Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Bob Aldrich

Wozniak tells Newsweek he's not down about Apple's woes

THE COMPUTER "was never the problem. The company's strategy was," says Steve Wozniak, writing in a Feb. 19 Newsweek article titled "How we failed Apple; a founder laments a legendary company's decline." There is a photo of a smiling, bespectacled Wozniak in his Los Gatos home.

Wozniak founded Apple Computer with Steven Jobs in 1976. "When we started Apple, it seemed as though nothing could go wrong," he writes in the magazine. Lamenting that "Apple lost touch with its core market," the home-computer user, Wozniak tells how Apple went after the small-business owner with the Apple III. The company saw itself as a hardware company and didn't license its operating system, he writes.

But Wozniak says he's not devastated about Apple's huge monetary losses. He believes it's "very much alive, despite the serious mistakes and poor luck." Wozniak, who now teaches computers to schoolchildren, is no longer with Apple, but he remains a stockholder.

AN archeological dig behind the Forbes Mill Museum, which was the annex of the old mill and the only structure remaining after the mill was torn down in 1916, took place Feb. 10, but it didn't turn up much. The project was authorized by the Los Gatos Museum Association. Pat Dunning, a member of the museum board, who is studying for a master's degree in the Department of Anthropology at San Jose State University, had enlisted the help of Russell Skowronek, assistant professor of anthropolgy at Santa Clara University, and Linda King, anthropology teacher at West Valley College. The three made an attempt to locate the exact right corner of the old mill's foundation.

They dug down about 4 feet. "We uncovered a stone that had apparently been dressed for a window and some 19th-century brick," Dunning said. They were unable to determine the base of the foundation but will try again, she said, perhaps in a month.

"There is a theory that, when the mill was demolished, stones collapsed into the cellar," she said. If that should turn out to be incorrect, they might call for some volunteer help to work down inside the foundation walls. The aim is to determine the dimensions of the mill and to discover anything of interest buried there. The rear wall of the current museum was part of the mill's front.

Scotsman James Alexander Forbes built his flour mill on Los Gatos Creek in 1854, but he had a host of troubles, like getting the machinery inside. The creek flow played a minimal part in turning the mill wheels; water came down a flume from a spring reservoir. The mill was badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake.

NEW Forbes Mill Museum curator Mary Foster asks that anyone who's been connected with the Liberty Ship Jeremiah O'Brien get in touch with the museum by calling 395-7375, or Foster, 353-2043. An exhibit is planned about the vessel, last of the World War II Liberty Ships, which sailed to England and France for the 50th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

A SHOOTOUT between an auto and a helicopter involved Los Gatos people, but it was all for a movie. Bottom Line Studios has spent four weeks shooting action scenes for a Korean television serial called Project. Sean Donahue of Bottom Line was second-unit director for stunt scenes aided by a professional 'copter pilot, transportation captain Sean Flanagan, stunt man Brandon Downing and a crew. Shooting was at Zanker and Tasman in San Jose near Alviso.

PERUVIAN GUITARIST Hector Ivan Garcia, who has performed a number of times at Los Gatos events, including downtown Christmas-tree-lighting evenings, delighted an audience at Los Gatos First United Methodist Church on Feb. 11. Also pleasing listeners at the classical guitar concert were Christopher Baum, Daniel Roest and David "El Escritor" Easley.

Born in Cuzco, Peru, Garcia is a third-generation guitarist who began studying with an uncle at age 9. Influenced by the music of the Andes, he has performed throughout South America and was acclaimed "ambassador of the guitar" by Cusco's mayor on a return visit. Garcia graduated from the Leandra Alvina Miranda Musical Institute of Cusco; he won the General Latin American Arts Festival in 1984 and 1985. In his eight years in the United States, he has recorded two albums, Ecos del Ande and Ecos de Amor. Joplin & Sweeney of Los Gatos published his solo compositions.

At the Sunday concert, Baum, an undergraduate at San Jose State University, played works by Manuel de Fala, Heitor Villa-Lobos and William Walton. Roest, a faculty member of Foothill College, played a Bach prelude and Spanish numbers, aided by guitarist Illah Nourbakhsh. For his part of the program, Easley offered flamenco.

THE MINISTER at Skyland Community Church, Stephen Glauz-Todrank, will be at Ave Maria book store in Saratoga on Feb. 24 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. to sign his book, Transforming Christianity: 10 Pathways to a New Reformation, his first published work.

BEAUTIFUL spring-like weather, with trees blossoming, was in sharp contrast last week with icy, way-below-zero conditions in the Midwest and East and floods in the Northwest.

OOPS: Paul Arnerich at 87 isn't quite the oldest native-born Los Gatan living here. That honor goes to Thelma Rhinelander, at 96. Rhinelander, who describes herself as "perky," was born on May 17, 1899, at 244 Almendra Ave.; that's across the street from the Los Gatos Weekly-Times office. The house was later torn down.

"I've lived in Los Gatos all my life," she said. Her late husband, Andrew Rhinelander, was a pharmacist at the Corner Drug Store and was nicknamed "Judy."