Category Archives: Home & Family

October 31, 2012 · 7:52 pm

Silicon Valley Halloween

Halloween is serious fun here in the Silicon Valley. Spooky house decorations go up weeks in advance, people come to church in funny hats and silly outfits (for “Boo Sunday”), companies have costume parties, waitresses work dressed as clowns, stores give out candy to kid parades, and tonight the sidewalks are full of children dressed as cats, bugs, princesses, super heros, and monsters walking from house to house trailed by their parents, greeting neighbors with “Trick or Treat!”.

Pizza and Art

Last Sunday after church, we went out to a pizza lunch with my mother (retired Professor of Life Drawing at California College of the Arts) in San Jose. Between conversational interludes, John read a book, Paul played a game on his smart phone, and my mother drew Paul. As usual, people walking by the table stopped to admire her drawing. Paul is studying Art at Foothill College, having grown up seeing art as a constant and necessary expression of creativity.

Silicon Valley Leaves and Sky

The Silicon Valley is famous as geek-central but can also be a beautiful place. Our annual rains have started and it is getting cold at night. My husband likes to say that the Midwest has two seasons: road removal and snow repair. California’s two seasons are mudslide and wildfire. We are now in autumn, that lovely interim when the land is too wet to burn but not damp enough to slide.

More pictures on: Silicon Valley Autumn 2012 Pinterest page.

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Tagged as Geeks, John, San Jose, Silicon Valley

October 23, 2012 · 9:28 pm

Porch Progress

We have continued to make slow progress on adding our new porch, although yesterday we had a setback. John discovered that the special-order outer window (despite being carefully measured by two experts) turned out to be the wrong size for the heirloom Van Gilder stained glass panel it was made to protect. So we are now waiting to see how long a replacement will take to make. We are also waiting for the test tiles from the special-order mural from Fireclay so that we can check the color. We are about to place the order for the wrought iron railing from Brian’s Welding. The good news is that the two new round windows above the porch in Paul’s room look good. Construction is a slow business. Even though the rainy season just started, we hope to be done by Christmas (this year!).

July 2012:

August 2012:

September 2012:

October 2012:

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Tagged as House Work, John, Paul, San Jose, Willow Glen

October 12, 2012 · 8:01 am

TechWomen’s last day in Washington DC

The TechWomen enjoyed their last day in Washington DC and are now slowly making their way home to either the Silicon Valley area (mentors), or to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Yemen in the MENA region (mentees). I miss them already!

Wednesday was full of TechWomen-normal activities: networking, exchanging ideas and experiences, and taking pictures. It is usual for me to be given three to six cameras and smart phones and asked to photograph a posed group of lovely intelligent women. The group I am photographing may start small but if the setting is good, it often doubles and triples as other TechWomen join in. Taking TechWomen group pictures is an enjoyable if frenetic experience. My daughter Jessica lives in Washington DC and was invited to two of the TechWomen dinners – which made picture taking even more enjoyable.

We met in the morning in the Loy Henderson conference room at the US State Department for a political discussion, then had a magnificent lunch in the Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room. The TechWomen were welcomed and honored by Ann Stock, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, and Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues. We regretfully did not get to meet the program sponsor, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Ann Stock was patient and a very good sport – she stayed after the lunch to take dozens of pictures with the TechWomen. I love the diplomatic rooms at the US State Department, with cases full of china and silver (some by Paul Revere), and walls covered with portraits of American historical greats. The copy of the Declaration of Independence is my particular favorite.

After lunch, we returned to the Henderson room for Sheila Casey (Deputy Director, Office of Citizen Exchanges at U.S. Department of State) and Heather Ramsey (Director at Institute of International Education) to give the mentees their participation certificates (signed by Secretary Clinton). Our going away party was around the very windy roof pool of the Donovan House hotel (the party eventually moved downstairs since we were all freezing!).

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Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Geeks, Jessica, Jordan, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Palestine, technical women, TechWomen

October 9, 2012 · 5:10 am

TechWomen Leadership Workshop

Yesterday, the TechWomen spent a day at Georgetown University in a leadership workshop with Barbara Fittipaldi. Barbara Fittipaldi was one of those who inspired Dr. Anita Borg to start what is now the Anita Borg Institute.

Afterwards, some of the TechWomen spent the evening exploring Georgetown. My daughter Jessica and my mentee and I went exploring on the mall to see the sights at night, particularly the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. We were moved by Dr. King’s words carved on the curving wall behind the big statue. Jessica and I sang “We Shall Overcome” – the anthem for the African-American Civil Rights Movement. We also visited the Washington Monument and White House to see them wearing lights in the dark.

MLK door mural on the Luther Place Memorial Church (Washington DC), seen 9 October 2012:

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Tagged as Jessica, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

October 7, 2012 · 8:21 pm

National Zoo Visit

My daughter Jessica, her husband Matthew, and I visited the National Zoo (Smithsonian National Zoological Park) today in Washington DC. Highlights were the Cheetahs, Pandas, Otters, and the reptile house. The two zoo functions of conservation and education were much in evidence, with displays and interactive exhibits everywhere along with information about zoo breeding programs for rare animals. There is still sadness over the unexpected death of a panda cub at the zoo last month.