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.
Sun Ray in “Prototype to Product” Exhibit at SFO
Filed under News & Reviews
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
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.
Filed under News & Reviews
Valentino Alone
Our 12-year-old cat Garbo died from cancer last week. I wrote about her in my 18 July 2007 blog entry. We buried her in the backyard and held a small family ceremony. Jessica sang the prayer of St. Francis using the tune by Sarah McLachlan
- Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
- where there is hatred, let me sow love;
- where there is injury, pardon;
- where there is doubt, faith;
- where there is despair, hope;
- where there is darkness, light;
- and where there is sadness, joy.
- O Divine Master,
- grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
- to be understood, as to understand;
- to be loved, as to love;
- for it is in giving that we receive,
- it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
- and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
- Amen.
Garbo’s litter mate Valentino and our whole family miss her. Tino knows there is something wrong, someone missing, and he keeps hunting around and crying. We are spending a great deal of time comforting Tino.
Images Copyright 2006-2007 by John Plocher
Filed under Home & Family
Harry Potter 7
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…
Filed under News & Reviews
41 SEEDs Matched So Far
The SEED Engineering mentoring program is in the matching cycle for its
Recent Hires and Established Staff participants in the 2007-2008 worldwide
terms. We have 41 mentoring pairs confirmed so far. That is, in the
first ten days of the cycle, we have 60% of our participants matched.
Most of the mentors so far have been SEED mentors before. Seven mentors are
SEED alumni, meaning that they were participants themselves in earlier terms.
Several of the mentors have position titles in addition to their
official ones. This term, SEED is honored and delighted to welcome
as mentors the Eco Responsibility Executive, the Chief Privacy Officer, Chief
Security Officer, and the Chief Gaming Officer among staff with the more usual
titles of Vice President, Fellow, Distinguished Engineer, and Director.
More information on SEED is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/
Filed under Mentoring & Other Business
Garbo Dying
When my mother was a young married woman (before she had kids), she worked in a bank in Hollywood. She tells us that she looked forward to seeing one of her bank’s shyest customers, the lovely silent film star Greta Garbo.
Twelve years ago, my family adopted two striped gray kittens with huge green eyes and black eyelids. Their eyes reminded me of the movie makeup of the silent film stars. So, we named the kitties Greta Garbo and Rudolf Valentino, or Garbo and Tino for short. Here are photos from last year:
Garbo: |
Garbo and Tino: |
In 1995, we rescued these two as kittens abandoned at Donner Pass (elevation 7,085 feet). We were driving home from a week of camping and had stopped for coffee. While we waited, we saw a tiny gray kitten playing among the barstools. The bartender said that the kitten and her brother had been left by the highway the week before. They were sleeping in the woodpile, hiding out from the racoons. This was in early September and snow was due within two weeks. We took the kittens home, cut the pine tar out of their fur, and added them to our family.
When we came home from vacation last month, Garbo was clearly very ill. We have been taking her to the vet for weeks but yesterday she was diagnosed with incurable, inoperable cancer. We are trying one last medicine but even if that works, it will at best give us a few months before Garbo dies. We may have to ask the vet to put her to sleep this week if the medicine does not help.
Garbo and Tino are enjoying canned tuna (their special treat) and lots of combing and loving in the time we have left. Even though she feels bad and has much of her fur shaved off for the medical tests, Garbo is a sweet and lovely cat. This is my small tribute to our loving pet. We will miss Garbo.
Images Copyright 2006 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher
Filed under Home & Family
Getting Ready to Empty the Nest
My daughter Jessica leaves home to become a Freshman at Carnegie Mellon
University (CMU) in about a
month. We are working through all that needs to be done before she goes.
Jessica already passed her weaving loom along to an 8th grader from Peninsula
School and in the space where the loom was are now three big boxes for her to fill.
She wants to fly to Pittsburgh, PA to go to college by herself with just two
suitcases. We will ship the boxes a week in advance so they
will be there soon after she arrives.
Our friend Laura sent her son Timothy off to New York University last year.
She said he came home at Christmas and left about half of the clothes he had
taken to school in September. Dorm rooms are very small and Jessica
will have two roommates. We are trying to think through her needs and
plan carefully. Jessica has a full time summer job as a software developer
for Stanford University so all of our preparations need to happen at night
and on weekends.
CMU and other vendors have sent us three or four mailings offering sheet,
towel, and toiletry sets for new Freshmen. We already bought extra long
sheets when Jessica was at U.C. Santa Cruz for 8 weeks last summer taking Spanish.
I don’t think we need to buy new bedding for CMU. However, the refrigerator
and microwave units CMU rents look like a very good idea. Also, Jessica needs to talk
with her two new roomies and see if anyone plans to bring a printer.
We have been shuffling money from college savings funds into ready
access accounts to be prepared to pay tuition. The first semester invoice for
$24,569.50 arrived – payment is due 17 August 2007. 18 years of planning and saving
for college and here we are getting ready to spend the money. Exciting!
Filed under Home & Family
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