Amazingly Compassionate Sun Employees!

Last month, tragedy struck a member of the Sun family, a woman who is a member of my building's custodial staff. She lost her son in a tragic manner and suddenly found herself in a position that no mother should be in: she had to bury her own child. He was only 23 years old.

It turns out that a burial plot, services and a coffin are not all cheap in the SF Bay Area, and this mother had no idea how she was going to make sure the last thing she did for her son was the right thing. Where was she going to come up with $8500 for a basic state funeral?

This is where the inspirational Patricia Hill came in. Pat is a director here at Sun and has many tasks on her plate, but she's always had time for a quick chat with any member of the Sun family and always has time to help. When she found out that one of the other custodians was collecting donations to help, she sent out an announcement to all the Sun employees on this campus.

Word got around to other offices in the Bay Area and soon the rest of the world, and Pat found herself inundated with donations coming from as far away as Europe. Pat said people came to her office and gave her literally every piece of paper money they had in their wallet. Others made a trip to the ATM. I went up to her office one day hoping to find Pat, and instead found a FedEx envelope overflowing with cash. I stuffed my cash in and walked away - knowing that the money was safe.

All told, Sun employees collected over $12,000 for this mother. Enough for her to pay for the funeral services and grief counseling.

Nothing will ever replace this woman's son, but the work that Pat did, along with hundreds of other employees of Sun Microsystems, at least meant she didn't have to start out the grieving process with mountains of debt.

Thank you, Pat, for helping us all to do the right thing!

James Patterson's Sam's Letters to Jennifer

Sam's Letters to Jennifer by James Patterson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A friend lent me this book, so you really can't complain about a free book... but I will anyways :-)

In the prologue, it's established that the main character, Jennifer, had lost her young husband, Danny, in a swimming accident 18 months before. She laments that she mostly went through this grieving on her own, with the exception of support from two friends. One of those two friends was named ... Danny. Okay, four characters have been introduced and two have the same name? Not a Danny and a Daniel, but both Danny. I had to reread a few pages to make sure I had it all straight. This is fiction - pick unique names! Why couldn't the friend be called Bob? David? Charles? the good news is that the friend Danny was only mentioned in the prologue and never again.

The book covers Jennifer's ability to love again and her mixed up emotions when she finds her self falling for a childhood friend that ... is dying. Oh, and her grandmother is in a coma, likely dying. Fortunately for Jennifer, her grandmother has left her a series of letters detailing her life, so it would all be written down. Of course, Jennifer learns secrets so shocking she isn't sure what to do with them, but eventually learns to accept her grandmother for the imperfect woman she was.

The book was a bit sappy for my taste, but due to the way it was mostly presented in "letters" it was a very fast read.

View all my reviews>> >>

Sebastian Maniscalco at the San Jose Improv!

My friends and I caught Sebastian Maniscalco last night at the San Jose Imrov. The host was very cute & funny, though the opening act was a bit of a groaner. I'm sure that his jokes about women were quite funny with just his guy friends, but in a mixed crowd they did not go over well, though I did enjoy his 90s alternative rock quoting hobo bit.

Now, the main act - he was hilarious! Maniscalco started out with a great tribute to Michael Jackson - he'd obviously also just watched This is It! He moved on to talking about how cool Prince is, and as a huge Prince fan, I couldn't possibly disagree. :-)

Maniscaclo did a nice long set and our server made sure our whistles never went dry by keeping our beer glasses full.

If you're looking for a fun night out this weekend, check out Sebastian Maniscalco at the San Jose Improv, but be prepared to pay out the nose for drinks.

Michael Jackson's This is It!

Wednesday night, my friends and I went to the Century Cinemas 16 on Shoreline to catch Michael Jackson's "This is It". I can only say that it was so much better than I expected, and I was amazed at what they were able to put together, considering this was clearly not a planned film.

I've always loved Michael Jackson - I think anyone born before 1990 was a fan at least at one point in their lives. True, I lost interest in him as he got more and more out there, but always appreciated his incredible talent. I even found that his more recent albums would grow on me, as their tracks would come up on my iPod's random shuffle. I expected him to just fade off with other aging rock stars, but never to die so suddenly of a drug overdose.

This movie was a touching glimpse at what this tour could've been. We start off with the announcement by Michael of his last tour, and quickly move into watching hundreds of amazing dancers hoping to make one of the few spots as an "MJ principal dancer". After getting their slot, each of the dancers takes a moment to reflect on camera how much it means to them to work with Michael and what an influence he's been on dancing - each of us in the audience relates and knowing how the story ends, our hearts just start to break a little.

Many of the numbers are a cut-together of several different rehearsals, which shows us all what a professional and perfectionist Michael was. The dance sequences continue with no breaks, even though you can tell it was cut-together due to the different outfits he is wearing. Really, if nothing else, the editors for this movie deserve an Academy Award.

I will admit that Michael's taste in clothing did seem to actually be getting more eccentric. I mean, glittery gold pants? as rehearsal clothes? He also had some new funky expression of shoulder pads that seemed more appropriate for Dracula than a pop star, but I guess being a pop star gives you more leeway in your wardrobe than the rest of us have.

It was clear that everyone working with him on the tour were amazingly talented, had great visions for the concert, and were "yes men", which may have been Michael's undoing. Sometimes you need a good friend to tell you that you are going off the deep end, or that you shouldn't be doing things like taking surgical grade anesthetics to go to sleep...

One thing that so impressed me is that Michael Jackson is a true performer. There was absolutely no lip syncing going on. Even in rehearsals, he was in full voice (though sometimes he openly worried about losing his voice). He knew every word to every song he's ever sung, and was constantly working on ways to freshen up the classics while not taking away from anyone's memory of how the song should be. Every dance step was done with passion, integrity and focus - never marked. Modern day "singers" should watch this and be ashamed of themselves.

Michael Jackson had planned on incorporating aerialists, "pole dancing experts", a new 3D Thriller sequence, never before seen lighting and pyrotechnics, and amazing costumes. None of that will ever see a real audience. This movie is a wonderful glimpse at what was and what could've been. I understand it is a limited time release, so go catch it now while you can.

Still time to register for the OpenSolaris Security Summit!

Advanced registration for the OpenSolaris Security Summit that is going on in Baltimore, Maryland on Tuesday, November 3rd in conjunction with USENIX LISA 09 is open until October 26th. After that, you'll need to register on site, space permitting.

Why should you go? This free summit will include some of the top people in the field of computer security and networking, including author and luminary Bill Cheswick! This will be your chance to learn about technologies already shipping with the Solaris 10 Operating System as well as get a peak at what is coming in the future for OpenSolaris!

Did I mention this is free? While you're in town for LISA conference, why not spend a day getting free training from Sun Microsystems? btw, you don't have to be attending the LISA conference to go to this summit - so if you just live nearby, you should take advantage of this opportunity!

Oh, and it comes with lunch and a chance to win free prizes, too, FTW!

GHC09: Pictures and video!

Okay, I still haven't downloaded my pictures off of my camera (if only I had more hours in the day...), but fortunately Terri Oda is more on the ball and she put this gem up on flikr:

That's me, Terri, Kathryn, Stormy, Sandy and Teresa!

Ed and Ashley have been busy as well, putting up these interviews of Sun women that attended the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing:

Deirdre Straughan and Teresa Giacomini are interviewed about community development!

Me getting interviewed about Open Source, OpenSolaris and my work at Sun Microsystems!

GHC09: What a fantastic conference!

I knew in advance that the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing had sold out, but that did not prepare me for what I encountered once I arrived: the largest, most diverse, most intelligent gathering of women I've ever been surrounded by. The women were students, industry luminaries, open source hackers, coders, program managers, managers, CEOs, directors, mothers, and everything in between. I swear the age range of attendees was probably 16 to 80. I met more women from Africa during that conference than had ever in my life before. Several from Nigeria and Kenya, in particular.

The conference schedule, as always, was intense. There just are not enough hours in the day for all of the stuff we all wanted to do.

I attended a full day of sessions Wednesday, each room just as packed as the last, even though official conference launch wasn't until 7PM that evening. I met with most of my panelists on Wednesday night, which did mean I missed most of the poster session, which was disappointing - but I had so much fun talking to the interesting women that were going to present with me on Thursday, that I couldn't see any other choice! The conference was off to a fantastic start!

On Thursday, I was lucky to catch up with Dr. Susanne Hambrusch and the students she had brought from the Purdue Computer Science Department. As a graduate of that great university, it is always so rewarding to meet these ambitious and intelligent students. For some of us, we have met at other Grace Hopper Celebrations - others, it was our first time. We all had so much to talk about and I really could've spent a lot more time with them, too!

You can see my blogs for most of the sessions I attended for the rest of the week, but I just wanted to say something about both receptions.

Thursday night's dancing was deejayed in the style of 80's Wedding Dance Party, but sometimes it's a lot of fun to just get out and dance to those old silly songs! He did mix in some fun Indian and Arabic music to mix it up, and I've never before seen a woman dancing the Macarena with a baby strapped to her front in a snuggly. Dancing with hundreds of women with total abandon is good for the soul!

Friday night was sponsor night! Thank you Microsoft, Google and Intel for the delicious dinner, t-shirts and additional opportunities to meet and talk with amazing women from all over the world. This evening's deejay was playing much more current music, and you could see the college students dancing like there was no tomorrow. Well, as this was the last evening of the conference, that did kind of fit the bill...

I was very impressed with the technical support staff in the conference center at the JW Marriot Starr Pass Resort. One of their staff members followed tons of women at the conference on Twitter, so he (or was it a she?) knew instantly if there were networking or temperature issues and they were addressed so quickly! Everything just worked and help was always a tweet away. The resort itself was lovely with lots of nice dining choices, and even free tequila shots on the patio every evening. I was very impressed with all of the staff and would attend another conference here in a heartbeat.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is more than just a professional skills and technical conference. It is a place where I can reconnect with old friends and companions from industry and academia. I get to meet so many interesting women, that every one of them inspires me in some way.

This year, I even got to meet a lot of the women I follow on Twitter right there at the conference!

I've seen a lot of blogs and tweets lately on Women in Technology vs Women Who Do Technology. Personally, as a women who designs and developers software, I am happy having women around me in any capacity. Yes, it is very nice to have technical conversations with other women, which I find often focus more on how a solution to a problem was found instead of what the final solution was, but at least knowing I'm not alone in the organization or on my team is worth something, too. I'm lucky, I know. I work with several women who are also developers on my team, as well as females on the management team. The last project I was on, 2 out of 3 developers were women. :-) I met lots of women at the celebration who are not so fortunate.

I am thankful for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing that it brings me closer to my peers and more women like me. I've been inspired to try to start an affinity group for Women in OpenSolaris, and to try to inspire younger women to investigate technology careers. Any suggestions or any one that wants to help, please share or let me know!