Judy's Turn

I'm a PC and Steve Jobs Could Have Cared Less

Over the years, particularly the last 10, I've been ridiculed for my choice in internet browsing appliances (which is what a computer has become for me). It's been implied that I'm uncool or conservative - I've had to explain my choice to workmates, friends, and my kids. But, here's the deal - Steve didn't care. Because he knew better than anyone that eventually a device from Apple would make sense and I would purchase it.

As I look around my house filled with iPods and review my ATT phone bill that now has three iPhones on it, or check my email on my iPad in the morning, or trip over the MacBook that my daughter left on the floor in her room last night, it's pretty obvious that the genius of Steve's vision did indeed enter my sphere. He just focused on his vision and kept creating products that provided solutions for my life. Before I knew it, I was right where he knew I should be.

Don't get me wrong - from my earliest days in the tech business, Steve was my tech hero. So much so that after the birth of my first child in 1988, while job hunting, I didn't think about sending a resume to Apple. I wanted to work for Steve, so tried to get into NeXT. I wasn't successful and went to work for a bank (my job was to help bring down one system and bring in the IBM PC) and eventually dropped out of the workforce for several years while I raised our three kids. A PC has been all right for the contract jobs I've landed in the last 7 years, so I haven't bothered to switch. Yet.

I lost a very good friend to pancreatic cancer several years ago. The time between diagnosis and death was less than three months. As I saw pictures of Steve over the last few years, I couldn't help but feel that he was going to lose his battle soon. When my daughter's text announcing his death came to my iPhone yesterday, guess what I was doing? Waiting in my car for my other daughter to finish up school. And downloading an app.

Thank you Steve, for elegant design, for helping others create, for making my life easier. For caring about the big things. For your vision.

 

 

Thanks for the Giving

 Thanksgiving is one of those holidays that you grow to love more as you experience life. Although a lot of food is involved, it's also a time to look around the table and appreciate each member sitting at it. This Thanksgiving was extra special for us. Sam had arrived safely in Taipei for his 6 month studies, Leah was home from Humboldt, our niece and nephew were with us from Los Angeles and Becky seemed to finally be kicking the Mono (as in Nucleosis) that had beaten her down for over a month. 

Our table consisted of 14 people. Just two were not immediate family - Laurie and Dan. Laurie had been with us for Thanksgiving a few times, but this was the first time that Dan joined us. Dan has a PhD in Organic Chemistry and is a scientist at Gilead. He spent a lot of time talking to Becky at dinner and offered to help her with her backlog in Physics and Algebra. She came home from her first day back at school yesterday overwhelmed with the amount of work that she had missed (Junior year of high school) and said that she would indeed need to take Dan up on his offer. I told her to contact him, but to be aware that he had an important job and might not be able to come over this week. 

Dan is sitting at our table tonight (one day later) talking about acceleration and friction with Becky. This is after a 10 hour work day and the only payment he'll take is the knowledge that he helped Becky catch up with her studies. It is truly wonderful to hear them talking and I know back there in West Virginia where Dan grew up, there was someone special in his life raising him to be a good man.

I am constantly impressed by the goodness in the people that I meet and know that many Dans are working tonight helping others without any expectations in return. And, as an older "early adopter" of social communication products, I'm glad that I have the ability to let you know about this little slice of life. Let me know if you have a story to tell.

OKAY NOW FOR THE BIG DEALS I GOT TODAY WHILE HANGING OUT ON THE PENINSULA:

Fleur de sel Caramels from Trader Jacques (for those of you who need a translation - caramels with salt from Trader Joe's) -- $6.99 (really taste good - up front at the Hillsdale TJs)

Really beautiful boxed soaps from France and Italy at Tuesday Morning in San Mateo for $7.99 - I think they'll go fast. At the front of the San Mateo store just to the left of the cashier.

 

An Erkjay in our Midst

 Some jerk exploded a bomb in the local high school in our town today. We know many of the students and their families and as the helicopters buzzed around all morning and police barricades were set up surrounding the school, I thought of all of our friends and hoped that there were no injuries. Thankfully, all the students and faculty are safe and I'm hearing that the former student who exploded the bomb was apprehended immediately. So, first and foremost, this is a post that is expressing thanks for the safety of everyone and compassion for the fears that some students will have to overcome as they enter school tomorrow. This school has an involved and intelligent parent community that will no doubt step up to help the students heal and return to normal.

The second part of this post is much more random and may imply that I'm going crazy. Really, it's just the way my brain works. When we were kids, my brothers and sisters liked to talk in Pig Latin. We were amused endlessly when we would speak entire sentences in our foreign tongue and thought that we were psyching out our parents big time. Because I spent so much time speaking Pig Latin, I still tend to think in Pig Latin for certain words. And jerk is one of them.

I was thinking about posting something on Facebook saying an erkjay bombed the school. But as I thought about it, I realized that Pig Latin might not be the foreign tongue of all my friends on Facebook. Plus, my husband's name is Jay. What if people quickly scanned my status message and misunderstood it? Could they possibly think that Jay was responsible for the crime? That Jay was the erkjay? And this, my friends, is why the longer and more detailed blog will survive in the world of hastily written updates. Otay akemay orrectionscay enwhay ouyay essmay up.

Hillsdale Knights - we're proud of you! Have a great year!

Staying Ahead of the Recession

I've been trying to piece together a post about the recession and incoming college students, because I have a few thoughts about sending a child off to a California state school this fall. The budget cuts are just now coming in to play for the state school system and my daughter is going to have a college experience that is far different from the one we anticipated, I fear.

In the fall of '08, while one of the Presidential candidates was saying that the fundamentals of our economy were sound, I realized that some things were going to change very quickly. And one of those things was that parents who were thinking that they would be sending their children off to a private college would be rethinking that very soon as their bank accounts dwindled. A whole batch of very qualified kids would be applying to the state and UC system. The financially challenged schools would have real problems now. So on October 1, I told my daughter to get her applications in as close to the first day that she could and get some acceptances. She had 10 applications to the state schools in by October 3 and had three acceptances within the month. Whew! I bragged about my brilliant foresight to all who would listen and read the headlines in the next few months that showed it had been a good idea to move fast with the applications.

When she made her choice of schools, we put the deposit for dorm rooms in immediately so that she was guaranteed a space. We signed up for the very first orientation, so that she would have the best chance to get most of the classes that she needed. We were running as fast as we could to beat that recession until it nearly caught up with us.

My daughter's school put together a fabulous Ning network for the parents. It was embraced and soon people were talking about dorm room decor, setting up carpools, the best places to stay when visiting and all other kinds of parenty stuff. I did notice that the school kept a budget information post on the site at all times, but I thought we were safe. She had been admitted, had a dorm room and had a roommate and classes schedule. Then last week the discussions on the network changed - there was talk of registered students having classes cancelled. When my daughter heard that because of furloughs and budget cuts one of her classes was cancelled, I took it in stride. Maybe it would take her 5 years to graduate - and anyway, it's hard to get used to freshman year. A light load the first semester would be o.k. My daughter kept complaining that she was not a full time student anymore and I was just happy she had a bed to sleep in.

Around this same time, our employer based insurance changed. As I was reading the details, I suddenly remembered that she will be 19 in October. Most insurance policies will take a child off at that age if they're not a full time student. This was the case with our last carrier and was indeed the case with our new carrier. All of a sudden, it became important that she pick up a class and get full time status. I couldn't even imagine what would happen if she became ill or had an accident and she wasn't insured. We'd be broke, that's what. So, there I was again, trying to beat the recession. She is going to a small state school that is incredibly responsive and just got off the phone with a counselor who helped her choose a class that will again put her into full time student status.

I don't really mean to complain. We're lucky that we (or one of us) have jobs and insurance and enough money set aside to help pay for our daughter's state school education. There are far worse stories in households across the country. But I've learned my lesson - I've got my running shoes on and I'm not taking them off any time soon.

Helicopter Parenting in 2009

In case you haven't tried doing it lately, I'll fill you in on a secret. It's not easy parenting these days. At all levels of motherhood/fatherhood the information comes flying at you and you need to have an incredibly strong character to process it, yet forge ahead using your instinct and past experience that is essential to good parenting.

The term "helicopter parent" has been used to describe some of today's parents who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their lives. There are stories out there about parents who fill out college applications, contact teachers to make excuses for a bad grade received by their child or are too involved in the social lives of their children. I say that if you've had the responsibility of parenting in these last 20 years, most likely you could be categorized as a helicopter parent at least once. Hovering over your children becomes dangerous and ineffective when they lose the ability (or never get it in the first place) to manage their own lives independently.

Lately, I've been hovering over my two oldest children in a more unusual way than most parents. They are in transitional points in their lives - one heading off to college next year and one heading into his senior year of college. I discovered that the college that my daughter is entering is actively using twitter to give information about the school. I started following them and would send the links that were tweeted to my daughter. Then I began encouraging her to sign up and follow them herself. She says twitter is for "old people" and refuses to do it, so I continue to send her links when I think they might interest her. It's amazing how much you can find out about a college from their presence on twitter. Hers does an incredible job and I'm hoping to meet my friend who tweets when I drive her up for orientation. I even participated in a tweetup with the school last week and learned where the best pizza place is. At this point in time, I'm more involved in her college than she is. I also learned that my son's career services department is tweeting. He too thinks that twitter is for another generation and won't sign up and follow them. I get frustrated because of course, given the job prospects that will be available next year, I know he needs to take advantage of all opportunities. It took me about six months to convince him to to create a profile on Linkedin. He did finally, and is catching on that the contacts he's making there might be as relevant to his first job out of college as the friends he has on Facebook.

These methods of networking are not the only skills they'll need as their future comes into focus. They need to make sure that first they can interact with people in group settings, in one to one discussions, in information gathering and to enjoy being in interpersonal situations where diverse conversations are happening. That's what going to college gives them. Linkedin and twitter come after they've learned what real networking is. But a good helicopter parent is always there - hovering and waiting to help.

Good? Bad? Or Just What Is?

My husband and I have worked in technology companies for a good portion of our careers, so we are pretty understanding  of how our children use computers in the home. We accept that communicating is what's they want and need to do. We do sometimes need to impose limits, however. Our daughter who is a senior in high school was staying up way too late each night in her room. She wasn't doing homework, but was spending an unusual amount of time organizing her ITunes queue. So, we told her to bring her computer down to the kitchen table, and work there until college applications were in and the first semester grades appeared in January. Her sister, who is a freshman in high school, likes to walk all over the house working on projects. Frequently, those projects involve collaboration with her friends using video ichat, IM and all the other tools that come naturally to her. Every once in a while, I like to move from my station in the living room and come into the kitchen with my laptop to work there. So, it happened this evening that all three of us were in a different part of the kitchen with our laptops.

It's theater tryouts time in our house and my younger daughter (Becky) is hoping for a part in her school musical. My older daughter's best friend (Maddy) just heard that she was cast for one of the leads in her high school play, and we were all anxious to know what part it was. Since Maddy is a pro at this musical theater business, Becky also wanted to see if Maddy could help her practice for her part. While I was wondering aloud what part it was that Maddy had landed, Becky pinged her and all of a sudden they were chatting about "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" and "Footloose." I could clearly see Maddy on my daughter's screen, sitting at her desk. I asked her to sing a few lines of her solo song and congratulated her on her part. Then Becky pulled up the music from her school's website that she needed to sing for her auditions, and Maddy gave her a few tips and they practiced singing together. In the meantime, I searched on YouTube for the Broadway version of the part that Maddy had landed and put my computer in front of Becky's screen so that Maddy could watch the video. For a brief few minutes, Maddy was totally present in our kitchen and a part of our conversation. By this time, our older daughter told us that we were driving her crazy with the singing and the chatter, so we carried Maddy into the family room and finished our conversations. And, when the conversation ended - all of a sudden - Maddy was gone and back in her room studying and working on her homework. I still find this instantaneous communication fascinating, but it is totally normal for my daughters.

If you didn't know better, you'd think that my two daughters and Maddy were spending far too much time in front of their computers. But the three girls are involved in all types of outside activities including theatre, water polo, dance, improv, volunteer work, student government. They have jobs and go out out with friends. So their lives are well rounded. They're really just using all this technology to keep it round (and round and round as they IM and Facebook). While we're still trying to send emails out to groups to put together a meeting or a lunch, the high school set gets it all organized in what seems like a nanosecond. They couldn't imagine having the patience that we do, waiting for an email reply. You can debate for hours whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. As teenagers, they will do what it takes to keep being a teen. Take advantage of their skills and let them arrange the attendees at your next meeting!

A Shock for Good

Over the weekend we went to Los Angeles to see the taping of a special for CNN called "Heroes." It will air Thanksgiving night at 9 p.m.

Watch it. Or, if you're like busy on Thanksgiving night, tape it or DVD-R it or TIVo it for later.

It's been a rough couple of months. We've all been worried about the economy, the war, the environment, you name it. It's all bad. (Well, except for the election...But even there, there's the worry: How many burdens can you heap on the shoulders of one skinny little Hawaiian?)

The "Heroes" Show will make you feel better. It profiles 10 ordinary people who have, on a whim or a dream or religious grace, decided to do something to make something better. After the show, I was privileged to meet one of the honorees, Yohannes Gebregeorgis, a quiet, dignified gentleman who fled Ethiopia in the early 80s, made a life for himself as a librarian in San Francisco's beautiful main library, then returned to his country six years ago with a mission: to bring the gift of reading to rural children. He is a lovely man.

The other stories were no less affecting. During the taping, I sat next to a young woman who kept saying, "this one should win." "No, that one." At the end of the show, a hero of the year was announced, the votes solicited by CNN through an on-line poll. The winner had the wisdom to note that all those featured during the evening deserved the honor -- and the extra stipend that came with the award.

The next day, I watched a talk show panel discuss how bad things were in the economy, with Tom "The World is Flat" Friedman even suggesting that maybe we should consider moving up the Inaugural because, possibly, Jan. 20 would be too late to dig us out of the deepening hole. No, Tom. That's a Constitutional no-no. I was still under the "Heroes" aura, and the discussion seemed surreal.

In the Shock Doctrine , Naomi Klein argues that big events provide cover for evil governments and corporations to have their way.  In the afterglow of "Heroes," I had a thought: maybe this particular trial will yield a different outcome. Maybe this holiday season, for example, consumer excess will (must?) give way to the things that matter -- friends, family, philanthropy. Watch "Heroes." It will put you in a holiday frame of mind.

Products without Parabens

I agree with Judy: Pass by the department store beauty counter and buy your potions and creams in drugstores or even grocery markets. But just make sure you check the ingredient list.

High end or low, beauty products sold in the U.S. often come with a little extra something -- better living through chemistry! -- preservatives and plasticizers that, once in the body, can "mimic" hormones like estrogen. So? The most popular form of breast cancer is estrogen driven.

Scan to the bottom of the ingredient list, where you'll find the preservatives. If you see "grape-seed extract," buy it; it's great. If you see one (or more) of the parabens -- methyl-, ethyl-, propyl-, and byty-, for example -- put it back on the shelf. For even more fun, find a clerk or salesperson and loudly declaim the manufacturer's callousness and the store's carelessness in stocking the product in the first place. This is an especially good exercise in a place like Whole Foods, where people pay extra because they assume everything is organic and safe.

Check for phthalates too in the ingredient list. Phthalates put the "squeeze" in rubber duckies and help the fragrance linger in personal care products like shampoo. They have also been found in mother's breast milk and are thought to affect male reproductive issues (lower sperm count, lower testosterone levels...) As of next February, phthalates will (finally!) be banned in the manufacture of toys, but consumer advocates fear that the current inventory of phthalate-softened plastic toys are going to flood the market this holiday season. "Rubber ducky, you're the one..."

It's not like we haven't known any better: Chemicals that cause cancer or hormone mutations have been banned in Europe for the past four years. But the American consumer has been treated like a rube. PT Barnum said it best.

The skin is not a barrier. Anything you put on it goes into the bloodstream. Read the label, please.

  

Thriller weekend

There's always something interesting going on...

This past Saturday, 10/25, was Thrill the World day.  All around the globe, in full Halloween spirit, groups of people danced simultaneously to Michael Jackson's infamous "Thriller" (which crazily enough happens to be the biggest selling album of all time.  Go figure.)  This was a synchronized dance, no matter your time zone.  On the west coast of the USA, starting time was 11am; some countries danced late at night.  In San Francisco, the majority of us performed on skates. 

The event was a hoot.  It began with a conference call from the (Canadian) organizer, so that all participants could hear the countdown.  For many groups however, the conference call didn't go as smoothly as hoped.  No matter; we could all count down easily enough, given all the technological devices in attendance.  So at the exact second, the zombies emerged. 

There was all manner of costumed involvement. The Golden Gate Park skaters were somewhat mild, despite our ghoulishly painted skin and scars here and there. However, we were joined by some zombies from Dolores Park who were very serious and VERY ghoulish.  In fact, they were a little over the top and disturbing.  But they really knew the dance well, since they'd performed it last year and therefore didn't have to spend time learning the steps this year.

The dance is six minutes long!  Everybody has to learn the same precise script; every beat has a corresponding word and movement.  Trust me, it took a LOT of brain power to learn this thing.  In fact, we'd been practicing every Sunday for the past 3 or 4 months. I'm pretty sure we were the only group in the world on skates, but I can't be positive.  Turns out that approximately 4200 people participated this year.  Some groups consisted of hundreds of people and some groups had less than a dozen.  San Francisco had close to fifty.

I noticed about half a dozen young boys in our group that I'd never seen before.  I learned that they were sixth graders from a middle school in Daly City.  Their teacher, who also danced, was offering extra credit for anybody in her class who could learn the dance (and be willing to perform it in SF on 10/25.)  It was awesome.  I thought it was a fabulous idea on the part of the teacher to have initiated such a fun project; the kids got to improve their memory skills AND get a little exercise in the deal. PERFECT!

For info if you're interested, see www.thrilltheworld.com   There are also MANY videos on youtube if you search Thrill the World.  Those that I've seen from San Francisco so far are not that great; they only show a small percentage of our group.  I'm sure more will post as the days go by.  But what a fun and unusual activity right before my favorite night of the year -- Halloween!

So Happy Halloween to all.  Stay safe and have fun!

Go Bacon - By Lauren Bryant

From Judy:  Lauren and I moved to San Francisco from Louisville, Kentucky nearly 30 years ago. We loaded up my 1974 Mercury Comet with six plastic garbage bags filled with clothes and one lamp. We headed straight to our first apartment in the Upper Tenderloin, or as we told our parents, lower Nob Hill. Later we moved into the heart of the Mission District. We knew an up and coming neighborhood when we saw one. Lauren returned to study at Indiana University where she is currently editor of Research and Creative Activity. The lamp, by the way, is still shining brightly in my kitchen.

I’m trying to learn to text-message, and it isn’t going very well. In a message to my daughter, I want to type “it’s cold,” but because my other daughter has programmed my cell phone in some mysterious way, the phone now guesses what I want to write before I finish, and it won’t take no for an answer. So “it’s cold” repeatedly comes out as “go bacon.”

But I do not want to “go bacon.” I want to be a cool mom who sends text messages. I am trying to answer an earlier message from one daughter asking what I want for Christmas. I try again. And again. I type gloves, but my phone writes “high,” as in the mountains, and then “cannon”, as in the weapon.

Go bacon, high cannon. Not cool.

This is only one example of how communication with my daughters has acquired a weird Alice-in-Wonderland quality. I am 50-something and they are teenagers, and suddenly, the basic vocabulary that English-speaking people have shared for centuries no longer works.

Take the word “food.” To me, this means a substance of at least marginal nutritional value with an edible texture and a color that can normally be found in nature. To my daughters, this word means, at best, a rainbow-striped rectangle with the texture of plastic wrap that is known as a “fruit” roll-up and a handful of crackers. At worst, it’s something called a Warhead chased down by a bottle of neon-blue PowerAde.

Or consider the word, “clothes.” Again, to me, this word suggests seasonally appropriate items that you use to cover your body before going out into the world each day. To my daughters, this word has two, and only two, meanings: one of them is “jeans” and the other is “T shirt.” The word “coat” is a corollary. To me this means something with insulation and a zipper. My daughters understand this word as “sweatshirt.”

The list goes on. “Sleep”, as my teenagers interpret it, means something that happens after the alarm rings, especially if the school bus is within 15 minutes of arriving. “We’re late” means “guess I have to get out of my pajamas.”

When I state a simple and direct phrase like “No”, my daughters continue to chatter and wheedle as if I’ve said nothing. “Why” and “what”, and especially “who”, also seem to have lost all meaning when I pronounce them.

On the other hand, I am discovering what any parent of adolescents knows – that the most powerful mode of parental communication may be a kind of neutral silence.

Any parent who drives kids under 16 knows that moment when you become invisible behind the wheel as your children reveal things to their friends they would never say directly to you. Or miracle of miracles, sometimes they actually form a complete sentence and aim it in your direction, but only if you do not dare to make eye contact in the rear-view mirror. These stealth communications can also happen in the dark, or when the parent pretends to be doing something else entirely, like weeding the garden or resting or reading a book. 

Text messaging, or “texting” as I’ve learned I must call it, seems to be a near-perfect form of teen communication – remote, silent, but high-tech and cool. So I’m trying to learn. Who knows, maybe there is some secret power behind the annoying cryptic codes and appalling shorthand words used to compose “texts.” Maybe those slightly sinister-looking smiley faces are more persuasive than I think. Maybe texting holds the key to some parent-teen synchronicity on the meanings of “food” or “clothes”, or even “why.”

It’s worth a try.

Meanwhile, “go bacon.”