Tag Archives: John

April 25, 2013 · 10:45 am

TechWomen and International Visitors at Home

Yesterday, the TechWomen mentors gathered at my house in San Jose to cook a dinner for eleven guests from the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the Institute of International Education (IIE West Coast). Our guests arrived from Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. Here is more about the IVLP program:

IVLP at IIESF works to promote citizen diplomacy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Community supporters and IIE members are called “Citizen Diplomats” and promote international understanding through person-to-person interaction with emerging foreign leaders from around the globe. Through direct contact with these visitors, members have an opportunity to share unique aspects of the Bay Area and/or their professional field, while increasing the visitors’ understanding of local and national culture and institutions. In the past 53 years Citizen Diplomats have had direct dialogues with tens of thousands of emerging international leaders from more than 145 countries.

These particular ladies are part of WISE (Women’s Innovations in Science and Engineering), invited to the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program. Their program was arranged by World Learning.

The TechWomen prepared a delicious potluck dinner, I showed them WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office, John and Paul helped and served as local guides to the house and kitchen, and everyone had a delightful time talking and learning. As always, I feel blessed in the community of my TechWomen sisters and look forward to our continued work together!

1 Comment

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

Tagged as Egypt, garden, Geeks, John, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Morocco, Paul, San Francisco, San Jose, Willow Glen, WP668

March 31, 2013 · 6:44 pm

Easter Egg Hunt

Despite all official weather prediction to the contrary, we had no rain but a warm lovely morning for today’s Easter Egg Hunt. This year, we made some procedural changes. Young people who have been coming to this party for years volunteered as Associate Bunnies – staying over the night before or arriving very early to help the Assistant Bunny (me) hide 500+ plastic eggs with candies inside. Jessica (Senior Associate Bunny, in the Washington DC Branch Office) drafted the Gold and Silver Egg poems:

Gold Egg (hidden on the roof beam of the cabana, next to the hot tub) – found by Paul:

In my hutch I am squatting,
Through a triangle I see,
Above the earth I’m spotting
A train, two dogs, and a tree.
Next door water is too hot
But folks sit in there alot.

Silver Egg (tied up inside the San Francisco fire plug) – found by Jim:

My nest was moved from the city,
There its job was very gritty.
It once was wet but now is dry.
A little river I can spy.
Like a bunny safe in a log,
I’m hidden here from nose of dog.

Hunters lined up by age on the new porch – where they could see the eggs in the garden and plan their launch strategy. One family arrived late – I was so pleased to watch the big kids re-hide their eggs so that the new little ones could hunt. One teenage boy dumped his whole basket for them. Of course, there was food and drink (John made pulled chicken sandwiches, mint tea, and punch) and WP668 caboose tours for all.

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Filed under Church, Home & Family

Tagged as garden, House Work, Jessica, John, Paul, San Jose, Willow Glen, WP668

March 18, 2013 · 12:47 pm

Shakespeare Reading Group – Update

Since the St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church (Saratoga, California) Shakespeare Reading Group started meeting in 2012, we have read:

Last night was Antony and Cleopatra. I had great fun as the ambitious and deadly Octavius Ceasar (whom Rome later called the Emperor Augustus). John read Domitius Enobarbus (who gets most of the famous lines in this play) with delightful energy. Melita Thorpe was the subtle Egyptian Queen Cleopatra, and John Watson-Williams read Antony (Marcus Antonius, Consul and Triumvir) with verve. All of the other major characters had great fun dying dramatically – it being a tragedy after all.

As is true for many Silicon Valley social events, the professional backgrounds around our table were highly varied. In addition to the expected high-tech gurus and computer company executives, our cast included among others, a church Deacon, mortgage expert, haematologist, astronomy travel director, social worker, physiology professor, technical writer, video director, artist, and physical therapist – all of who enjoyed an evening with The Bard. We will read Othello in May.

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Filed under Church, Home & Family

Tagged as Egypt, Episcopal church, John, Middle East, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church

February 1, 2013 · 1:58 pm

MentorCloud, Seoul National University, TechWomen

Busy week… I have been working with MentorCloud on mentoring programs from Ethiopia to Afghanistan to Korea to the USA. A group of three graduate students from Seoul National University, who have been hosted at Global Fluency here in the Silicon Valley, have been discussing their mentoring research with us. Their big presentation on mentoring in Korea compared to the USA was very interesting.

The San Jose city inspector signed off on our new porch construction (hooray!). The iron work railing, breakfast bar, and handrail got fitted by the blacksmith crew – and was carried away for final welding and powder coating. We hope all porch work will be done by the time I get home!

I am leaving today for a two week trip to Jordan and Lebanon with the TechWomen delegation. I already finished and sent off for translation my presentation materials, one is a talk on mentoring and the other a workshop on e-commerce for crafts. My husband drove me to the airport right after MentorCloud held its user experience walk-through with customers, at the Plug and Play Center in Sunnyvale. A long airplane ride sounds restful about now…

19 October 2019: Links Updated. For more about MentorCloud business practices, see Collecting a Labor Judgement (15 January 2016).

How to Write a Blog Entry

Svitlana, one of the 2012 TechWomen, was kind enough to ask me last year how to write a blog entry. This is finally in reply to her question… Of course, this only represents how I write my blog – every writer must find her own voice.

I have been writing a web log since 2005, at the rate of over three entries a week, for a current total of 1,325.* In putting together a blog entry, I focus on three areas, in this order:

Topic
Images
Writing Composition

I consider a single topic for each blog entry, picking a subject that I find of special interest. Within that general requirement, each entry topic must also be one or more of the following:

Entertaining:
- Dog vs. Stone Cat
- Salamanders Big and Small
Educational or Historical:
- Old Billings Wrench
- Family Research
Newsworthy:
- John’s New Job with EVault
- AAUW National Mentoring Month Interview
Updating a prior blog entry that was one of the above
- Porch Ironwork
- New Home for Van Gilder Glass Panel

My family and friends lovingly inform me that I take too many pictures. My generous and patient husband (our family system administrator) is always trying to stay ahead of my photo storage and sorting requirements. There have been 47,674 images posted in our family Flickr archive since 2008. I take pictures not only to illustrate blog entries but also to make a record (as when taking a picture of a business card, or notes on a whiteboard), or because an image seems beautiful to me. This is an extension of the famous William Morris sentiment:

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

A photo often starts me writing a blog entry – expressing what I found of interest in that image. Starting with a photo makes a more interesting story than an formidable wall of plain text. Once I start composing, I work to ensure that not one word is wasted. One friend told me that he has to rest between reading my paragraphs because the text is so dense. I see it as being respectful of my reader’s time and precious attention to be succinct. I write until I have no more to convey. As Lewis Carroll’s Red King said:

Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

I check facts carefully and provide links to references or data sources when available. Even after checking my work, I often have to go back to a published entry to add missing words. Still, I publish as soon as the entry feels complete, in accordance with my motto:

Done is Better then Perfect.

I also go back to much older blog posts and clean them up from time to time – to fix software rot causing broken links and format changes.

7 March 2013 Addition:
Here is some good advice on how to write: Kill Your Darlings: Five Rules for Writers by Rita J. King, EVP Science House, 6 March 2013:

Have Fun
Don’t Have Fun
Kill Your Darlings
Do the Research
Ask Yourself: Why?

29 January 2016 Addition:
On 23 October 2015, I gave a presentation with updated information on this to the TechWomen at Symantec in the Silicon Valley: “How to Blog: Best Practices”.

Image Copyright 2009 by John Plocher
* 2005-2009 on blogs.sun.com/katysblog and 2009-now here at katysblog.wordpress.com. I have also been a guest blogger on other sites.

2 Comments

Filed under Home & Family, Mentoring & Other Business, Mentoring Standard, News & Reviews

Tagged as AAUW, House Work, John, Mentoring, teaching, technical women, TechWomen, writing

January 24, 2013 · 4:05 pm

John’s New Job with EVault

This week, my husband John Plocher started his exciting new position as Principle Architect, Open Storage, at EVault, a wholly owned subsidiary of Seagate, the largest data storage company in the world. John now takes Caltrain’s Baby Bullet express train in the morning from San Jose to San Francisco – which gives him a walk and a train ride each day (both good things!). Unfortunately, at this time of year, he leaves for work in the dark and arrives home after dark. We are still getting used to the new schedule and hope that there will be some work from home days in the future.

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Filed under Home & Family

Tagged as John, San Francisco, San Jose, Willow Glen

December 22, 2012 · 11:58 pm

Merry Christmas

Best wishes to you and your family for a happy holiday season, from all of us here in the Silicon Valley!

Between trying to get the construction workers finished enough to be out of our house by Christmas, and all of the usual holiday preparations and activities, December 2012 has been particularly busy. There has finally been sufficient progress on the new porch to allow us to have family and guests in the house. The roof and final plastering were finished just before dinner yesterday – barely in time for us to go Christmas caroling on the cable car in San Francisco. Jessica and Matthew were able to get off from work to join us for Christmas – for which we are very joyful!

I went shopping in Chinatown with Sally and Lorene (our tradition for over twenty years). We were sad to see the closed up Sam Wo restaurant where we used to eat raw fish salad for lunch during our annual walking tour of Grant Street stores.
John and I were delighted to hear our young friends Max and Beth perform as part of the Cantabile Youth Singers at the ornate St. Joseph Basilica in San Jose.
My son Paul and I picked out and walked home a Christmas tree – which sat in a bucket of water on the driveway for two weeks until the contractors left and we could move all of the furniture back. Jessica and Matthew and Paul brought the tree inside and decorated it tonight. The decorations are eclectic but cheerful. I still need to put out the nativity figures John bought in Bethlehem.
My EfM class went to see the Bethlehem Christmas story re-enactment, and then went out to dinner together and exchanged gifts.
Last Sunday was the St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church children’s pageant.
We have very much enjoyed Willow Glen’s enthusiastic Christmas light displays – which give every street its own twinkly charm as we go about our holiday business.
Today we went to the Dickens Fair at the Cow Palace in San Francisco to enjoy a Victorian Christmas, high tea, and last-minute shopping.
Tomorrow, John starts cooking for our Christmas feast on Tuesday!