queenmary.com\/anniversary.htm<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhen the Queen Mary debuted all those years ago, first class passengers could pay extra to dine in the Veranda Grill and dance in the nightclub, dubbed the Starlight Lounge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the place to see and be seen on board,\u201d I tell guests on board when I give\u00a0my tour guide spiel. \u201cBand members were instructed to keep playing as long as passengers were dancing \u2014 often until the wee hours of the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Long Beach first purchased the ship in 1967, the Diner\u2019s Club had a grandiose plan to make the Veranda Grill a five-star restaurant. Unfortunately, things changed and the Diner\u2019s Club\u2019s association ended before the ship opened to the public in 1971. In the mid-1970s, the area became a fast food area, serving hot dogs. In later years, the Veranda Grill was used as an employee cafeteria.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m thankful to the current management of this ship, which has the vision of what this area can truly be.<\/p>\n
Rube Goldberg<\/p>\n
Back in 1926, Rube Goldberg machines \u2014 contraptions designed to perform a simple task through a series of convoluted steps \u2014 were all the rage.<\/p>\n
And apparently, they are making a comeback.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because the historic Edison Theatre, 213 E. Broadway, will be one of several Long Beach sites hosting a special contest in May\u00a0 to see whop can design the best Rube Goldberg machine. (The theater was once the Nippon pool room and barber shop, which, like Joe Jost\u2019s, was a combination barber shop, pool room and beer hall.)<\/p>\n
The inaugural West Coast National Rube Goldberg Competition will bring together teams from Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as elsewhere, to compete in this K-12 and adult competition. They will set up on May 2 and compete on May 3 at the Edison Theatre, the Underground at Broadway and Pine and other locations on or near the walkable downtown Long Beach Promenade.<\/p>\n
The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest is expected to be the ultimate STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) learning environment and competition. Contestants will design and build a machine based on a theme that will be disclosed during the competition.<\/p>\n
Zach Umperovitch, the Rube Goldberg Institute\u2019s global contest director and co-host of Discovery\u2019s \u201cContraption Masters,\u201d is a professional Rube Goldberg machine builder, and will be present for this event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to bring the energy of a national level Rube Goldberg Machine Contest (RGMC) to Long Beach,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cI\u2019m excited for the students to showcase their incredible mix of creativity, with teams from across the West Coast and even from parts around the world coming together to celebrate ingenuity, persistence and a little bit of wonderfully controlled chaos, all with the common goal of failing upwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennifer George, the granddaughter of Rube Goldberg, is also expected to be present for the competition.<\/p>\n
The competition is free and open to the public. To learn more, get involved and\/or sponsor this and future Rube Goldberg events, contact Patricia Tsoiasue at 562-225-9589 or Patricia@makersvilleservices.org.<\/p>\n
100th birthday<\/p>\n
In non-business news, a thoughtful reader recently reached out to tell me about an important milestone that\u2019s coming up \u2014 a 100th birthday.<\/p>\n
On May 26, 1926, one of Long Beach Unified School District\u2019s most popular elementary school teachers, Jane Williams, was born.<\/p>\n
Williams, a longtime Belmont Shore resident, started teaching in 1964 at Horace Mann Elementary School and her career spanned four decades. To celebrate Williams\u2019 milestone birthday, former student Melissa Magrath is collecting cards for the beloved educator.<\/p>\n
You can send them to Melissa Magrath, 1097 Salvador St., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.<\/p>\n
City News Service contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1926, the Queen Mary was still on the drawing board, with construction starting in 1930. Ten years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,8132,3739,131,133,132,137,3738],"class_list":{"0":"post-282140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-grunion-business-beat","10":"tag-grunion-news","11":"tag-long-beach","12":"tag-long-beach-headlines","13":"tag-long-beach-news","14":"tag-los-angeles-county","15":"tag-the-grunion"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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