Christmas, Welding, Web Sites

On Monday night, Christmas Eve, we made fruitcake (mixed in a 5 gallon bucket), then went to evening service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Saratoga. The music was amazing. Yesterday, we celebrated Christmas at our house. Today, I learned to weld! It has been a busy time.

Our Christmas tree gained some new ornaments. There are now large sections of the tree featuring frogs, fish, trains, and teacups. In addition to presents in traditional paper wrappings and gift bags, we had some less physical gifts to share. My daughter Jessi learned one of our friend Laura's favorite Nora Jones songs ("Come Away With Me") then sang it for her. My husband John set up a dedicated URL and blog for Jessi - http://feelingelephants.com/. Jessi created a web page on Wordpress for her grandmother: Eleanor Dickinson.

John taught me MIG (metal inert gas) welding today so I can work on our backyard caboose (WP668) and make my own garden structures. Here is my first solo welding creation, a 2-1/2" tall steel box:

Here are more photos from our Christmas:

St. Andrew's

St. Andrew's choir

St. Andrew's star

Eleanor and Jessi making fruitcake

Jessi with fruitcake muffins

Our Christmas tree

Starfish Santa

NASA space monkey

The Misteltoad

John's Train

Angels

Jessi and Paul

Bride

Groom

Mouse and Santa Duck

Frog and Engine

Green Fish School

Fish, Teacups, Engine

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 11:43PM Dec 26, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
from My Family to Yours

Paul and Jessica

Eleanor and Wade

John and Katy

Birdie

Valentino

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson, John Plocher, Jessica Dickinson Goodman

Posted at 03:00PM Dec 24, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Dickens Christmas Fair & Cable Car Carolling in San Francisco

Last weekend, we enjoyed many of our family's traditional Christmas events, including: going to The Great Dickens Christmas Fair and singing carols on a cable car in San Francisco. We picked up my daughter Jessica and her boyfriend Matt at SFO airport on Wednesday. (They were due home from college Tuesday night but their second flight was cancelled and they had to stay over in Dallas, Texas, courtesy of American Airlines.)

On Saturday, Jessi and her friends dressed up to go to the Dickens Fair at the San Francisco Cow Palace. My mother and friend Laura went too. Sunday, we went to the Lessons and Carols service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Saratoga, then picked up Matt and drove to the city to sing carols with my parents. (Jessica revised our carols book this year.) We rode from Van Ness and California up and over Nob Hill to the Embarcadero. We walked around there to see the decorations before taking the cable car back. Today, my mother is coming to San Jose to assemble and bake fruitcakes. Tonight, we go to Christmas Eve service at St. Andrew’s. Christmas is at our house tomorrow; we are expecting 12 for dinner.

SFO: Jessica and Matt home from college

Dickens Fair - Mad Sal's Ladies' Oratorical and Recreational Society

Dickens Fair - Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance

Dickens Fair - Pirates of Penzance

Dickens Fair - Jessica and Friends

Dickens Fair - Dark Garden tableau

Dickens Fair - Dark Garden tableau

San Francisco cable car sign

Family Christmas carol song book

Eleanor and Paul with cable car

San Francisco cable car view

John and Paul singing

John and Eleanor singing

John and Jessica singing

Family with cable cars

Paul and Eleanor on cable car

Cable car on California

Giant red ornament plaza decorations

Paul inside red balls

Jessica inside red balls

Matt inside red balls

Family with red ornaments

Hyatt Regency sculpture and lights

Jessica and Matt pool reflections

Hyatt lights and tree

Hyatt tree and hanging lights

Paul and Jessica and Matt at Hyatt

Wade at Hyatt

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 10:44AM Dec 24, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]

Over 3/4 SEEDs Matched (39 out of 50)

I don't expect to match more than one or two more of the SEED mentoring program participants before the new year. The last match was on 20 December. We matched 78% (39 out of 50) participants in the first ten days of the cycle. I think this is a program speed record! However, most people are now home with their families and letting their email and work be for a while. This SEED Established Staff term will run January-July 2008.

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 10:42PM Dec 23, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Stained Glass Caboose Window

On Saturday, stained glass artist Vince Taylor came to visit. We met Vince at the Palo Alto Festival of the Arts years ago. He has made two lovely stained glass windows for us before; we just asked him to make three more for WP668, our backyard caboose. The new glass will fill the 3 bay windows (1 square center plus 2 long side lights) facing away from our house.

We talked about the mechanics of windows (amount of light, privacy, drainage, rain and wind protection, condensation, etc.) and design. As a place to start, I particularly like the piece Vince created for St. Patrick's Episcopal Church, Kenwood. I also asked Vince to include this 1974 image of WP668 as a design element in the center window:

Photo by Dave Stanley on p. 3: "Western Pacific Headlight" Issue #29, Spring 2006, Publisher: Feather River Rail Society and WPRRHS. Used with permission of Dave Stanley

It will take months to go from the bare steel we have to a completed stained glass window set in a custom wooden frame and protected by a sheet of tempered glass. Having worked with Vince before, the development process will be fun.

Posted at 03:35PM Dec 17, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Christmas Traditions: Lights, Trains, Nativity...

We are about a week away from Christmas and great preparations are being made. Last weekend, John and Paul put up our house lights. I worked on my living room Christmas train line (G-scale, eventually to be moved outside as pieces of my to-be-constructed garden railway), put together a candy cane flower arrangement shown in the December 2007 Sunset magazine, and wrapped presents. Jessica flies home from CMU tomorrow at midnight. We are in negotiations with friends and family as to who is coming with us to the The Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the San Francisco Cow Palace this Saturday. Christmas dinner menu offerings and logistics are being discussed...

Last night, John and I drove around Willow Glen (San Jose, CA) to see the Christmas lights. The new LED lights are very popular this year, as are the big lighted blowup figures, icicles, and musical light sets. Nothing shows off the taste of the neighborhood (or lack thereof) as what they do with their holiday lights. Here are some snapshots of our Christmas so far:

Our Bethlehem Olive Wood Nativity (with extra camels and angels)

Candy Canes and Roses

Tino posing for icanhascheezburger

My ladybug G-scale train engine

Living room train line

Living room train line

Our house lights

Victorian house Willow Glen Christmas lights

Willow Glen Christmas lights

Willow Glen Christmas lights

Willow Glen - turkey in Christmas lights

Willow Glen Christmas lights

Sponge Bob, Snowmen, Nativity, Deer, Santa, and just lights

Willow Glen Christmas lights

Willow Glen blow up Santa

Willow Glen snowman in lights

Willow Glen blow up Snowman

Willow Glen simple icicle lights

Willow Glen front yard home made Nativity

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 02:08PM Dec 17, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  |  Comments[1]

Over Half SEEDs Matched (26 out of 50) So Far

This morning, the current SEED matching cycle entered its second half. In our first week of matching, 27 out of the 50 mentoring program participants have been matched with mentors. This SEED Established Staff term will run January-July 2008. I want to make as many matches as possible before the term officially starts.

There will be very few matches after this coming week and typically there are no matches at all Christmas week, so I am doing my best to encourage potential mentors to give me their decisions very soon.

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 10:17PM Dec 16, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Peninsula School - A Successful Alternative

My daughter Jessica is almost done with her first Freshman semester at university. She is very happy and seems to be thriving. Over Thanksgiving, she and five school friends celebrated together by cooking meals for each other at a hotel in Washington, D.C. and playing cards when not cooking or touring the nation's capital. All of them were California kids who now attend Eastern colleges. Washington D.C. was a convenient meeting place for those who did not go west for the break.

It interested me that four of those who gathered were Jessica's friends from Peninsula School (Menlo Park, CA), and only one was a High School friend. Jessica attended Peninsula School from age three through 8th grade. Her group called itself the Uns (since they were in neither the Boys' group nor the Girls'). The bonds of comradery, communication, and trust formed by the Uns from the time they were barefoot little kids making mud pies together in Nursery Blue seem to be holding firm despite the High School and college diaspora. The Uns are still cooking together, using the skills they developed through many class camping trips with Peninsula School. From reading their blogs, these are capable and interesting young adults whose progress I admire.

Peninsula School is a "progressive" or "alternative" school, meaning their focus is on development rather than grades. (Jessica calls Peninsula her "hippie school".) In fact, Jessica did not get formal grades or take tests until she was in 8th grade and applying to High School. Nonetheless, she was regularly awarded high honors at Harker High School (she was entered into the Cum Laude Society) and is flourishing at Carnegie Mellon University where she is in the Humanities Scholars program and several CMU concert choruses.

With so many schools now teaching to the test and being obsessed with grades from the earliest grammar school years, Peninsula School is a good example of a better way. It is not a perfect choice but no school is. For example, Peninsula was as much the wrong choice for our son (who has serious learning disabilities) as it was a great choice for our daughter. Even though Peninsula was an excellent school for Jessica, it took several years for her Math knowledge to catch up to Harker's standards. (She is taking Calculus II at CMU next semester.)

Perhaps one of the hardest parts of being a Peninsula parent for 11 years was my quiet fear that Peninsula might be too much of an academic risk. That is, I shared a concern with some other parents that our children would not do well in more conventional schools. However, if my daughter's Peninsula School class is a representative (if small) example, Peninsula kids can compete very successfully in both standard and world-class rigorous academic environments.

Peninsula School is not the only successful alternative school. There were at least two kids in Jessica's Harker class who came to the prep school with a very different point of view. Jessica came from Peninsula and her best friend at Harker came from Ananda Living Wisdom school. It was interesting to see how both girls succeeded in the grade-conscious pressure cooker environment of Harker School. Despite their alternative school origins, both girls did well academically and were accepted into good colleges (Carnegie Mellon and U.C. Berkeley). Better still, neither has lost her creative flair, curiosity, or independence.

I was not sure if it was just these two girls who had blossomed from non-standard seed beds until I put together a list of where Jessica's Peninsula School classmates ended up after High School. From what I can tell, the whole class is now in college:

• Academy of Art University (San Francisco)
• Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, NY)
• California College of the Arts (San Francisco and Oakland, CA)
• Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA)
• Colorado College (Colorado Springs, CO)
• Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, CA) 2 going
• Portland State (Portland, OR)
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI, Troy, NY)
• Stanford University (Stanford, CA) 2 going
• Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA)
• University of California at Berkeley (Berkeley, CA)
• University of California at Davis (Davis, CA) 2 going
• University of California at Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA) 3 going
• Wesleyan (Middletown, Connecticut)

Pretty good for graduates of a "hippie school"!

Posted at 07:13PM Dec 13, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

12 Bugs of Christmas (SunCarolers)

The SunCarolers are strolling through our Menlo Park, CA campus right now. This is a Sun tradition of over 20 years' standing in which about twenty employees from all divisions and levels of seniority volunteer their voices for a traditional Christmas music program. "Traditional" harmonies include everything from the Mediaeval Latin "Gaudete" to the Silicon Valley favorite "The 12 Bugs of Christmas" which starts off with "For the first bug of Christmas, my manager said to me: See if they can do it again." and continues on...

1. See if they can do it again
2. Ask them how they did it
3. Try to reproduce it
4. Run with the debugger
5. Ask for a dump
6. Reinstall the software
7. Say they need an upgrade
8. Find a way around it
9. Blame it on the hardware
10. Change the documentation
11. Say it's not supported
12. Tell them it's a feature

Posted at 11:29AM Dec 13, 2007 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Smithsonian Air and Space, Washington DC Photos

Last week, I traveled to Washington DC in order to participate in the annual meeting of the Anita Borg Institute Technical Advisory Board. The first place I visited between meetings was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the national mall. This building seems to contains the first of everything: the actual planes and equipment, rarely models. Since 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, the Smithsonian had a special exhibit about the U.S.-Soviet space race, including a life size replica of Sputnik hanging from the ceiling. (It was borrowed from the Soviet space museum.) There is even a figure of Sally Ride, the first American Space Woman (whom I was thrilled to meet in person at the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing).

You can tell I am a native Californian because I take photos of snow...

Arriving with the first snow

George Washington head with snow

Rose in first snow

Washington Monument (mall with snow)

50 Years of the Space Age
with 1957 Sputnik

Smithsonian rockets

Smithsonian 1969 lunar lander

MacCready's 1977 Gossamer Condor

Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis 1927

Yeager's 1947 X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Wright Brothers' 1903 Flyer

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:39PM Dec 11, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

SEED Mentor Matching Starts: 9 So Far

Yesterday, I started matching the Participants and Mentors for the SEED Established Staff term which will run January-July 2008. I sent out the first fifty email invitations yesterday and got two acceptance emails immediately. We have 9 acceptances so far - 41 to go!

Everyone who is not yet matched now has the hard job of waiting patiently for potential mentors to reply. It will take about six weeks to match all fifty of the current SEED Participants. There will be very few matches during the last weeks of the year since so many people are on vacation.

The matching time for each individual varies quite a bit. Some people are matched within a day of the first SEED Mentor Request email going out, others take the full six weeks. Each potential Mentor may have multiple email, phone, or personal contacts with SEED program staff. Potential Mentors are contacted serially in the priority order given on the participant's Mentor Wish List. Each one may take a long time to respond and then decide. The time it takes to make a match partially depends on the number and seniority of Participants and the availability and seniority of the potential Mentors requested. Senior Participants and very senior potential Mentors often take longer to match. Senior Participants who represent the local maximum professionally (the "go-to person" for Sun on a topic) may be particularly difficult to match. If the Mentor and Mentee are matched after the actual start of the term, the mentoring partnership still lasts for six months from the match date, regardless of when the SEED term formally ends.

I will send out email and blog updates from time to time. The Participants are not kept informed of each step in the match process. Potential mentors need to have space and time to consider the possibilities of a mentoring partnership without risk of offending the potential Mentee or interfering with future communications with them or their manager.

More information on the SEED Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 01:14PM Dec 11, 2007 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Visiting Washington DC with the Anita Borg Institute

I am in Washington DC for the first time in about 35 years for the annual meeting of the Anita Borg Institute Technical Advisory Board, of which I have the honor to be a member. Before and after meetings, I have been walking around our capital city.

I am staying in a hotel in the Foggy Bottom Historic District, near George Washington University. It feels peculiar to write that I am staying in Foggy Bottom but then this is a city where every car license plate bears the phrase Taxation Without Representation to protest the District of Columbia's lack of representation in Congress. That is, the local government uses every car as a mobile political protest sign against the federal government which is based here... peculiar indeed.

Today, the flags are at half mast for Pearl Harbor Day. So far, I have visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Lincoln Memorial (a short walk from Foggy Bottom), the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial, the Korean Veterans Memorial, the F.D. Roosevelt Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the World War II Veterans Memorial, and the Washington Monument. That is, I have walked through some key sights in half of the National Mall. From the mound of the Washington Monument tonight, I could see the newly-lit national Christmas tree but my feet were too tired to walk over for a closer look.

It snowed heavily the first day I arrived and it continues cold and icy. This morning, three of us were going to walk from the hotel to our meeting room at the National Academy of Engineering but it started to sleet as we came through the door, so we took a cab. It was snowing again tonight as I walked around the Washington Monument.

It is inspiring to see the monuments of which I have only seen photos as they were opened over the years. The Lincoln Memorial and Viet Nam Memorial were particularly moving. The Lincoln Memorial is almost painfully lovely with its bright white stone lit up at night. Lincoln's words from his Gettysburg Address and second inaugural address are cut into the walls at either side of his statue:

Fondly do we hope - fervently do we pray - that this mighty sourge of war may speedily pass away ... With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

With its black stone slabs and ramp going down as into a grave, the Viet Nam Memorial reminded me of the Jewish Memorial Temple at the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich. My daughter visits Washington DC regularly now that she is in college in Pittsburgh, PA. She says that in the sunlight, the polished surface of the Viet Nam Memorial reflects your face back among the names of the war dead. If I have time tomorrow, I will try to go back to see this. The Vietnam Women's Memorial - a tribute to the nurses of that sad war that was fought during much of my childhood - also deserves a second look.

Posted at 08:55PM Dec 07, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

SAMA - St. Andrew's Medical Assistance

During the last two weekends, I helped SAMA - St. Andrew's Medical Assistance - in their annual sale of goods from the Holy Land. SAMA supports several medical programs in the Holy Land, including the Ahli Arab Hospital (the only Christian hospital in Gaza) and the Four Homes of Mercy (based in Jerusalem). Many of the crafts we were selling were created by Palestinian Christians.

On my two trips to Israel (in 1979 and in 2006), I purchased many crafts like those we were selling. In fact, our olive wood nativity set at home is now richer by three angels and two camels from the SAMA sale. Here are some photos:

SAMA Tile

Ahli Arab Hospital

Bishop Riah Abu-Assal

Holy Land goods for sale

Jerusalem tile

SAMA Donation Certificate

Palestinian cloth crafts

Palestinian puppets

Palestinian puppets

Palestinian cloth crafts

Olive nativity set

Olive nativity set

Silver and Gold crosses

Liz at the sales table

Holy Land goods for sale

Olive wood carvings

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:56PM Dec 04, 2007 by katysblog in Church  | 

Paul's Computer Drawings

On October 10, 2007, I posted two of my son Paul's drawings - one from 1999 and the other from his first High School Art class, this year. Below are three more images that Paul created on his laptop computer. Paul is 15 years old and spends time each day drawing on his laptop. Since he has a variety of learning disabilities, it is a joy to see him express himself so well artistically. Paul has also discovered Google SketchUp and is having a wonderful time drawing 3-D images (which are harder to show in a blog).

Three Towers

Loon

Nested Boxes

Images Copyright 2007 by Paul Dickinson Goodman

Posted at 12:21PM Dec 04, 2007 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Caboose Restoration Pictures

Here are some recent pictures from our restoration projects on WP668, our backyard caboose. Shown are: Chris and John welding in the new plate to replace the damaged bay window*, constructing the new stairs, John putting in the new electrical system, and me starting to paint the replacement markings. We received the stencils and will be using them to paint the new markings this week. I ordered the custom stencils from Stencils Online.

* pictured is Chris Gremich "The Iron Expert" of CG Designs in San Jose, CA, phone: 408-313-3706

Chris Gremich (welder)*:

Caboose Bay Window before:

Fitting new plate:

Clamps holding new plate inside:

Chris and John:

Bars holding new plate:

New plate welded in place:

Concrete pad for steps:

Making new steps:

New steps in place:

WP668 with new steps:

John putting in new electrical wires:

Electrical wire spools:

John wiring caboose:

Katy painting new markings:

Katy painting new markings:

Katy painting new markings:

Katy painting new markings:

First finished markings:

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Posted at 12:03AM Dec 04, 2007 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |