Category Archives: News & Reviews

In my
1 May 2009 blog, I wrote “Sun is a company for people with big hearts.”

I thought about that today when I heard the end of a story which made me even
more proud of the people with whom I have the honor to work. A week ago,
one of the Software Directors sent out email to Sun’s Menlo Park campus
telling about one of our janitorial staff who had suffered a tragedy and needed
immediate help. Her young son had just died by violence and she had no money
to pay for his funeral. Her janitorial co-worker had asked for donations.

Since then, we learned from the Director who was helping to raise money that:

7 October:

“The county was able to get the cost of the funeral/burial down to $8,500. To date, we have collected $6,000 from Sun employees alone! The generosity of the people on this campus is truly overwhelming. There were so many of you who gave LARGE donations, even though you weren’t sure who [our co-worker] was. We had a donation from China as well as one from Prague. Several of you couldn’t get to the office and sent me PayPal or checks. I have had people come by and give me all the money in their wallet! The most touching, though, was from the 11 year old son of an employee who gave his allowance. I am not even sure I can find the right words to tell you all how much this means to [our co-worker] and her family.”

13 October::

“I am so proud to say that we collected over $12,000! We paid for the entire funeral and burial AND were able to give [our co-worker] $3,500 to help her get the counseling and other help she will need to get through this awful tragedy.

[Our co-worker] came back to work yesterday. We hugged each other for a long time. All she could say was “thank you.” I know how much what you all did means to her. She can now mourn the loss of her boy without worrying about how she is going to pay off that debt.

These last two weeks have been heartbreaking, yet also so very heartwarming. It is amazing to know that if any of us need help, we have a huge family here at Sun willing to jump in.”

Such a sad circumstance cannot be said to have a happy ending but it
could have been much worse without the support of the Sun community.
I was not involved except by giving a small donation but (with permission)
I wanted to share this story. Makes me proud.

The San Francisco Bay Area is enjoying its first big rain in about six months. We had one or two light sprinkles this summer but other than that, it has been very dry. KQED radio said this morning at 7:30 am there were 50 major traffic accidents on the highways. I was driving my son to school on Highway 280 this morning, going 65 miles per hour in heavy rain in the diamond lane (for commuters with two or more passengers), when three cars in turn came up right behind me to flash their lights so that they could speed ahead. Traffic was light, so they soon drove around my apparently too-slow self. We all forget how to drive in the rain during the summer.

My husband John spent yesterday at home putting everything away that wandered outside during the dry spell: the pillow on the deckchair, the hammock, the painting scaffold, stuff moved onto the driveway while working on a project in the storage area, etc. He and our neighbor Felix also quickly finished the overhang roof over the storage shelves at the back of the garage. Unfortunately, one of my prickly pear cactus and the English walnut tree on the river bank had grown enthusiastically into that space, so much yelping and whacking of plants were part of the project.

Afternoon update –

what the Guadalupe River (West Alma/Lelong bridge in Willow Glen) looked like when we drove home:

Wet leaves:

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

Following our daughter Jessica’s excellent example, my husband John Plocher has started to make YouTube videos. Since 2008, Jessica has been posting videos as part of her “P4” or Poetry and Prose Performances Project “Bringing Great Literature to YouTube”. You can see her Background Info for instructions on how to do this.

John found out that this is harder than it seems when he created his
SMUM Slideshow September 2009. Both the text and photos came out blurry when uploaded – which they were not when the video was made. The videos are helpful in both public relations and fundraising for the SMUM charity in inner city San Jose, California. While making the video, we were delighted to reconnect with Adam Sun (former owner of Szechwan Cafe on California Avenue in Palo Alto), who gave permission to use his lovely “Coincidence” flute music from his Reflections CD in the video. We also found out during testing that our pet cockatiels love flute music.

The blurry video started John on an investigation of how Apple – iMovie works with YouTube, which soon lead to a family upgrade to Snow Leopard (Mac OS X) software, which lead to buying new copies of stuff we were running on the down-rev version which does not work on Snow Leopard… Several weeks later, John is now working on his second video about El Ministerio Urbano de Santa Maria (or Santa Maria Urban Ministry, SMUM). John and I are on the SMUM Board so we tried out a draft video at last week’s meeting (they liked it). He is working on a final version to be shown at the Diocesan Convention 2009 (Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real) later this month in Salinas, California.

My contribution to this project is taking most of the photos which end up in the slideshow videos. I have been taking photos of specific SMUM subjects recently to fill in the gaps – pictures of ABC Playtime, the Board and regular volunteers, older kids other than Jose and Samantha and Stephanie (who all love to be in pictures and are very cute), the food sorting and distribution areas, action shots, etc.

Some recent images:

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

My husband, John Plocher, and I recently joined the new San Jose – Willow Glen Lions Club. With 45,000 clubs and 1.3 million members, Lions is the world’s largest service club organization. Our new club started officially on 17 August and our charter night and party will be on 24 October. We have over thirty members already. I was elected Club Secretary. John and I are enjoying meeting and working with members of our local community.

Club Leaders

Willow Glen Lions Club Meeting

Recycling Eyeglasses

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson