Inside scoop

Even though he’s a politician now, Huntington Beach city employee Robert

Martinez doesn’t expect any special treatment.

The 45-year-old civil engineering technician won an election this month

to the board of directors for the Pico Water District.

His colleagues at City Hall love to rib him about his exalted status.

“ ‘What do we call you, the honorable Robert A. Martinez?’ ” he recalls

them teasing. “They even wonder whether they should bow when they see

me.”

But Martinez said he prefers to be one of the guys.

“I’m still just Robert,” he said.

No sweat

Edison High School’s $650,000 digital high school grant makes it one of

the leaders in the Huntington Beach Union High School District in

computer and educational technology.

Unfortunately, in spite of its technological prowess, the 29-year-old

school lacks some of the basics.

“The air conditioner in the computer lab doesn’t work,” a sweating Vice

Principal Bob Stolte said as he showed off the school’s brand new

computers.

40 days and 40 nights

Baobinh Huyen, a 29-year-old Fountain Valley resident, two months ago

visited relatives in central Vietnam, a region recently hit by the

country’s worst flood in 40 years. After driving through light rain on a

motorcycle to the shopping district of the city of Hue, Huyen and her

cousin discovered the road home wouldn’t be traveled easily. It was

covered by knee-high water.

“That was just a light, two-hour rain,” she said. “We had to walk the

motorcycle home. I can’t imagine a five-foot flood.”