Category Archives: News & Reviews

My daughter Jessica loves to sing opera. Last week, she went with John, Paul,
and me to volunteer at SMUM (Santa Maria
Urban Ministry,
San Jose, CA) for Studio 17, the after school homework and computer lab. As
usual, we worked with the kids on homework for the first hour. During the
second hour, some kids wanted to use the computers but Jessica attracted
quite an audience when she started singing opera in the kitchen. The 2nd
through 6th grade girls at first were dubious, standing with crossed arms, but
soon started requesting more songs. Wearing her Carnegie Mellon shirt, Jessica
started with Spanish songs but they wanted
to hear Russian and German too. Finally, they asked for rap. Jessica did not
know rap, so she sang English folk songs and opera instead. They loved it.
Here is some of what Jessica sang:

• “Canción de la gitana habilidosa” – J. Castel (1761-1781) Spanish
• “Gretchen am Spinnrade” – F. Schubert (1797-1828) German
• “Lyubasha’s Aria” from The Tsar’s Bride – N. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908)
  Russian
• “Barbry Allen” traditional folk song English
• “When I am Laid in Earth” – Henry Purcell (1659-1695) from “Dido and Aeneas” English

Homework time

Homework time

Computer time

Jessica singing opera

Jessica singing opera

Jessica singing opera

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting in the Cliff House Conference
Room of the Sun Labs building in Menlo Park, CA. Some minutes
into the meeting, I noticed a red power cord hanging in a corner.
As the discussion continued, I idly saw that there was something large and
brown on the cord, about seven feet off the floor. I stared
at it and as I was saying “What’s that?”, a large and lovely
brown and black and white butterfly opened its wings. It had just
emerged from its chrysalis, which was attached to the red cord.
Apparently, when it was a caterpillar, it had come into the
building, crept into the conference room, and decided that the
plastic power cord was its perfect spot.

The meeting was very quiet and slightly shocked as we watched the unexpected
and beautiful new creature gently flapping its wings for the first time.
The butterfly then took off and flew into the overhead light fixture. It did
not come out again but since the butterfly was not
in the lamp later (I climbed up on the table to look), I hope that it
found its way outside. The dry chrysalis is still in the conference room…

Image Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

I gave my husband, John Plocher, a 1915 Gilbert Observatory Regulator Western
Pacific Railroad advertising wall clock for his birthday last month; it has
inspired him to fix two of our other clocks. The first is a family clock
which John’s parents gave us for our wedding. It was made by Junghans and
was bought in Holzhauzen, Germany, originally a wedding gift on 16 July 1930
from his Great-Grandparents Johannes and Anna Plocher to their son Karl and his
new wife Adelia Martin Plocher (John’s Grandparents). The second clock has an arts
and crafts style cabinet that John’s youngest brother Marty made then gave us
for Christmas some years ago.

The Western Pacific advertiser clock is working well so long as it is wound
weekly. The regulator stops occasionally but keeps good time. The German
clock has a pleasant chime but refuses to keep time or
sound when it should. John is still tinkering with it. Marty’s clock keeps
good time but the regulator sometimes stops. (Since it uses a battery,
the regulator is just for show.) We think John has it fixed now.

John’s new clock

1930 German Clock

Inside German Clock

Marty’s Clock

John at work

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

My daughter
Jessica came home safe after finishing her Freshman year
final exams at Carnegie Mellon. Hooray! We are all very happy
to have her home. Of course, we have to share our talented and
energetic girl. Her summer plans include:

• Contuining her job as a part time Java programmer for Stanford University Libraries
  in Palo Alto, CA
• Working as a part time intern for
  U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein
  in San Francisco, CA
• Singing 26-29 June 2008 as one of the three genii
  (or
  three boys) in Mozart’s opera
  The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflote), at
  
  Saltnote Stageworks in Washington, D.C.
• Working for my mother (Eleanor Creekmore Dickinson) in San Francisco, CA
• Spending a week at the
  
  Lair of the Golden Bear –
  U.C. Berkeley family camp in the Sierras.
• Learning and teaching at the karate dojo.
• Working on the new
  Carnegie Mellon University Chapter for the Association for Computing Machinery. Jessi is their Webmonarch.
• Hanging out with Matt (The Boyfriend) and other friends home from college.

OK, so we will see her sometimes. But she has devoted this entire weekend
to hanging out at home and we are very happy to have our wonderful girl back.
When he heard Jessi happily singing German opera in the shower this morning, John
got a big grin on his face and said: “She’s home!”.

We have a new favorite restaurant for special occasions: the
Melting Pot fondue
restaurant in downtown San Jose (72 South 1st Street). Three families
went together to celebrate John’s birthday dinner last month. We had
a wonderful time. It was a long meal and wasn’t cheap but the food and
service were excellent. The little kids, teens, and adults all enjoyed
themselves. The restaurant even had glow bracelets for the kids to take
home (after John tried them on).

The dessert course was particularly well presented with the dark dipping
chocolate being set on fire as it poured. We had such a good time, we are
going back on Saturday to celebrate my daughter Jessica coming home
after finishing her first year at Carnegie Mellon University.

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

This weekend, John is wearing his

OpenSolaris Governing Board hat at the 2nd

OpenSolaris Developer Summit on the University of California at Santa
Cruz campus, so Paul and I are on our own. Paul has homework and I am
answering intermittent emails from the 52 new

PreSEED Participants (who are working toward a 9 am Monday submission
deadline for their Mentor Wish Lists), but we decided to take off yesterday
night to go to the movies.

15-year-old Paul and I have different taste in movies. I have almost
forgiven him for talking me into seeing
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles last year. Paul made an all-out
pitch for the wonders of the just-opened movie
Iron Man. He
showed me the trailer on his laptop. He reminded me that Robert Downey
and Gwyneth Paltrow have also been in Shakespeare movies. He looked at
me with puppy eyes. OK, we went.

Surprisingly, it was both fun and good. The characters were interesting
and sufficiently well developed. Jeff Bridges makes an excellent bad guy.
Gwyneth Paltrow played the hero’s almost-girlfriend without leaving her
brains behind. The pace was bearable – not just explosions held together
by quip interludes. Here in the Silicon Valley, I think many
members of the theater audience wanted to go home afterwards and start
designing their own hero suit. This is just the place to find a crowd
who already believe that “Heroes aren’t born, they’re built.” Be sure
to sit through all of the credits to see a guest appearance teaser for
the next in what promises to be an entertaining movie series.

I listened to KQED, our local public
broadcasting radio station on my drive to work this morning. They just
aired a story which included an interview with a Captain of Iraqui militia
in Baghdad’s Sadr City. His description of why he was fighting sounded
familiar. I have been reading Shelby Foote’s monumental 1958 history
The Civil War: A Narrative and remembered the following passage from
Volume One (Fort Sumter to Perryville, 1861-1862):

Perhaps the best definition of the conflict was given in conversation by a
civilian, James M. Mason of Virginia: “I look upon it then, sir, as a war
of sentiment and opinion by one form of society against another form of
society.” No soldier would have argued with this; but few would have found it
satisfactory. They wanted something more immediate and less comprehensive…
Meanwhile, perhaps no soldier in either army gave a better answer — one more
readily understandable to his fellow soldiers, at any rate — than a ragged
Virginia private, pounced on by the Northerners in a retreat.

“What are you fighting for anyhow?” his captors asked, looking at him. They
were genuinely puzzled, for he obviously owned no slaves and seemingly could
have little interest in States Rights or even Independence.


“I’m fighting because you’re down here,” he said.