Category Archives: News & Reviews

Sun’s Sun Ray (TM)
equipment is one of the featured designs in the new SFO
United terminal’s exhibit called

“Prototype to Product: Thirty-three Projects from the Bay Area Design Community”
showing off excellent San Francisco Bay Area industrial designs. The exhibit takes the
form of a series of showcases along one of the moving walkways in the airline terminal.
The show is open July 2007 through January 2008. It is presented by
iDSA SF and the
San Francisco Airport Museum. I saw it as I was flying out on Wednesday
and the show is well worth taking extra travel time to visit.

This blog entry does not contain any spoilers or plot details!

Our two copies of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
arrived early Saturday morning. John and the kids and I have taken turns
reading them. Jessica finished on Sunday – taking about 24 hours to read
the 759 pages while John and I were working in the garden and on the caboose.
John and I finished last night at about the same time.
Paul just finished this afternoon. We agreed not to discuss book details
until everyone was done so we are looking forward to talking at dinner
tonight.

People at work are being similarly courteous – not discussing the book in the
halls without asking if everyone has finished. Jessica is now re-reading
the series from Book 5. I plan to start the series from the beginning
with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone just for the fun of reading
the whole story from beginning to end.

J.K. Rowling’s 7th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
was just delivered with a brisk knock on our early morning door. We bought two
copies and the UPS delivery man for Amazon.com said he has 8,000 more to pass out
in our area of San Jose, CA this morning. I know what I am reading today…

I very much enjoyed reading Christopher Moore’s 2003 novel
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
(# ISBN-10: 0380813815 and # ISBN-13: 978-0380813810). So, I next read
Moore’s 2004 novel Bloodsucking Fiends (# ISBN-10: 0060735414 and
# ISBN-13: 978-0060735418). An example of Moore’s intelligent and
funny writing from Bloodsucking Fiends describes the difficulties
of a new young vampire dressing for a date in San Francisco:

She had fifteen minutes before she was supposed to meet Tommy at Enrico’s.
Allowing for another bus ride and a short walk, she had about seven
minutes to find an outfit. She walked into the Gap on the corner of Van Ness
and Vallejo with a stack of hundred-dollar bills in her hand and announced,
“I need help. Now!”.

Ten sales people, all young, all dressed in generic cotton casual, looked up
from their conversations, spotted the money in her hand, and simultaneously
stopped breathing — their brains shutting down bodily functions and rerouting
the needed energy to calculate the projected commissions contained in Jody’s
cash. One by one they resumed breathing and marched toward her, a perky
youthful version of The Night of the Living Dead.

“I wear a size four and I’ve got a date in fifteen minutes,” Jody
said. “Dress me.”

The descended on her like an evil khaki wave.

After reading two Christopher Moore novels, I was ready for something more
classical. I am now reading my way through Ovid: Metamorphoses
translated by Rolfe Humphries (1955 and 1983, # ISBN-10: 0253337550 and
# ISBN-13: 978-0253337559).
Ovid (or Publius Ovidius Naso) had finished
this, his greatest work, by the year 8 when Augustus Ceasar banished him from Rome.
His stories of body changing ancient Greeks are charming and Humphries’ poetry is
sometimes inspired. Here is part of Book VI
and the story of Latona, the mother of the twin gods Apollo and Diana, faced
with country people refusing her a drink from a pond:

…neither children

Nor the mother’s gentle words had any power.


They told her, Go away! and threats and insults


Were not enough; they made the water muddy,


Jumping and splashing, exulting in their meanness,


Until the goddess forgot thirst for anger.


No daughter of Coeus could keep on being humble


To louts such as these, no goddess fail to speak


In her full voice. She cursed them: “Live forever


In that foul puddle!” And it came out in that way:


They live in water and they love it dearly,


Now diving under, now coming up to the surface


To stick their ugly heads out, and now swimming,


Now squatting on the bank, or leaping in


To the cool water again, and all the time


Keeping their everlasting quarrels going


As shameless as they ever were, and cursing,


Or trying to curse, even when under water….


The new frogs keep on leaping.

We just got email from Susan Nace (Harker’s superb music
teacher and the director for
Cantilena, Harker’s Upper School Women’s Choir) that
on Saturday Cantilena won its first Unanimous Superior at the
CMEA (California Association for Music Education)
choir competition! The judges comments were:

• Stunning balance! Rich singing (you put many college choirs to shame with the high level of phrasing and expression we heard from you today.)
• Confident singing.
• Lovely, warm tone, mature sound.
• Fine understanding of the music.
• Very musical and sensitive.
• Great discipline and decorum.
• Tone production is beautiful.

My daughter Jessica said the choir worked hard for this CMEA rating, including a sight
reading test in which Ms. Nace had just two minutes to prepare and Cantilena had five minutes
to practice a new piece of choral music. Jessica has a big voice and has been very focussed
on improving her vocal range and control this year so she had extra work to stay balanced with
the other women’s voices.

Even though Jessica was not accepted into any of the college music
programs to which she applied, earning a personal CMEA Superior last year and a
CMEA Superior (with Command Performance) again this March plus being part of Cantilena when
they were awarded a Unanimous Superior by CMEA is a great way to end her High School
senior year as a member of Harker’s Conservatory. I think Jessica will very much miss being
part of this fine choir. We hope she can join an equally excellent choir and work with
another great voice teacher at
Carnegie Mellon starting in August.