February 15, 2006 · 5:10 pm

Caboose Moves Next Week

John and our neighbor DeWayne spent the day at the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum
in San Francisco readying
Western Pacific 688 to move into storage in San Jose in a week.
They took the rotted out back steps off.

We have also drained our swimming pool and have about half of its
redwood deck dismantled and stacked for reuse as lumber. All of our
neighbors have been notified about this project and so far everyone
is supportive. I have a row of unhealthy citrus and privets and a
fence to remove so that the construction equipment can get in the
yard to start filling in the swimming pool.

Everyone asks when the party will be. We plan to have a caboose
blessing and potluck sometime this summer.

Leave a comment

Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains

February 11, 2006 · 12:32 pm

Pancake Races (28 February)

My daughter Jessica is managing
All Saints’ Palo Alto annual pancake races this year on Shrove Tuesday
(6:30 p.m., 28 February, 555 Waverley at Hamilton, Palo Alto).
Pancake racing has been a popular Anglican tradition since 1445.
Here is one version of how the famous tradition got started in

Olney, England:

    One story tells us of a harassed housewife, hearing the shriving bell, dashing off to the Church still clutching her frying pan containing a pancake. Another that the gift of pancakes may have been a form of bribe to the Ringer, or Sexton that he might ring the bell sooner; for the ringing of the Church bell was the signal for the beginning of the day’s holiday and enjoyment, no less than to summon the people to the shriving service at which they would be shriven of their sins before the long Lenten fast. Traditional declares that the race was first run in the year 1445, pancakes at that time being a popular dish and receiving the royal favour. It was run on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent, and the whole day was given over to a festival of celebrations, pranks and pastimes, which formed a part of the last fling celebrations.

All Saints’ version of the Shrove Tuesday celebration starts with a pancake
dinner cooked and served by the parish youth and ends with the race itself.
The race is held in the parish hall with runners divided into categories
based on the age and number of the available contestants. Each runner gets a
frying pan with one pancake which must be flipped at least three times during
the race. A particularly popular contest matches a parent against the Rector,
running in full clerical vestments if it can be arranged.

Jessica is enjoying long discussions on menu variations based on the usual
pancakes, ham slice, and apple sauce, how many cooks versus servers are needed,
and securing volunteer commitments. We have put my son Paul in charge of
buying little race prizes and sugar bead necklaces.

Leave a comment

Filed under Church

February 11, 2006 · 8:39 am

Girls’ Wrestling and Other School Activities

My daughter Jessica participated in “JV” league wrestling finals last night.
Harker
has a mixed boy and girl folk-style wrestling team, as do most of the Bay
Area High Schools in the Santa Clara
Valley Athletic League (SCVAL). Wrestling, unlike most sports, does
not segregate on gender or public/private school lines.

The Junior Varsity wrestling season is now over
(although Varsity continues for two more weeks). Jessi lost her
first two matches but won her final fight, ending this year well.
Her elbow and toe hurt and she is blooming with little bruises but
she is happy with her performance.

To celebrate Jessi no longer having to keep her weight within 2 pounds
of her weight class target, we went out to dinner last night and she ate
pizza and two desserts. We celebrated at Mio Vicino on Lincoln Avenue in
Willow Glen which has an amazing apple and raisin bread pudding and
good chocolate cake. We even bought Jessica a bunch of purple roses from
the little Grandma who walks around the restaurant with a bucket of
flowers to sell.

Jessi is now furthering her celebrations by cooking German apple pancakes
and date raisin bread for Saturday breakfast. The entire family is very
appreciative that she relaxes by learning to bake something new. Jessi
is the only kid I know who carries

Baking Illustrated around with her for light reading.

My son Paul is sleeping in. The celebration last night was for him too
since he was awarded
Jordan’s “Student of the Month” again. As soon as Paul is out of bed
and we have devoured Jessi’s latest kitchen experiments, we start to take
out our swimming pool. We will reuse the deck boards on the caboose so we
need to take them out carefully.

Leave a comment

Filed under Home & Family

February 10, 2006 · 6:38 pm

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2006

The
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is always an
inspiring and exciting event. The 4-7 October 2006 Hopper conference
in San Diego is of particular interest because this is the first time since
1997 it has been held on the West Coast of the USA. Several of
us at Sun are preparing panel and presentation proposals, due on
15 March. I had fun setting up the “Mentoring and Leadership Grooming:
Technical Women in Industry” panel on mentoring for GHC 2004
and I hope to get a new panel proposal accepted for this year too.

Sun is a Partner of the
Anita Borg Institute which runs the Hopper conference.

Leave a comment

Filed under Mentoring & Other Business

February 10, 2006 · 6:20 pm

33 New SEED Participants Selected

Yesterday, we selected 33 new SEED Engineering mentoring program
participants from Israel and Russia. The selection was difficult
because this was a very accomplished and highly recommended
group. We ended up picking 11 from Tel Aviv (Herzliya) and
22 From St. Petersburg from among the 45 applicants. As usual,
about a quarter of the participants are women. Unusually,
all of this group works in Sun’s Software Group.

Since the selection meeting, Tanya Jankot and I have been very busy indeed.
We have sent out announcements, started the Mentor Wish List building
process, set up email lists, and done all of the electronic and
management chores that go along with setting up a new SEED term.
I have also been communicating with disappointed managers of staff
who were not selected.

Today, Tanya created an internal individual web page for each
participant to help show them off to potential mentors. The
participants will now have until 22 February to personalize those
web pages and send us their Mentor Wish Lists.

Leave a comment

Filed under Mentoring & Other Business

February 8, 2006 · 6:06 pm

College Prep

My daughter Jessi is about half way through her Junior year in High School
so we are deeply into college considerations. She is studying for her

SAT or college board exams (to be in April and May).
She is all signed up for her Senior classes
(after much debate between the relative merits of Honors and Advanced
Placement), she is meeting weekly with a college counsellor, and we are
scheduling school visits. She will go on the
Harker tour of East Coast USA schools next month, plus we are figuring
out dates to visit local schools like U.C. Berkeley, Stanford, and Santa Clara
University.

Jessi has won her last three wrestling matches at the JV (Junior Varsity) level
so we hope she will be on the Varsity team next year. The last match of the
season is this Friday. We are in great discussions over how she will spend
her last High School summer. We are considering the relative merits of
an intense Spanish Immersion program versus an internship versus cooking school
versus going back to Westminster
Choir College.
My daughter of the many interests!

Leave a comment

Filed under Home & Family

February 8, 2006 · 3:04 pm

Caboose News

We purchased the 1916
Western Pacific 688 train caboose from the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum (GGRM) and we are now in the process of
getting it moved from San Francisco to our backyard in San Jose. We have
signed GGRM’s purchase contract, signed a contract with the crane and trucking
company (and taken them up to see the caboose), continued negotiations with
San Jose city hall, and started the work to get our swimming
pool filled in and turned into a very short rail line.

Last weekend, John and the kids and I drove to

Hunters Point in San Francisco to see our new 24 ton baby. My brother and
mother met us there to see the caboose before it is moved. “Very cool but you’re crazy!” summarizes my brother’s remarks even after I explained that gaining 400
square feet by using a caboose would be about 1/2 the cost of new construction of
a more conventional sort. Even so, we brought home our first load of 22 rail ties
plus spikes that day on our generous neighbor’s car trailer. Yesterday, John rented
a small fork lift to unload the ties onto our driveway, then drove north for the
second load. He came home with more ties plus a bonus – a somewhat battered but
still usable railroad cross buck sign on its post! A cross buck is an X-shaped
warning sign with the word Railroad on one leg and the word Crossing on the other.
This one is going to stand tall in our driveway.

Next Saturday, we will be back at GGRM to cut off some of the caboose bits
underneath which will get in the way when it is riding south on its low boy truck.
Specifically, we will be cutting off the air tank, generator, and one of the
rotted out sets of back steps so that it can ride securely on its bolsters on
the truck. Next week, the caboose actually moves to a storage area in San Jose!

The two other cabeese at the GGRM (
Western Pacific 648 and Sierra Northern 1642)
have been donated to the Western Pacific
Railroad Museum in Portola, California. We met the Museum’s Director last
weekend at the GGRM where he was preparing his treasures to move to their
new home. Once we get our WP688 moved, we will do some more research on caboose
restoration and repair. This will of course require several trips to rail
museums and historical societies to see what kind of original records and plans
we can consult.

Leave a comment

Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains