Tag Archives: San Jose

August 23, 2016 · 10:47 pm

Lincoln Avenue Road Diet, Pokemon Go

In the nearly twenty years my family has lived in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose, California, we have enjoyed shopping and eating on The Avenue (Lincoln Avenue between Minnesota and Willow) several times each week. We often walk from our home near the Tamien CalTrain station to Lincoln and back – about 3 mile round trip. Recently, several of us have being playing Pokémon Go as we walk. My son Paul is our family expert and advisor on all things Pokémon. The Lincoln Avenue area is particularly rich in pocket monsters and PokéStops!

On 28 June 2016, the City Council approved proceeding with the Road Diet (“Lincoln Avenue Pilot Project”). Since then, there has been much road work and many changes on Lincoln Avenue. The 28 June 2016 City Council Synopsis for Agenda item 6.1:

6.1 Lincoln Avenue Pilot Project Report.
Recommendation: Accept the Lincoln Avenue Pilot Project Report, and support the
plan to pave and stripe Lincoln Avenue in the current pilot configuration, implement
minor traffic signal improvements at the Minnesota/Lincoln intersection, and traffic
calming improvements in adjacent neighborhoods. CEQA: Exempt, Section 15301(c),
Existing Facilities and Section 15304(h), Minor Alterations to Land, File No. PP16-063.
Council District 6. (Transportation)
The memorandum from Council Member Pierluigi Oliverio, dated June 27, 2016, was approved as follows:

Accept traffic and sales tax reports provided by Staff.

Accept Staff recommendation to make the current lane configuration
permanent in July.

Accept Staff recommendations for further improvements on neighboring streets verified by the Department of Transportation (DOT) data.

In the event that monies for improvement are depleted, DOT Staff is
welcome to fund improvements out of the District 6 Office Budget ending December 31, 2016.

Return to Council with an amendment to the existing ordinance that bans bicycle riding on downtown sidewalks, with an exemption for pre-teens and propose expanding the area to include Lincoln Avenue between Coe and Minnesota. This would minimize conflicts with pedestrians, strollers and canine companions now that bike lanes are permanent.

Changes I have noticed since June on Lincoln Avenue include:

Addition of “bump out” eating area for Tac-oh! restaurant (1384 Lincoln Ave. at Minnesota) – creating a seating area in what used to be parking spaces.
Upgrade of street light at Lincoln / Minnesota.
Addition of “Willow Glen” branded racks – for bike parking.
Slurry seal over existing paving (not a full repaving), with new road markings such as cross walk lines, bike parking signs, and arrows in turn lanes.
Addition of small statues in the existing planter boxes.

Most of these are welcome changes; however, the five categories of Lincoln Avenue problems associated with the Willow Glen Road Diet, described in my 17 June 2016 post largely remain unresolved:

Traffic safety and speed
Too Little Parking
Bicycles on the sidewalk
Delivery Trucks parking in the turn lane
Community Trust

Parking continues to be the biggest concern to local businesses (and the problem least addressed) – parking both for private cars and for trucks trying to make deliveries.

I am delighted that so many local treasures – like the US Mail Delivery Mural, Chase Bank mosaics, and the Pizza My Heart surfboards – are now Pokémon Go landmarks. The PokéStops help players notice some of the charming details of our neighborhood downtown and make walking The Avenue even more fun. I still wish that we could resolve some of the persistent larger problems during this time of cosmetic enhancement.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

Driving, Rafting, Hiking, Spelunking, and Trains

Our family took a short vacation together this week – a road trip from San Jose to northern California. Jessica and Matthew and Paul and John and I stayed for two nights at the Railroad Park Resort in Dunsmuir. John and I got to sleep in wooden caboose 12.

On Monday, we went on a white water rafting trip with Living Waters down the middle Klamath River, followed by a drive then a hike to 8,050 feet on Mount Shasta (elevation 14,179 feet above sea level). On Tuesday, we took a boat across the lake to tour Lake Shasta Caverns and then drove to Portola, seeing a train at the famous Keddie Wye junction just before full dark.

Portola is home to the Western Pacific Railroad Museum (WPRM), of which we are long-time members. WP668, our own backyard caboose, has four sister cabooses of the same age and design in Portola: WP679 (owned by the City of Portola), WP645 and WP646 at WPRM, and Sacramento Northern 1642 – also at WPRM. When we bought WP668 in 2006, it was housed at the Golden Gate Railroad Museum in San Francisco along with WP646 and SN1642. We enjoyed seeing these again on Wednesday.

In a variety of places during our trip, we saw signs, flags, and bumper strips for the State of Jefferson. Those supporting this proposed new US state seem to do so as a way of expressing dissatisfaction with our current government, or its representation of them.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

1 Comment

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Jessica, John, Matthew, Paul, San Jose, WP668

July 22, 2016 · 4:25 pm

Caboose and Cactus Arroyo

My office replaced a swimming pool. WP668 is the 100-year-old railroad caboose in San Jose, California (“the Capital of the Silicon Valley“) where I work for Mentoring Standard. Above is WP668 in our backyard now, and below is what the same space looked like in the year 2000. The swimming pool was removed ten years ago – see more photos on the WP668 webpage.

I designed the landscape setting for WP668 based on large rocks and cactuses, including a Y-shaped arroyo (or dry creek) that is small enough to be called an arroyito. Like the bones of California, our arroyito is largely made up of granite, basalt, limestone, and quartz, with jasper, serpentine, sandstone, conglomerates, and other stones for variety. We bought two large boulders from South Bay Materials but the other rocks were adopted as individuals. Every time we go on vacation or a road trip, we come home with new garden rocks, so the arroyito becomes more solid and complex year-by-year. My family complains when they have to ride home from a trip with their feet on top of the latest stones headed for the arroyito but they still help me stuff rocks into the car.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

Standing Up in Court

For the first time, today I was a witness in a criminal justice hearing. As I wrote on 11 April 2016, I have been teaching in jail every week as part of Education for Ministry (EfM), an extension program of the University of the South – School of Theology, for which I am an Accredited Mentor and the El Camino Real Diocesan Coordinator.

One of the Elmwood Jail student-mentees in my EfM seminar had a Romero hearing today and I was in court as a character witness. “The People of the State of California v. Superior Court (Romero), 13 CAL. 4TH 497, 917 P.2D 628 (Cal. 1996), was a landmark case in the state of California that gave California Superior Court judges the ability to dismiss a criminal defendant’s ‘strike prior’ pursuant to the California Three-strikes law, thereby avoiding a 25-to-life minimum sentence” (quote from Wikipedia). In today’s Romero hearing, the Defendant (my student-mentee) had the opportunity to reduce his sentence from an indeterminate number of years (that is, being sentenced to triple digit years without parole) to a sentence that may be completed during his lifetime. I was the only witness present in court today but others had written letters to the judge asking for mercy in his case. The hearing was brief but thorough. The judge listened to me and the lawyers for the Defendant and Plaintiff (“the people”), then reviewed submitted documents. What seemed to make a positive difference in this case was that the Defendant:

Has shown remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions
Has demonstrated a sustained change in his behavior, character, and prospects for the future
Did not use physical violence
Is middle aged already

I was glad that the judge ruled in favor of the Defendant today and gave him a sentence of 30 years without parole. My student-mentee will be an old man when he gets out of prison but with luck and good behavior, he will get out someday. This was the result he had hoped for.

When I serve each year as a Mentor in the TechWomen program of the US State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, my Mentees may go on to start businesses, accelerate their professional careers, attend graduate school, and change the world for the better. When I am a Mentor each year for the EfM class hosted by Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, my student-mentees after four years of study graduate with more awareness of their personal ministry and with a solid education in the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics.

I am learning that as a Mentor for an EfM seminar in a county jail, my student-mentees gain the same education and potential for awareness of their personal ministry but have smaller potential to change the world for the better. Even after they leave jail or prison, their socioeconomic status is so low that their prospects are modest as members of the community. I am learning to celebrate the wins we can get, among them: passing the high school equivalency exam, reconciling with family, being accepted into a good reentry program, and getting a positive Romero judgement as we did today.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

3 Comments

Filed under Church, Mentoring & Other Business, News & Reviews, Politics

Tagged as Education for Ministry, Episcopal church, Jail, Mentoring, San Jose, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, teaching, TechWomen

July 19, 2016 · 4:31 pm

Visiting California Missions

Laura Biche and Jessica Dickinson Goodman and I enjoyed a girls’ road trip on Saturday – part of our long-term “Visit All the California Missions” project. We went to San Antonio de Padua (Jolon), Nuestra Senora de Soledad (Soledad), and San Juan Bautista (in San Juan Bautista) – and ate ice cream twice! Along the way, we also visited the Saint Luke’s Episcopal Church (near Jolon – on the Fort Hunter Liggett Army Base) and other sights of interest.

An odd thing we noticed: all three missions we visited had what looked like the exact same bronze statue honoring Saint Junipero Serra (who founded 9 of the 21 missions). It will be interesting to see if the rest of the missions have the same one.

Looking at the Missions Map, we figure we need to go on at least four more road trips to complete our project:

4 Missions: Sonoma, San Francisco North Bay, San Francisco, Fremont Area

Mission San Francisco Solano, in Sonoma
Mission San Rafael Arcángel, in San Rafael
Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores), in San Francisco
Mission San José, in Fremont

3 Missions: South San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz, Carmel Area

6 Missions: San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura Area

Mission San Miguel Arcángel, in San Miguel
Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa, in San Luis Obispo
Mission La Purísima Concepción, northeast of Lompoc
Mission Santa Inés, in Solvang
Mission Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara
Mission San Buenaventura, in Ventura

5 Missions: Los Angeles and San Diego Area

Pictures of Mission San Antonio de Padua (Jolon)

Pictures of Mission Nuestra Senora de Soledad (Soledad)

Pictures of Mission San Juan Bautista (in San Juan Bautista)

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

1 Comment

Filed under Church, Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Episcopal church, Jessica, Missions, San Francisco, San Jose

July 19, 2016 · 3:24 pm

Scary Crazies

Twice this week, I have been threatened by scary crazy guys. On 13 July, when John Plocher and I were driving home, we witnessed a bike rider threatening a woman and child on the street with a utility knife. Here is the story John posted on the Willow Glen Neighbor‘s group to warn people:

Just witnessed some really scary behavior driving home from dinner – a bike rider was threatening and swearing at a woman and her child waiting at the crosswalk at the Bird and Willow intersection, a man stopped his truck and got out to support the woman – at which point the bike rider threw down his bike and pulled a knife on the 3 of them. My wife called 911 as this was going on; I pulled out my phone and aimed it at him, telling him to drop the knife – at which point he hopped on his bike and rode away eastbound along Willow before dropping his bike at Tina’s and running. Nobody physically hurt – though I’m sure the woman and her child were terrified. San Jose Police Department is on it. Here’s a picture of the bike rider – please be careful if you see him.

Then, on Saturday, 16 July, Laura and Jessica and I were driving to visit the San Antonio de Padua Mission near Jolon and stopped to look at some interesting rocks. A little way up the road, a crazy middle aged white guy in a parked white sedan started shrieking obscenities at us. When he got out of his car and started running toward us waving his arms violently and screaming, we went back to our car and locked the doors. He then returned to his car and drove off.

It is hard to know what to do during such events – trying to stay safe and keep others safe – and it is surprising how hard it is to describe someone when making a police report later. The incident is so upsetting, details like the color of the man’s shirt and backpack slip away. Somewhere between 4% and 18% of the USA is mentally ill – and about half of those who have a substance abuse disorder are also mentally ill (see “Mental Health by the Numbers” for details). I think I met two of the more violent ones.

If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).

2 Comments

Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as Jessica, John, San Jose, Willow Glen

July 9, 2016 · 6:13 pm

Shakespeare in Ashland for our 16th Anniversary

John and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last weekend with a road trip to Ashland, Oregon. On the drive north from San Jose, we visited the Nut Tree Train in Vacaville and saw Shasta Lake full of water (a welcome sight after a long drought).

While in Ashland, we enjoyed a clever and entertaining production of Twelfth Night by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (set in 1930’s Hollywood, with twins Viola and Sebastian doubled by one actress), celebrated with an excellent dinner with Rogue River Valley wine at Amuse Restaurant, and enjoyed long walks in historic Lithia Park.

On the drive home, we visited our favorite rock shop (Consolidated Rock & Mineral in Vacaville) and commemorated our anniversary with the purchase of a Crinoidea sea lily double fossil, originating in the Paleozoic Era by way of Morocco. On the way home, we had dinner at Bud’s Pub & Grill in Dixon, which has more animal hunting trophies hanging on its walls than anyplace I have seen. It was a delightful celebration!