Category Archives: News & Reviews

November 26, 2010 · 6:07 pm

Black Friday, Lady Gaga, Moby Dick

We hosted a full house for Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, including my parents, and brother Pete and his two kids, Lynda and Daniel, visiting from Southern California. The food and company were wonderful. Pete and kids stayed over and we all got up early for Black Friday shopping, to make our contribution to the economy. At 9 am this morning, the Oakridge Mall in San Jose was filling up but the Apple Store was packed because of their 1-day sale. John and Pete and I bought:

1 Apple iPad, for Pete
1 Apple wireless hub and some USB cables, for John and me
6 books: Alanna, In the Hand of the Goddess and Beka Cooper – Terrier by Tamora Pierce, and Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen by Garth Nix, for Lynda
1 Giants t-shirt, for my Giving Tree boy
2 Giants magnets, one small for Lynda’s school locker and one large, for Pete’s car
3 posters: “Star Wars” and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” for Daniel, and “Lady Gaga” for a friend who is a fan
1 Moby Dick book cover art tshirt, for me (I first saw it in the Signals catalog but it is made by a delightful company called Out of Print which “celebrates the world’s great stories through fashion”)
1 squishy rubber alien toy, for Daniel
1 package of colored wrist rubber bands, for Lynda

Then, we went home and ate leftovers.

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Geeks, John, Melville, San Jose

November 23, 2010 · 11:11 pm

Huawei Ping Pong Tournament

This week was the start of the 2nd annual Ping Pong tournament at Huawei’s Santa Clara California research center. There is just one table but it gets heavy use for several hours a day during this very popular indoor sporting series. The teams represent different management groups and competition is intense. I joined the spectators after lunch today and had fun watching technical staff, administrators, Human Resources and Engineering executives (and one guy from Marketing) enjoying themselves thoroughly. One of the Vice Presidents brought a small tambourine to add to the clapping and cheers for particularly flashy moves or scores.

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Tagged as Huawei

November 23, 2010 · 10:27 pm

Volunteer Thanksgiving Lunch

Over 100 people volunteer every month at Santa Maria Urban Ministry, distributing food to the hungry, teaching preschool, helping with homework and computers, giving family counseling, and (in due season) helping with taxes, along with other programs, as well as management and administrative duties. Last Saturday, after a dozen of us met at Britannia Arms to help move 700 Turkeys for the needy, all of the SMUM volunteers were invited to Thanksgiving lunch at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in San Jose. We had chow mein noodles and fried rice and turkey and ham and beans and green salad and fruit salad, and our favorite tres leches cake.

Most of the teams were represented and we enjoyed talking with people who work different shifts. John and I have been after-school homework and computer teachers for the last three years, Thursdays 4-6 pm with the Studio program. We know the Tuesday afternoon Studio teachers but we rarely see the food warehouse workers or the registration desk team or the ABC Playtime teachers.

Rev. Lawrence Robles (SMUM Executive Director) and his wife Carmen (Manager of the warehouse) and Alfonso Mendez (Office Manager) gave each volunteer a bookmark remembrance with their thanks for our service. Some people volunteer in so many roles at SMUM that they had trouble picking which group picture to join. SMUM is blessed by the support of the many generous people who donate money and food but most valuable of all, their time and talents, to support the transformation of our community.

Pictures from Brittania Arms’ “Brit Turkey Drive”:

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Filed under Church, News & Reviews

Tagged as Episcopal church, John, San Jose, Santa Maria Urban Ministry, SMUM

November 13, 2010 · 1:22 am

“Unstoppable” Improbable

John and Paul and I went to the movies tonight with San Jose’s Silicon Valley Lines Model Railroad Club to the opening showing of “Unstoppable” with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as a Railroad Engineer and Conductor trying to stop a runaway train. This movie is fun and very pretty – especially if you love fast trains and handsome men. However, the large number of unreasonable behaviors and professional errors in the story is highly improbable.

Here is the original story: “Pennsylvania man lived the drama that inspired ‘Unstoppable'”. Somewhat incensed by the reckless and bumbling behavior of the train handling personnel who caused the runaway in the movie, John came home and read to me from the “General Code of Operating Rules” of West Coast US railways:

1.0 General Responsibilities

1.1 Safety
Safety is the most important element in performing duties. Obeying the rules is essential to job safety and continued employment.

1.1.1 Maintaining a Safe Course
In case of doubt or uncertainty, take the safe course.

I think the club was rooting for the train to win.

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Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains, News & Reviews

Tagged as John, Paul, San Jose

November 10, 2010 · 9:15 am

Blog Housekeeping, Autumn, Haircuts

It is a lovely autumn here in the Silicon Valley. Like any good geek (even one who is a technology minimalist, like myself), I spend most of my time indoors with my computer, only rarely enjoying the intoxicating colors of the season. I have been blogging more-or-less regularly for over five years – this is my 1,065th entry. In that time, things have changed. I am now working for Huawei instead of Sun, both of my kids are in college, pets have died and we have adopted new pets.

When I moved my blog entries from http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog/ here to https://katysblog.wordpress.com/, formatting and image references were lost or corrupted. As the topics I write about naturally evolve, the tags I use for my blog entries also change. From time-to-time, I go back and update old blog entries – fixing broken links and formatting that has rotted and adding or updating tags. Unless there is a spelling or punctuation error, I do not change old blog content, although I might put a forward reference if I have written significantly more on that topic since the original post. This is like getting a getting a haircut – tidying up the mess but not making any essential changes.

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Filed under News & Reviews

Tagged as garden, Geeks, Huawei, Sun Microsystems

November 9, 2010 · 5:17 pm

My Famous Daughter

Last week, CMU’s student online newspaper “The Tartan” featured a photo of my wonderful daughter Jessica working on her summer internship application workshop. This week, “The Tartan” reprinted one of her blog entries with photos from Qatar, called “Tales from abroad: Doha”. It tells the story of a stray budgie she cared for the night before coming home from a term at CMU-Q. Jessica called me this morning, so excited!

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as birds, CMU, Jessica, Middle East, Qatar

November 8, 2010 · 11:41 pm

Convention, Theology of Marriage

The Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real here on California’s central coast, held its annual convention at St. Andrew’s, Saratoga two days ago. I have been a convention delegate for many years. This convention was short but very well managed. Our Bishop, the Right Reverend Mary Gray-Reeves, was President of the Convention. She lead us in worship and took care of business effectively, with charm, intelligence, and humor. My husband John and Rev. Stephenie Cooper ran the computers and projection system for the event, sitting behind the screen and only dashing out to vote as needed.

One of the highlights of the convention for me was the very interesting presentation on the just-published Report  of  the Diocese  of  El  Camino  Real  Task  Force  on  the  Theology  of  Marriage . Four of the eight authors talked about their work, process, and findings. The authors are: The  Rev.  Dr.  Ernest  L.  Boyer ,  Jr. (Chair  of  the  Task  Force) , The  Rev.  Michael  Ferrito,   The  Rev.  Dr.  Caroline  J.  Addington  Hall,  The  Rev.  Fred  W.  Heard,  The  Rev.  Lawrence  Robles,  The  Rev.  Deacon  Judith  A.  Sato,  Dr.  Marilyn  Westerkamp,  and Mrs.  Julie  Zintsmaster. Even though the task force included men and women with a very wide range of opinions, they were able  to  identify  seven  theological statements of a Christian Marriage:

Christian Marriage is a vocation, a calling, a way of living
Christian Marriage is a covenant between two persons and God
Christian Marriage is an expression of human beings as the image of God, that is, an expression of God as Love and God as relationship through the Trinity
Christian Marriage is a call to discover what Christ meant when he asked us to seek Christ in others and to love one another
Christian Marriage is a physical embodiment of our spiritual reality
Christian Marriage is an expression of Christ’s ministry of reconciliation
Christian Marriage is a foundation for community and a Christian service in the world

To see more of John’s and my ECR convention photos in addition to those below, check out the diocesan web page.