John and I are in a phase of caboose restoration where there are many
fiddly not-very-photogenic projects. He has been installing the
insulation and wood facing for the new wood window frame in the
bay window cut out by the prior owner. We found leaks caused by
that prior owner having drilled hard-to-find holes in the steel. It
is a good thing we are doing this work during the rainy season. It would
have been a pain to find out about these little holes after the wood
facing was installed! We had enough original wood to replace the
damaged facing above the intact bay window but we are using new wood for
the other side.
Stained glass artist
Vince Taylor brought by the new window frame. Vince is working on
the design for the 3 windows he will install in WP668. See my
December 17, 2007 blog entry for more.
I have been filling little holes in the walls with wooden pegs. Once the
glue dries, I cut the excess peg flush with the wall then fill cracks with wood
filler paste. Some holes are too small for pegs and just need the paste.
91 years of bolts, screws, and nails have left many dozen little
holes. If it do it right, none of these will be visible once the walls
are painted. Bigger holes are covered with round tin patches. About
a dozen old patches were in place when we bought WP668 two years ago.
Our cat Valentino is contributing the bottoms of his special treat cat food
tins to the caboose restoration. Tino is happy to accept a treat whenever
we need a patch.
The PreSEED mentoring pilot program application web pages have been
available for use since Sunday night (27 January).
So far, we have:
Applicants: 17
Completed Applications: 6
By Work Location:
Central USA: 4 [ 24% ]
China: 4 [ 24% ]
Eastern USA: 2 [ 12% ]
France: 1 [ 6% ]
India: 2 [ 12% ]
Western USA: 4 [ 24% ]
Application materials should be submitted as soon
as possible. The application period will close on 3 February 2008 (at
Midnight, Pacific Time), or as soon as 100 complete applications are received.
A complete web-based application includes 3-parts: the form, resume,
and Manager’s letter. The information in the application must pass
verification. The first fifty (50) complete and verified applicants will
be accepted into the PreSEED pilot program.
PreSEED’s four General Selection Criteria are:
All Participants are in Engineering.
Only regular Sun employees may participate.
All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be “Sun
Standard” (a 2) or better.
Manager support is required.
Tomorrow morning is PreSEED’s world-wide phone-in discussion for
applicants and their managers.
PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program.
More information on SEED is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/
One of my favorite books is the
Richard III mystery by Josephine Tey called The Daughter of Time, 1951. (The title comes from the old proverb
that “Truth is the Daughter of Time”.) In this excellent story about a
detective’s search for the truth about England’s most famously evil king,
the nature of written History is explored:
“‘Truth isn’t in accounts but in account books.’
‘A neat phrase,’ Grant said, complimentary, ‘Does it mean anything?’
‘It means everything. The real history is written in forms not
meant as history. In Wardrobe accounts, in Privy Purse expenses, in
personal letters, in estate books. If someone say, insists that Lady
Whoosit never had a child, and you find in the account account book the
entry: ‘For the son born to my lady on Michaelmas eve: five yards of blue
ribbon, fourpence halfpenny” it’s a reasonably fair deduction that my
lady had a son on Michaelmas eve.'” Chapter 8
I think I first started a life-long hunt for artefacts and records that
contradict Accepted Truth after I visited Olympia, Greece in 1979. In the
museum were many empty pedestals, all that was left of tributes to the
athletes who were winners in the ancient Olympic competitions. I was surprised
to read on one of the classical marble pedestals an inscription honoring
a woman (of Sparta, as I recall) who had won three Olympic chariot races.
In 1979, I had just been graduated from the University of California where I
had taken quite a few Classics courses. However, until I read that inscription,
I did not know that women had ever competed in the Classical Greek Olympics.
Since that revelation, I have found
other sources indicating that women did indeed compete in the ancient Olympics;
however, this is still neither Common Knowledge nor Accepted Truth. For
example, the current Wikipedia entry on the Olympics says simply
(and wrongly):
“Paris [in 1900] was also the first Olympic Games where women were allowed
to compete.”
In The Daughter of Time, hunting for the Truth becomes a passion
and enduring detection game for the characters. I recommend both the
book and the game.
The PreSEED mentoring pilot program application web pages are now
available for use. Application materials should be submitted as soon
as possible. The application period will close on 3 February 2008 (at
Midnight, Pacific Time), or as soon as 100 complete applications are received.
A complete web-based application includes 3-parts: the form, resume,
and Manager’s letter. The information in the application must pass
verification. The first fifty (50) complete and verified applicants will
be accepted into the PreSEED pilot program. For more on PreSEED, see
my
23 Jan 2008 blog entry.
It took me a while to get out this update. The San Francisco Bay Area
is in the middle of a week-long rainstorm. Today, a branch went through the
roof of our home internet provider’s transmitter. I finally gave up on them
and drove to Sun’s Campbell drop in center.
PreSEED’s four General Selection Criteria are:
All Participants are in Engineering.
Only regular Sun employees may participate.
All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be “Sun
Standard” (a 2) or better.
Manager support is required.
PreSEED is a pilot of the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program.
More information on SEED is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/
SAMA – St. Andrew’s Medical Assistance – is an outreach program of St. Andrew’s Episcopal
Church. Today, the SAMA committee had its second meeting in 2008
to prepare for the SAMA fundraising dinner (to be on Sunday, 13 April
2008 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 13601 Saratoga Avenue,
Saratoga, CA.) There will be Middle Eastern food and an auction. I am
in charge of event publicity.
My first effort was to create the SAMA web page, now available at http://st-andrews-sama.org.
As the newest member of the committee, I am still learning about the
program’s 14-year history of raising money for charitable medical
programs in the Holy Land and Africa. Other SAMA committee members will
send me photos, recipes, and text for the web site. For now, I put
up the pictures I took at last month’s Christian Palestinian craft sale.
(The same photos I posted on my
4 Dec 2007 blog entry.) I am looking forward to working on the
13th April fundraising event and SAMA.
Last month when I visited Washington, D.C. for the first time in many decades, I toured the National Museum of the American Indian, opened as part of the Smithsonian Institution in 2004. It seemed to me that one way of understanding more about the complex relationship between the European/American cultures and the American Indian cultures was to read reports from individuals who had personally experienced both. In the museum store, I bought two books:
Captured by the Indians: 15 Firsthand Accounts, 1750-1870, Editor: Frederick Drimmer, Dover Publications, 1985, ISBN-10: 0486249018, ISBN-13: 978-0486249018
In these books, I was interested to read for the first time about the death by burning in 1782 of General George Washington’s friend, Colonel William Crawford. This disturbing story was told in:
“That is Your Great Captain” by Dr. John Knight, 1783 (in Captured by the Indians)
“To Eat Fire Tomorrow” by John Slover as told to Hugh H. Brackenridge, 1782 (in Captured by the Indians)
“A Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison” by James E. Seaver, 1824 (in Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives)
Knight and Slover were captured with Crawford after Crawford’s failed expedition against the Ohio Indians (Wyandot, Huron, Delaware, and Shawnee tribes). Knight and Mary Jemison’s husband Hiokatoo (of the Seneca tribe) were witnesses to Crawford’s death; Slover was told of it by his captors.
Trying to sort out what happened by reading these memorable accounts is a good exercise in detection and understanding the difficulties of History even when first-hand accounts are available. For example, a major participant in Crawford’s violent death was Simon Gurty (or Girty). Gurty is described in a footnote in Women’s Indian Captivity Narratives as “…a Pennsylvania adventurer who… alternated allegiance between the Americans and the British, aiding the latter during the War of 1812”.
Here are two accounts of the same exchange between Gurty and the dying Crawford:
“The flames arose and the scorching heat became almost insupportable. Again [Crawford] prayed to Gurty in all the anguish of his torment, to rescue him from the fire, or shoot him dead upon the spot. A demoniac smile suffused the countenance of Gurty, while he calmly replied to the dying suppliant, that he had no pity for his sufferings; but that he was then satisfying the spirit of revenge, which for a long time he had hoped to have an opportunity to wreak upon him.” (Mary Jemison retelling Hiokatoo’s story)
“In the midst of these extreme tortures [Crawford] called to Simon Girty and begged him to shoot him. Girty made no answer. He called to him again. Girty, by way of derision, told the colonel he had no gun. At the same he turned to an Indian who was behind him, laughed heartily, and by all his gestures seemed delighted at the horrid scene.” (John Knight telling what he witnessed)
In seeking more information about these stories, I found yet another version of this exchange:
“Overcome by agony, Crawford cried out, ‘Girty! Girty! For God’s sake, Girty, shoot me through the heart!’ The raucous din grew ominously silent as all eyes came to rest on the man called Girty. After a moment of introspection, he rose from his seated position by the fire and strode to where Crawford lay sobbing. ‘I cannot,’ Girty replied softly. ‘As you can see, I have no gun.’ Turning away from Crawford’s mangled figure, Girty grinned at the onlookers and belched forth a sinister giggle.”
From: “A Monster So Brutal: Simon Girty and the Degenerative Myth of the American Frontier, 1783-1900″. Volume Forty, 1998 Essays in History, Published by the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. by Daniel P. Barr, Kent State University.
While Gurty is clearly the villain in all three story versions, there are also differences in both specifics and style. The “Monster So Brutal” story version purports to be a retelling of Knight’s and Slover’s accounts – with no reference to Mary Jemison version of Hiokatoo’s story. However, the “Monster So Brutal” story is very exaggerated and includes details I do not find in the first hand accounts. “A Monster So Brutal” also says that Slover was an eyewitness to Crawford’s death. Slover’s account in Captured by the Indians just says “At this time I was told that Colonel Crawford had been burnt…”. Maybe there is more than one version of Slover’s story?
Having read these books, I have a greater appreciation for the complexity of this early period of American history and the interactions of the Indian, British, French, and American cultures. It is certainly more exciting than I remember from my required American History courses in High School and college!
25 Jan 2008: original blog post, 27 Feb 2021: formatting updated, photo added
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All 50 of the SEED Engineering worldwide mentoring program participants
(mentees) were matched with mentors as of today (January-June 2008 Established
Staff Term). Some Metrics:
86% of the newly-matched mentors are executives: 16 Vice Presidents
(including 3 Fellows), 9 Distinguished
Engineers, and 18 Directors (including Senior or Executive Directors).
It took 45 days to match the 50 mentoring pairs (10 December 2007 – 24 January
2008). 78% were matched in the first ten days.
82% of mentees were matched with one of their top four Mentor Wish List
requests. Specifically: 56% were matched with their 1st or 2nd choice mentor.
26% were matched with their 3rd or 4th choice mentor. 18% were matched with
their 5th or lower priority mentor.
64% of mentees were matched with mentors who do not work in the mentee’s
local area.
32% of the pairs include one or more person who works outside of the USA.
20% of mentors are female. (18% of mentees are female.)
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