Monday May 30, 2005

Leaving Sun

I've taken a job at Intuit and I'm leaving Sun. Wow, I can't quite believe it is real. The job is an exciting opportunity and I am very excited about all the new challenges, but I am very ambivalent about leaving Sun. I have been here for 17 years.(correction: 18 years) When I started at Sun I had two little girls 3 and 7 and my last name was Brown. Now 17 years later my youngest is going into her last year of college and will turn 21 in a few months, and my oldest has just finished two years of teaching elementary school. My life has changed dramatically. Having been divorced and remarried my last name is now Vermazen. 17 years is in a very real sense a life time. My time at Sun has been an amazing roller coaster. A high point has been working with absolutely phenomenal people who just awe me with their creativity, hard work and intelligence.

One of the things about working for a big company is that you can change jobs but not change employers. I've been a customer support manager, a software development manager, a configuration management manager, a real estate IT manger, and finally the IT director for Sun's iWork program. For most of these jobs I am very proud of what I accomplished. For a couple of them all I can say is that they were low points on the roller coaster and real learning experiences.

Sun is an absolutely amazing company that I will always be proud to have been a part of. I have almost always felt like I could make a difference here and I have never even for a moment doubted the reality of Sun's high ethical standards.

Finally I am so grateful that Sun introduced me to blogging. Creating a blog and being a part of Sun's blogging community has been so much fun. I think I am hooked for life and I just hope I can create a successful blog away from the warm and nurturing environment of blogs.sun.com. Here is the link to my new blog. I am also posting this entry there. For those who are reading this posting on the new blog here is a link to my Sun blog. I don't know how long it will be around.

Friday May 27, 2005

Renaissance People

I often read books or articles that advise you to find your passion, focus and become an expert. That advice has never worked for me. That is why James Governor's blog about the need for the reemergence of Renaissance People really resonated for me. I have always resisted being a specialist. My goal is to have a wide range of knowledge. I get bored focusing on just one topic.

Monday May 23, 2005

Food, Wine and Friends

Saturday night I went out for dinner with two friends I have known for 30 years. Pat, Linda and I were celebrating Pat's birthday which was earlier this month. As usual when the three of us go out it was a special evening. Pat is a connoisseur of wonderful restaurants so we often eat at some truly great places. Saturday night we ate at Manresa in Los Gatos. The evening started with a bit of serendipity. When I arrived to pick up Pat and Linda we realized we were color coordinated. Pat and I each had on chartreuse jackets and Linda's pants were a similar color. When the Maitre D asked what the occasion was we laughed and told him we were starting a secret society.

The menu at Manresa was highly conducive to a great evening of food, wine, and conversation with friends. We had the four course dinner paired with wines. We each picked four things off the menu. Each item came with a glass of wine selected to go with that item. I had the Spanish Mackerel with orange and leeks, the Black Cod, the Beef short ribs with onions and morels, and the Warm Pecan Tart with Brown Butter ice cream. In addition they brought us each four taste treats throughout the evening. One of the them was a parmesan churro. All the courses were small enough that we weren't uncomfortably full at the end of the evening but we were very very satisfied.

The decor was understated elegance and the service was superb. What I love about a meal like we had Saturday night is how wonderful it is to sit and talk with friends and relax over three hours of fantastic food, great wine and the great conversation.

Thursday May 12, 2005

Empathy

I'm empathetic. I feel what others are feeling. When I was a kid I used to cry when my siblings got in trouble. I absolutely hate watching suspense in movies or on TV it bothers me way too much. I also dislike watching shows like the Jamie Kennedy Experiment where people are put in embarrassing, uncomfortable positions. They are almost painful. I just can't watch.

I guess it is not surprising, but I realized a few years ago that books impact me the same way. When I read a piece of literature I become involved in what I am reading. So now I stop reading a book if I realize it is depressing me or putting me in a really bad mood. Occasionally I feel like I need to finish the book. For example The Book of Salt by Monique Truong made me feel isolated but I finished it anyway. But when I started reading Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee(It was this month's book club book.) I decided to stop after 80 pages. The main character is a man who does a very stupid thing at the beginning of the book. I found when I read the book I was getting mad at my husband who of course didn't even know what was happening in the book. On top of that the book was depressing me. I didn't go to the book club meeting but my friend Linda who did said that everyone agreed that it was a very powerful book that was also very depressing.

Empathy has its down sides but it also can be an asset. Because I am empathetic I am often good at bringing people together, understanding multiple points of view and developing and communicating solutions that work.

Wednesday May 11, 2005

The Getty

This past weekend we flew down to Los Angeles. Duke and his girls had college registration stuff to do. On Saturday I hung out with Shan and helped her produce her first ever resume. On Sunday we all went to the Getty. I've been there before but it was as wonderful as I remembered. If you have never been there I highly recommend it. It is not just the art which includes stunning pieces from Monet, Van Gough, Renoir, Raphael., Rembrandt, Warhol, and Michelangelo but it is also the setting. Architecturally it is wonderful and it sits on top of a mountain overlooking Los Angeles and the Pacific. If you are ever in LA it should be at the top of your list of places to go. And other than $7 for parking it is free!

Tuesday May 03, 2005

I passed!

Back in mid March I took the two day certified finanacial planner exam. I invested a lot of time and money in preparing for the exam, so I am very happy to report that the results were posted yesterday and I passed!

Monday May 02, 2005

The Tech Challenge

Saturday we went to watch the Tech Challenge at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. My daughter, Allison coached two teams from San Antonio, the school where she teaches in East San Jose. The fifth graders were the Fire Fighting Water Hawks and the sixth graders were the Reservoir Dogs 2005. Both teams did a great job and the sixth grade team accomplished the challenge. They are already discussing next year. Congratulations to both teams on a job well done!

Sunday April 24, 2005

Broken Computer

The monitor on my Gateway PC has quit working. The computer is only 16 months old so this quite disappointing to say the least. I called Gateway yesterday to see how much it would cost to fix it and it was something like $700. So the question is do I try to fix it myself or do I just buy a new computer. Another option would be to just use the monitor from Duke's old computer. I just want my computer to work!

Tuesday April 12, 2005

The space shuttle is 24

The first space shuttle was launched 24 years ago today. I remember that one of the big concerns was that the solid rocket boosters had never been tested in flight. Watching the space shuttle launch for the very first time was thrilling.

But, you might ask, why do I remember this so well? It is because my oldest daughter was born 24 years ago today. It was a VERY memorable day and one of the happiest of my life.
Happy Birthday Allison!!

Friday April 08, 2005

The challenge of being a teacher

My daughter is a second year teacher with the Teach for America program. She teaches elementary school in the Alum Rock School District She has 34 students in her class. Two of them are at grade level and 28 of them are 2 to 3 years below grade level. 100% of them are non native English speakers who for the most part do not speak English at home. Two of her students are new comers to this country who, when they joined her class, spoke virtually no English. One of the reasons Allison joined TFA was to find out first hand why things are so bad in so many low income class rooms in this country.

She tells me that the problem has a multitude of root causes. I guess that is not surprising. Her students start school with so much less than students in the elementary school that Allison went to just 20 miles from her current school. They often come with little or no English skills. Kindergartners don't know how to open a book and don't know the alphabet. Children have to be taught to read left to right. The language spoken on the playground is not English. Most students only hear English from their teachers. They have no other English language role models. The parents can't communicate with the school because of the language issues.

The teachers do everything at Allison's school. In the elementary school that Allison went to as a child there were a lot of parent volunteers. Many students at that school had a stay at home parent. These parents did everything from aiding in the classroom to bringing in food for class room celebrations. At Allison's current school many of the parents work more than one job and the teachers do it all in the classroom. There are a lot of amazing teachers in her district who work very hard. They have an enormous challenge.

There are lots more stories. Stories of the gangs, the students with relatives in prison, the students who think that America doesn't allow immigrants to get driver's licenses, the student who babysits for her siblings after school and so they all often hang out in Allison's classroom, the parent who often brings Allison dinner, the teacher who has taught at the school for over 20 yaers and has been a wonderfully effective coach for beginning teachers and on and on.

Allison is coaching two teams from her school for the Tech Challenge competition at the San Jose Tech Museum. This morning she did a presentation to the board of the Tech Museum about her experience leading a team from her school. I went to the competition last year. It was clear that pretty much all the other teams were from affluent schools with lots of parental involvement. It was a great experience for her kids.

Allison is doing the Accelerated Reader program from Renaissance Learning in her class room. She likes the program. The kids read books and then take a quiz on the computer. Last quarter she had three kids reach their goals. This quarter, which ends today, she had 15 kids reach their goal. She is deciding what reward to give these kids. She is thinking about $15-$20 gift certificates to Hicklebees or or Borders She may even take the kids to the store to make their purchases.

The big question is how to pay for the gift certificates. One idea she and her room mates were discussing was to use donorchoose.com I had never heard of it before last night and then I saw an article about it in the Wall Street Journal this morning. It is a really great program that matches proposals submitted by teachers with people who want to help. Allison hasn't used it before but her room mates who are also teachers have. They say it is great.

Listening to Allison's stories over the last two years has been enlightening and heartbreaking. I wish there was a way to end this posting with a summation of the problem and the solution. But there isn't.

Wednesday April 06, 2005

Who is this person?

Do you have the same experience I do? You follow a link to a blog you don't usually read. You find it interesting and think you might want to subscribe to it. You say to yourself, Who is this person? And then you are stuck. From their blog it is impossible to get any context for what you are reading. Who do they work for? What is the focus of this blog?

So I've changed the header of my blog to be a little bit more enlightening. Is there anything else you think I should provide to give people a frame of reference when they stumble on this blog for the first time?

Sunday March 27, 2005

Wine Country Weekend

We just got back form a wonderful away weekend up in the Napa Valley and environs. It was Duke's birthday present and the first time we have been away for a weekend in quite a while. We really enjoyed ourselves. We stayed in St Helena in a beautiful bed and breakfast, The Adagio Inn. The window seat on the front page of their web site was in our bedroom and we had wine in the living room both Friday and Saturday evenings. On Friday night we talked to two couple from Atlanta who were out for the weekend. They couldn't get over how lush California is. The hills and fields are very green right now. The fact that the hills will be brown in a few months makes the lushness all the more wonderful right now. The breakfasts at The Adagio, cooked by Polly Keegan, the innkeeper and owner, were amazing. Each breakfast included several dishes and was served on the sunny side porch. I think my favorite dishes were the asparagus omelet and the morning glory muffin.

Friday night we had dinner at Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen. We started with the asparagus soup and the Avocado & Papaya Salad with baby mache, arugula, hazelnuts and papaya seed dressing. For the main course Duke had the Wood Oven Duck with crispy potato croquettes and citrus sauce and I had the Grilled Pork Tenderloin with brussels sprouts, Yukon Golds & whole grain mustard sauce. We ended with a wonderfully rich butterscotch nut pie. It was an exceptional meal. I was especially struck by how the chopped up brussels sprouts with my pork tenderloin just added to the flavor. Brussels sprouts whole can often be over powering. One of the great things about staying in a little town like St Helena is that you don't have to worry about sharing a bottle of wine and then driving. The few block walk after dinner back to The Adagio was just right.

Saturday we did a bit of wine tasting. None of it was particularly memorable and I was struck by how crowded and commercial the wine tasting rooms in the Napa valley are. I was surprised that they pretty much all charge for tasting now. It didn't used to be that way. In the afternoon we headed north. As soon as we got into the Alexander valley the wineries were much smaller and more friendly and the tasting was free. We stopped at a casino near Geyserville and played some blackjack. It was fun but would have been more fun if we had won. I guess you shouldn't expect to always win.

Saturday night we ate in the wine cellar bar of The Martini House Restaurant. We had a late lunch at the casino so we just had drinks and food from the bar menu at the Martini House. I ordered calamari and Duke ordered a mushroom dish that we can't remember the name of. We sat at the bar in the small cozy basement. The people were all very friendly. It was a wonderful end to the day and to top it off as we walked back to the Adagio the full moon was coming up above the clouds.

Today we explored the backroads, walked around donwtown Napa and got home about three just as it started raining.

Sunday March 20, 2005

I'm Done!

I just finished taking the Certified Financial Planner exam. It was a two day exam, four hours on Friday and six hours with a one hour lunch break on Saturday. I've been studying a lot since the first of the year but I don't know if I passed. It is a very tough exam and the pass rate is only about 60%. Right now I am just glad to be done. I can stop thinking about S corps, QTIP trusts, AMT preference items, SEPs and bond duration for a while. If you are wondering why I'm doing this when I already have a Sun job I like I can refer you to this blog entry from a couple of months ago.

I've got a whole list of ordinary things I get to start doing again like reading, hiking, seeing friends, and playing the piano. I want to finish all the books I put on hold. The three at the top of my list are Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond,and The Book of Salt by Monique Truong.

I read an interesting article by Bill Alpert in the March 18, Barron's Technology Week. The article was titled titled Feeling the Heat from Digital River. Unfortunatly you need to be a Barrons subscriber to read the article online. In essence what Alpert said was that the company Digital River sent a letter to the Minneapolis based brokerage firm of Miller, Johnson, Steichen, Kinnard demanding that MJSK drop coverage of the company forever or be faced with a lawsuit. This happened after the brokerage firm down rated the shares to sell. The article is worth reading in full. Based on the article the actions of the Digital River people were very wrong. But what struck me was that if someone at MJSK had a blog where they discussed the threat, there would probably be an online discussion and in fact a backlash. I think it is interesting to imagine how blogs could help a relatively small company fight actions that are clearly wrong by shining the light of blogdom on them.

Saturday March 05, 2005

We were Robbed!

Thursday night Duke went to the High School Open House and I decided to work late. When I got home the back door was wide open. I thought that was odd but I was hungry so I closed the door, fixed myself some dinner, and turned on the TV. When Duke got home about 8:30 I asked him if he had left the door open. He said no, so we assumed it was one of the kids. He went upstairs and then I heard him shout “We've been robbed!”

The upstairs had been ransacked. Every door and cupboard was open and stuff was all over the floor. There have been other robberies in our neighborhood and this guy only takes cash and jewelry. He took all our jewelry, including the kids stuff. He took some cash out of Duke's desk and he took a laptop computer. Luckily I am not much of a jewelry person so the $$ value of what was taken isn't too bad but the sentimental value is another story. I had never really thought about how jewelry tells the story of ones life.

There was the gold locket my grandmother gave me when I was born. I kept pictures of my daughters in it. Every time I looked at it I thought of the grandmother for whom I was named.

There was my Clayfield College badge. We lived in Brisbane, Australia for 5 years when I was growing up. It is the badge I work on my uniform from 6th grade on. It reminded me of a very happy time.

There was my Delta Zeta sorority pin. It reminds me of all the wonderful women I lived with in college at Iowa State.

There was Duke's paper boy of the year award. To understand its significance you have to know that we met on Match.com. He was on the three day free trial and I was hesitant to give him my real email address. One of the things that he used to convince me was that he had been a paper boy in Iowa when he was growing up.

There were beautiful earrings and a crystal broach given to me by a wonderful group of people I managed at Sun. They gave the earrings to me when I moved on to my new job. Later they gave the broach to me as a wedding present. Every time I wore them I thought of those friends.

There was the gold watch I got as a gift to commemorate working at Sun for fifteen years. It needed new batteries or I would have been wearing it.

There was the little antique silver golf club pin that I bought at an antique store in Woodstock, England on a business trip at Christmas time many years ago. I still remember how beautiful the village was and how much I enjoyed talking to the shop owner about his father who had been a silver smith and created the pin.

We are lucky that it wasn't a lot worse. What if the guy had still been here when I got home. Or he could have taken all our cameras and electronics. I can put it in perspective but still it makes me sad to lose the mementos of my life.

Wednesday March 02, 2005

Happy Birthday Duke!

I bet you think I am going to talking about Sun's mascot. Sorry, but if that's what you're thinking you are wrong!

Today is my wonderful Husband's birthday. He wasn't born Duke but that's been his name for most of his adult life. I'd think it was very cool to be married to Duke even if I didn't work at Sun. But working at Sun and being married to Duke is just icing on the cake ;-)There is another cool way our names are connected. Can you guess? If not go here. Marion and Duke.

Anyway Happy Birthday Duke!!