Tag Archives: Jessica

Skype from Qatar

A friend of ours dropped by yesterday with a good bottle of wine to cheer us up after my being laid off by Sun-Oracle last week. During lunch, I was very surprised to receive a phone call on my cell phone from my daughter Jessica who is at school at CMU-Q in Qatar until May 2010.   I ran out of the restaurant trying to find a quiet place to hear why Jessica had called. I was only slightly hyperventilating, really.

Jessica is having fun in Doha, Qatar. (Qatar is east of Saudi Arabia and south of Iran.) Our busy girl is in a musical, a choir, and on the basketball team as well as taking classes at CMU-Q and Georgetown University in Doha’s Education City. We have been talking with her by way of  Skype on a regular schedule. Doha is 11 hours off Pacific Time, so we need to be organized to stay in contact. Yesterday’s call was the first unexpected communication.

It turned out that all is well. Jessica called to say she had found a cheap ticket and would be visiting her fiance Matt in Washington DC over Spring Break instead of traveling around the Middle East as she had planned. It was good to hear her voice.  It always amazes me that I can be standing on the street in Willow Glen, California talking with my daughter who is sitting in her dorm room in Qatar talking to her laptop. I love technology.

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Image Copyright Katy Dickinson 2010

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Goodbye Sun – It’s Been a Great Ride!

My last blog post at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog/:

I have been laid off by Sun-Oracle. It has been a wonderful 25 years!

I joined a relatively-unknown startup three years before it went public. I enjoyed working with some of the greatest Engineers on Earth and together we made Sun a success which changed the world. I had a splendid ride. I worked for Sun since 1984 in Engineering, Marketing, Quality, Operations, Legal, Standards, Strategy, and finally for the Chief Technologist’s Organization and Sun Labs. I am looking forward to the next adventure.

I hope that the SEED worldwide mentoring program participants, mentors, and managers will create new programs and opportunities in all of the new places they will go. For those who stay with Sun-Oracle: keep contact and support each other. There is nothing like SEED now at Oracle. Consider creating it, locally or globally. It will take too much time and an unreasonable amount of work but it will be worth it. It has been an honor and privilege to create this worldwide Engineering community and to work with such inspiring people. I hope you will continue to work with each other and with me. Please connect with me on LinkedIn and Facebook.

I have two wonderful kids who have grown up running around at Sun. Jessica is now a Junior at CMU (in Qatar for a Semester at CMU-Q) and Paul is in High School. Sun is their lifetime context for work. My husband, John Plocher and I met at Sun and I were lucky enough to work at Sun together for 17 years.

2005-2010 http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog/ entries and new additions are now available here at https://katysblog.wordpress.com/.

I welcome your job recommendations. Your support is always appreciated.

How to Find Katy Dickinson After 29 January 2010

Katy Dickinson Process Queen 2006 Poster, used with permission

Image Copyright 2006 Sun Microsystems, Used with Permission

Blog entry by Katy Dickinson

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News from Doha, Qatar

My 21-year-old daughter Jessica arrived safely in Doha Qatar yesterday and reports that she is settling into her new apartment before starting classes at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q). She will be studying in the Middle East through April 2010.

This week’s Willow Glen Resident community newspaper published an article on Jessica’s work called “Internships help Willow Glen resident narrow career focus” (8 January 2010, by Mary Gottschalk, p.18). The half-page article describes her summer 2009 internship for the World Organization for Human Rights USA in Washington, D.C. and even mentions WP668, our backyard caboose. Jessica is quoted about her internship: “I expected to be dealing with coffee or filing. A lot of my friends were doing piece work and were not trusted with real responsibility…. I learned so much about human rights and how we litigate in the United States. It’s exactly the kind of work I want to do.”

Jessica, Paul, WP668 

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Family at San Francisco Airport, SFO 

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Jessica & Matt, SFO 

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Jessica at SFO 

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Images Copyright 2010 Katy Dickinson

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Getting Ready for Christmas

My daughter Jessica arrived home a few days ago but soon left on a ski trip with her fiance Matt and his family. She comes back this afternoon. While she was briefly home, we went to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace. My mother and I also went to the Dickens Fair after Thanksgiving with my brother Pete and his family, so we have had quite the Victorian Christmas so far. (I have seen Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado twice this year!) I have also visited family, participated in the annual Sun Labs Christmas Cookie Exchange, and enjoyed the SunCaroler’s Menlo Park campus walking concert, the 1st annual Willow Glen Lions Holiday Party, and other delights of the season.

Dickens Fair

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Marley confronts Scrooge

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Pirate’s Cove

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Dark Garden Tableau

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Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

Pete and family at the Dickens Fair

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Ko-Ko and Katisha, The Mikado

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Ballena Bay Pewter, Dickens Fair

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SunCarolers annual walking concert

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Willow Glen Lions Party

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Sun Labs Cookie Party

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Family visit

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Uncle Wayne’s Workshop

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Paul, Lynda, Daniel (cousins)

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Paul and Jessica

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Paul and Jessica

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Jessica and Matt

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Christmas Prep

My family is mostly enjoying the preparations for Christmas. Today, I mailed the
last of six boxes full of gifts to distant friends and relations. Postage cost about $125- this year, even after using three USPS Flat Rate Boxes. The staff in Sun’s Menlo Park Campus mail room helped me with box sizes until we found the cheapest rates.

We don’t have a Christmas tree yet. We are thinking of buying a live tree and then donating it to Our City Forest for planting in January. We hosted the Silicon Valley Lines Model Railroad Club annual holiday party last week. Tonight, we host the
Spiral holiday dinner party. We will also host Christmas dinner, a party to celebrate my daughter Jessica’s 21st Birthday and Engagement, plus New Year’s Eve. In addition to our own celebrations, my husband John Plocher has been helping Santa Maria Urban Ministry (SMUM) with their holiday events and food distribution. I have been working on the St. Andrew’s Medical Assistance (SAMA) Christmas craft sale of goods from the Holy Land.

Busy times!

Waiting for food at SMUM

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Filling SMUM food boxes

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In the SMUM food line

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Office building window lights

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Neighborhood Deer Lights

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Our house – train lights with the moon

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Christmas night lights

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Same house during day

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Flat daytime Santa

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SAMA mother of pearl

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SAMA sale

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SAMA sale – camels

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SAMA sale

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SVL party train

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Christmas cockatiels

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SMUM Santa

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SMUM Christmas

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Images Copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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Daughter News – Engaged, Learning Arabic…

My clever and generally wonderful daughter Jessica just announced her engagement to be married to long-time boyfriend Matt Holmes (also a Junior, Matt studies at the College of William and Mary). Jessica is learning Arabic because she will be a student at CMU-Q (Carnegie Mellon University Quatar, in Doha) next semester. She will be home in about two weeks but then she is off on a family ski trip with the Holmes family. Jessica will be back from skiing just before Christmas and leaving for Doha during the 2nd week of the new year. Somewhere in there we need to hold her engagement party and celebrate her 21st birthday. Matt’s Mom and I are trying to work out party dates and arrangements now…

This will be a busy holiday season for our families!

8 December – Jessica’s story ended up on the blog for the company which sold the engagement rings:  Turtle Love Committee.

Jessica Dickinson Goodman in her Presidential Inauguration ball gown<br /> photo: copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson Matt Holmes, Jessica Dickinson Goodman, Paul Dickinson Goodman at the Lair of the Golden Bear<br /> photo: copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson Jessica Dickinson Goodman at the Lair of the Golden Bear<br /> photo: copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson Jessica Dickinson Goodman and Matt Holmes at the Lair of the Golden Bear<br /> photo: copyright 2007 Katy Dickinson

Images Copyright 2007-2009 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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Carnegie Mellon Today

Our family was delighted to see the “Photo Op” article on p.7 of the newly-published October 2009 issue of  Carnegie Mellon Today magazine. The article is about my daughter Jessica who took a photo of General Colin Powell at the Presidential Inauguration. The Special Libraries Association used her photo as their magazine cover image.

Jessica is a Junior in the Humanities Scholars Program at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is planning on spending her next semester at the CMU-Q campus, in Doha, Qatar. Jessica’s major is Ethics, History and Public Policy with a minor in Vocal Performance but she spends a much of her spare time messing around with computers.

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