KatysBlog

John and I fly to St. Petersburg today. The local administrator
just wrote to say that she checked with our hotel and they had
no record of our reservation so she made another. I sent her the
original reservation confirmation number from our travel agent just
to avoid duplications. She has also arranged for a car to meet us
at the airport. What a pleasure to have someone watching out for us.

Greg Papadopoulos (Sun’s CTO) sent out the announcement that the
SEED term for St. Petersburg and Tel Aviv was open on 9 January.
Since then, there have been three applications, one from Israel and
three from Russia. It looks like a good group so far. All
applications are due 30 January.

As usually happens with applicants outside of the US, there is
confusion about the “Demographic Information” section of the
application form. We request demographic information from SEED
applicants so that we can conduct statistical analyses.
Providing this information is entirely voluntary. Because Sun is
based in the US, our record keeping on matters such as race is
probably specified by what the US government requires. SEED
could have a different set of categories, but then we could not
compare our data with that of the company as a whole.

Our SEED application’s list is based the racial list we found
on the Sun Employment Application form.

• African American
• Asian/Pacific Islander
• Caucasian
• Hispanic/Latino
• Native American/American Indian/Alaskan Native
• Multi-racial/Multi-ethnic
• Decline to respond
• Other: Provided in Text Box

We added “Multi-racial/Multi-ethnic” after discussion with
some SEED applicants who did not find anything on the
original list made sense for them. Probably the category that
causes the most confusion is “Caucasian”. People whom I would
consider to be in that category after I meet them often put
under “Other” such descriptions as:

• European
• French native
• Iranian/Persian/Middle-eastern
• Russian
• Slavonian
• White

For what it’s worth, one formal definition of Caucasian is “a person with
origins of the original peoples
of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East who is not of Hispanic origin.”
(from the
Governor’s Affirmative Action Office, Oregon State.

What a wild week! We matched the last of the first group of EMEA SEED
participants. All 32 have now started their mentoring
partnerships.

• 75% of the mentors are executives, including:
  • 5 Vice Presidents (including one Fellow)
  • 19 Directors (including 7 Distinguished Engineers)
• Location:
  • 20 of the Mentors are based in California (62%)
  • The others are in France (4), Canada (1), the UK (1), and
    other parts of the USA (6)
• Priority Patterns:
  • 16 of the SEED participants were matched with their
    1st or 2nd choice Mentor (50%)

  • 9 were matched with their 3rd of 4th choice Mentor (28%)
  • 7 were matched with a Mentor lower down on their
    Mentor Wish List (22%)
• Cycle Time:
  • Matching started on 5 December and ended today:
    a 36 day cycle

  • 25% were matched in the first week
  • 66% were matched in the first two weeks
  • 94% were matched in the first month
• SEED Experience:
  • 4 SEED Alumni Returning as Mentors
  • 18 Mentors are serving for the 1st time with SEED
  • 7 Mentors are in their 2nd time with SEED
  • 3 Star Mentors are in their 3rd or 4th time with SEED
  • 4 Superstar Mentors are in their 5th or 6th time with SEED

In addition, John and I are making a bid to buy a

Western Pacific Caboose. (Yes, the end car on an old train!)
We have wanted one for our backyard
office and library for years. This is the second time we have
bid and we will know in a few days if we get this one! Check out
what goes into
moving a caboose! We have been calling the city about permits,
crane and trucking companies, insurance companies, a soils engineer
(to discuss filling in the swimming pool the caboose will replace),
and lots of other folks.

In addition, we fly out next week for a trip to St. Petersburg
and Tel Aviv to meet potential SEEDs. And this is Midterm exams
week for our daughter. No problem!

We have 30 out of 32 of the participants matched for the
Prague, Grenoble, Hamburg, and Dublin SEED term. The last two
mentoring pairs are in conversations and I hope to hear confirmation
on those matches soon. I am very pleased to see four of our mentors
this term are SEED alumni themselves!

My visa for Russia finally arrived on 3 January. This took seven
weeks from sending off the passport to getting it back with the new
visa. The actual visa has two parts:

1. The usual full page form pasted into my passport – very official
   looking and using Cyrillic letters I can’t read so I can only hope it is OK.

2. A 3rd generation photocopy hand cut folded over piece of paper
   stapled to the next passport page for use in multiple entries. I only
   have a single entry visa but I am told by someone who commutes to Russia to
   leave the paper in even if no one asks for it. I made copies just in case
   it falls out.

We are all ready for our next SEED term: Russia and Israel. I will be
visiting St. Petersburg and Tel Aviv later this month. Sun CTO Greg
Papadopoulos will send out the announcement email to the two sites on
Monday. (The Russians are out on winter break this week.) Tanya
Jankot has all of the web-based application materials ready and tested
and good to go. I still need to get confirmation on what days and times I
am making the presentations to the Russian and Israeli
Engineering staff and management groups
but I hope to get word on that next week. I have requested badge access
and a secondary login account in advance so I can start work as soon as
I get there.

I called the Travel Medicine department of the medical clinic and they
said that since I have current Hepatitis-A and Tetanus shots, I do
not need any more inoculations to travel to Russia or Israel. John and
I are looking forward to the trip. We are already watching the
weather reports to see what we should pack. St. Petersburg is overcast
this week with temperatures of 26-35 degrees F. Tel Aviv is
clear with a chance of rain this week with temperatures of 64-69 degrees F.