Katy Dickinson

6 Simultaneous SEED Mentoring Terms

Greg Papadopoulos (Sun's Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development) yesterday sent out the email announcement on the most recent SEED Engineering mentoring term. Greg has been the executive sponsor for the Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development program since it started in 2001.

The new "4-Site" term is for Sun Engineering Staff in Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg. I am working here in Bangalore so that I can answer questions from the staff at this and the other 3 sites during the 1-14 March application period. I give my first formal presentation to the IEC (India Engineering Centre) managers tomorrow morning. There will also be two formal phone-in meetings (on 6 March and on 13 March) during which Tanya Jankot and I will answer questions from potential applicants and their managers.

SEED is now running 6 mentoring terms:

1. 4-Site Term (June-December 2007) application period starts tomorrow
2. Distinguished Engineer Mentoring Pilot (March - September 2007) in mentor matching cycle
3. SEED-2 Program for SEED Alumni Participants (March - September 2007) in mentor matching cycle
4. Established Staff Participants (January - June 2007)
5. Recent Hire Staff Participants (September 2006 - September 2007)
6. Established Staff Participants (September 2006 - March 2007) ending soon

This is as many terms as SEED can run at the same time with its current structure. Hand-matching participants and executive mentors is limited by the number of executives available at any time. Also, very senior participants (and the very senior potential mentors they require) often take longer to match. The more terms SEED offers for senior staff (Established Staff, DEs, SEED-2), the longer the matching cycle and potentially the fewer terms offered.

Posted at 02:05AM Feb 28, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Auto Rickshaws, Bangalore

Josh Simons sent me a link to his interesting blog entry and photos on Bangalore Traffic from last summer. Listening to the beep-beep of the auto rickshaws in the street below, John said they sound and look like budgies - little bright parakeet birds flitting about and cheeping constantly.

Posted at 06:32PM Feb 27, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Initial Impressions, Bangalore

When we went to the Sun office at Divyasree Chambers this afternoon, everything just worked: our access badges got us past the guards and the electronic doors, and my Sun Ray card brought up my home environment and current email session immediately. It was especially pleasant to have so many people I know come by to visit on our first day in Bangalore.

Except for the polite-but-very-pushy airport porters, the local people with whom we have spoken have been very friendly and helpful. My ignorance of the complexities of Indian culture, language, and religion is largely pristine but I am working to learn a little.

Business hotels try to reduce the inefficiencies and disorientation of travel by being mostly the same from place to place: making a cocoon of dull consistency despite all of the local differences. The hotel rooms that John and I stayed in while in Beijing and St. Petersburg have much in common with this one in Bangalore. Some of what is different here:

• Intermittent power failures (about a minute each every hour or so)
• Intermittent web access (five or more "Save as Draft" attempts for every actual blog save)
• Large numbers of hotel desk and door staff, all speaking good English and all wanting to help
• Wrapped plate of cookies and chocolates on the desk
• Bright and ugly original pallet knife paintings rather than ignorable prints for decoration
• A large amount of counter space given over to food and drink: hot water pot, tea cups, glasses (on the counter and still more in a drawer), hotel food and alcohol displayed for sale on special shelves, etc.
• Almost no drawer or shelf space (we have to use our suitcases as drawers)
• A strange freestanding metal and hanging pocket piece of furniture which I think is for storing magazines (we are using it as a rack for the hotel bathrobe which was taking up too much closet space)
• Local cooking influencing standard dishes. Tonight, we were too tired to go out for dinner so we ate in the hotel. They were offering their version of an Italian menu. John had Chicken Tikka pizza and I had spaghetti pomodoro with a distinct taste of curry in the marinara sauce. It was a good fusion.

Now that we have settled in a bit, we need a local bank to accept our ATM cards. We talked with our home bank before we came but still none of our cards work here.

One of the books on India I enjoyed reading most was Traveller's Tales: India, True Stories (Edited by James O'Reilly and Larry Habegger, ISBN-13: 978-193236101-4, Traveller's Tales, 2004). This is part of a book series offering excerpts of stories and commentary from a wide variety of experiences and points of view. Some of the section titles:

"A Bath for Fifteen Million People" by David Yeadon
"Hobson-Jobson" by Salman Rushdie
"Worshipping the Wicket" by John Ward Anderson
"A Vision of Vijayanagar" by Jan Haag
"Lost and Found in Agra" by Joel Simon
"Shalom, Bombay" by Fredda Rosen
"In the Ladies' Compartment" by Thalia Zepatos
"Shifting Gears on the Grand Trunk Road" by Steve Coll

Posted at 01:02PM Feb 27, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Working in Bangalore, India

John and I arrived in Bangalore, India, very early this morning after two uneventful flights (San Francisco-Frankfurt, Frankfurt-Bangalore). The flight to Frankfurt showed Hollywood movies but the screen on the United 747 was so far away we could not see a thing. The Lufthansa flight to Bangalore showed Bollywood movies fraught with romance, followed by Mickey Mouse cartoons. I haven't seen many Bollywood movies but they remind me of early Shakespeare comedies, particularly of Comedy of Errors. In the Bollywood movies I have seen, the emotions are simple, the plots complex, and there are great opportunities for staging, costumes, and sets.

Our hotel is pleasant but even on the 6th floor, we can hear the incessant beep-beep-beep of the cars in the busy street below. The 3 wheeled yellow auto rickshaws are particularly noticeable as they dart between the cars, motorcycles, trucks, bicycles, and busses. There are relatively few pedestrians. Even in the middle of the night coming in from the airport, the driver beeped constantly at the mostly empty street.

We are catching up on our email in the hotel before going into work. The plug adapter we brought from home broke immediately so we borrowed one from the hotel. We had to ask the guy who cleaned our room how to get the electrical plug into the wall socket (you stick something in the ground pin hole to move the cover away). Wanting to use two laptops in one room surprised the hotel but they adapted (and charged double).

I was here in Bangalore 3 years ago at a different hotel but both served extensive and varied breakfasts as part of the regular rate. Since we will be here for several weeks, we will get to try everything on the menu. Today, John asked for a masala dosa with sambar (spicy vegetable soup), and cocoanut and tomato chutney. It was very good.

Posted at 11:27PM Feb 26, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

SEED Matching Status

The SEED Engineering mentoring program here at Sun is currently matching two very senior terms: SEED-2 (for alumni SEED participants who wanted a subsequent mentoring partnership), and the Distinguished Engineer (DE) term. The DE term is for a group of newly promoted DEs to work with more experienced DEs.

7 of the new Distinguished Engineers have now been matched with DE-mentors. I have 4 more to match. 5 of the SEED-2 alumni participants have also been matched with mentors. 5 to go in that term. It is harder and takes longer to match very senior staff since they need to be paired with the most senior executives. I will continue to work on matching these terms while kicking off the application period for the SEED 4-Site Term (for Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg) this week from India.

Posted at 08:32AM Feb 25, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Pancake Supper, Budget, Mission Charter

This busy week in my church life started on Sunday with preparations for the Shrove Tuesday pancake supper and races. My daughter will be in college next year so she wanted to manage the event once more before she goes. John and Jessica made pancake batter early and left it in a 5 gallon bucket in the church kitchen refrigerator. (Of course, it expanded out of the bucket and made a mess but the pancakes made with the remaining batter tasted very good.)

Jessica then organized more than a dozen cooks, servers, and cleaners to put on the annual celebration held on the day before the start of Lent. I wrote about the 500+ year history of Pancake Races in my blog before. This year's event was also fun and a success. We asked people to donate what they thought the simple dinner was worth and collected over $241- to go toward the Youth Group's Mission Trip to work on cleaning up New Orleans.

Thursday, I attended the first meeting of the Diocese of El Camino Real 2008 budget committee. Saturday, I ran the meeting for the Department of Intercultural Evangelism and Mission (DIEM) of which I am the Convener. DIEM is changing its name and structure over this next year into the Department of Missions. So, in addition to planning our department's 2008 budget submission to support the 13 Central Coast missions, we also set up an additional meeting to work out the details of our new charter.

I think all is prepared for my working from India in the next few weeks. It will be interesting getting email on these local church activities while working in such a different place.

Posted at 08:24AM Feb 25, 2007 by katysblog in Church  | 

Caboose Approved!

John and Paul and I and one of our neighbors were in the San Jose City Council chambers this morning at 9 a.m. for the hearing on our Development Variance to move caboose WP668 into our yard as an "accessory structure". It was approved on the Consent Agenda without discussion! Hooray!

The Permit will be signed this week. Some of the entertaining parts of the 7 page long document:

• Finding: "4. This Variance, subject to such conditions as may be imposed thereon, will not impair the utility or value of adjacent property or the general welfare of the neighborhood, and will not impair the integrity and character of the zoning district in which the subject property is situate in that the reduced setback will facilitate development of an unusually shaped, small lot that might otherwise remain undeveloped into perpetuity and will be compatible with the adjacent residential neighborhood."
  I think this means this project does not mess up the current land use or access.

• Finding: "6a...the proposed use at the location requested will not:... Adversely affect the peace, health, safety, morals or welfare of persons residing or working in the surrounding area..."
  Morals?

• Conditions: "11f...This is a habitable space...."
  "13...Accessory buildings... shall not contain conditioned space, living space, or sleeping quarters."
  That is, WP668 is a habitable space but not a living space.

Next step: ask for a Building Permit from San Jose's Chief Building Official. After we have the Building Permit, we can move the caboose!

Posted at 04:43PM Feb 21, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Gardening and Karel Capek

I have been preparing my garden for me to be away in India for several weeks. We have arranged for a housesitter and our daughter will also check in on our plants and pets (2 dogs, 2 cats, and a bird) but other than "mow-and-blow" upkeep, no actual gardening will be done. I have put down weed cloth and mulch and trimmed and tidied and hope that all is in readiness.

We have about 1/4 acre of yard and garden (including 170 feet of the Guadalupe riverbank) and all the plants and trees have just woken up for Spring. My almond trees are in full bloom, the jessamine vine flowers are just opening, the orange, apricot, and peach are in bud and I have pots and beds of daffodils and narcissus cheerfully nodding in day's warm breeze. The weeds and stray grass are working to colonize any bare ground; snails and slugs are always with us. My garden is still recovering from the long hard frost we had last month. There are sections of bougainvillea and trumpet vine and bird of paradise which are yellow brown. I am not sure yet whether these hardest-hit plants will sprout green soon or are as dead as they look. By the time we are back, I will know.

Karel Capek is most famous for having introduced and made popular the word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921. However, my favorite Karel Capek work is The Gardener's Year from 1929. Here is Capek's description of a dedicated gardener leaving on vacation:

[The amateur gardener] departs, however, with a heavy heart, full of fears and cares for his garden; and he will not go until he has found a friend or relation to whom he entrusts his garden for that time.

"Look here," he says "there is nothing to be done now in the garden in any case; if you come and look once in three days, that will be quite enough, and if something here and there is not in order, you must write me a card, and I will come. So, I am relying on you then? As I said, five minutes will be enough, just a glance round."

Then he leaves, having laid his garden upon the heart of an obliging fellow-creature. Next day the fellow-creature receives a letter: "I forgot to tell you that the garden must be watered every day, the best times for doing it are five in the morning and towards seven in the evening. It is practically nothing, you only fasten the hose to the hydrant and water for a few moments. Will you please water the conifers all over as they stand, and thoroughly, and the lawn as well? If you see any weeds, pull them out. That's all."

A day after: "It's frightfully dry, will you give every rhododendron about two buckets of tepid water, and each conifer five buckets, and other trees about two buckets? The perennials, which are now in flower, ought to have a good deal of water -- write by post what is in flower. Withered stalks must be cut off! It would be a good thing if you loosened all the beds with a hoe; the soil breathes much better then. If there are plant-lice on the roses, buy tobacco extract, and syringe them with it while the dew is on, or after a rain. Nothing else need be done at present."

...
The sixth day: "I am sending you by express post a box of plants from the country.... They must go into the ground at once.... At night you ought to go into the garden with a lamp and destroy snails. It would be good to weed the paths. I hope that looking after my garden doesn't take up much of your time, and that you are enjoying it."

In the meantime the obliging fellow-creature, conscious of his responsibilities, waters, mows, tills, weeds, and wanders round with the box of seedlings looking where the devil he can plant them; he sweats, and is muddied all over; he notices with horror that here some damned plant is fading, and there some stalks are broken, and that the lawn has become rusty, and that the whole garden is somehow looking blasted, and he curses the moment when he took upon himself this burden, and he prays to Heaven for autumn to come.

And in the meantime the owner of the garden thinks with uneasiness of his flowers and lawns, sleeps badly, curses because the obliging fellow-creature is not sending him reports every day on the state of the garden, and he counts the days to his return, posting every other day a box of plants from the country and a letter with a dozen urgent commands. Finally he returns; still with the baggage in his hands he rushes into his garden and looks round with damp eyes -- "That laggard, that dolt, that pig,'' he thinks bitterly, "he has made a mess of my garden!" "Thank you", he says dryly to his fellow-creature, and like a living reproach he snatches the hose to water the neglected garden. (That idiot, he thinks in the bottom of his heart, to trust him with anything! Never in my life will I be such a fool and an ass to go away for the holidays!)

While I am in the Garden City of Bangalore, I know I will enjoy being where I am (and not behave like Capek's gardener!). I will visit the Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens and maybe bring back new gardening ideas.

Posted at 09:56PM Feb 19, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Getting Ready to Work from India

We will be running a SEED mentoring term application period while I am working from Bangalore, India 1-14 March. Tanya Jankot has been testing the web application forms and I am reviewing SEED's Application FAQ this afternoon.

We have also set up times for two phone-in meetings for Sun applicants from all four target Engineering sites: Prague, Beijing, St. Petersburg, and Bangalore. The World Clock Meeting Planner has been of great help. There is no time which is convenient for everyone and most of the USA is going through a daylight savings time shift on 11 March, so schedules are particularly complex. I am thinking of setting up SEED question and answer calls for:

• 6 March (Tuesday) 10 a.m. Bangalore time
  (=8:30 p.m. California, =12:30 p.m. Beijing, =5:30 a.m. Prague, =7:30 a.m. St.Petersburg)
• 13 March (Tuesday) 9:30 p.m. Bangalore time
  (=9 a.m. California time, =midnight Beijing time, =5 p.m. Prague, =7 p.m. St.Petersburg)

My husband, John Plocher, who manages the process and tools for Sun's Architectural Review Committees will also be working from Sun's India Engineering Center. We got our visas, hotel reservations and plane tickets, and are both setting up our secondary electronic accounts, requesting Sun Bangalore building access upgrades, arranging for office assignments during our stay, and otherwise trying to make the transition to working in India easier. In addition to work, John and I plan to go railfanning while in India and we hope to visit some model train clubs and layouts as well. We are in an interesting email discussion with IRFCA (Indian Railways Fan Club) members now.

John and I visited the Travel Medicine department at our clinic several weeks ago and got punctuated. That is, we brought our immunizations up to date. Our clinic has a very helpful online service which provides summaries of visits and tests and lets us request appointments and renew prescriptions online. I can chart life events by looking at the dates of my immunizations: Typhoid and Hepatitis B to go to India in 2004, Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis (Tdap) after the Whooping Cough outbreak at my son's school this year, etc.

We are also reading travel and background books. The best train travel web site we have found is The Man in Seat Sixty-One. The India page of that site recommended reading the Lonely Planet guide, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and Peter Hopkirk's Quest for Kim. I think I have read Kim at least a dozen times so I am having a lovely time reading Quest for Kim (which describes the people, places, and history of that most famous adventure novel).

I have my little wooden pillar of Ashoka on my desk to remind me of India itself as I manage my way through the details of getting there. Soon, we actually start to pack!

Posted at 06:01PM Feb 16, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

Interviewing for College at Starbuck's

My daughter Jessica is now in the last half of her Senior year in High School. All of nine college applications are in. She just finished her final vocal audition last week and recently participated in two of the final three alumni interviews. She is still trying to arrange a time for that last interview.

Except for those at the university admissions offices, I think all of Jessica's interviews have been held at Starbuck's coffee shops. A friend of ours who does alumni interviews for his alma mater says that Starbuck's is sufficiently public that both the interviewer and candidate feel safe; also, there are lots of Starbuck's shops around and they are usually easy to find. (I am currently re-reading Moby Dick in which the moral but pliable first mate is named Starbuck. The coffee shop chain is named for him.)

We are still getting letters from schools saying they are missing information already sent. For one school, she sent in her musical profile three times before they acknowledged getting it. I suspect that some schools are not as organized as they require their applicants to be.

We will be happy to be done with waiting to hear back. All of the schools are supposed to give Jessica their acceptance or denial letters by 1 April. One interviewer told her they would say by 15 March. Another school asked her to apply for a binding early admission (she declined). A third college had a professor write her a personal letter about his new program. I think all of this communication means that at least some of Jessica's applications are well regarded. But I would still like to know for sure. I hate waiting.

We are sending in our 10th week summer Blue Camp Bear's Lair reservations without knowing whether Jessica will be able to go or if we will have to cut our camping short to move her into a dorm.

Posted at 06:14PM Feb 15, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]

SEED Mentoring Press and Publication History

Here are publications, articles, and announcements in the public press and on the open web about the SEED program. (I just updated the internal-to-Sun SEED web pages so I will include the information here too.) I have included live links where I could find them. There may be more articles but I don't know about them...

2007

• Ida Abbott Consulting Management Solutions Issue 17, Winter 2007 "Best Practices - Proving the Value of Mentoring" profiles SEED

2006

• "Success Metrics from Mentoring by the Numbers" Silicon Valley Chapter - Project Management Institute, description of talk by Katy Dickinson, December 14, 2006
• "Mentoring for Employee Development" National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Social Scientists picked SEED among Promising Practices as the Case Study in this report, 2006 (2 pages, PDF format)
• "Mentors can help women shatter glass ceiling - Senior colleagues can toot your horn, bringing you money and power" By Eve Tahmincioglu, MSNBC contributor, Nov 19, 2006 (there is a mentoring quote by me on the 2nd page)
• "20 ways to get promoted in the tech industry" By Dan Tynan, October 16, 2006, InfoWorld (SEED is part of "10. Find Your Yoda")
• "5 Years of Mentoring by the Numbers" 4-7 October 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, San Diego Program Schedule for GHC Session 1 - Thursday, October 5, 2006
  "5 Years of Executive Mentoring" TechLeaders - Building and Sustaining Change in Technology Cultures: Showcasing What Works (October 4, 2006, San Diego, CA)
• Information Week in Israel, 28 Feb 2006 (in Hebrew, with a photo)

2005

• "Outsourcing is essential for survival of companies" (SEED is mentioned), interview with Crawford W Beveridge, Executive Vice President (People & Places) and Chief Human Resource Officer interview, Deccan Herald > Economy & Business > Detailed Story, April 11, 2005

2004 and earlier

• "Bit by Bit: Mentoring & Practical Approaches to Advancing Women in High Tech" Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing ("GHC 2004") Moderator: Katy Dickinson, Sun Microsystems, SEED Program (Sun Engineering Enrichment & Development) 7 October 2004
• Rhonda Holt (VP of Grid Engineering Program Office) interview, DiversitySearch - Up Close & Virtual Interviews, 2004 (mentions SEED)
• "SEED: Sun engineering enrichment & development" Research Disclosure Database Number 482013, defensive publication in Research Disclosure, Published in June 2004, Electronic Publication Date : 17 May 2004 10:45,
• "Nurturing a Culture of Innovation" Express Computer May 2004 article on SEED program and participants in India Engineering Center (IEC) in Bangalore
• "Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters Growth New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior Staff Mentors" Paragon Pinnacles > Volume 73 > Issue 3 > Sun Features > (March 15, 2004, Article #12480, Volume 73, Issue 3)
• "Sun Engineering Enrichment and Development Program Fosters Growth - New Hires, Experienced Staff Work with Senior Staff Mentors" Sun System News, March 15, 2004, Article #12480, Volume 73, Issue 3
• "Tapping into the Knowledge Network" www.sun.com article on SEED, 18 Feb 2004 [was featured on both the www.sun.com and research.sun.com home pages]
• "Sun (SEED) program pairs college recruits with senior engineering mentors, 23 Feb 2004 link to "Tapping into the Knowledge Network" www.sun.com article from LSTN (Learning & Teaching Support Network for Engineering section on "UK & World Media News"- now called The Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre)
• "Mentoring and Being Mentored on the Technology Track" By Carla King, published on "developers.sun.com - The Source for Developers", 2003 [Now called Sun Developer Network or SDN]
• Bit by Bit: Catalyst's Guide to Advancing Women in High Tech Companies, SEED is the featured case study in the "Use Mentoring and Networks to Win" section (page 106), book published by Catalyst, 2003, ISBN 0-89584-243-2

Posted at 02:06PM Feb 15, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Teatro Zinzanni for Valentine's Day

My husband John and I drove north to San Francisco yesterday to go to Teatro Zinzanni for Valentine's Day. (Yes, I know we were celebrating early but the show is sold out for today.) Teatro Zinzanni is at Pier 29 on the Embarcadero, under Coit Tower. Traffic was surprisingly light so got there early. Although I am a native born San Franciscan, I had never been inside Coit Tower. The murals around the inside were well worth seeing but watching the sun set from the top of the tower was even better.

Teatro Zinzanni has locations in Seattle (where they started in 1998) and San Francisco. They describe themselves as "...a bewitching evening of European cabaret, cirque, divas and madmen, spectacle and sensuality with live music and a gourmet five-course dinner—set in the nightclub of your dreams!" It is hard to say who is a madman in San Francisco but the rest is true enough.

The dinner was very good and the courses were served long enough apart that we could enjoy both the food and the show. The performances reminded me of an upscale version of the circus, music, and dance shows offered by CounterPULSE. Teatro Zinzanni has the same energy and fun but with food, more expensive costumes, and less edgy or explicit humor.

Teatro Zinzanni's serving staff and performers were all in costume and character all 4 hours of the show. Someone would play a minor role in one skit only to be the star of the next. My two favorite acts were Andrew & Erika (who performed graceful and impressively athletic aerial acrobatics and dance) and Mat Plendl. Mat Plendl had a regular Teatro Zinzanni character named "Mr. Chou Chou" who was the silly and fussy Master of Ceremonies for the whole show. At the very end, he stripped off Mr. Chou Chou's costume to dance with hula hoops. Mat Plendl calls himself "The World's Greatest Hula Hoop Artist." He had about ten hoops whirling around his arms, legs, body and neck at one time. The different color lights on the metal hoops made delightful effects.

Members of the audience were brought into the show from time to time but those of us at the tables against the wall were thankfully spared the humiliation. The U-shaped back tables were a trick to slide into in a long dress but we had a good view. There wasn't much quiet time to talk so it was only slightly awkward spending 4 hours eating dinner with two very young couples we just met. I felt very old when singer Francine Reed sauntered by our table and said that the gentleman of the couple on our left looked like Bobby Sherman. I was the only one at the table who knew who 1970's teen idol Bobby Sherman was. (There was indeed a strong resemblance.)

With the cost of the tickets ($123/each) and ticket fees, and parking ($12 - exact change required for the ticket machine in the lot behind the theater tent), and drinks, the evening cost over $300. It is not too much for a very special night out.

Posted at 04:06PM Feb 14, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Family Photos

I just read Jonathan's Blog entry on "My Family Photos - and ODF" and was reminded of the months of work it took to prepare the family photo video we made for my father's 80th birthday last year. After reviewing thousands of pictures, I picked 586 to include in the final version. We made DVD copies for family members (and uploaded them to a photo storage web site) so at least those photos exist in more than one location but most of the images have never been copied and are stored in plastic boxes in my basement.

We called the 2006 video "80 Years of Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Wade Dickinson". Some of the photos are of historical importance (like the 3 we have from the one room schoolhouse he attended in Hickory Township, Pennsylvania, or the hand colored portrait of him as a West Point graduate) but most are of interest only to relations:

Wade in 1929:

One Room Schoolhouse 1931:

Car Fans 1942:

Wade at West Point 1947:

Our Family in 1964:

Wade in 1972:

Images Copyright 2006, Katy Dickinson

Posted at 01:50PM Feb 13, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Athletics and Disabilities

Today starts my son's 2nd week participating in track and field as a Freshman in High School. Since Paul has a rich variety of learning disabilities (social/cognitive, dyslexia, dysgraphia, etc.), sports is one of his hardest school subjects. Paul's disabilities aren't visible - he is a tall, hefty, and smart - which causes problems when he does not respond as expected. He went out for track and field because one of the coaches is also his Math teacher. They get along well and Math is Paul's best subject. We hope that having a coach who already understands Paul will help him stay with running.

Paul was on the wrestling team in 8th grade last year. His team mates wrestled to win but Paul wrestled to learn how to be on a regular sports team. He set himself goals for his matches like: 1) don't quit, 2) don't bleed. Paul's approach has much in common with the Athlete Oath for the Special Olympics:

Let me win. But if I cannot win,
let me be brave in the attempt.

It has been raining hard all afternoon but the coach told Paul last week that "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor hail..."* will stop training runs. I just talked to Paul on the phone and he said he was "wet, wet, wet, wet, wet," after running for hours in the rain. But he stuck it out!

* motto used by the U.S. postal service, adapted from Herodotus

Posted at 05:40PM Feb 12, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]

SEED Matching Status

The SEED Engineering mentoring program here at Sun is currently matching two very senior terms: SEED-2 (for alumni SEED participants who wanted a subsequent mentoring partnership), and the Distinguished Engineer (DE) term. The DE term is for a group of newly promoted DEs to work with more experienced DEs.

Both are pilots: experimental terms. I have matched five pairs out of the two terms so far: 3 mentor DEs with 3 mentee DEs, and two Vice Presidents with SEED-2 participants. I hope to get all 21 participants matched before I go to Bangalore, India at the end of this month to run the SEED 4-Site Term (for Bangalore, Beijing, Prague, and St. Petersburg).

Posted at 01:21PM Feb 12, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |