 28, Issue 10

"DJOM TURKEY ZCQ NKEKCIK

SBMYYJKDY RBQMRVL

CK TUMJQ IRL.”

~KRTJOM RFMQJHRK YRLJKD

Cryptogram

Page 3

Don’t miss our legendary Plains & Peaks Holiday Party!! Mark your calendars now: Saturday, December 3rd!! We’ll be getting together on Saturday, the 3rd of December, to celebrate the holiday season, our friendships and our unique Mensa camaraderie. Our annual gala, featuring dinner, door prizes, White Elephant Gift Exchange, and a generally all-around GREAT time will be at the his-toric Stagecoach Inn in Manitou Springs. We’ll be meeting for cocktails (pay-as-you-go) at 5:00 pm, with dinner at 6:30 pm. See the flyer in this newsletter for other details about the event! Be sure to wear something appropriate to the season. Reindeer antlers and Rudolph noses are very acceptable; socks that play Christmas Car-ols may even be better!! The punishment if you are not appropriately attired: you’ll be required to sing a Christmas Carol a cappella. We’ll also be doing a White Elephant Gift Exchange. For those of you not familiar with the White Elephant Gift Exchange (which is GREAT FUN), read on for the details! WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT EXCHANGE Remember that tacky “gift” you got last year at your office party gift exchange? What about the unidentifiable and utterly artless “sculpture” your cousin presented you with on your anniversary? Here’s your chance to get rid of an unwanted, or White Elephant, item. A White Elephant Gift Exchange works like this. Find something you don’t want any more (valued between $15 and $25 and in working con-dition). Wrap it up nicely in holiday paper. Bring it to the Plains & Peaks Mensa Holiday Party on December 3rd at the Stagecoach Inn (in Manitou Springs) and stack it with all the other gifts. Everyone bringing a gift will draw a number. Whoever picks number 1 will be allowed to select one gift from the pile and open that gift. The

ANNOUNCING OUR 2011 PLAINS & PEAKS MENSA HOLIDAY GALA

Judy Irene Sikes November 1

Teresa Head November 7

Marcia M Carroll November 21

William T Jones Jr November 30

NOTE: If you don’t see your birthday posted here, it’s probably be-cause that information (and perhaps more) is marked “non-releasable” on our rosters. If you’d like to check on your personal information release status, please contact American Mensa (1-800-66-MENSA) or go to www.us.mensa.org and under Member resources, select the PDQ section.

Birthdays

Membership Anniversaries Kelsey Applegate Joseph Wayne Arbuckle

Gary G Frenzel Kenneth P Geohegan

Anthony J Gioia Mike Halby

Robert R Laube Eryn M Meeks

Ryan P Mielke Kevin M Powers

Christopher M Root Kathie Martin Schmidt

Nicholas Sol Stephen W Trolander

Welcome & Farewell WELCOME: Norma H Hollister, a new Mensan! Hello, Norma! WELCOME BACK: William G Bell, who is rejoining our group. Hello again!

person who has number 2 can chooses a gift from the pile or take the gift the person with number 1 has. If person number 2 chooses to take the gift from person number 1, then person number 1 gets to choose another gift and open it. Then the person who holds number 3 will choose a gift or exchange that gift with person 1 or 2. Again, if person number 3 chooses to take one of the opened gifts, the person whose gift was taken can choose and open another present. This progresses until the last person has the final choice among all the opened gifts or the last gift on the table. Then, as the final White Elephant exchange, the poor person who got number 1 gets to either keep his/her gift or take one of the gifts eligible for grabbing. (A gift can only be exchanged three times. After that, the person who has it is stuck with it!) Participating in the White Elephant Gift Exchange at the Plains & Peaks Mensa Holiday Party is entirely optional. But, keep in mind, it’s a lot of fun – and you never know what you’ll end up with – you might even like what you got! Some of the past years gifts have included: a stuffed toy chicken, an indoor waterfall machine-thing, bottles of wine, puzzles, books, CDs and videos, and lots of other neat (and not so neat!) things! It’s all in the spirit of the holiday – so join in!!

Page 4 PlainsPeaking

caching and exploring all the historic Cripple Creek re-gion has to offer.

Then, on Saturday night, we all gathered at Lombard’s in the Double Eagle Casino and Hotel for a surprisingly good dinner. Some folks ordered off the menu and other enjoyed the buffet, which featured frog legs, gorgonzola-stuffed chicken, and pork roast. After dinner, several of us congregated at the nickel poker machines and wiled away the hours – hoping to strike it big! Alas, we didn’t – but we sure had a good time (those free drinks again!)! Even if no one hit the big jackpot at the casinos, we cer-tainly hit the jackpot and then some when it came to laughs and tons of fun at our Cripple Creek Mini-RG. Thanks to everybody who joined us and especially to Al Ackerson for setting this all up and Jennifer Owens for organizing the activities.

The company was great, the weather was wonderful (for the most part!) and we gamboled (and some gambled) the weekend away up in Cripple Creek at our Mini-RG, which was September 30th through October 2nd. Al Ack-erson and Jennifer Owens were the organizers and hosted a get-together Friday evening at the Double Eagle Casino and Hotel bar. There were a total of 18 Plains & Peaks-ers (Mensans and guests) at our Mini-RG: Al Ackerson, Wetzel Howard, Mark Berte, Sandy and Mike Halby, Dave Syndergaard and Jen Owens, Jenny Browning, Loree Czarnecki, Gia Davis, Peggy Panke-Smith and Craig Smith, Tim Kline, Carol Peterson and her friend John, Billy Priest, and Art and Vera Cartwright.

After the get-together on Friday and an exciting evening visiting the casinos (and for some … partaking of the free drinks that the casinos offer), on Saturday, most of us took a tour of the historic Homestead House, one of the extravagant brothels that populated Cripple Creek during the gold rush heydays. Then, we all met up at the historic Butte Theater for the matinee performance of the melo-drama “The Vampire of Cripple Creek” and the Olio. The play and olio were, to put it simply, a hoot! After that, several of us boarded the historic (almost eve-rything at “The Creek” is historic!) Cripple Creek and Vic-tor Narrow Gauge train for a 45-minute train ride, view-ing old mine sites and the spectacular fall colors – even if we did get soaked in a freak storm that dumped rain, hail and slush on us – not to mention up-close views of some spectacular lightning! Some other folks visited the historic Mollie Kathleen mine for an underground tour of a gold mining operation and stopped by the new Pikes Peak Heritage Center, which features state-of-the-art interpre-tive displays and overlooks Cripple Creek and the sur-rounding mountains. Other folks went hiking and geo-

Cripple Creek Mini-RG by Sandy Halby

The Train Crew

View from the train

Old Shack

Volume 28, Issue 10 Page 5

Carol & John Gia & Vera

Wetzel & Mark

Vera & Art

Billy, Tim & Craig Jenny & Loree

Al

Dave & Jen

Craig & Peggy

PlainsPeaking Page 6

PLAINS & PEAKS MENSA HOLIDAY PARTY

Saturday, December 3rd

At the historic Stagecoach Inn, 702 Manitou Avenue

Join us for our annual Plains & Peaks Mensa Holiday Party!

Party favors, White Elephant gift exchange, door prizes

And lots of good conversations … What a night we’ll have!

Cocktails at 5:00 pm

Dinner at 6:30 pm

Reservations are required for this event!

Please choose from the following dinners when you RSVP:

8 Ounce USDA Choice Sirloin

Cedar Plank Salmon

Vegetarian Ravioli

All dinners will start with a house salad with Balsamic vinaigrette and fresh biscuits

and will be accompanied by vegetables and Chef’s choice of starch.

$28.50 total for dinner, coffee, tea or soda

(price includes tax and tip)

RSVP by November 28 to Sandy

phone 528-5483 or e-mail mandshalby@comcast.net

your fellow Mensans at Kimball’s, which is a downtown (Pikes Peak and Tejon) first run movie theater showing “the very best of current independ-ent and foreign films.” The plan is to meet at 4:30, have a drink in Kimball’s full service bar, select a movie to attend together, and then afterwards, have another drink and/or dinner and discuss the movie. We’ll be taking a chance on what Kimball’s is showing on this date - but you never know! Could be the best movie you’ve ever seen!! Sunday, November 27th: GCP Games Day and 2012 Planning Event: 1:30PM-4:30PM. East Library Community Meeting Room. We will not have an event in the month of December, but we would like to get all of your ideas for 2012. So for November, let’s sit and play some games (Chess, Apples to Apples, WhoNu?, Scrabble, and any other game you may care to bring), and discuss some plans for next year. Of course - if you have ideas, but will not be able to make it to the meeting, please feel free to send your ideas along at any time. We hope to see you at this or any future GCP events. Remember, whether you are a member un-der 18, or you are a member and have children under 18, the Plains and Peaks Gifted Children Program is yours! For more information, contact Sean McCormick, the Gifted Children Coordinator, either by email at sean.mccormick.us@member.mensa.org or by cell phone at (719) 651-6706.Monday, November 28th, 8:00 pm: RSVPs due for the Holiday Gala Party! Contact Sandy at mandshalby@comast.net or call 528-5483 to RSVP for our annual holiday event! Advance Notice: Saturday, December 3rd, 5:00 pm: Plains & Peaks Mensa Holiday Gala Party! We’re all meeting up at the Stagecoach Inn in Manitou Springs for our biggest event of the year – our Holiday Gala Party. Door prizes, White Elephant Gift Exchange, dinner – and lots of good cheer with our fellow Mensans! Look for more information in this newslet-ter. RSVPs will be due by Monday, November 28th.

Wednesday, November 2nd, 6:00 pm: ExComm Meeting & Dinner. Join us for a short ExComm meeting and then dinner at Schnitzelfritz, 4037 Tutt Blvd (one block south of Sky Sox Stadium). Visit www.Schnitzelfritz.com for a look at the menu! Friday, November 4th, 5:00 pm: Give Into Beer Pressure. Join us for the November “Give Into Beer Pressure,” at A Second Cup and Another Pint, 13860 Gleneagle Drive. We’ll hoist a few, commiserate about our tough week at work and generally have a good time! (Note – we’ll be visiting dif-ferent establishments each month for this event – so if you’ve heard of a good brew-pub or happy hour bar in the local area, please let Vera know: 864-430-0126 or veraann22@yahoo.com.) Sunday, November 13th, 4 pm: Mensa Mix and Mingle! Married, single, Gen-X, new member, long time member, Hell’s M, shy, outgoing, whatever – you’re all invited to join Sandy at the Steaksmith for a no-host Mix & Min-gle party. Enjoy some drinks and perhaps a nosh from their lounge menu. The Steaksmith is at 3802 Maizeland Road (Maizeland and Academy). Visit www.steaksmith.com for more info about the restaurant and bar. Tuesday, November 15th, 6:00 pm: Trivia Night! We’re playing NTN Buzztime – but we don’t know where yet! Watch your e-mail for where we’ll be gathering for Trivia Night in November! Wherever we’ll be – it’ll be good eats, good prices, plenty of TVs to look at and control boxes to play with. Look for a Mensa “M” flag at a table in the bar and join us for a fast paced Trivia round! Sunday, Nov 20th, 4:30 pm: Kimball’s Peak Three Movie! Join some of

November Events

Page 7 Volume 28, Issue 10

November 2011

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2

6:00 PM ExComm Meeting

@ Schnitzelfritz

3 4 5:00 PM

Give In To Beer Pressure @ A Second Cup &

Another Pint

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 4:00 PM

Mensa Mix & Mingle

@ Steaksmith

14 15 6:00 PM

Trivia Night

16 17 18 19

20 4:30 PM

Kimball’s Peak Three Movie

21 22 23 24 25 26

27 1:30 PM

GPC Games Day

28 8:00

RSVP due for Holiday Gala

29 30

Mensa® is an international organization made up of people who have scored in the top 2% on standardized IQ tests. Mensa is non-profit and has no political or religious affiliations. The purpose of Mensa is to serve as a means of communication for its members and to foster in-telligence. PlainsPeaking is the official publication of Plains & Peaks Mensa (#808). Mensa itself has no opinions; any opinions expressed in PlainsPeaking, if not otherwise designated, are those of the individual contributor or of the editor. The appearance of any paid advertise-ment, should such an unlikely event occur, in PlainsPeaking does NOT imply any endorsement of products, services, or anything else men-tioned in said ad by either Plains & Peaks Mensa, PlainsPeaking, Ameri-can Mensa, Ltd., or Mensa International. Mensa® is registered at the U.S. Patent Office as the collective mark of an international member-ship organization. PlainsPeaking is published monthly by Plains and Peaks Mensa Editor, 1061 Hummingbird Ct, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-5696. All material within is copyright©2010 by Plains & Peaks Mensa, except where oth-erwise indicated. Masthead photo copyrighted 2009 by Betsy Ogan. Subscriptions are $6.00 (12 monthly issues) for non-Mensans and for Mensans who are not members of the P&P local group. Single issues are available on a first-come, first-served basis at no charge (but please include SASE). Editorial Policy: We (deliriously) welcome your letters, articles, poems, artwork, and puzzles. Items submitted to PlainsPeaking should be the

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ORIGINAL work of the author, and should be emailed if possible. If previously published, please include where and when. MS Word , RTF, and plain text formats are especially encouraged for articles, JPG or GIF for artwork. Equations should be typeset with MS Equation Editor. Typewritten work signed by the author and submitted by surface mail is also welcome. Handwritten items may be accepted, but we cannot guarantee accuracy in publication. The editor’s e-mail address is Bogan54@aol.com. Please check with the editor about other accept-able media and formats. Artwork will be reproduced as black and white or grayscale (drawings or photographs). The Editor reserves the right to refuse to publish submitted material and to edit as necessary. Note to Contributors: By contributing material to Plains and Peaks Mensa, you are giving permission for your material to be published in both the newsletter and the web-based newsletter archives. You MAY withhold your name, email address, or any other address from the web-based version; simply request this from the Editor. Other Mensa publications may reprint PlainsPeaking material if the author/artist and PlainsPeaking are credited and the material is not individually copyrighted. Letters (and letter-like emails) to the Editor will be con-sidered for publication unless the author specifically requests other-wise. Note to Reprinting Editors: a courtesy copy indicating the material reprinted would be greatly appreciated. To: PlainsPeaking Editor, 1061 Hummingbird Ct, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-5696