On the art of living as a Technerd Dirtbag Vagabond, official title.

Hello, internet readership! I dipped out of the blogosphere for the past 6 months, but fear not, readership of at least one! I have returned! Anyways, let me begin with a shocking new development:

I now live out of my car.

Dear ones, I heard that beer crack open, and you’ve probably started the shower to camouflage the tears streaming down your faces, but before you embark on that beer/shower combo (and make me jealous), or wonder why I haven't told you this tidbit about myself yet, or start clearing out space in your spare bedroom/garage/closet, let me explain how I got here and why this is something I actually want:

How I got here:

After Hackbright ended in December of 2014, I realized that I was suffering from some serious burnout. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s not me because 8 years of school for an associate’s in English, bachelor’s in Linguistics, an internship at Harvard, a research grant in Mexico, and two fellowships (University of Mich, Ann Arbor and Hackbright Academy) is a lot for anyone, especially a high school dropout whose relationship with school has always been complicated.

Add to that a creeping suspicion that the tech world may not hold workshops at the base of El Cap in Yosemite, and it makes sense that I decided to take six months off and have a quarter life crisis, the remains of my student loan money in tow. During that time, I was basically convinced that the tech world wasn’t right for me. I decided that my two interests of academia-style problem solving and rock climbing were just too disparate to combine in one lifetime. So I did what any other Flintstone would do: I stopped coding entirely and started climbing. A LOT.

Reasons why taking 6 months off was the best thing I’ve ever done:

• I was able to rid myself of the stress-induced shoulders-to-ears stature from academia-level workload and poverty
• without any academic program / parent / spouse to factor in to my decisionmaking, I more honestly considered what I want. I. Me. Mine.
• I gave myself the chance to actually miss having an intellectually demanding job
• some wonderful people pity-friended me and ended up inspiring, supporting, and encouraging my weird-ass lifestyle choices
• to make up for all that lost time in academia, I climbed in as many places as I could manage: I made it to Castle Rock State Park, The Pinnacles, Stinson beach, Mickey’s beach, Mt. Tamalpais, Glen Canyon State Park, Turtle Rock, Indian & Mortar Rock, Humboldt county (the Trinity Alps and So So Grotto), Mt. Diablo, Joshua Tree, and Yosemite.
• I did a thing I was terrified to do (only to find it required the ferocity of a napping kitten compared to what I had been building it up to be in my mind): I climbed Half Dome in Yosemite via the 5.7 Snake Dike route--this took 14 hours, during which my dear friend Marcus and I hiked 17 miles, climbed 2,000ft, and saw NO ONE on the trail or the climb. That’s the stuff of dreams, right thurr, folks
• I identified my fears about failure in climbing and my career
• I volunteered for both the Bay Area Climber’s Coalition (BACC) and the Access Fund--two organizations focused on climbing area access / maintenance, community building, and stewardship of climbing areas--and am now a member of the BACC’s event planning committee

Luckily, my friend / previous boss Michelle Montoya’s words have done me well-- “surround yourself with people who are smarter than you and who aren't afraid to tell you what they really think.” When I told Danielle, a super talented friend from my graduating class at Hackbright, about my doubts about even liking programming, she said, again and again, “Ally, you LIKE coding. I’ve seen it. We did it. You like it. You just hate the interview process.” And Kevin, my wonderfully supportive roomie would often, during conversations about my anxieties, mentioned that this is exactly what imposter syndrome looks like. As it turns out, they were both right. I just wasn’t ready to admit it until I fully exhausted my pent up energy for climbing.

So, by the end of May, having spent my student loans getting zen in the mountains and not-studying for tech jobs, I now had two options: move back to the ol’ ‘rents house in Nevada, tail between my legs, or build a diamond-tight budget and do whatever it takes to stay in the epicenter of tech, studying and striking a balance between my two passions.

Right. So in order to make the obvious choice work, I sold my stuff, packed up my laptop and climbing gear, put my cat under the care of his #1 fan (who also happens to have a cat-proof backyard, three kitty-loving roomies, and a place in Marin that I can visit whenever I’m feeling needy for kitty cuddles), and I moved into my car-partment on June 1st. As I write this, I’m sitting in a memory foam car recliner under a giant willow tree in Berkeley, where a gentle spring breeze just blew a flower into my lap. Not bad, eh?

So...that’s a lot. I hope you’re on your second beer by now. The shower will come, I promise. For the brave blog pirates (and possibly concerned friends/family members/potential employers) who’ve made it this far, sail on!

Why this is something I actually want:

I’ve been wanting to live out of my car for years. I’ve done it during stints of climbing in various places across the country, but never full time. I even wrote an “instructional” (read: entertainment) piece about pimping out your car-partment for my Hackbright Academy application.

As for my motivations, clearly saving money is an important factor, but it would be a disheartening oversimplification to reduce my motivations to just that. I’ve had numerous friends offer me a place to stay, and I’ve declined. The many benefits of this lifestyle include privacy, autonomy, potential for proximity to nature, minimalistic living, self-reliance, and the freedom of the open road. I’ve always been interested in the idea of independence, and have shaped my entire life around finding joy in activities and people, rather than the accumulation of (unnecessary) things. This is one of the reasons that the internet of things and tech in general inspire me--I marvel at the digital world which enables me to have access to all Star Trek episodes without a library of DVDs to cart around, or allows me to update my Github repo from a remote climbing area.

The social stigma surrounding this lifestyle choice is my primary reason for writing this blog--I want to fully engage in this social experiment before I’m too old and comfortable to even want to do so, both in terms of finding out what this lifestyle choice is really like, and in terms of engaging with people on a topic that maybe makes them uncomfortable. I’m thankful that, for one, I live in the Bay, where I am but one of many breeds of strange tech people, and hopefully my choices won’t shock or disturb people as much as I fear they will. I’m also thankful that recently, things like the drought have fueled conservation efforts and prompted folks to think more acutely about how they use resources. Additionally, the fact that the tiny house movement has gained so much social traction gives me hope that folks won’t immediately lump me into the do-nothing, must-be-addicted-to-something, societal-leech category as soon as they get so much as a whiff of the campfire scent in my hair.

Mostly, I just want to be especially deliberate with my time, focusing on programming, climbing, volunteering, and maintaining relationships as much as possible, with minimal distraction and maximal efficacy. So I’ve created some rules for myself:

1. I will live out of my car for at least one month
2. I will maintain a budget and track money spent and miles driven, every week
3. At the end of June, I will compare this to money spent during previous months
4. I will make dinner at a friend’s house 1x/week
5. I will volunteer at least 1x/week
6. I will take 3 Coursera courses
7. I will work on at least one pair programming project for the month of June
8. I will write at least 1 blog post/week
9. I will text my forever nervous mother every day, to assure her I’m still alive, productive, and jealous of her ability to at any time have a beer in her shower

My next blog post will include pictures of my sweet set-up, some commentary on my personal experience so far, tidbits about what I'm learning in tech, as well as a rockin’ list of articles that I hope will illuminate some of the myriad motivations of this entire home-free community, so stay tuned.

Also, for those of you referred here by my Facebook post, I'm sure you feel cheated--I left out the most important part--I can now do 15 pull ups in a row, with the help of songs like this...wait for dat chorus, doe.

Carpartment Essay (Hackbright Spring 2014)

Hey all!

I wrote this essay for Hackbright last Spring when I was applying for the Hackbright Summer 2014 Fellowship. I'm including it here because it's related to that pesky life goal of mine to live in my carpartment, and I've now actually started putting these skills to use (more on that later).

The writing prompt is expecially open-ended, giving no restrictions for length, format, or even content (really), so this piece was perhaps the most troublesome part of my application. It polarized the group of folks I asked to edit my application--my stepdad, for instance, said that it made me seem unintelligent and flippant, while others (like my friends already working in tech companies in the bay) said that it communicated my personality and sense of humor, and was their favorite part of my application.

When I arrived at HB, many peers said that they had written on more tech-related topics, so this approach seemed to be different than the norm, but seemingly didn't hinder my application from moving forward.

Here's the essay and prompt:

Share in detail about a particular piece of expertise that you have. You can write about something that is educational, professional, or recreational.

In Bishop, California, the best season for rock climbing is from fall to early spring. Cold temperatures are really the best for friction between climber paws and the chunky, less-than-friendly quartz monzonite that makes up a big portion of the rock there. This fact, coupled with the good news that Bishop doesn't get a whole lot of precipitation, makes the Eastern Sierra a cold, dry climbing paradise. One winter season, I spent every weekend in Bishop. I was in school full-time, so I had to find a way to climb during the short daylight hours, stay up late doing homework (in below freezing temperatures often combined with wind), and still get in some quality dream time. I had to get real friendly-like with winter camping, so a tent simply wouldn’t do. I developed a campion (car camping champion) level of cheap-but-classy car-partment development expertise, so the following is step one toward your very own highly glamorous, only slightly sweaty, car camping adventure.

First, you should preferably own a car with a space large enough to lay down in. It’s double-plus-good if you can sit upright in your rig, or else you’ll be funking out your back, neck, or your eight-pack while trying to read, write, watch, type, knit, etc. Remember: the sun sets in Bishop in winter as early as 4pm. That’s a lotta hours of back funk before sleep. No bueno! For the purposes of this instruction guide, you should probably buy a 2009 red Subaru Forester. Once you have your wheels, measure the dimensions in your sleep area. In my ride, the height of the cargo area from the floor to the roof is 32”. The width is 45.5” between wheel wells. The approximate length is 70” or 5’8”. Lucky for me, I’m only 5’6”, so this is not a problem. For 6’ dudes or ladies, I hope you’re fetal position sleepers!  

Next, go to your local fabric or craft store and buy a sheet of 2”, high density, open-cell foam. Sheets come in varying sizes, but unless you want to order online and pay shipping, you’ll likely have to buy by the sheet or by the yard. If it’s not high density, you’ll have a princess and the pea problem. If it’s closed-cell, it’ll be too firm (think gym floor; not great for sleeping on). You could go thicker, but the price increases dramatically with each added inch. This is your one big purchase and you can expect to pay anywhere from $100 - $200. Everything else can be done on the the cheap, but this is the difference between a good night’s sleep and an evening of mini-naps and cell phone video games.

So once you’ve got your sheet of foam, go to your grandma’s house and borrow her electric carving knife, or use a big serrated bread knife. Use the measurements of your sleep area and a sharpie to cut your foam sheet to size. Cut it by holding one side and sawing back and forth (or let the electric knife do the work--it works like a dream. Thanks, Grandma!). I did this on my floor since foam is squirrely on saw horses, but note: foam bits get everywhere, so floor that’s sweep-able is ideal. Don’t worry too much about making the edges pretty; your next step is to make a large pillowcase-type cover for it since foam has that weird chemical smell. I prefer the rectangular shape of pad for ease of use, but if you want an hourglass shaped mattress, go for it! Who doesn’t like complicated sewing patterns?

Because I use a sleeping bag on top of my foam mattress, I went to a thrift store and bought two felt-y blankets for a couple of dollars. If that freaks you out, use some old sheets or buy new fabric. Next, sew the sheets together with a sewing machine. Remember: to make sure your foam case will fit, measure your sheets to the same dimensions as your foam pad, then add an extra two inches, and sew the seam 1” in from the outermost edge, with a little extra room for non-stretchy fabrics. I sewed mine like a pillowcase, with seams on three sides, but feel free to upgrade to a zipper or buttons on your fourth side. I won’t go into the angering subtleties of understanding the thread tension on a sewing machine here. If you need help, ask grandma / a friend / the internet. Once you’ve sewn your case, put it on your foam pad, and you are done!

This completes step one! You are 33.3333% closer to one cush car-partment. Tune in to the next Allyson Stronach Hackbright application for even more car-partment fun! Preview: step two is making a desk that can hold your laptop, books, water, Funyuns, etc., and that hovers over your bed in just the right place and at just the right height. Step three is making curtains that somehow adhere to the walls/windows of your car. Step four is actually step one to a separate guide: the car-partment kitchen(!), and steps beyond that are purely pimp-out-my-ride related: things like bed-to-chair conversions, slipper holders, lighting options, shelving, the speaker situation for movie nights, etc. But don’t fear! If you want more info, the Allyson Stronach Hackbright application(s) to follow can surely be converted to friendly weekend car-partment assessment conversations over coffee and bagels in, oh, say, San Francisco this summer.

Poetry??

Yes, poetry.

So, being a blogger during my three months at Hackbright didn't work out for me so much as working my butt off building an app that detects signs of human trafficking in sex ads did. There's more to come on that project, on my experience at Hackbright in general, and on my soon-to-be-adventures in finding a job that is well suited to my interests.

But for now, I'm leaving this here, mostly because I don't know where else to put it, and also because this whole crazy-wonderful Hackbright experience has me feeling especially thankful for the wonderful people in my life, both past and present, who have supported me, inspired me, and enriched my life in ways I can't really describe.

This poem has been rattling around in my brain (read: hard drive) for a while, and in an effort to start actually sharing the things I creatively produce, here it is.

Happy holidays, all.



Untitled

You let me in to your windswept interiors.
We built fires and doctored the world with the sounds of our dancing.
We scoured the stratified earth where we overlapped, and found stones that we fashioned into shrines for the demi-gods of our skeletons.
There were mollusks and coral and fish teeth
And stars and craters and sandstone

And we were surprised when, time after time, the pieces shrugged into magnetic fruition.

Flecks of rhubarb and Alaskan Fireweed
Alongside guitar strings and pixels and flattened pennies.
We even strapped on roller skates and took the whole tapestry for a spin.
And it blinked and twirled like a great constellation.

Sometimes it was heavy on our backs,
And other times it was the only thing between us and the biting cough of winter.
But most nights, it was a great, ever-expanding canopy
or a sail
or a wing
or a net.

When we were far apart, the whole thing became an antenna
We would each hold an ear to the far corners of the tapestry,
And emit amperes of signal to each other
All the while warming the world between us.

By the time we whittled our desires into entirely different shapes,
You had already built me a coat of clicks and whispers
And of rhubarb and roller skates and stars.

So in some unknown desert, under some unknown sky,
when I flip up my collar to keep out the cold,
I’ll still be able to hear the faint signal of your reply
The way that wind is silent
until it has a tree to breathe through
or a door to slam
or a sail to catch.

BLOG REVIVAL!!!

After many years of school, work, and completely changing as a human being, I'm reviving this blog from 5 years ago to record my current adventures into the worlds of computer science and computational linguistics.


Please disregard the previous creative writing posts, unless you have a beer in hand and want to drink it in the shower while crying, like I just did.


Anyway, I am in my late 20s, I have an AA in English and a BA in Linguistics, and have halted my intended path through academia to attend Hackbright, a software engineering program for women in San Francisco.


Right now, I'm looking for a career that will play into my academic interests while also allowing me the freedom to live wherever there are climbable mountains, canyons, boulders, or whatever other rock face-types I'm forgetting. Because, you know, I haven't lived in my car as a full-time climber bum yet (kitty in tow), and since my main goal in life is to embarrass my parents, this seems like a good option for me. Hello, new career, where my office is a car outside a coffee shop, stealing internets!


If you're not bored to tears yet, read on!


My interests include linguistics (computational, anthropological, archival), natural language processing, machine learning, and the like, and I want to work in industry for a while (you know, where there are living wages and maybe even free time) to refine my knowledge of programming before maybe possibly someday applying to grad school. Isn't this post-grad uncertainty thing GREAT?!


At any rate, to my audience of zero, on this blog I'll be linking interesting articles/videos/media on computer science, cats, rock climbing, and ladies-in-tech stuffs while also chronicling the more mundane aspects of my journey (like the joys of finding rental housing in the San Francisco area). So this will be basically a school-diary. Hi, me! Hi.


To begin, here is a totes fab article on what I'm getting myself into called Programming Sucks: Why a Job in Coding is Absolute Hell. It's the programmer's version of Taylor Mali's rant on "What Teachers Make", except less optimistic and filled with snowflakes, hellscapes, and cat urine. Strangely, this actually appeals to me.


And if you're not excited enough by now, please watch me make an ass of myself with a ukulele on YouTube and find joy in knowing that at least that's not you.

So thank you for making it this far. Internet hugs to all!!!


Also, for those of you Hackbright applicants who may be reading this, if you have any questions about the application process, or what Hackbright is like, or if I ever get a job and how you might too, etc., please find me on Facebook, and we can private message about it.


Cheers!

FICTION? yes, fiction.

The Obvious Child

A single window, double-paned, is brimming with exhalations of yesterday, and vivid yolks of the morning crack and release through its open blinds. Sonny’s mouth is open, a last cavern of the night evaporating out into the direct glare of the sunlight as he jolts awake from his oversized grey office swivel-chair. It is Sunday.
Years ago, a Sunday morning would have yielded for Sonny a slow, down-comforter steam from the sun of the bedroom windows. It would have been probably ten in the morning or so before its release, when his wife would gingerly walk to the front door, her hot feet making steam footprints on the tile floor along the way.
For some reason, he now recalls the tender, delicate places where the comforter always wore away near the top edges, how little feathers that were supposed to be bad for your lungs would escape into the golden dust of the air. His wife would always lie with him until she was sure she wouldn’t wake him by getting up, and would dance away and back with a newspaper, a needle and thread. There was never any rushing, not on Sunday. These were the years before the ticking alarm of shelved items near the bed, pulsing with every child’s footstep down the stairs for seven a.m. cartoons. This was before the birthday that Angie, Sonny’s wife, had started using that damned hairspray with it’s caustic, tongue violating fumes that ever after would render the bedroom unsuitable for crosswords during the morning hours. This was before discount, bulk supermarkets, before Rogaine.
In good morning tradition, Sonny stretches his legs out, his back. He tightens his muscles from his legs up, his butt, his shoulders and fists. He exhales heavily, his mouth a torn seam of night, a purgatory for the restless coffee fumes, sugar-loaf leftovers, dormant enzymes. This morning, he thinks he can almost see bed feathers issue into the bedroom air. That is, he hasn’t found where his glasses must have fallen the night before. He slides off the last remaining piece of furniture as his knee crinkles onto the newspaper classifieds. Pawing the carpets, his hand is banded with thin shadows from the blinds. His fingers trickle into the pockets of depressed carpet circles: the dresser had been here. He leans to the side, more circles: the bed corner here, the fern stand here. He has forgotten the search for his glasses. His eyes close into little convex circles and he wants to say to someone that some rooms are like cages.
A crack. Just when he tries to stand. The pricking give of hard plastic end eye lense pierces Sonny’s elbow. His shoulders slump forward and he resigns again to sit inside himself, looking out with blurry vision, blurry now not only because of his impaired eyesight. It pierces the thick air, the bare walls, the furnace of Sonny’s chest, and more crackling issues forth. Thin whimpers lean on the slants of sunlight as Sonny’s head rocks in his hands. The illuminated morning dust now like sparks moving into ash.
And he recalls the comforter. The little feather bits exhaling into the golden light of the morning, how the little holes became slowly instead little stitches of thread, strong and steadfast in comparison to the brittle fabric surrounding them. How eventually, that comforter became more a dappled collection of mended holes than comforter. Sonny remembers how, when asked why it had to be thrown away, his wife had said, “Well dear, because I can’t fix the whole thing, now can I?”

NEW POEMS

BEAST

A trash-can-plastic planter overflows with runoff
from the split-roof aluminum drainage system.
Hard, shiny painted squirrels
chew their everlasting Wonka nut
as the flow of gutter water
peaks and froths—
a disappearing failed soufflé

The ground-in waterfall off the rear porch
won’t have to battery operate a splash today
and the cracked paint of the backyard bench
beneath the trellis dressed with fake grapes,
its paint inhales with moisture
-wants to flake off onto the Levis
of any future someone
on a distant dry day

below, amongst worms and crayon-box canary graves,
that’s where the real action is
the Wonka inspiration is among the beasties!
There are bird-seed hoarding squirrels
Who can figure out any bird box that can be bought
and –gasp- places that are still rototilled the old fashioned way

because we are still trying to figure it out:
where instinct goes when its husk dies off,
the invisible germination mechanics of fission logic,

and like worms in asphalt puddles after rain,
at some point, we’ll have to leave the rest
to the possibility of sun.





The Perfect Lover

We’re in Lefty O’Douls on Grant street when
She walks in,
leaving her smoke lambskin, seam detail, pintuck-scallop trim jacket
--Which perfectly matches her shoes, by the way—
at the door.
And with a tight-lipped,
Loose-hip
Rock-and-roll
strut like that,
I’ll bet that after three vodka tonics,
I could get her to show me her guitar face.

Eyes would half moon in an instant
Surveying the
the 490R and 498T alnico magnet humbucker pickups
atop the
hand carved maple top and mahogany back,
Chrome---
No.
(For that tight little number)
Gold
hardware
Adorning the rosewood fingerboard
of my 1983 Studio Gibson Les Paul Electric
And more


But wait

She slips between a couple at the bar
to order her drink
A Bronx cocktail, no. 2, dry,
-class-
And I’ll bet the bartender shook it 50 times—
(ten longer than necessary)
Just for an excuse to linger…
…

she walks out toward the balcony for a cigarette
when the 1957 classic
‘blue train’
sounds out over the chatter
and

she pauses

…so this is a coltrane woman…

for her only the
Hamer USA Monaco Elite
With its
Arched, flamed maple top, single cutaway, ivaroid, Honduran-mahogany body,
Dovetail neck joint,
Rosewood fingerboard,
Mother of pearl victory inlays,
Chrome Schaller tuners
And 3 Hamer 500kOhms (custom taper) split shaft potentiometers, and a Switchcraft lever switch
Capable of finely dictating the delicate rise and fall of her perfect chest
Would do


But wait—

She is still pausing in front of the balcony doors—
This is my chance.

I approach her from behind
--her long, coffee-auburn hair which extends past her exposed shoulder blades
rustles in the slight breeze from the door when
(as my hand approaches her shoulder)
she reaches into her purse
for the source of a muffled
slightly familiar tune

-her phone-

ringing with the 1999, tween-tinged smash-hit, pop star debut single from Britney Spears-
Baby One More Time—and—

and,
well,
she answers.
“hello?”

and forever shuffles off into the oblivion of auto-vocal correction
with underpaid song-writers and,
stock guitar loops.
probably synthesized.



Sestina:
Ascension

The dimming breeze of Fall
loosens heat’s still grip
and we spring
forth, heads in high gear,
Heaving stiff new rope
up splintered walls of rock.

If you’ve never touched rock
cold still from nights during Fall,
Then you’re heart has not hung from the rope
of numb hands, and fear’s tightening grip.
Your stomach lurches as if you’ve dropped all your gear
400 feet above ground, and you’re only option is a downward spring…

In the winter of our fear, we desperately search for Spring,
a mother moving off of her child, a monumental rock
but we are left with one last leaf, which winter takes after Fall
we oil, with our hands, our bodies’ every gear
It is our hands, and our grip,
after all, that make for us the possibility of untying the mind’s knotted rope

We think of this too often without rope
when we are safe on a mattress spring
late at night, in each other’s grip,
Who knew we would need rock
to conform our bodies to, and that our fear of a fall
could enable us to use a previously unknown gear?

It is on the wall then, while placing our gear
and the possibility that we use our rope,
but don’t need it, that to fall
seems indeed like flight. In the case that our protection then loses its spring,
indeed we may fly amongst the magnificent rock:
a blissful way to accept the loosening of life’s dear grip.

Covertly, fear’s grip
is too often what leaves us without gear
enough to manage our troubles, and as immovable as rock,
fear too is the fiber that makes up the rope
of our noose. It waits to spring
for our necks, when we stand above our comfort, at the moment of inevitable fall.

For us, rock is abrasive enough for the fibers of that rope.
Our grip is our gear
as we spring into action, and accept the flight as well as the fall.

Hands

Fissures and tilt
rolling mountainous landscapes
ever re-arranging, aging

they never lie

and after epochs of cracking and crumbling together
their sediments will rise, fall
and make new soft soil beneath our feet.