KatysBlog

October 23, 2013 · 4:52 pm

TechWomen at Twitter

Twitter generously hosted a TechWomen community event last night at their San Francisco headquarters. Hundreds of mentees, mentors, and guests enjoyed food and speakers, plus lively networking and discussion. Imen, Larissa and I kept losing each other in the crowd! We enjoyed sending tweets from Twitter HQ. Twitter even provided a little wooden birdhouse that took silly photos then posted the images in tweets.

1 Comment

Filed under Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Algeria, Geeks, Mentoring, San Francisco, technical women, TechWomen

October 21, 2013 · 1:25 pm

WP668 Caboose Clinic – Questions?

I am signed up to give a “Caboose Clinic” to the Coast Division of the National Model Railroad Association on 8 December 2013 in San Leandro, California. More event details are on the Pacific Coast Region Master Calendar. Check out the website of WP668, our San Jose backyard caboose for more about our family project.

Last Friday, I joined my husband John Plocher’s model train lunch group to interview the target market for my clinic. Here are the questions the train lunch guys want answered:

How did you find WP668?
How did you install WP668 in your Willow Glen backyard?
How much did the caboose project cost?
In restoring WP668, what did you discover that was unexpected or odd?
How did you match the paint color? What went into the original paint? How did you get the original paint off?

They also asked me to show many many pictures and to include the following:

Tell the story of getting the city permit submitted and approved.
Talk about restoration materials – how you got wood to fit the 1916 old-growth fir tongue-and-groove original boards.

Please add more to this list of questions and topics – and come to the event if you are available.

Discussing Petroleum Engineering

Yesterday, two of us TechWomen mentors went with mentee Josette Tejan-Cole (from Sierra Leone) to visit a retired Chevron executive to discuss Josette’s career in petroleum engineering. Although I worked in the oil business before starting to work for computer companies in the Silicon Valley, I learned a great deal. It was a fascinating afternoon.

Honoring My Parents with Sacred Threads

Two of the twelve newly-embroidered chairs dedicated at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) today were donated by my husband and me in honor of my parents: Wade and Eleanor Dickinson. The replacement chair seats were created as part of the Sacred Threads project. The new chair seat designs are inspired by the 1957-era stained glass church windows by Mark Adams. I think my mother was pleased to sit in a chair with her name on it!

3 Comments

Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Eleanor, John, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Wade

October 18, 2013 · 11:27 am

China to Silicon Valley – by Truck

My husband John Plocher contributes to many open source hardware and software products for model trail enthusiasts (aka “Train Nuts”). JMRI is an example of one of the software projects on which John has worked. One of his hardware projects is the DCC Brakeman – still on sale at The Train Shop (Santa Clara, CA). All of the schematics, PCB layouts, and technical details are on our family website: SPCoast – Electronics.

John frequently orders custom bits and pieces from China during development. In checking shipping status this morning on UPS, he was presented with the surprising image above. Note the icons:

Factory – in China
Home – in Silicon Valley
Truck – going between – across the Pacific Ocean

A truck?

Image Copyright by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson – with thanks to UPS

Cultural Adventures with TechWomen

Larissa Shapiro (Mozilla) and I are mentoring Imen Rahal from Algeria during this month as part of the TechWomen program of the US State Department. Last weekend, we cooked dinner together at my house on Friday night, then on Saturday and Sunday went on two cultural tours (with Imen and other TechWomen friends), to see unique California sites such as:

17 Mile Drive (Pebble Beach)
Big Basin Redwoods State Park (Santa Cruz)
Asian Art Museum (San Francisco)
Lombard Street (San Francisco)

We are enjoying our time together!

2 Comments

Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews

Tagged as Algeria, Geeks, Mentoring, Middle East, San Francisco, technical women, TechWomen, WP668

October 7, 2013 · 11:30 pm

TechWomen 2013 Orientation

Today was the big orientation day for the 78 TechWomen mentees from 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East, and the 106 mentors from 160 Silicon Valley companies. TechWomen is an Initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs – for professional women working in STEM from Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Palestine, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tunisia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Juniper Networks hosted the event in their “Aspiration Dome” building in Sunnyvale, California. Larissa Shapiro (Mozilla) and I are mentoring Imen Rahal from Algeria during this month. Larissa and I are among about a dozen mentors enjoying our third year with TechWomen. Barbara Fittipaldi (CEO at the Center for New Futures) lead the group in discussions on how to develop and fulfill our visions. It was an inspiring day!