Category Archives: Home & Family

A’s at Foothill College

My son Paul is very much enjoying his second year at Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, California). The family teases Paul that he is working his way through the course catalogue in alphabetical order. So far, he has taken only classes starting with the letter A: Art, Algebra, Anthropology, Astronomy.

Last weekend, his sister Jessica and I were consulting with Paul on his classes for this summer.  We thought he was going to break his pattern by taking swimming and a practical software class, until we saw that the Foothill catalogue calls these Aquatics and Adobe In Design.  Maybe Paul will get to the B classes next year.

IMG_8514

Image by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

Leave a comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Goodbye Tbird

Cleaning out my late father’s old Tbird, we found: 2 books (A Pirate of Exquisite Mind and The Feynman Lectures on Physics, vol.5), 3 metal boxes full of tools, at least a dozen western maps, 2 umbrellas, 2 pocket knives, a pillow, coins and toothpicks and binder clips everywhere, 2 jackets, tissues, window cleaners, a new backpack, 2 water bottles, one of my mother’s earrings, and an old flashlight.

Wade Dickinson loved cars – having fixed and built them since he was a boy in Hickory Township, PA. Today, we said goodbye to his last car, a red 1991 Ford Thunderbird in good condition, donated to KQED public radio since no one in the family wanted to drive or store it. It was sad seeing the Tbird drive off on the roof of the tow truck, hopefully to a new useful life.

1942.wade.car

IMG_8524

IMG_8549

Images Copyright Katy Dickinson 2006-2012

1 Comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

CMU Graduation Pictures

My daughter Jessica graduated from Carnegie Mellon University yesterday in Pittsburgh PA, with college and university honors, Phi Beta Kappa. My son Paul and I flew in from San Jose CA and her husband Matt flew in from Seattle WA for the big event. Here is some of what I saw in our joyous three day visit:

Jessica and Paul
IMG_8007

CMU
IMG_8044

Phi Beta Kappa
IMG_8112

Congratulations to the Honors Students
IMG_8142

Three Wonderful Kids
IMG_8158

Going to Graduation
IMG_8240

Jessica and Proud Mom
IMG_8264

Carnegie Tech – Class of 1948 Her Grandfather’s Medallion
IMG_8268

Processing into the Stadium
IMG_8404

Honors Regalia
IMG_8476

Relaxing After All the Fuss
IMG_8490

Pictures by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

3 Comments

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Jessica is Graduating from CMU with Honors

IMG_7306

I am proud to announce that my clever daughter Jessica is graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA this weekend. She finished her 5th Year Scholars project and is being awarded college honors, university honors, and Phi Beta Kappa. Phi Beta Kappa is “The Nation’s Oldest and Most Widely Known Academic Honor Society” started in 1776. She next takes on a summer internship at Harvard Law School and then is moving to Seattle WA where her husband Matt has a new job at Amazon. Busy girl!

Regular readers may remember that Jessica also graduated in 2011 but still had to finish her minor and 5th year project. All done now.

Image Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

2 Comments

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Dancing Seed Storm

IMG_7576 . IMG_7574

Our San Jose Guadalupe River cottonwood trees are filling the air again. Even though I have written about this before (2009, 2008), being caught in a dancing seed storm and having delicate fluff settling all over my garden still surprises and charms.

IMG_7546

Images 2012 Copyright Katy Dickinson

1 Comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Southern Pacific Photo Collection

WP679-2-caboose

Some years ago, my husband John bought an estate collection of 820 photographic slides taken by a Mr. J.R. Benedict of Redwood City, California.  During 1970-1975, J.R. Benedict took pictures of Southern Pacific railroad equipment in the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly on the Peninsula.  Pictures of BART and the 1975 bicentennial American Freedom Train are included.

Recently, John sent the slides to Scan Cafe for digitizing. This was an experiment to see if this digitizing service produced quality scans at a reasonable price. The results are good. John posted all of the slides in a collection on our family photo archive site so that railroad fans (including Southern Pacific enthusiasts, railroad modellers, and historians) can have access to the 26 sets of images.

Sadly, although there are a few pictures of steel-strapped wooden cabooses which are sisters to WP668, our backyard caboose, there do not seem to be images of our own particular piece of rolling stock.  John is looking to donate the physical slides themselves (an a DVD full of the digitized images) to a railroad historical society in the hopes that others will find the images interesting and useful.

WP603+WP680-caboose

Images Copyright John Plocher 2012

1 Comment

Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Bees at Home

IMG_7533

Living on the Guadalupe River in San Jose, California, we have had a variety of unwanted creatures move in with us, including: squirrels, mice, and recently, roof rats. We discovered the roof rats because they eat the outside of our lemons and the inside of our oranges, then leave the cored or peeled remainders hanging on the tree or all over the walkway under it: nasty! Apparently, the smart rodents eat citrus fruit to counteract rat poison.

Our latest move-in is a hive of honeybees under our roof tiles. A neighbor who is a beekeeper looked them over and said that the hive is healthy, not aggressive, and doing no harm at the top of the house. He advised leaving the insects in place and said that we would not have problems with squirrels or roof rats in the future because the bees would drive them off. He also observed that our garden (especially the roses) was perfect for bees – and offered to put two hives on our riverbank and split the resulting honey with us. We are looking forward to becoming beekeepers ourselves!

IMG_7516 copy

IMG_7520

Images by Katy Dickinson Copyright 2012

Leave a comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews