Tag Archives: Paul

July 21, 2012 · 1:36 pm

Non-Travel Diary 4

While my husband John is in China on business for Huawei, I am keeping a non-travel diary. This has been a relatively quiet week. In addition to working full-time at Huawei:

There was a small amount of progress on our home construction projects. The painter spent a half day painting the wrong color stain on the baseboards. When I pointed out the error, he spent about the same amount of time sanding that color off and re-staining. Nobody was happy.
Thursday, I joined the monthly Board meeting of the Santa Maria Urban Ministry. We said an appreciative goodbye to our summer intern. The SMUM Tech Team (of which John and I are members) was assigned some new projects by the Board.
My newly-assigned 2012 TechWomen mentee from Lebanon and I made first contact. We exchanged introductory emails and are starting to make preparations for her visit to the Silicon Valley in September. Her background is impressive – I very much look forward to working with her in person. TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
I communicated with the 2011 TechWomen mentees with whom I am presenting a panel at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in October 2012 (Baltimore, MD). I am the moderator of the panel called “Technical Women in the Arab Region: Challenges vs. Aspirations”. We have travel funding confirmed for three of the panelists and we are working on support for our fourth. The ladies are traveling from Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon for GHC12. I am very eager to see them again!
Paul and I took our Wood Shop basic safety and equipment introduction at TechShop San Jose last night. We enjoyed learning to use the miter saw, table saw, band saw, electric sander, and drill press. The scroll saw is being repaired so we will learn how to use that later. I made a heart for John and Paul started work on an infinity symbol using the band saw. One of the other students laser-engraved the heart for me. I want to take a TechShop laser class next!
This morning, we had a community yard sale. Despite being on Craigslist and putting signs up on nearby corners, it was very poorly attended. However, it was fun to hang out with the neighbors. Our neighborhood apparently has 7 boys and 1 girl aged between 6 and 12 years old – who spent the morning rocketing from sale to sale comparing stuff and giving updates.
John comes home Tuesday morning!

Non-Travel Diary 3

While my husband John is in China on business for Huawei, I am keeping a non-travel diary. This weekend has been packed with activities:

Saturday morning, my mother and I picked up our new glasses from Visual Eyes Optometry in Willow Glen (San Jose CA). She was fitted with her new lenses and frames (and I got new lenses for my sunglasses).
Saturday afternoon, my son Paul and I went to the amazing Palo Alto Clay & Glass Festival, then took an evening class from Jeanne Fishback at TechShop San Jose on the wood lathe. We had a great time – and will take a second TechShop wood class this coming Friday night.
This morning at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Rev. Channing Smith announced that next week is Backpack Sunday – we will collect school supplies and backpacks for the children of Santa Maria Urban Ministry (no red or blue – gang colors).
Paul and I went to the Clay & Glass Festival again this afternoon. In the last two years, he has taken most of the ceramics classes offered by the excellent Foothill College art program. So, Paul was fascinated to see the finished work of so many superb creative potters. The artists also had fun talking to Paul – many of them know his teachers at Foothill. I bought some amazing pots. After seeing the art, we went to see the latest Ice Age animated movie.

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Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Eleanor, Episcopal church, Foothill College, Huawei, John, Paul, Santa Maria Urban Ministry, SMUM, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Willow Glen

July 10, 2012 · 9:54 pm

When I travel, I usually keep a diary, sometimes in a bound blank book and sometimes on my blog (depending on web availability and performance). My husband John left yesterday afternoon for a two-week business trip to China, so this is my non-travel diary. John texted me when his San Francisco – Hong Kong flight landed about 3 am this morning, then he called me at 7 am to say he had reached his hotel in ShenZhen. As usual, John is staying at the Hasee Paradise Hotel near the Huawei campus. I have stayed at the Hasee myself and it is a pleasant place – although the limited breakfast buffet every morning gets boring quickly.

Last night, a friend and I had dinner at the Great Khan’s Mongolian stir fry and then went to see the movie “Brave” which we both enjoyed. The Pixar animation, music, and story are all good. Paul (my usual movie-going partner) did not want to see “Brave” so Stephenie Cooper and I went.
This morning, the construction guys were outside the house early working on the new concrete base. The pour is scheduled for later this week. We are fixing some dry rot and a floor that shifted out of level in John’s model train room and workshop. Also, we are pouring a pad for Paul’s potter’s wheel – see picture below. This is part of Paul’s new clay studio in the side yard. See Paul’s ceramics at: Paul’s Element. I am in charge of construction oversight while John is traveling.
I noticed that one the Cereus cactus has a bloom bud (which now looks like a small black ball of fuzz) – see picture below. I will enjoy watching it develop during the next week – the spectacular flowers are often ten inches across.
Tuesday noon at work, Yingying Lu holds a class for us English speakers in conversational Chinese. In addition to working on basic vocabulary and pronunciation, we are collecting suggestions for helpful software. My suggestions so far include the following iPhone applications:
- Eng-Chi Pro (English to Mandarin Pro – talking translator phrasebook) by Medianet
- KTdict+ C-E, Chinese-English dictionary by Klaus Thul
- QingWen Chinese Dictionary by Karan Misra
John called by Skype during my late afternoon when he woke up – before he went to work in ShenZhen. He said it is raining and hot in China.
I noticed going to dinner that Tavistock Freebirds – a beer and wine bar – is replacing the (now being demolished) Baskin Robbins – Togo’s, formerly near the Pasta Pomodoro Restaurant on The Alameda in San Jose, CA. Business must have been very bad for someone to tear out an ice cream shop during the 95 degree San Jose summer.
I took one of the dogs for a walk in the neighborhood after dinner. Redda enjoyed her walk but I could hear Gilroy whining a block away – he did not want to be left behind. I can’t manage to walk two energetic dogs at the same time. Maybe I will walk with Gilroy tomorrow.
I am almost done reading The Night Circus, a fantastical novel by Erin Morgenstern. I have enjoyed it but the book could have been a third shorter to better effect.

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as China, Dogs, House Work, Huawei, John, Paul, San Francisco, San Jose

July 7, 2012 · 10:52 pm

Paul’s Elements (New Blog)

As of today, my son Paul has his own blog: http://paulselement.wordpress.com/. “Paul’s Element” will mostly be used to develop his college art portfolio. I created the blog on WordPress, with technical advice from John and Jessica and design decisions by Paul.

Paul just finished his second year at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California. He plans to earn his Associate degree at Foothill and then go to a full-time art college for the rest of his Bachelor studies. Mostly Paul has been working in ceramics (wheel and hand building) and drawing (charcoal, watercolor, and electronic). I have been taking pictures of Paul’s art work all along – now we have a place to show it off!

Paul’s Dragon

My son Paul is finishing his second year at Foothill College. His major art project has been a very large ceramic dragon, complete with orb and egg. The mythic winged beast is not yet done (he is still working on glazes) but I was able to take pictures of parts of it that came home for safety during the summer quarter.

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Tagged as Foothill College, Paul

June 17, 2012 · 11:13 pm

Driver’s License and Independence

The myth is: California teens want to get their driver’s license as soon as they turn 16. It’s not that simple. I got my license when I was 22 (living in San Francisco and Berkeley, public transport is good and it is impossible to park, so why bother?). My son-in-law has a license but neither my 23-year-old daughter nor 19-year-old son have progressed past the permit stage. Like me, my daughter graduated from college without a driver’s license. In contrast, my husband got his license at age 14-1/2, growing up in Kansas farm country.

Driver’s licenses have been more a passionate subject for discussion with my parents than with my kids. Before he passed away last year at age 85, my father lost his license after medical tests indicated that he could no longer driver safely. He was bitterly resentful of this, and we in his family were grateful that the consulting doctor took some of the heat of my father’s anger and frustration. My father saw the license suspension as an assault on his independence.

It is surprisingly difficult to revoke a driver’s license. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has many web pages about senior driving safety and complex formal rules about how to evaluate driving competence. Clearly, there are many (unlike my kids) for whom a driver’s license is an essential indication of maturity and freedom.

If you are concerned about someone’s driving and want to request a formal evaluation, what Not To Do:

Phoning the DMV gets you into a phone-tree-hell from which nothing results.
Informal notes from doctors (even on doctor’s office stationary) get ignored – the DMV only responds to official forms and evaluations.
Going in person to the DMV just gets you into long lines – where you eventually are told that the DMV does not perform driver’s tests at the request of concerned family members.

What finally worked: a doctor submitting a signed “Request for Driver Reexamination” form to the DMV.

In considering this blog entry, I found a listing of over 100 songs about cars and driving. For fun, listen to Joan Joffe Hall reading her poem Driver’s License, one of many creative tributes to this complex public document.

Nowadays, I am the happy driver of a tiny Smart Car with a wrap that looks like party streamers. Recently, the kids at SMUM decorated around my car with sidewalk chalk, as if my car design was dripping onto the asphalt – the best kind of graffiti!

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Eleanor, Jessica, John, Matthew, Paul, Santa Maria Urban Ministry, SMUM, Wade

June 12, 2012 · 6:39 pm

Venus at Foothill

My son Paul has been enjoying his Astronomy classes by Dr. Fraknoi at Foothill College, near the south end of San Francisco Bay. He and I stood in line to see the 5 June 2012 Transit of Venus on the big telescope in the college observatory. It was open to the public all afternoon, thanks to the Peninsula Astronomical Society. Everyone was invited back for their regular Friday night and Saturday morning programs.

The trees were between us and the Sun by the time we climbed the spiral stairs but we looked anyway. We had already seen the image on several of the smaller telescopes available outside. The curious crowd of kids, parents, seniors, and folks coming off work were patient despite the long wait. The tiny dot of planetary shadow moving across the bright Sun looked unimportant, even when you knew that Venus is just a little smaller than our own Earth.

Tag Archives: Paul

Non-Travel Diary 4

Non-Travel Diary 3

Non-Travel Diary

Paul’s Elements (New Blog)

Paul’s Dragon

Driver’s License and Independence

Venus at Foothill

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