Category Archives: News & Reviews

February 4, 2011 · 6:46 pm

Great TED Talks

I love TED Talks. I was in a church leadership retreat last weekend during which several of us talked excitedly about how powerful these short web-based videos can be for encouraging new thinking. Others at the retreat had never heard of TED Talks. So, I collaborated with my expert daughter to came up with the following list of favorites.

What are TED Talks?

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences … TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize. More on http://www.ted.com/

Some Favorite TED Talks

Brené Brown – The Price of Invulnerability, 2010
Joshua Klein – On the Intelligence of Crows, 2008 (the crow vending machine is amazing!)
Larry Lessig – How creativity is being strangled by the law, 2007
Emily May – Good Morning, 2011 (my daughter volunteers with Hollaback to combat street harassment – this is a video about how that remarkable movement started)
Aimee Mullins and her 12 pairs of legs – Prosthetic Aesthetics, 2009 (I showed this to six little girls yesterday and we talked about what it would be like to be able to change your height by changing your legs.)
Hans Rosling – No more boring data, 2007
Stefan Sagmeister – The power of time off, 2009
Sheryl Sandberg – Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders – from the Facebook COO, 2010

Happy Year of the Rabbit

Working for Huawei means that I am much more aware of Chinese holidays and traditions. Happy New Year! This is the first day of the Year of the Rabbit in the traditional Chinese zodiac. Yesterday, Huawei had a big party for staff and their families, complete with dumplings, seeds, sweets, balloons, plus a dance and variety show from China TV on the big screen in the cafeteria. Today, many people wore their dressy clothes to work.

In honor of the new year, here is my favorite rabbit story:

My mother used to have two large pets in her San Francisco art studio: a rabbit and a six foot long iguana lizard. Both were vegetarians and they loved carrots for their leafy green tops. One day, my mother put a large carrot on the floor and both animals started for it. They stopped on either side of the vegetable and eyed each other.

You need to know that rabbits show aggression by growling and thumping their back legs. A combative iguana jerks its head up and down and turns its skin from green to orange. So, the grey rabbit was on one side of the carrot growling and thumping, and the lizard was on the other, bobbing and changing color. Fortunately for the peace of the studio, both animals were very stupid. Eventually one wandered off and the other sat on the carrot.

Here are pictures of the food at the Huawei New Year’s Party:

1 Comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Eleanor, Huawei, San Francisco

January 28, 2011 · 10:45 pm

Stolen Purse

My purse was stolen yesterday night – keys and checkbook and everything. I filed a San Jose police report but I don’t expect much to come of that. For the last three years, my husband John and I have volunteered as teachers for 2 hours a week at an after school program about a mile from our house. Yesterday, toward the end of the session, we left the front door unlocked so that parents could pick up their kids. Someone walked in and took my purse plus a 4th grade boy’s backpack – probably to hide my purse in. The boy lost school books, his reading book, and a library book that he has to pay for. What a depressing experience.

I spent last night calling our bank and credit card companies to put holds on our accounts. I am entirely sick of telling phone customer service staff the last four digits of my Social Security Number, my birth date, mother’s maiden name, zip code, etc. to get them to talk with me. I got up early this morning to go to the California Department of Motor Vehicles to request a replacement driver’s license. $25 and one hour in line later, I went to the bank for two hours to open up new accounts and sign up for an identity theft watch service. I am using an old purse, spare comb, and John’s keys to my car. John, sweet man that he is, bought me a new iPhone today so I don’t go into technology withdrawal. Costing out everything that was in my purse, my phone, camera, and surprisingly, replacement smart keys for our cars came out most expensive. It will take weeks to get everything replaced. Trying to remember what was actually in my purse has been a challenge.

I am more than ever a fan of mSecure, an “ultra-secure 256bit blowfish encryption” software application that keeps all of my private information. I bought mSecure for both my iPhone and my MacBook. Over the last year, I typed all of my codes and passwords and identifications into mSecure then backed it up by synchronizing with my MacBook. Since I ran sync just a few days ago, very little information was lost with my iPhone. My iPhone had a password and AT&T disabled that account last night.

My husband has pointed out that my carrying around three Apple computers (iPhone, iPad, and MacBook) plus my Dell work laptop while calling myself a technology minimalist is perhaps inconsistent. I really love technology that works well and for me that means Apple products. (I think I just came out of the closet as a Apple Geek.)

The other volunteers last night were wonderful. Luis and Roberto came home with us to be sure no thieves were in our house (a real and scary possibility). I am glad we have two big dogs. I sent email to our neighborhood list to ask everyone to keep an eye on our home just in case. We have received many supportive and encouraging emails and suggestions.

Very Busy Christmas

Christmas has been particularly busy this year because my daughter Jessica and son-in-law-to-be Matt are home from college and there is much to do to get ready for their marriage next summer. She will be returning to CMU in ten days and not back until May. Matt will be returning to Willam and Mary. They are both in their Senior year.

Jessica and Matt visited Mount Madonna Park where they want to be married. We bought her wedding shoes and had the first fitting for her wedding gown – the second fitting is next week. (She will be wearing my gown.) Jessica and Matt are shopping for rings and scheduling tastings at the various candidates for wedding caterers. This is in addition to our usual holiday activities and John going to rehearsals for his role as the Magus Melchior in the Epiphany church pageant next Sunday. Some of what we have been doing:

Shopping in San Francisco’s Chinatown with Sally and Lorene for our 28th year – including our annual visit to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in Ross Alley
Going to craft fairs, seeing holiday lights, and going to parties hosted by other people
Silicon Valley Lines model train club holiday party at our house. The highlight of the party is the guests creating a model layout on our living room floor with my G-scale track and trains.
Christmas caroling on the cable car in San Francisco
Huawei’s holiday party
Visiting the Dickens Christmas Fair
Christmas eve service at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga)
Christmas dinner at our house
Ladies’ Christmas tea at our house

Paul enjoyed his first quarter at Foothill College. He made us large ceramic Christmas presents, including a large and charming Hedwig the owl which Paul made for Jessica and Matt. Some pictures:

Chinatown

Silicon Valley Lines holiday party

Dickens Christmas Fair

Singing on the San Francisco Cable Car

Wedding Dress Fitting

Christmas Eve at St. Andrew’s

Christmas Day

Ladies’ Christmas Tea

1 Comment

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

Tagged as CMU, Foothill College, Huawei, Jessica, marriage, Matthew, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

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.

1 Comment

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.

1 Comment

Filed under News & Reviews

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.