Tag Archives: Paul

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.

Beach Chalet – Family Lunch

We went to the Beach Chalet today for a family lunch. My brother Pete and his daughter Lynda, and our cousin Rip and his wife Joanna were visiting. They joined Eleanor, Paul, John and me for a leisurely meal watching the Pacific waves break on sunny, windy Ocean Beach near the Cliff House. The Beach Chalet is not only a particularly interesting and beautiful San Francisco landmark, its preservation (along with the Lucien Labaudt murals on its walls) was the passionate work of many years by our family friend Jo Hanson. Inside the oceanfront building are many delightful mosaics and murals from 1925 but my favorite work is the stair rail with mermaids and mermen, an octopus newel post, and other undersea scenes going up to the brewery and restaurant.

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Tagged as Eleanor, John, Paul, San Francisco

May 24, 2012 · 10:14 pm

A’s at Foothill College

My son Paul is very much enjoying his second year at Foothill College (Los Altos Hills, California). The family teases Paul that he is working his way through the course catalogue in alphabetical order. So far, he has taken only classes starting with the letter A: Art, Algebra, Anthropology, Astronomy.

Last weekend, his sister Jessica and I were consulting with Paul on his classes for this summer. We thought he was going to break his pattern by taking swimming and a practical software class, until we saw that the Foothill catalogue calls these Aquatics and Adobe In Design. Maybe Paul will get to the B classes next year.

Image by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

Laura’s Moon

I was delighted with these photos of the 20 May 2012 lunar eclipse taken by our friend Laura from the San Francisco Bay Area. We missed seeing the event because my son and I were in a jet, coming home from Jessica’s CMU graduation. Paul was particularly disappointed since he has been taking astronomy classes from the inspiring Professor Andrew Fraknoi at Foothill College. Notice that Laura even caught sun spots in her pictures!

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Tagged as Foothill College, Geeks, Paul

May 22, 2012 · 12:02 am

CMU Graduation Pictures

My daughter Jessica graduated from Carnegie Mellon University yesterday in Pittsburgh PA, with college and university honors, Phi Beta Kappa. My son Paul and I flew in from San Jose CA and her husband Matt flew in from Seattle WA for the big event. Here is some of what I saw in our joyous three day visit:

Jessica and Paul

CMU

Phi Beta Kappa

Congratulations to the Honors Students

Three Wonderful Kids

Going to Graduation

Jessica and Proud Mom

Carnegie Tech – Class of 1948 Her Grandfather’s Medallion

Processing into the Stadium

Honors Regalia

Relaxing After All the Fuss

Pictures by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

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Tagged as CMU, Geeks, Jessica, Matthew, Paul, San Jose

April 27, 2012 · 7:58 pm

Douglas Fir Discovered

One of the interesting parts of owning an older house is discovering how it is built. Our 1930 Spanish Mission Revival home in Willow Glen has delightful arts and crafts style details, including oak parquet floors downstairs and on the upstairs landing. When my husband John first bought the house in 1998, many of the floors were covered with icky dark pink carpet. We ripped most of that out and refinished the upper floors and stairs ten years ago.

There was one room downstairs that still had the pink carpet. This is the only downstairs bedroom, so person using it does not have to share a bathroom. Our son Paul had the room until his sister Jessica moved out last summer, just before she got married. In 2002, Paul and his grandmother painted a mural of the Pokemon fire chicken Moltres on the wall. Late last year, Paul moved into Jessica’s old room upstairs so that my mother could move in after my father died. She and her cats recently moved into a senior community nearby, so we have finally gotten rid of the last of the pink carpet.

Under the horrible cat-stinky carpet, we discovered an equally smelly rug pad. Under that was amazingly ugly linoleum. Today, the linoleum came off and we discovered that we have a potentially-lovely wooden floor of Douglas Fir wood. We are delighted – Doug fir is not as good as oak parquet but it is much better than pink carpet. We will get the boards refinished and the room will become John’s new office.

Pink Carpet:

Linoleum:

Douglas Fir boards:

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Tagged as cats, Eleanor, House Work, Jessica, John, marriage, Paul, Wade, Willow Glen

April 9, 2012 · 9:06 pm

Easter Egg Hunt

We had more than a dozen children over with their families and friends for our annual backyard Easter Egg Hunt and potluck brunch in Willow Glen (San Jose, California). Among the kids, our son Paul was the oldest egg hunter at 19 and Howard was the youngest, at age 3. The devious Bunny and his helpers came up with the following poem hints about hiding places for the coveted Gold and Silver eggs:

GOLD:
My roost once used to roll and pitch
My halo exists at other men’s whims
In finding me please don’t twitch
The creek where you’d fall, nobody swims

SILVER:
I creep at the edge of an –ito
Don’t over-step or you will cheat-o
Chameleon-like I hide
Hurry quick! I won’t abide.

The Gold egg was found quickly (on top of the electrical box behind the light on the porch of WP 668, our caboose), but the Silver egg eluded all hunters until late afternoon. It was wrapped in tape and painted to look like a stone in the arroyito. The rules of the hunt are the same year after year:

There are no eggs in the flower beds (also: no eggs are on the bank, in the cactus, or outside of the backyard)
Kids get to go into the yard youngest first, and then one every 30 seconds until age 10 – after which, everyone can go
Parents may not help hunt (except for the Gold and Silver eggs)
The only clues are in the poems on where the Gold and Silver eggs are
Kids can keep their eggs and baskets or empty out the candy and leave them with us for next year