Category Archives: News & Reviews

November 6, 2010 · 10:11 pm

Homework Club Party

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Communications got messed up, so John and Rev. Stephenie Cooper and Rev. Lawrence Robles and I held the Halloween party for the SMUM Studio after school program a week late. The kids wore their costumes on 28 October but we did not have the pizza celebration until 4 November. Twenty kids and two moms came – everyone had a good time and enjoyed their special treat.

I took the shells and sea glass all of the kids gathered during our Lover’s Cove field trip last summer and glued them to a frame. On the day of the party, I gave the Studio kids the frame with a picture of themselves standing in front of the ocean. It is now on the wall of the SMUM computer room.

We had planned to take the kids on three field trips last summer but the final trip had to be canceled.  When I had to go to China on a business trip, there weren’t enough adults to supervise a swim trip to Raging Waters. After much discussion and voting by kids and teachers, we decided either to go ice skating in San Jose or on a trip to Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. We held the final vote on Thursday and we are going to Alcatraz! We are still working details but we want to go before the new year.

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson

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November 4, 2010 · 11:40 pm

Listening to Moby Dick

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One of my favorite books is Moby Dick or The Whale by Herman Melville (1851). I have been enjoying listening to this classic novel on my iPhone while driving to work. (My Smart Car has an iPhone holder and charger which connects into the speakers, so the sound is very good.) I have noticed that a number of the chapter titles are mis-typed in the Recorded Books, LLC version. Some of the peculiar errors include:

  • Chapter 10 – “A Bossom Friend” (for “A Bosom Friend”)
  • Chapter 31 – “Queen Ma’am” (for “Queen Mab”)
  • Chapter 46 – “Sumrises” (for “Surmises”)
  • Chapter 100 – “Leg And Arm” (for “The Pequod meets the Samuel Enderby of London”)

One problem with listening to an audio book while driving is that sometimes the recording will jump around from chapter to chapter. Earlier this week, it lept 30 chapters ahead and there was no safe way to reset it without being distracted from driving through heavy traffic. I don’t know whether it is the iPhone application or the recording itself which is causing this problem.

I am a fan of Peet’s Coffee but seeing a Starbucks sign always reminds me that the coffee chain was named after the first mate of the whaling ship Pequod in Moby Dick.

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson

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November 2, 2010 · 10:52 pm

Open Source Hardware – For Model Railroads

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Some of the creators of the award-winning open source software for model trails called JMRI have just developed open source hardware called the Railroad Shield layout interface board. John Plocher is leading the hardware development, working with Bob Jacobsen and others on the openLCB software, providing interfaces to electronics for experiments in model train control.

This small computer board is clearly the product of Cal Berkeley fans. Blue in color, it will feature Blue and Gold LEDs. If you look closely, you will see printed onto each board such phrases as

Go Bears!
Model Railroading is Fun!
So it’s up with the Blue and Gold, down with the Red…

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson

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November 1, 2010 · 11:43 pm

Ready to Vote Tomorrow

I have done my homework:

I am ready to get up early tomorrow morning for the privilege of voting as a citizen of the State of California.

This is my newly-18-year-old son Paul’s first time voting. He too has diligently done his reading and discussed his ideas and questions with us. Paul has grown up camping every August at U.C. Berkeley’s Lair of the Golden Bear, singing “Hail to California” around the camp fire. (If you want to hear it, listen to these two renditions of Cal’s song: 2006, 2008.)  I am proud to see Paul stepping up to becoming an adult citizen of our home state.

Hail to California,
Alma Mater Dear.
Sing the joyful chorus,
Sound it far and near.

Rallying ’round her banner,
We will never fail.
California Alma Mater,
Hail! Hail! Hail!

Hail to California,
queen in whom
we’re blest —
Spreading light
and goodness
over all the West,

Fighting ‘neath her standard
We shall sure prevail-
California Alma Mater,
Hail! Hail! Hail!

“Hail to California” was written and composed by Clinton R. Morse, class of 1896

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Image Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson

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October 31, 2010 · 3:55 pm

Smart Car Wrap

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Since I bought my Smart car, I have been accessorizing it. So far, I have added

  • A dealer-installed iPhone 3 holder, charger, and microphone – resulting in much better sound quality for both phone calls and audio books
  • Smart’s “Smart Drive US v1.01” iPhone application – almost a complete waste of $9.99 – this software is in need of serious work by a competent usability engineer
  • Rubber floor mats
  • A red plastic crate to hold small stuff so that it does not slide around behind the seats
  • The “Kite Flight” design car wrap

I very much enjoy driving this car. The negatives are that it does not have much power and going over speed bumps or uneven pavement in a tiny car is rough. But my Smart Car is fun to drive – especially with the top down.  It parks in tiny spots (like the half parking space otherwise taken up by someone’s trailer, and in the corners of lots with diagonal parking), and drives about 35 miles per gallon. There is enough room behind the two seats for the amount of stuff I usually carry to work (or two large bags of dog food). My 6′ 3″ tall husband (who bought me the wrap for my birthday) fits into the Smart Car comfortably. My teenage son Paul says my car embarrasses him.

Here are pictures of my car being wrapped this week:

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Images by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher, Copyright 2010

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October 30, 2010 · 12:18 pm

Trick-or-Treat Trail Crossing Guard

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Yesterday, I was one of the Willow Glen Lions who were volunteer crossing guards for the Trick-or-Treat Trail put on by the Willow Glen Business Association. This is our Lions Club’s second year serving our community through this school-day-before-Halloween safety project. It was fun but I have much increased respect for the difficult job of a crossing guard. I was last a crossing guard when I was in 6th grade. As John Plocher wrote:

What’s scarier than vampires, ghosts and dragons? Drivers on cell phones making left turns and jockeying for parking spots as thousands of kids and their parents descend on downtown Willow Glen for the WGBA’s annual Halloween trick-or-treat event!

The children and families and school groups paraded around Lincoln Avenue in two two-hour shifts (10 am – 12 pm for little kids, 2 pm – 4 pm for bigger kids), collecting candy from businesses. There were clear categories of costumes:

  • Super heroes (Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear, Spider Man, Superman and Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Mario Brothers, Batman, ninjas, Star Wars)
  • Fantasy characters (Dragons, fairies, elves, wizards or sorceresses, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Tigger, jack-o-lanterns, clowns, cowboys and cowgirls, pirates, knights and medieval ladies, Roman soldiers and ladies, aliens, robots, devils, Disney princesses)
  • Storybook characters (Dorothy and the Witch from Oz, Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty, Thomas the Tank Engine, The Cat in the Hat with Thing One and Thing Two, kings and queens and princesses, Alice in Wonderland with the Queen of Hearts and Mad Hatter)
  • TV characters (Sponge Bob, Rust-eze Cars, Power Rangers, Sesame Street)
  • Animals (Cats, Dogs, Dinosaurs, Tigers, Zebras, Giraffes, Lions, Bugs, Cows, Skunks, Monkeys, Rabbits, and one small elephant)
  • Food and plants (pumpkins, grapes, bananas, hot dogs, flowers)
  • Horror (ghosts, witches, vampires, murderers, zombies, skeletons, werewolves, Munch’s Scream, Death)
  • Unique costumes (a marionette puppet, outfits on real dogs, hippies, a Lego block, Mustard, a mime)
  • Sports costumes (Giants, Raiders, Sharks)
  • Work costumes (police, firefighters, army and navy, ballerinas, prisoners)

Some costumes were store-bought, some were home-made, many were a combination.  My favorite pair costume was a big sister with ghastly bloody-looking makeup on her neck and face walking with a smaller boy all in black. When I asked what they were, she pointed and said: “He murdered me!” at which he smiled happily.

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Images Copyright 2010 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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October 30, 2010 · 10:50 am

Our Own Personal Flood

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After my several blogs about not wanting flood insurance, it would be ironic if my home were flooded now that I finally don’t have to buy it. Our “flood” was only in the back yard, fortunately, and resulted from a cracked garden pipe. This was not the flood of Gilgamesh…

Like pieces of a broken pot lay the pieces of land among the spreading water.
So high did the water go that even the gods scrambled for mountain so high
And cringed like rain whipped dogs in the storm.

This was not the flood of Noah…

The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered;
the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

But it did make a big mess and cost us $500 to fix. What you see in the photo at the left above are the roots and pipe that caused the problem. We think a root from one of our big ash trees cracked the PVC pipe which connects to the hose bib or water spigot. I noticed that there was mud for several days in the walkway near WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office. My husband looked at it, dug a hole from which shot up a spout of water, found he could not turn it off, then called Polo’s Landscaping (408-597-5214) to come help.

It turns out that a previous owner of our Willow Glen house had put in a garden water line upstream of the house and garden water shut off valves. So, the only way we could turn off that particular pipe was to turn off the water service to the whole property. We ended up with two large muddy holes – one near the caboose, and the other near the valves in the front yard. After much digging around in my (former) iris bed, Polo found the pipe that should have had the shut off valve on it, buried two feet down. He and his team did a good job. By the end of the day, we had a new shut off valve and a fixed water pipe. The brick walkway sank a little but once the ground dries out some, I will lift the bricks and add some more sand.

Images by Katy Dickinson, Copyright 2010

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