FLOATING HOME: For years the Reuben E....

FLOATING HOME: For years the Reuben E. Lee, the old river paddle-wheeler in Newport Harbor, has been an eye catcher from southbound Coast Highway. Long closed as a restaurant, it will reopen Aug. 10--as the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. The museum has operated for nine years on Balboa Peninsula, but the river boat’s three levels will give it 10 times the space. . . . Some museum pieces: Historical pictures of the harbor, nautical artifacts, ship models, and maritime paintings.

YOUNG VS. YOUNG: The county’s Human Relations Commission is pushing on in its mission to do something about hate crimes. At its quarterly session Thursday in Santa Ana, numerous high school-age victims of such crimes will tell their stories of what happened to them. . . . Too many hate crime incidents go unreported, says Eli Reyna of the commission staff: “The victims are young, but so are the perpetrators. The energy of the group takes over and suddenly verbal abuse turns to violence.”

THE SENDOFF: If you like big weddings, here’s one for the record books: The recent Indu Ahluwalia/Swaneel Kalsi nuptials went on for eight days--moving from Huntington Beach to Beverly Hills--and cost $400,000 (E1). . . . Surji Kalsi, the groom’s father, who owns a Los Alamitos cooking company, says the partying hasn’t stopped: “The wedding guests keep inviting us over.” . . . The young Sikh couple didn’t want a wedding this elaborate: The wealthy parents did. “It was tremendous fun,” says Surji Kalsi. “I’d do it all again.”

GLORY RUNNERS: You may be a long shot, but . . . if you want to join the relay team that carries the Olympic torch through Orange County next spring, call the United Way. It’s looking for “community heroes,” says United Way West President Norma Brandel Gibbs, “to demonstrate the grass-roots spirit of social conscience that is brimming here.” . . . The relay begins in Los Angeles and will pass through coastal cities here April 27-28 as it winds its way to the Summer Games in Atlanta.