Tag Archives: education

Apr 7 2020

Camping & Exploring the Painted Rock Petrogylphs

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If you have been following us, you know we put our home in Bend for rent for a year and have moved in our 2020 Winnebago Boldt for the year and if we like it or not this is our home until March 26, 2021.  So it has been a little over a week and a half since everything began closing down all over the country due to COVID-19, while we already started our one year trip visiting all the National Parks. We headed out of Bend, OR on March 1st where everything was okay and the world was functioning like whatever was everyday normal as we knew it as Americans.

Since then, we were able to visit the Lava Beds National Monumnent, Eagle Lake, Washoe Lake, Travertine Hot Springs, Alabama Hills, Death Valley National Park, Mojave Desert National Monument and Joshua Tree National Park. (More videos and blogs to come regarding each spot.)  While in Joshua Tree, state parks and national parks across the country began to shut visitor centers and some campgrounds. Many have now waved their frees and you can visit but there are no services. We have decided to go to places where they are in BLM or National Forests where there is free dispersed camping and you are well away from other campers.  We have a Pacific Pride Cardlock to fill at commercial diesel gas stations, so no interacting with people.  The only place we have to interact is grocery store which we try to only visit once a week or less.  We are trying to utilize the Walmart Grocery free curbside pick up service, but seems like everyone is doing that too.  When in a grocery store I am using gloves, distancing myself 6 feet from other shoppers, using the self-check out and going at times where there are the least amount of people.

So far we are still able to camp.  We were at Truckhaven Palm Wash BLM area and met a super nice local who wanted to make sure we weren’t stuck without resources.  Don’t worry we social distanced ourselves- him being outside our rig and us inside talking through the window.  Mike offered us ideas on nearby places of interest, where to dump and fill our RV if we needed it.  After Truckhaven, we headed to the BLM Pilot Knob Long Term Visitor Area, where it is free camping for 14 days and you are at least 500-1,000 yards from another camper.  This is different than Imperial Sand Dunes where there are a lot of RVers that are very close to each other, we would not recommend that area.  Today we arrived at thePainted Rock Petroglyphs, which are super cool. There are very few people here and social distancing is keeping us about 500 yards from other RVers.

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The Painted Rock Petroglyph Site is located on the eastern edge of the Painted Rock Mountains and about eighteen miles west by northwest of Gila-Bend, AZ. (information pulled from Wikipedia and BLM websites) The area is mostly flat and sandy with May-Oct daytime temperatures in the 100s. While we were here it was in the mid 70s in end of March.  The annual rainfall is only about six inches and the nearest irrigation water is the Gila River. In prehistoric times the Gila flowed west out of the mountains of western New Mexico, made a big dogleg turn at the town of Gila Bend and continued west to empty into the Colorado River. The Hohokam people once lived and farmed here. Ruins of their late Pioneer Period (AD 350 – AD 550) and Early Colonial Period (AD 550 – AD 700) villages are found to the north and west, and ruins of their Sedentary – Classic Period (AD 900 – AD 1400) villages are found to the south and east.  Over forty petroglyph sites have been recorded in the area, however; most of these sites are small with only a few dozen petroglyphs. The Painted Rock Site is the largest known site with about 800 images. While on my exploration I had the entire place to myself and did not cross anyone else.  Tomorrow I am heading out with Greg and Bode to hike on the historic Butterfield Overland Stage Route this was the old Oxbow Route that had mail travel from St. Louis to San Francisco back in 1858.

I recorded a short video for you to do a virtual tour and create activities for your children while they are off from school.  ( I have had requests from friends to do these little virtual tours).  I hope you enjoy it.  Keep checking back to our blog as we keep you up to date on how our  travels are going during this time and what you can and can’t do if you are a full-time RVer in the USA right now.

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Mar 5 2015

Celebrating International Women’s Day

Raneheadshot2014 Despite all the efforts, wide gender imbalance still exists in innovation worldwide, with number of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields decreasing from secondary school to university, laboratories to teaching, and policy making to decision making.

At the same time, most developed countries are forecasting an alarming shortfall in the number of skilled people to fill these jobs. The International Telecommunications Union predicts that 90 percent of future professional positions will require information and communications technology skills as well as a solid background in science or technology. Developing women’s competencies will widen the pool available to perform these tasks, while opening opportunities for women to pursue their dreams.

iwdThis is why Microsoft believes in the importance of diversity to drive innovation and the need to enable women all over the world to become producers of tomorrow’s technology. I am excited to join Microsoft executives Lori Forte Harnick and Margo Day, as we partner with U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center, United Nations Office for Partnerships and UN Women, for the 5th Annual International Women’s Day Forum: The Empowerment Bridge: Building Economic Empowerment for Women and Girls, held in New York City Wednesday and Thursday.

This event is particularly important to me, being a first-generation Vietnamese American. I was an immigrant at-risk youth who was emancipated at age 14. It was an interest in science, engineering and technology that helped me grow out of poverty and become a leader in the field. To see young women around the world embrace this field and create solutions that will make a difference inspires me every day and excites me to represent Microsoft as we partner with amazing organizations to enable every girl in the world reach their full potential.

I am excited to work with Lori, who leads Microsoft’s global work on corporate social responsibility as general manager for Citizenship & Public Affairs. She will kick off the event with Marc DeCourcey, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Corporate Citizenship Center. Personally and professionally Marc has seen how lives and entire communities are transformed when women are empowered. Through his work with the Red Cross and currently with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, he understand the value of business, nonprofits and governments all coming together to improve lives.

Lori’s passion to help students all over the world makes her perfect for this event. Not only does she lead Microsoft’s social responsibility and service, legal and public policy arm, she serves on a number of boards and an advocate in the community. I love that she is an active volunteer for Global Give Back Circle, which integrates mentoring, private sector engagement, government and local community support to help at-risk girls in Africa complete their education, gain employable skills and transition into the workplace.

Lori will be speaking about sustainable development goals and the role of the business community during a panel Thursday. She has been mentoring Egypt-born Raneem Medhat as part of Microsoft’s YouthSpark initiative. “She is a few months away from graduating university with a computer science degree,” Lori says of Raneem. “It is really interesting to work with her at this juncture in her life.”

Also, as part of the event, Microsoft’s Vice President of U.S. Public Sector Education Margo Day will have a discussion about accelerating STEM education with Anna Maria Chávez, chief executive officer of Girl Scouts USA and Tina Tchen, Michelle Obama’s chief of staff. It will be an inspiring and action-filled session, with one of my favorite broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien of CNN moderating.

Margo is perfect for this discussion not only because she is leading our work in education across the country, but in September 2011, she stepped away from her role at Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners to focus her passion and energy on raising funds and awareness for the Kenya Vulnerable Girls Education Project and Child Protection, partnering with World Vision, an effort that built schools and deepened community advocacy for education.

We will end the day with a screening of “Big Dream” and a panel discussion with the director, and a student from the film, as well as partners UN Women and Global Girls Collaborative Project.

Underwritten by Microsoft, “Big Dream” follows the intimate stories of seven young women who are breaking barriers and overcoming personal challenges to follow their passions in science, math, computing and engineering. Much like International Women’s Day itself, the hope of the film is to show young women all over the world that computer science is creative, collaborative and impactful ― and they can be producers of the solutions that will solve the world’s greatest challenges.

Learn more on how you can enable women around the world:

Host a free screening: Big Dream Movement
Learn: Free CS online learning for girls
Find resources: UN Women Empower Women
Find STEM organizations near you: National Girls Collaborative Project, US Chamber Commerce Foundation
Watch the State Department’s American Film Showcase

Mar 5 2015

Scholarships to Increase Gender Diversity in Computer Science

Women are woefully under-represented in computing fields. I know; you’ve heard me say this before, but the statistics bear repeating: In 2014, women made up less than 20 percent of those graduating with computer and information science degrees, despite the fact that women overall accounted for more than half of all baccalaureate graduates.

This dearth of women pursuing computing degrees is doubly unfortunate. First, it deprives the economy of much-needed talent: the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that, at present rates, only 39 percent of the estimated 1.2 million computing-related jobs in 2022 will be filled by computing graduates. Second, women bring a unique perspective to male-dominated computing fields, providing the team diversity that executives value.

Microsoft Research is committed to increasing women’s presence in computing, which is why we established the Graduate Women’s Scholarship. These scholarships offer vital support to female computing students during their second year of graduate studies: a US$15,000 stipend plus a US$2,000 travel and conference allowance—resources to help the recipients gain visibility in their departments, acquire mentorship, and cover the ever-growing cost of graduate programs.

Here are the winners of the 2015 Microsoft Research Graduate Women’s Scholarship:

  • Alexandra Schofield, Cornell University
  • Hannah Gommerstadt, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Jane E, Stanford University
  • Jiaqi Mu, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Kaitlyn Becker, Harvard University
  • Kellie Ottoboni, University of California, Berkeley
  • Lisa Gai, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Olga Zamaraeva, University of Washington, Seattle
  • Sulekha Kulkarni, Georgia Institute of Technology
  • Wenjie Xiong, Yale University

In addition to the Graduate Women’s Scholarships, Microsoft Research is proud to support the NCWIT Academic Alliance Seed Fund, which provides U.S. academic institutions with funds (up to US$15,000 per project) to develop and implement initiatives for recruiting and retaining women in computer science and information technology fields of study. Learn more about the Seed Fund and the recently announced 2015 award recipients.

Congratulations to all the winning programs and students. We look forward to great things from 2015’s women in computing.

—Rane Johnson-Stempson, Principal Research Director, Microsoft Research

Learn more