Tag Archives: San Jose

Happy Thanksgiving!

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In between celebrating my brother’s wedding, honoring the first anniversary of my father’s death, trying to finish the apparently-unending construction on the new porch, and starting work at MentorCloud, this has been a busy autumn. Today, we take time to give thanks for our blessings and bounty among family and friends.  I hope that you too can pause for this moment to consider and be thankful for the good in your life.

In Willow Glen California, the sycamore, pistache, myrtle, and maple trees are putting on a glorious display of red leaves.  I delight in the color, even when raking them up…

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

by Robert Frost

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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

Silicon Valley Halloween

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Halloween is serious fun here in the Silicon Valley. Spooky house decorations go up weeks in advance, people come to church in funny hats and silly outfits (for “Boo Sunday”), companies have costume parties, waitresses work dressed as clowns, stores give out candy to kid parades, and tonight the sidewalks are full of children dressed as cats, bugs, princesses, super heros, and monsters walking from house to house trailed by their parents, greeting neighbors with “Trick or Treat!”.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Silicon Valley Women & Girls Leadership Summit

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Huawei was again a sponsor of today’s 8th Silicon Valley Women & Girls Leadership Summit – held at LeyVa Middle School in San Jose. I was one of a group of women leaders who joined the 7th and 8th grade girls to listen to speakers and panels, and to learn more about each other. The inspiring keynote talks were by Santa Clara Judge Katherine Lucero (who encouraged the girls to find a mentor and the women to be a mentor), and entrepreneur Shelly Kapoor Collins (who asked us to be a door opener for each other, not a gate keeper barring the way).

After the big event, some of us went on a tour of the impressive new Bulldog Tech campus within the larger campus. I promised our able Bulldog Tech guides that I would post their photo tonight… good job girls!

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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Pizza and Art

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Last Sunday after church, we went out to a pizza lunch with my mother (retired Professor of Life Drawing at California College of the Arts) in San Jose. Between conversational interludes, John read a book, Paul played a game on his smart phone, and my mother drew Paul. As usual, people walking by the table stopped to admire her drawing. Paul is studying Art at Foothill College, having grown up seeing art as a constant and necessary expression of creativity.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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Silicon Valley Leaves and Sky

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The Silicon Valley is famous as geek-central but can also be a beautiful place. Our annual rains have started and it is getting cold at night. My husband likes to say that the Midwest has two seasons: road removal and snow repair. California’s two seasons are mudslide and wildfire. We are now in autumn, that lovely interim when the land is too wet to burn but not damp enough to slide.

More pictures on: Silicon Valley Autumn 2012 Pinterest page.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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Porch Progress

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We have continued to make slow progress on adding our new porch, although yesterday we had a setback. John discovered that the special-order outer window (despite being carefully measured by two experts) turned out to be the wrong size for the heirloom Van Gilder stained glass panel it was made to protect. So we are now waiting to see how long a replacement will take to make. We are also waiting for the test tiles from the special-order mural from Fireclay so that we can check the color. We are about to place the order for the wrought iron railing from Brian’s Welding.  The good news is that the two new round windows above the porch in Paul’s room look good.  Construction is a slow business.  Even though the rainy season just started, we hope to be done by Christmas (this year!).

July 2012:
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August 2012:
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September 2012:
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October 2012:
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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher

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New Porch

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This summer, we have been fixing up our home – doing small construction and repairs, including: refinishing the front door, filling in missing baseboards, refinishing the floor in John’s office, eliminating some dry rot and fixing a floor that shifted out of level in John’s model train room and workshop, adding a side fence and creating a pottery studio for Paul. Our next project is to add a side porch to the house. The contractors poured the concrete foundation yesterday. Months ago, we bought hundreds of old ceramic roof tiles from a neighbor – which match those already on our 1930 Willow Glen house roof. The “new” tiles will go on the porch roof so that it will look like a natural part of the house.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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