Tag Archives: WP668

October 30, 2010 · 10:50 am

Our Own Personal Flood

After my several blogs about not wanting flood insurance, it would be ironic if my home were flooded now that I finally don’t have to buy it. Our “flood” was only in the back yard, fortunately, and resulted from a cracked garden pipe. This was not the flood of Gilgamesh…

Like pieces of a broken pot lay the pieces of land among the spreading water.
So high did the water go that even the gods scrambled for mountain so high
And cringed like rain whipped dogs in the storm.

This was not the flood of Noah…

The waters prevailed and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark floated on the face of the waters.
And the waters prevailed so mightily upon the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered;
the waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep.

But it did make a big mess and cost us $500 to fix. What you see in the photo at the left above are the roots and pipe that caused the problem. We think a root from one of our big ash trees cracked the PVC pipe which connects to the hose bib or water spigot. I noticed that there was mud for several days in the walkway near WP 668, our backyard caboose where I have my office. My husband looked at it, dug a hole from which shot up a spout of water, found he could not turn it off, then called Polo’s Landscaping (408-597-5214) to come help.

It turns out that a previous owner of our Willow Glen house had put in a garden water line upstream of the house and garden water shut off valves. So, the only way we could turn off that particular pipe was to turn off the water service to the whole property. We ended up with two large muddy holes – one near the caboose, and the other near the valves in the front yard. After much digging around in my (former) iris bed, Polo found the pipe that should have had the shut off valve on it, buried two feet down. He and his team did a good job. By the end of the day, we had a new shut off valve and a fixed water pipe. The brick walkway sank a little but once the ground dries out some, I will lift the bricks and add some more sand.

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August 1, 2010 · 11:52 pm

Lightening Our Footprints – New Cars

This week, we sold our 15-year-old Toyota Camry 4-door Sedan and our 10-year-old Ford Expedition 8-passenger SUV, and we bought two new cars: a Smartcar Passion Coupe Cabriolet (2-seater convertable), and a Mercedes GL350 BlueTEC SUV (which seats 7). We traded in the Toyota on the Smartcar and sold the Ford on Craigslist. After so long nursing along old (very old) cars, it was a wild week.

We spent last weekend visiting car dealerships, mostly along Stevens Creek in Santa Clara, California. It was surprising how few offered cars that would fit my tall husband in comfort. We told salesmen that we wanted to test sit the cars before we test drove them. We visited Mercedes, Toyota, Cadillac, Ford, Lexus, Chevrolet, Smart, and Porsche. After sitting in 20 cars, we found that only four really fit John: the Mercedes GL (SUV), the Toyota Sienna (minivan), the Ford Flex (SUV), and the Chevrolet Traverse (SUV).

Besides wanting cars that were not falling apart bit by bit (I think the Camry’s door handle breaking off in my hand told me that the time had come…), we wanted cars that were not so wasteful. The Smartcar has an EPA estimated fuel consumption of 33 city/41 highway (compared to the Camry at about 20 mpg). It is for me to run errands and commute to work when my husband John and I are not driving together. For such a tiny car, the Passion has a surprising amount of headroom for John.

The ultra-low-emissions diesel Mercedes has an EPA estimated fuel consumption of 17 city/23 highway miles per gallon (compared to the Expedition with 13 mpg at best). This will be our family car, used in hauling yard and building supplies for house and caboose work, taking our big dogs to the vet, driving groups of children on field trips, and taking the family on our annual camping trip into the mountains. Our hope is that the Mercedes will last us much much longer than the Ford, so we will save the energy of creating materials for a new vehicle every ten years.

Many years ago, when our friend Max was a very little boy, he stared at our Ford Expedition and christened it the “Too Big”. We now have both a “Too Big” and a “Too Small”.

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Tagged as Dogs, John, WP668

April 7, 2010 · 11:15 pm

Easter Egg Hunt

We held our family Easter Egg hunt last Sunday. This year, we had about twenty guests, nine of them children ages 2 to 17. All were experienced egg hunters. We followed our annual ritual:

All hunters line up in order of age in the living room for the briefing. Rule #1 is always “There are no eggs in the flower beds.” Other rules address the sharpness of cactuses, the muddiness and egg-free condition of the riverbank, and indeed the general lack of eggs in any location except the back yard.
Starting with the youngest child, each hunter in turn gets to pick a basket and an “advisor”. Advisors are toy bunnies or birds who go on the hunt with the child instead of their parents. Advisors serve to restrain parents from getting competitive and helping too much.
We proceed to the kitchen door from which the children get to go into the yard, starting with the youngest then followed at one minute intervals by the rest of the kids.
The hint poems for the gold and silver eggs are available for all kids and adults to consider.

This was my son Paul’s first year as Associate Bunny but even the Associate Bunny did not know where the gold and silver eggs were hidden. The hint poems were:

Silver Egg

I see flowers purple and white
Though I am shaded from the light.
Please don’t eat me by mistake
When breakfast you come to take.

Gold Egg

I was here to show the way
Until Redda came to stay.
Chewed and broken, piled away
One last use I have today.

The two prize eggs were eventually found by adults: Susan found the gold egg (in a broken light fixture chewed up by our puppy, Redda), and David found the silver egg (tied in the branches of a blossoming orange tree). All of the regular eggs were plastic with candies inside. The kids particularly enjoyed finding eggs on and around WP 668, our backyard caboose.

After the hunt, the kids watched a video and played with computers and ate candy while the adults talked. When our guests left, John and I held our annual melting of the Peeps when we dispose of any of the vibrantly colored marshmallow candies which are left over from the party. (If you want to see a very odd website, check out The Lord of the Peeps.)

Pictures from our big day:

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March 4, 2010 · 10:58 pm

San Jose Metblog

I just posted my first blog entry as the newest writer for San Jose Metblog. I was introduced to Metroblogging when Joann Landers wrote the article “Auction – Whirling Dervish – Middle Eastern Feast” featuring a photograph of WP 668, our 1916 historic backyard caboose. Here is what San Jose Metblog says about itself:

Metroblogging started off as a more locally focused alternative news source in Los Angeles and has turned into the largest and fastest growing network of city-specific blogs on the Web. We got sick of reading local news that was syndicated from the other side of the country, or was just repurposed national chit chat that had nothing to do with our city. We created our first blog as a throw back to the days when a local news paper focused on local issues, and you could walk down to the corner coffee shop and chat up the reporters whose column you read earlier that day. This idea didn’t stay in one city for long and before we knew it there were Metblogs in Chicago, Portland, Karachi, and Vienna. Today there are over 50 Metblogs in countries all over the world. Local politics, event reviews, lunch recommendations and ways to avoid that big traffic jam downtown. If it’s happening in our cities, we’re on it.

We are bloggers first and foremost, and we love our cities. Even the parts we hate.

My first San Jose Metblog article is “SMUM Thanks Volunteers”. I am looking forward to writing more.

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December 3, 2009 · 11:13 pm

Caboose Stairs Finished

I have not written anything for a while about WP668, our 1916 backyard caboose, but we continue to work on it. John got the stair railings finished and coated. He also added lights to the stair risers to make night access safer. It was easier to add the lights while the railings were removed. The stair rail coating is gray to distinguish it from the yellow grab bars of the original caboose. It is smooth to the touch and will protect against rust.

We worked with a master welder in October 2008 to construct the railing from pipe.

Welding WP668 caboose stair rail<br /> photo: copyright 2008 Katy Dickinson

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May 4, 2009 · 1:57 pm

Mating with the Wind

Our house and garden are covered with Cottonwood Fairy Fuzz every year when the female Cottonwood poplar trees along the Guadalupe River release their seeds. We are in the middle of this charming mess of fluff right now. Drifts of seeds line the edge of every walk. In the short distance between my office in WP668 and the house, I collect tiny tufts of fuzz in my hair and on my clothes. Every spiderweb is full. Some photos:

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April 30, 2009 · 1:46 pm

Two Talks

I recently gave two talks here at Sun Menlo Park:

- To TechBridge, for “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” on 23 April
- To the annual Sun Design Summit (27-28 April), on “One time vs. Cyclic Survey” design

For “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” on 23 April, I talked with a group of 30 teen girls from the TechBridge after-school program for girls, sponsored by the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, California. I was the last speaker in their busy day at Sun. I told them about my work with SEED Engineering Mentoring but also about my kids and WP668, the
1916 railroad caboose in my backyard where I have my office. I showed them photos on my blog and my daughter’s blog. After my talk, the girls tried to program a peanut butter and jelly robot, which was very funny. At the end, they said what they enjoyed most about their Sun day. The Executive Briefing Center tour and Nicole Yankelovich’s Collaborative Environments project from Sun Labs were tops. One girl even said that learning about having an office caboose was her favorite!

To the designers and usability experts at Sun, I talked about surveys in general, and the difference between one-time and cyclic surveys. Six years ago, I created Sun’s “How to Survey” web page in self defense. As a Six Sigma Master Black Belt, I was getting too many requests for information about survey design, tools, policies, etc. So, I put together and maintain a SunWeb page which covers:

- Key Questions
- Reference Documents by Sun Experts
- Additional Resources:
  Policies, Helpful External Tools, Books and Articles,
  Survey Tools & Services
- Example Surveys

Most of my presentation was drawn from information and resources I have posted on “How to Survey”. I chose to submit this topic for Kartik Mithal’s Design Summit because usability and design staff are so frequently involved in customer data collection. Also, because so much of the good advice in this area comes from Usability Engineers, such as:

Robin Jeffries, Jakob Nielsen, and Jared Spool. The second page of my presentation was:

Why Should You Care?

cat ear and eye<br /> photo: copyright 2009 Katy Dickinson

Listening to the

Voice of the Customer

Makes Your Work More Effective.

Surveys are One Good Way to Listen.

I think both talks went well: the audience and I learned something. One of the TechBridge teachers told me about the fun and interesting Algebra vs. The Cockroaches computer game*. Several of the Design Summit audience members sent me additional information to post on the “How to Survey” SunWeb page.

* Algebra vs. The Cockroaches is now on my Good Free Games list.