KatysBlog

August 1, 2016 · 3:45 pm

How to Display Stones in Earthquake Country

Displaying stones can be a challenge, especially in California where we regularly have earthquakes. If you are lucky, a decorative stone will come with a suitable base. Or, if the stone is small, a store-bought plastic stand may work. However, for large, heavy stones custom design and fabrication are needed for the best presentation. If you are handy like my husband John, you can make stands and pedestals yourself.

Here is what we are avoiding. This is a large cloisonné metalwork vase John and I bought in China which was flattened in an earthquake when it fell to the floor:

Example 1: Small Fool’s Gold Sphere

Basic hoop: My son Paul gave me this pretty iron pyrite (fool’s gold) sphere along with a clear plastic hoop for a stand. The hoop keeps the sphere from rolling but it is only held in place by gravity. In an earthquake, this heavy sphere will probably smash something.

Example 2: Ruby Crystals on Quartz

Simple pedestal: John brought this rock to Paul as a present from China some years ago. It is ruby crystals on quartz, on a custom pedestal. The quartz has been carved away from the crystals to show them off. You can see in the photo below that the pedestal it came with has a trough or fitted hole carved into it the exact size and shape of the stone.

Example 3: Zimbabwe Shona Sculpture

Large fitted pedestal: I carried home this Shona sculpture of carved serpentine for John when I was in Zimbabwe with the 2016 TechWomen Delegation. I asked the sculptor, Martin Chirenda, to sign it before before wrapping. The sculpture weighs over sixty pounds and is top-heavy. We were concerned that it would break or hurt someone falling over in an earthquake. John made a low oak pedestal by carving a trough and then filling it with epoxy to fit the stone exactly. The stone is fixed to the dried epoxy with a thin pour of Karo (corn sugar syrup). Using Karo is a museum display trick that does not damage the art but keeps it firmly attached to its base.

Martin Chirenda 2015 Shona Sculpture Zimbabwe Harare, 26 Feb 2016

Example 4: Sea Lily Fossil from Morocco

Mounted on a Plaque: We bought this ancient double Sea Lily or Crinoid fossil at Consolidated Rock & Mineral in Vacaville for our anniversary. It was found in Morocco originally. The stone is heavy but the fossil itself is fragile. We wanted to display it so that it could be admired but not broken. John just finished making this wood plaque with hooks. The plaque is mounted to the wall with a French cleat. These are the best flowers John has ever bought me!

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Caboose and Cactus Arroyo

My office replaced a swimming pool. WP668 is the 100-year-old railroad caboose in San Jose, California (“the Capital of the Silicon Valley“) where I work for Mentoring Standard. Above is WP668 in our backyard now, and below is what the same space looked like in the year 2000. The swimming pool was removed ten years ago – see more photos on the WP668 webpage.

I designed the landscape setting for WP668 based on large rocks and cactuses, including a Y-shaped arroyo (or dry creek) that is small enough to be called an arroyito. Like the bones of California, our arroyito is largely made up of granite, basalt, limestone, and quartz, with jasper, serpentine, sandstone, conglomerates, and other stones for variety. We bought two large boulders from South Bay Materials but the other rocks were adopted as individuals. Every time we go on vacation or a road trip, we come home with new garden rocks, so the arroyito becomes more solid and complex year-by-year. My family complains when they have to ride home from a trip with their feet on top of the latest stones headed for the arroyito but they still help me stuff rocks into the car.

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Standing Up in Court

For the first time, today I was a witness in a criminal justice hearing. As I wrote on 11 April 2016, I have been teaching in jail every week as part of Education for Ministry (EfM), an extension program of the University of the South – School of Theology, for which I am an Accredited Mentor and the El Camino Real Diocesan Coordinator.

One of the Elmwood Jail student-mentees in my EfM seminar had a Romero hearing today and I was in court as a character witness. “The People of the State of California v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 CAL. 4TH 497, 917 P.2D 628 (Cal. 1996), was a landmark case in the state of California that gave California Superior Court judges the ability to dismiss a criminal defendant’s ‘strike prior’ pursuant to the California Three-strikes law, thereby avoiding a 25-to-life minimum sentence” (quote from Wikipedia). In today’s Romero hearing, the Defendant (my student-mentee) had the opportunity to reduce his sentence from an indeterminate number of years (that is, being sentenced to triple digit years without parole) to a sentence that may be completed during his lifetime. I was the only witness present in court today but others had written letters to the judge asking for mercy in his case. The hearing was brief but thorough. The judge listened to me and the lawyers for the Defendant and Plaintiff (“the people”), then reviewed submitted documents. What seemed to make a positive difference in this case was that the Defendant:

Has shown remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions
Has demonstrated a sustained change in his behavior, character, and prospects for the future
Did not use physical violence
Is middle aged already

I was glad that the judge ruled in favor of the Defendant today and gave him a sentence of 30 years without parole. My student-mentee will be an old man when he gets out of prison but with luck and good behavior, he will get out someday. This was the result he had hoped for.

When I serve each year as a Mentor in the TechWomen program of the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, my Mentees may go on to start businesses, accelerate their professional careers, attend graduate school, and change the world for the better. When I am a Mentor each year for the EfM class hosted by Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, my student-mentees after four years of study graduate with more awareness of their personal ministry and with a solid education in the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics.

I am learning that as a Mentor for an EfM seminar in a county jail, my student-mentees gain the same education and potential for awareness of their personal ministry but have smaller potential to change the world for the better. Even after they leave jail or prison, their socioeconomic status is so low that their prospects are modest as members of the community. I am learning to celebrate the wins we can get, among them: passing the high school equivalency exam, reconciling with family, being accepted into a good reentry program, and getting a positive Romero judgement as we did today.

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Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, Jail, Mentoring, San Jose, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching, TechWomen

July 21, 2016 · 3:43 pm

Technovation World Pitch Summit 2016

Last week, I enjoyed attending the Technovation World Pitch Summit 2016 hosted by the University of San Francisco. Technovation was the single most popular formal mentoring program mentioned by the Mentoring Standard Certified Mentors (see the “First Mentors – What We Learned” report), so I have heard about its excellence from many sources. Technovation was founded in 2009 to offer girls the opportunity to learn how to start a company and become high-tech entrepreneurs. It is now a global competition reaching thousands of girls. This year’s winners were:

First Place, High School: Team A, “OOL” from Mexico
First Place, Middle School: California Coders, “Loc8Don8” from the United States

The pitch videos from all of the finalists are well worth watching. In addition to the awards given to the girls’ teams, TechWomen‘s own Dr. Amel Gouila (Bioinformatician at the Institut Pasteur de Tunis) from Tunisia was honored as The Technovation Regional Ambassador of the year. In advance of the awards, there were inspiring speeches by:

Andy Cunningham – (who said she was fired 5 times by Steve Jobs at Apple, NeXT, and Pixar), Founder and President, Cunningham Collective
Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO, GoldieBlox
Tara Chklovski, CEO Iridescent

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Visiting California Missions

Laura Biche and Jessica Dickinson Goodman and I enjoyed a girls’ road trip on Saturday – part of our long-term “Visit All the California Missions” project. We went to San Antonio de Padua (Jolon), Nuestra Senora de Soledad (Soledad), and San Juan Bautista (in San Juan Bautista) – and ate ice cream twice! Along the way, we also visited the Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church (near Jolon – on the Fort Hunter Liggett Army Base) and other sights of interest.

An odd thing we noticed: all three missions we visited had what looked like the exact same bronze statue honoring Saint Junipero Serra (who founded 9 of the 21 missions). It will be interesting to see if the rest of the missions have the same one.

Looking at the Missions Map, we figure we need to go on at least four more road trips to complete our project:

4 Missions: Sonoma, San Francisco North Bay, San Francisco, Fremont Area

Mission San Francisco Solano, in Sonoma
Mission San Rafael Arcángel, in San Rafael
Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), in San Francisco
Mission San José, in Fremont

3 Missions: South San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz, Carmel Area

6 Missions: San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura Area

Mission San Miguel Arcángel, in San Miguel
Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, in San Luis Obispo
Mission La Purísima Concepción, northeast of Lompoc
Mission Santa Inés, in Solvang
Mission Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara
Mission San Buenaventura, in Ventura

5 Missions: Los Angeles and San Diego Area

Pictures of Mission San Antonio de Padua (Jolon)

Pictures of Mission Nuestra Senora de Soledad (Soledad)

Pictures of Mission San Juan Bautista (in San Juan Bautista)

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Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Episcopal church, Jessica, Missions, San Francisco, San Jose

July 19, 2016 · 3:24 pm

Scary Crazies

Twice this week, I have been threatened by scary crazy guys. On 13 July, when John Plocher and I were driving home, we witnessed a bike rider threatening a woman and child on the street with a utility knife. Here is the story John posted on the Willow Glen Neighbor‘s group to warn people:

Just witnessed some really scary behavior driving home from dinner – a bike rider was threatening and swearing at a woman and her child waiting at the crosswalk at the Bird and Willow intersection, a man stopped his truck and got out to support the woman – at which point the bike rider threw down his bike and pulled a knife on the 3 of them. My wife called 911 as this was going on; I pulled out my phone and aimed it at him, telling him to drop the knife – at which point he hopped on his bike and rode away eastbound along Willow before dropping his bike at Tina’s and running. Nobody physically hurt – though I’m sure the woman and her child were terrified. San Jose Police Department is on it. Here’s a picture of the bike rider – please be careful if you see him.

Then, on Saturday, 16 July, Laura and Jessica and I were driving to visit the San Antonio de Padua Mission near Jolon and stopped to look at some interesting rocks. A little way up the road, a crazy middle aged white guy in a parked white sedan started shrieking obscenities at us. When he got out of his car and started running toward us waving his arms violently and screaming, we went back to our car and locked the doors. He then returned to his car and drove off.

It is hard to know what to do during such events – trying to stay safe and keep others safe – and it is surprising how hard it is to describe someone when making a police report later. The incident is so upsetting, details like the color of the man’s shirt and backpack slip away. Somewhere between 4% and 18% of the USA is mentally ill – and about half of those who have a substance abuse disorder are also mentally ill (see “Mental Health by the Numbers” for details). I think I met two of the more violent ones.

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Jessica, John, San Jose, Willow Glen

July 9, 2016 · 6:13 pm

Shakespeare in Ashland for our 16th Anniversary

John and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last weekend with a road trip to Ashland, Oregon. On the drive north from San Jose, we visited the Nut Tree Train in Vacaville and saw Shasta Lake full of water (a welcome sight after a long drought).

While in Ashland, we enjoyed a clever and entertaining production of Twelfth Night by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (set in 1930’s Hollywood, with twins Viola and Sebastian doubled by one actress), celebrated with an excellent dinner with Rogue River Valley wine at Amuse Restaurant, and enjoyed long walks in historic Lithia Park.

On the drive home, we visited our favorite rock shop (Consolidated Rock & Mineral in Vacaville) and commemorated our anniversary with the purchase of a Crinoidea sea lily double fossil, originating in the Paleozoic Era by way of Morocco. On the way home, we had dinner at Bud’s Pub & Grill in Dixon, which has more animal hunting trophies hanging on its walls than anyplace I have seen. It was a delightful celebration!