KatysBlog

July 26, 2012 · 10:10 pm

Night Blooming Cereus

On 10 July, I wrote about a flower bud starting on one of the six foot tall Cereus cactus columns in my garden in San Jose, California. Some years, there are many flowers but this year, just two. The buds take two weeks to develop into blooms and then last just a few hours. This flower chose to bloom after dark. By morning, the nine-inch-across bloom will be crumpled in on itself and gone. Imagine me juggling a flashlight and camera while standing on the boulders in my cactus garden at night. Here are pictures showing the growth of this spectacular flower:

June 10:

June 21:

June 26 – Morning:

June 26 – Night:

Aftermath

That particular cactus bloom surprisingly lasted into the next day. It has now started its journey from flower to fruit. More pictures:

27 July:

1 August:

6 August:

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as garden, San Jose, Willow Glen

July 26, 2012 · 9:01 pm

Safe Disposal of Old Medicine

This week, San Francisco Bay Area’s Alameda became the first US county to pass a “Safe Drug Disposal Ordinance” requiring producers of drugs sold or distributed in the county to pay for the safe collection and disposal of unused medications. I noticed this news story because I just took a bag of such medicines to the drop box at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (795 El Camino Real, Palo Alto). About once a year, I go through the medicines in our house, check the expiration date, and put old stuff in a bag for disposal. I have written about challenges Disposing of Toxics when clearing my parents’ house for sale earlier this year. I was pleased to find the PAMF drop box as a safe and easy solution to this ongoing problem. Information on other Bay Area disposal sites is available from the Regional Water Quality Control Plant “cleanbay.org” web site.

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Tagged as Eleanor, San Francisco, Wade

July 26, 2012 · 10:41 am

Episcopal Town Hall by Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves

Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves was at St. Andrew’s in Saratoga, California, last night in a town hall style discussion about the recent General Convention. The Episcopal church’s General Convention meets every three years and is organized in two houses: the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies. Bishop Mary told us of her experiences in the House of Bishops and many of our lay and clergy delegates to the House of Deputies spoke as well. The 77th General Convention met July 5–12, 2012, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

We started yesterday with a BarBQ dinner in the courtyard under the huge oak and then moved into the church for a two hour discussion. The meeting of over a hundred was hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Deanery, an organization of the parishes in the upper third of the Diocese of El Camino Real on the central coast of California.

After opening with prayer, we heard about many of the topics discussed in the USA-wide convention, from many points of view. Some of the highlights for me:

Bishop Mary’s response to Jay Akasie’s dramatic and highly-critical article “What Ails the Episcopalians: Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful” in the 12 July 2012 Wall Street Journal. (She said she ate no fancy steak dinners and heard of none, and did not see how they could happen on the travel budget allowed.)
Serious discussion of reorganizing the church as an institution so as to serve the people better and make more effective use of church money.
Consideration of the requirements for communion. See more on this: “Baptism before communion is still church’s norm: Convention debate shows practice doesn’t always follow canons”.
Approval for use of the rite “The Witnessing and Blessing of a Lifelong Covenant” to bless same-sex couples who are in lifelong, faithful monogamous, committed relationships. See more on this: “Blessing rite authorized for provisional use from First Advent: Liturgy still ‘work in progress,’ convention calls for continued comment”. Our ECR diocese’s 2010 “Report  of  the Diocese  of  El  Camino  Real  Task  Force  on  the  Theology  of  Marriage” was part of this discussion.
Consideration on how to reduce barriers to diverse participation in church leadership and governance. (I was reminded to look at current postings on the Chicks in Pointy Hats blog about women bishops.)
Discussion of the several resolutions on how to reduce poverty and to help the homeless.

Overall, it was a fascinating and instructive meeting.

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Filed under Church, News & Reviews

Tagged as Episcopal church, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

July 24, 2012 · 8:51 pm

New Baseboards

Ten years ago, we took out the (horrible pink) wall-to-wall carpet in our 1930 house in Willow Glen and had the floors refinished. Like many home improvement efforts, we got 90% done and then stopped. The carpet came out but the baseboards never got installed. I have heard it said that it is hardest to pay someone else to do work that you know how to do well yourself. Baseboards are not very difficult but they are fussy and take time to get right, so we never got around to them. We finally decided to bring in the professionals.

The upper hall was easy – it is almost empty. However, our bedroom is fully furnished and everything was in the way. Paul and I helped the contractors to move stuff around. It is surprising how much dust settles under an armoire in ten years and how many books had migrated into our room from where they should have been. I am happy with the results and especially happy to be done with that project, finally.

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Tagged as House Work, Paul, Willow Glen

July 24, 2012 · 9:10 am

John’s Trip Home

My husband John Plocher is flying home from his most recent two week trip to China, on business for Huawei. I have received an interesting series of text message emails as he worked his way through the weather and mess of a typhoon from ShenZhen to the Hong Kong airport. So far, his flight is about two hours late.

On way to airport – roads flooded, slow traffic, not worried – looking forward to seeing you SOON!!
Typhoon coming in to south of us in morning… More info as I find out,,,
Coming->came…
Only 1 route to hk open, ferry closed, shekou bridge closed, luohu closed, trees down across only road open.. Glad we have several hours b4 plane leaves
At hk airport
Flight delayed (no surprise).checked in ok
On board! Good seat

Later… John arrived home safely despite Typhoon Vicente, only two hours late.

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Tagged as China, Huawei, John

July 21, 2012 · 1:36 pm

Non-Travel Diary 4

While my husband John is in China on business for Huawei, I am keeping a non-travel diary. This has been a relatively quiet week. In addition to working full-time at Huawei:

There was a small amount of progress on our home construction projects. The painter spent a half day painting the wrong color stain on the baseboards. When I pointed out the error, he spent about the same amount of time sanding that color off and re-staining. Nobody was happy.
Thursday, I joined the monthly Board meeting of the Santa Maria Urban Ministry. We said an appreciative goodbye to our summer intern. The SMUM Tech Team (of which John and I are members) was assigned some new projects by the Board.
My newly-assigned 2012 TechWomen mentee from Lebanon and I made first contact. We exchanged introductory emails and are starting to make preparations for her visit to the Silicon Valley in September. Her background is impressive – I very much look forward to working with her in person. TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
I communicated with the 2011 TechWomen mentees with whom I am presenting a panel at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in October 2012 (Baltimore, MD). I am the moderator of the panel called “Technical Women in the Arab Region: Challenges vs. Aspirations”. We have travel funding confirmed for three of the panelists and we are working on support for our fourth. The ladies are traveling from Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon for GHC12. I am very eager to see them again!
Paul and I took our Wood Shop basic safety and equipment introduction at TechShop San Jose last night. We enjoyed learning to use the miter saw, table saw, band saw, electric sander, and drill press. The scroll saw is being repaired so we will learn how to use that later. I made a heart for John and Paul started work on an infinity symbol using the band saw. One of the other students laser-engraved the heart for me. I want to take a TechShop laser class next!
This morning, we had a community yard sale. Despite being on Craigslist and putting signs up on nearby corners, it was very poorly attended. However, it was fun to hang out with the neighbors. Our neighborhood apparently has 7 boys and 1 girl aged between 6 and 12 years old – who spent the morning rocketing from sale to sale comparing stuff and giving updates.
John comes home Tuesday morning!

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Filed under Home & Family, Hopper - Anita Borg Institute, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Geeks, House Work, Huawei, John, Mentoring, Middle East, Paul, San Jose, technical women, TechWomen, Willow Glen

July 20, 2012 · 11:10 pm

Your Mother is Here to Make Robots

I love this sign over the kitchen sink at TechShop San Jose:

TechShop Members: Your Mother may be a member here at TechShop, but she’s here to make Robots, not wash your dishes. Please clean up any messes that you make. Thank you.

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Filed under News & Reviews

Tagged as Geeks, San Jose, technical women

KatysBlog

Night Blooming Cereus

Safe Disposal of Old Medicine

Episcopal Town Hall by Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves

New Baseboards

John’s Trip Home

Non-Travel Diary 4

Your Mother is Here to Make Robots

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