Katy Dickinson

WP668 Caboose Update

John and I are in a phase of caboose restoration where there are many fiddly not-very-photogenic projects. He has been installing the insulation and wood facing for the new wood window frame in the bay window cut out by the prior owner. We found leaks caused by that prior owner having drilled hard-to-find holes in the steel. It is a good thing we are doing this work during the rainy season. It would have been a pain to find out about these little holes after the wood facing was installed! We had enough original wood to replace the damaged facing above the intact bay window but we are using new wood for the other side.

Stained glass artist Vince Taylor brought by the new window frame. Vince is working on the design for the 3 windows he will install in WP668. See my December 17, 2007 blog entry for more.

I have been filling little holes in the walls with wooden pegs. Once the glue dries, I cut the excess peg flush with the wall then fill cracks with wood filler paste. Some holes are too small for pegs and just need the paste. 91 years of bolts, screws, and nails have left many dozen little holes. If it do it right, none of these will be visible once the walls are painted. Bigger holes are covered with round tin patches. About a dozen old patches were in place when we bought WP668 two years ago. Our cat Valentino is contributing the bottoms of his special treat cat food tins to the caboose restoration. Tino is happy to accept a treat whenever we need a patch.

Valentino

Bay Window Leak

Vince's window frame

Reused boards above old window

Pegs filling wall holes

Cat food tin wall patch

Images Copyright 2007-2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 11:09AM Jan 31, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

17 So Far - PreSEED Mentoring Pilot - Status

The PreSEED mentoring pilot program application web pages have been available for use since Sunday night (27 January).

So far, we have:

• Applicants: 17
• Completed Applications: 6
• By Work Location:
• Central USA: 4 [ 24% ]
• China: 4 [ 24% ]
• Eastern USA: 2 [ 12% ]
• France: 1 [ 6% ]
• India: 2 [ 12% ]
• Western USA: 4 [ 24% ]

Application materials should be submitted as soon as possible. The application period will close on 3 February 2008 (at Midnight, Pacific Time), or as soon as 100 complete applications are received. A complete web-based application includes 3-parts: the form, resume, and Manager's letter. The information in the application must pass verification. The first fifty (50) complete and verified applicants will be accepted into the PreSEED pilot program.

PreSEED's four General Selection Criteria are:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be "Sun Standard" (a 2) or better.
4. Manager support is required.

Tomorrow morning is PreSEED's world-wide phone-in discussion for applicants and their managers.

PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program. More information on SEED is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 07:11AM Jan 29, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[1]

The Daughter of Time

One of my favorite books is the Richard III mystery by Josephine Tey called The Daughter of Time, 1951. (The title comes from the old proverb that "Truth is the Daughter of Time".) In this excellent story about a detective's search for the truth about England's most famously evil king, the nature of written History is explored:

"'Truth isn't in accounts but in account books.'
'A neat phrase,' Grant said, complimentary, 'Does it mean anything?'
'It means everything. The real history is written in forms not meant as history. In Wardrobe accounts, in Privy Purse expenses, in personal letters, in estate books. If someone say, insists that Lady Whoosit never had a child, and you find in the account account book the entry: 'For the son born to my lady on Michaelmas eve: five yards of blue ribbon, fourpence halfpenny" it's a reasonably fair deduction that my lady had a son on Michaelmas eve.'" Chapter 8

I think I first started a life-long hunt for artefacts and records that contradict Accepted Truth after I visited Olympia, Greece in 1979. In the museum were many empty pedestals, all that was left of tributes to the athletes who were winners in the ancient Olympic competitions. I was surprised to read on one of the classical marble pedestals an inscription honoring a woman (of Sparta, as I recall) who had won three Olympic chariot races. In 1979, I had just been graduated from the University of California where I had taken quite a few Classics courses. However, until I read that inscription, I did not know that women had ever competed in the Classical Greek Olympics.

Since that revelation, I have found other sources indicating that women did indeed compete in the ancient Olympics; however, this is still neither Common Knowledge nor Accepted Truth. For example, the current Wikipedia entry on the Olympics says simply (and wrongly):

"Paris [in 1900] was also the first Olympic Games where women were allowed to compete."

In The Daughter of Time, hunting for the Truth becomes a passion and enduring detection game for the characters. I recommend both the book and the game.

Posted at 03:01PM Jan 28, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

PreSEED Applications Now Being Accepted

The PreSEED mentoring pilot program application web pages are now available for use. Application materials should be submitted as soon as possible. The application period will close on 3 February 2008 (at Midnight, Pacific Time), or as soon as 100 complete applications are received. A complete web-based application includes 3-parts: the form, resume, and Manager's letter. The information in the application must pass verification. The first fifty (50) complete and verified applicants will be accepted into the PreSEED pilot program. For more on PreSEED, see my 23 Jan 2008 blog entry.

It took me a while to get out this update. The San Francisco Bay Area is in the middle of a week-long rainstorm. Today, a branch went through the roof of our home internet provider's transmitter. I finally gave up on them and drove to Sun's Campbell drop in center.

PreSEED's four General Selection Criteria are:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be "Sun Standard" (a 2) or better.
4. Manager support is required.

PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program. More information on SEED is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 10:44PM Jan 27, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

SAMA - St. Andrew's Medical Assistance

SAMA - St. Andrew's Medical Assistance - is an outreach program of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. Today, the SAMA committee had its second meeting in 2008 to prepare for the SAMA fundraising dinner (to be on Sunday, 13 April 2008 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 13601 Saratoga Avenue, Saratoga, CA.) There will be Middle Eastern food and an auction. I am in charge of event publicity.

My first effort was to create the SAMA web page, now available at http://st-andrews-sama.org. As the newest member of the committee, I am still learning about the program's 14-year history of raising money for charitable medical programs in the Holy Land and Africa. Other SAMA committee members will send me photos, recipes, and text for the web site. For now, I put up the pictures I took at last month's Christian Palestinian craft sale. (The same photos I posted on my 4 Dec 2007 blog entry.) I am looking forward to working on the 13th April fundraising event and SAMA.

Posted at 10:02PM Jan 27, 2008 by katysblog in Church  | 

1782 William Crawford, Simon Girty, and History

Last month when I visited Washington, D.C. for the first time in many decades, I toured the National Museum of the American Indian, opened as part of the Smithsonian Institution in 2004. It seemed to me that one way of understanding more about the complex relationship between the European/American cultures and the American Indian cultures was to read reports from individuals who had personally experienced both. In the museum store, I bought two books:

• Women's Indian Captivity Narratives, Editor: Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola, Penguin Classics, 1998, ISBN-10: 0140436715, ISBN-13: 978-0140436716
• Captured by the Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870 Editor: Frederick Drimmer, Dover Publications, 1985, ISBN-10: 0486249018, ISBN-13: 978-0486249018

In these books, I was interested to read for the first time about the death by burning in 1782 of General George Washington's friend, Colonel William Crawford. This disturbing story was told in:

• "That is Your Great Captain" by Dr. John Knight, 1783 (in Captured by the Indians)
• "To Eat Fire Tomorrow" by John Slover as told to Hugh H. Brackenridge, 1782 (in Captured by the Indians)
• "A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison" by James E. Seaver, 1824 (in Women's Indian Captivity Narratives)

Knight and Slover were captured with Crawford after Crawford's failed expedition against the Ohio Indians (Wyandot, Huron, Delaware, and Shawnee tribes). Knight and Mary Jemison's husband Hiokatoo (of the Seneca tribe) were witnesses to Crawford's death; Slover was told of it by his captors.

Trying to sort out what happened by reading these memorable accounts is a good exercise in detection and understanding the difficulties of History even when first-hand accounts are available. For example, a major participant in Crawford's violent death was Simon Gurty (or Girty). Gurty is described in a footnote in Women's Indian Captivity Narratives as "...a Pennsylvania adventurer who ... alternated allegiance between the Americans and the British, aiding the latter during the War of 1812".

Here are two accounts of the same exchange between Gurty and the dying Crawford:

• "The flames arose and the scorching heat became almost insupportable. Again [Crawford] prayed to Gurty in all the anguish of his torment, to rescue him from the fire, or shoot him dead upon the spot. A demoniac smile suffused the countenance of Gurty, while he calmly replied to the dying suppliant, that he had no pity for his sufferings; but that he was then satisfying the spirit of revenge, which for a long time he had hoped to have an opportunity to wreak upon him." (Mary Jemison retelling Hiokatoo's story)
• "In the midst of these extreme tortures [Crawford] called to Simon Girty and begged him to shoot him. Girty made no answer. He called to him again. Girty, by way of derision, told the colonel he had no gun. At the same he turned to an Indian who was behind him, laughed heartily, and by all his gestures seemed delighted at the horrid scene." (John Knight telling what he witnessed)

In seeking more information about these stories, I found yet another version of this exchange:

• "Overcome by agony, Crawford cried out, 'Girty! Girty! For God's sake, Girty, shoot me through the heart!' The raucous din grew ominously silent as all eyes came to rest on the man called Girty. After a moment of introspection, he rose from his seated position by the fire and strode to where Crawford lay sobbing. 'I cannot,' Girty replied softly. 'As you can see, I have no gun.' Turning away from Crawford's mangled figure, Girty grinned at the onlookers and belched forth a sinister giggle."
• From: "A Monster So Brutal: Simon Girty and the Degenerative Myth of the American Frontier, 1783-1900". Volume Forty, 1998 Essays in History, Published by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. by Daniel P. Barr, Kent State University.

While Gurty is clearly the villain in all three story versions, there are also differences in both specifics and style. The "Monster So Brutal" story version purports to be a retelling of Knight's and Slover's accounts - with no reference to Mary Jemison version of Hiokatoo's story. However, the "Monster So Brutal" story is very exaggerated and includes details I do not find in the first hand accounts. "A Monster So Brutal" also says that Slover was an eyewitness to Crawford's death. Slover's account in Captured by the Indians just says "At this time I was told that Colonel Crawford had been burnt...". Maybe there is more than one version of Slover's story?

Having read these books, I have a greater appreciation for the complexity of this early period of American history and the interactions of the Indian, British, French, and American cultures. It is certainly more exciting than I remember from my required American History courses in High School and college!

Posted at 04:56PM Jan 25, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]

SEED Term Fully Matched (50 Pairs)

All 50 of the SEED Engineering worldwide mentoring program participants (mentees) were matched with mentors as of today (January-June 2008 Established Staff Term). Some Metrics:

1. 86% of the newly-matched mentors are executives: 16 Vice Presidents (including 3 Fellows), 9 Distinguished Engineers, and 18 Directors (including Senior or Executive Directors).
2. It took 45 days to match the 50 mentoring pairs (10 December 2007 - 24 January 2008). 78% were matched in the first ten days.
3. 82% of mentees were matched with one of their top four Mentor Wish List requests. Specifically: 56% were matched with their 1st or 2nd choice mentor. 26% were matched with their 3rd or 4th choice mentor. 18% were matched with their 5th or lower priority mentor.
4. 64% of mentees were matched with mentors who do not work in the mentee's local area. 32% of the pairs include one or more person who works outside of the USA.
5. 20% of mentors are female. (18% of mentees are female.)

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

Posted at 03:15PM Jan 24, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Mision Cristo Rey

At the end of 2007, I was touched and honored to be invited to the annual awards service for Mision Cristo Rey, a Spanish-speaking congregation in Watsonville, CA. Cristo Rey was one of the missions of the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real with which I worked when I was Convener of the Department of Missions (2003-2007). It was a triumph when, through the efforts of a great many dedicated supporters, Cristo Rey was finally welcomed into union as a diocesan Mission at the October 2007 convention. The plaque is "For the great effort on helping us become a mission. Thank you - we will always remember your hard work!"

Rev. Mario Macias Hauttecoeur at Mision Cristo Rey

Rev. Mary Lou McKenney, Padre Mario, and me

Plaque from Mision Cristo Rey

Images Copyright 2007 by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:16PM Jan 23, 2008 by katysblog in Church  | 

Sun Heart Walk 2007 Awards

On 9 January 2008, the American Heart Association had a party for sponsors of its Silicon Valley Heart Walk 2007 event (which was held on 16 September 2007 at De Anza in Cupertino, CA). Sheri Kaneshiro represented Sun at the party and came home with two awards. The two plaques are now in the Sun Menlo Park Fitness Center. Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos sponsored our Heart Walk participation. See my Sun's Heart Walk - Photos blog entry for more. The awards are:

• Heart Walk Silicon Valley 2007 - Top New Company - Sun Microsystems
• Heart Walk Silicon Valley - Super Star Area Sponsor - Sun Microsystems 2007

Two Heart Walk Plaques for Sun

Sheri Kaneshiro with Sun's plaques

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:26PM Jan 23, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

PreSEED Mentoring Program Announced

Tanya Jankot and I have been working for many months to develop a new version of Sun's popular worldwide Engineering mentoring program. Yesterday, PreSEED was announced to the 5 Software Director groups which will be in the pilot term! Hooray! PreSEED applications will be accepted starting 27 January 2008. The web pages will be available for review but not submission in advance of 27 January 2008. The first fifty complete and verified applicants will be accepted.

Software Chief Technologists Bob Brewin (Distinguished Engineer and Vice President) and Tim Marsland (Fellow and Vice President) are PreSEED's pilot term Champions. Greg Papadopoulos (Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development) is the SEED program executive sponsor.

What is PreSEED?

PreSEED is a new mentoring pilot program aimed at helping Sun Engineering staff who have been getting almost all "Sun Standard" annual performance ratings onto a path which may lead them to higher engagement. One way to think of PreSEED is as a preliminary to the successful SEED Engineering worldwide mentoring program. Since 2001, the CTO-sponsored SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. The first PreSEED pilot term is March-September 2008.

PreSEED is not a rotation program, meaning that the participant continues to report to their home manager throughout the program. During the 6-month PreSEED term, Participants (Mentees) work with Mentors for 1 to 2 hours every two weeks (or more, they want).

Why create PreSEED?

Research indicates mentoring of "solid citizens" like Sun Standard performers will have a greater advantage to Sun's bottom line than mentoring of the rising stars who are already the focus of SEED. The SEED program staff regularly receives many suggestions for improvement and expansion. PreSEED is being piloted to meet some of the most common, long-standing, and energetic of these suggestions.

Selection

PreSEED's four General Selection Criteria are:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be "Sun Standard" (a 2) or better.
4. Manager support is required.

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

Posted at 04:05PM Jan 23, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |  Comments[2]

Getting Ready for Easter

It is still January but California's Spring is well started. My Narcissus are already in full bloom and the Daffodils are poking their round green noses out of the soil. Even though yesterday was only the 2nd Sunday in Epiphany (Lent starts in 2 weeks), I am getting ready for Easter. Every year, we have a herd of little kids over for our annual Easter Egg Hunt and it takes time to prepare my garden. During this 3-day weekend, I have been cutting (there is a big heap of trimmings from Mexican Sage, Nandina, Trumpet Vine, Star Jasmine, Cannas, Rosemary, Lavender, Fountain Grass, Bougainvillea, Lantana, and Dracena waiting for pickup on the street), planting (Easter lilies and day lilies), rearranging border rocks, and weeding. Paul and I cut down two big Dracena limbs and threw them down the Guadalupe River bank behind our house. I hope they will root there. I have set up our annual date with the Arborist to re-shape some of our more exuberant trees.

John has been working on the bay windows of WP668, our backyard caboose. He installed the wood facing on one window and is about half done building the housing for the window frame and facing on the other bay. It rained on and off all weekend so we know the leak on one of the bay windows is still with us. I picked up most of the wood that fell down into the granite ballast when we replaced WP668's floor. I also went over most of the ballast with a big magnet looking for bolts and nails, then moved most of the scraps of lumber from around WP668 to the wood pile. I hope to make our side garden around the caboose part of the egg hunt for the first time.

On 5 February, our parish, St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church will be holding its Shrove Tuesday Pancake Races in Saratoga. This is one of our family's favorite church festivals and we are helping to manage the event. My daughter is sad she can't join us this year (she is at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) but she wrote out her "How to run a Shrove Tuesday Pancake supper and race" instructions in case anyone wants to hold their own pre-Lent celebration. Here is a photo of John in his red apron and carrying his frying pan announcing the Pancake Races in church yesterday:

Image Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 10:50PM Jan 21, 2008 by katysblog in Home & Family  | 

Old Quilts

I learned to appreciate and collect old quilts from my mother ( Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson), who was born and raised in East Tennessee. She was taught to quilt by my Great Grandmother (Ellen Bolli Van Gilder). I still have the "Grandmother's Flower Garden" pattern baby quilt my mother sewed as a child.

When my children outgrew asking for cartoon character bedding (we had dinosaurs, Little Mermaid, Pokemon, and Harry Potter sets, among others), I started putting pieced patchwork quilts on their beds. I have found eBay an excellent source for quilts but I have also purchased quilts from antique dealers and direct from the women who created them. Since I use the quilts on beds, I almost always buy quilts which are in solid condition, machine pieced, and less than 100 years old.

Quilts which are "collectible" are often unused, because much of their value is based on their being "like new". I prefer to use old quilts, enjoying the softness of the fabric after many washings. Quilt expert Shelly Zegart provides the following "Condition Listings" for the quilts she sells to banks, hospitals, airports, universities and private collectors:

• Mint: Quilt is unwashed, like new condition. No stains, holes, color fading, or wear. No restorations or repairs. All seams and stitching intact. No batting shift noted.
• Excellent: Quilt has never been washed. May have minimal fading or staining. No holes or tears. All stitching and seams are intact. May have some batting shift.
• Good: Quilt may have been washed. May have some fading, staining, or discoloration. May have some age appropriate wear to fabric or binding. May have been repaired or restored. May have some loose stitching or open seams. May have a batting shift.
• Fair: Quilt has been washed. May have fading, wear, and or staining. May have a small tear or hole. May have loose stitching or open seams. Batting may be shifted or exposed.
• Poor: Obvious wear, staining, and or fading noted. May have tears, holes, or fraying. Loose stitching and or open seams may be present.

When I look at a quilt, the basic elements I consider are:

• Color and design: overall pattern, consistency, quilting vs. piecing as parts of pattern
• Quality of work: hand vs. machine, stitches per inch, pattern execution
• Fabric and batting content: cotton, wool, synthetic fabrics and thread
• Condition: stains, holes, fraying, patches, smell, fading, fragility
• History and provenance of that particular quilt
• Price

My favorite quilt patterns are log cabin (because it can be executed so many ways) and broken star. Below are photos of some of my quilts:

Embroidered and quilted

Quilting and embroidery detail

Bear claw pattern

Bear claw quilting detail

Tagged border

Quilting detail

Flying geese pattern

Flying geese detail

Log cabin pattern

Log cabin detail

Log cabin pattern

Log cabin detail

Amish log cabin pattern

Log cabin detail

Windmill pattern

Pinwheel pattern

Wedding ring pattern

Amish broken star pattern

Broken star pattern

Sunbonnet Sue pattern

Sunbonnet Sue detail

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 03:54PM Jan 16, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]

Railroad Equipment on eBay

From time to time, my husband John and I go hunting through the eBay auction offerings for a missing piece of railroad equipment for WP668, our backyard caboose. There is something validating about the fact that there are 22,972 items now for sale in the "Railroadiana, Trains" eBay category: we are not alone in our interest in historic trains!

Last year, we bought a pair of original caboose marker lamps to fit into the slots at either end of WP668 (see photos below). We are lethargically searching for another pair for the other side. We paid $225 for our pair. I noticed another larger pair sold recently for $1,242.50 (eBay Item number: 320198430842) and a third pair of marker lights is now being offered for $550 starting bid (eBay Item number: 250205876513).

First, even after 9 years of regular eBay use, I am surprised that so much historical railroad paraphernalia is for sale. Second, the prices are remarkably high. Clearly, the market for obscure antiquities is both deep and rich.

Images Copyright 2007 by John Plocher

Posted at 10:58AM Jan 16, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Caboose Floor Photos

Today, we finished replacing the rotten and burned floor section of WP668, our backyard caboose. We now have a solid and flat floor plus a big pile of 91-year-old firewood.

Work in progress on WP668:

• Repaint original exterior markings (started)
• Paint new ladders yellow
• Electrical inspection and sign off
• Install stairway balusters and handrails (being made now)
• Stairway inspection and sign off
• Restore wood facing of bay window
• Paint the inside
• Install new bay window frames
• Install the metal roof covering
• Install roof walk
• Cover the floor with linoleum

Rotten floor coming out

Burn mark on floor

Cutting off floor bolts

Putting in new joists

Cut edges of remaining floor

Rotten beam cross section

Open floor - work in progress

John on new floor

Evergreen pear blossoms with caboose

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:54PM Jan 15, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Caboose Kiss on Front Page

Back on May 25, 2007, I wrote about our WP668 caboose move being the front cover story of the Willow Glen Resident, our local newspaper. We were surprised to find that at the end of last year, my husband John and I made the Year in Review 2007 front page story again with this picture:

We did not see the 28 Dec 2007 paper, so we only found out about the photo being republished when people sent email about it. (Surprise!) The Willow Glen Resident folks were very helpful and gave us extra copies of the paper plus permission to scan and publish it in my blog. Here is the May 25, 2007 story plus the new December 28, 2007 "Year in Review" story:

28 Dec 2007

25 May 2007

25 May 2007

25 May 2007

25 May 2007

Two videos of the big move are on YouTube, search for "WP668".

Images Used with Permission, Copyright 2007 Silicon Valley Community Newspapers

Posted at 11:16PM Jan 14, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  |