Tag Archives: geeky

She’s Geeky Comes to Northern Virginia

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She's Geeky

Announcing She’s Geeky NoVA edition. Kaliya, Amy, and myself are organizing the first ever local She’s Geeky event to the DC/MD/VA area on April 18, 2009.

LMI – 2000 Corporate Ridge, McLean VA, 22102

Registration

You can find a ride coordination wiki page here.

If you are a geek and you are a girl, then you qualify to attend. The event is self-organizing by those who attend. An event inside DC proper off a metro line is being planned for later in the year for those who are not able to attend this event. But save the date and I hope to see you on April 18, 2009.
Follow the names above on twitter for more She’s Geeky news as it happens, as well as @shesgeeky for official news.

Update: This event has been postponed until Fall 2009

I’m Just a Geek – Part 1

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The Yahoo in Me

My humble beginnings as a geek girl come from a supportive father, mother, and stepfather. Through my childhood, as the first kid, first grandchild, and just all around ham for attention, I had a network of family to support my desires to know more about everything. So please forgive this long story in advance. I wanted to share with you more about me, so my readers can understand my drive. This will be a three-part series blog.

Elementary School

Despite moving all over Prince Georges (P.G.: Pretty Ghetto/Plead Guilty county – just some of the nicknames) and Charles County in Maryland, I always came back to Brandywine Elementary School. This is where I would be challenged by the same group of kids through 6th grade. There were about ten of us who were picked to be in the “talented and gifted” group of classes. This was before the “Tag” program sent you away to a special school. I wrote reports on Halley’s Comet, Hurricanes and Tornadoes: What to do When They Find You (after a visit from NBC4 Weatherman Bob Ryan). We dissected a grasshopper in 3rd grade. I remember one day in 3rd, January 28, 1986, I refused to do my homework based on some logical argument in my head, so my teacher decided my punishment would be to go to her husband’s 5th grade class and complete my assignment there. Instead of being embarrassed for being called out to an older kids class, I was actually able to witness the Challenger explosion on live TV. I wouldn’t have seen it if I had not been so stubborn.

Andrea and Alicia

Alicia (left) and Andrea (80s on the bottom, 90s on top)

In part of 4th – part of 6th, I went to J.C. Parks in Waldorf where I joined a statistics and analysis math class and participated in Olympics of the Mind (before the PC name change). I remember our thesis was on Cro-Magnon Man. All through school I was involved extracurricular in music and theater. I was in the “King and I” and “Brigadoon” at Charles County Community College, while my Father and Aunt always had leading roles. In school I performed hand bells, chorus — as a soloist, band (flute and Suzuki-method violin), as well as the lead in the “Pied Piper” musical which we performed on the White House ellipse for President Reagan. I did play the flute live. All the while, my father would take us to concerts to meet the A-list musicians of the 80s, like Tina Turner, who I was for Halloween one year.

I also remember somehow even though my parents didn’t make a lot of money, we had Intellivision, Atari, and a Texas Instruments computer. That was a black and green screen kids. No color. I learned to write my first codes for programming my own games. It was tedious hours of coding, but I remember it was fun when the results came out.

Middle School

Middle School was weird, because I started it in 6th grade for about a month in Waldorf, but moved back yet again to Brandywine elementary during my parents divorce. I was upset about coming back to PG county where 6th grade was still elementary. I was already accustomed to having my own locker. But returning meant being back with my old friends from kindergarten through 4th again. I remember my 6th grade teacher told my mother as I was at the top of my class, that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to and it was a good thing I hadn’t discovered boys yet.

The Baker-Johnson Family

I graduated elementary for the second time with the Presidential Academic Fitness Award. I then moved to Columbia, Maryland (a new place for the new family – Howard County) for the rest of Middle School (Oakland Mills) and part of HS. I continued in acting and singing, and a even soloist again. I remember winning the school’s talent show with my father’s arrangement of John Lennon’s “Imagine”.

I still played in the band, but switched from flute to percussion where I really enjoyed the Tympani. I think this switch to the rhythm section lay the ground work as I was discovering industrial and electronic music embracing New Order, Depeche Mode, and KMFDM. This was a time of adjustment as our family went from three kids to six to eight kids in just a few years.

…Coming next, The High School Years…

More Thoughts on Work Life Balance

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In an earlier post last week, I talked about suffering from the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). A colleague of mine, The Doyen of Intellipedia – the US Intelligence Community’s classified wiki, Don Burke mentioned to me that he had read my blog, but it wasn’t FOMO he was suffering from, it was HOLI: The hatred of losing information.

I have to agree with him that HOLI is a subset of FOMO. While the fear of missing out is more encompassing to to what’s going on at work, on the television, the news, on twitter, out at a social meetup, it is the hatred of losing information is a big part of that. The knowledge gained when we participate on a collaborative site, watch the news, tweet on twitter, or meet in person is astounding.

The Doyen let me know he hates to see information disappear, information lost when there was an opportunity for it to be captured. I agree. That’s the very thing that Intellipedia is doing for the Intelligence community. The knowledge of government, contractors, and other qualified users dispersed around the world being shared on a wiki that anyone can contribute.

It’s very easy to get wrapped up in wiki-markup and esoteric solutions for me. Many a night I enjoy working late as there is time for me to think and play with code. (I am sure many other code-geeks out there know what I am talking about). To me it is fun, fun to see a solution come to life that can effect massive change. Sometimes just 4 lines of code can make a big impact. Those are the time I really smile and get uber-geeky about my work. But then there are times the solution just doesn’t come, so I go to Starbucks or just have to call it a night and come back the next day or next week to it. We can’t expect to know the answer if we get too in the weeds.

Another colleague of mine who I was chatting with today online was commiserating with me about all the projects we juggle and body aches we suffer as we get older. His quote was “Our passions can easily be interpreted as Obsessions“. Even not having a significant other in my life, I know my family and friends can see this about me. My best friend asked me days in advance to go to karaoke last week, because he knew if I didn’t put it on my Google Calendar, then I would just stay in the office and work until I got hungry enough to come home.

Family matters – As you might have read from my tweets and my blog, I have been getting more involved with the church. Which connects me more with family. I feel good when I participate in church functions because my family has been with the church since before I was born and my pastor knows me not only by name, but what I do for a living and what I want to do with my career and life. I was even the first to volunteer for the Chili Cookoff we had this past Saturday and I did come in Second Place. (Dare I share my winning recipe with you all — nooooo like my votes, it will stay a secret).

Going to church and my mother coming down on the weekends gives me time to spend with my ailing grandmother and youngest brother. She’s been suffering from extremely low blood pressure among her other symptoms of her condition. She used to be able to outlift me when we would go grocery shopping. She’d grab the 50lb bag of dogfood because I have a bad back. Now its a good day when she can leave the house. Spending time with her I can see is good medicine, it lifts her spirits. Now that I could never do from my office.

My youngest brother and I have an age difference of 14yrs so much of his life growing up, I was not there. This is something I am working with him on as he has Aspergers and I learn his idiosyncracies. He doesn’t like chili or spaghetti, but he loves to cook and grill. He’s 18 and just graduated from High School, so he spent time living with me this fall and now he comes down on weekends. He is a big help around the house and I have been teaching him how to drive. I am proud to say he just did his first round-trip from Pennsylvania and back this weekend. He beat that new game on XBOX “Deadspace” in less than a day.

He’s not with me now in the house because I haven’t been able to spend much time at home as I juggle all my work responsibilities. I sat him down and told him he can come stay with me again in the future, but right now I can’t do much for him to help him get a job or education when I am not at home to help. He is scheduled to get his license soon and that should help out tremendously. Maybe then I could have a driver? I keep saying I need a personal assistant. :P

Anyways, back on point to this work-life balance, I know we all are trying to find it in our lives and what might work for others, does not work for all. With the openness of the web and new tools for collaboration and communication coming out every day it seems, we can’t know or share all the information. We will miss out and we will lose information. But now, we don’t have to be the only one who knows, goes, and shares. We can work together.

I hope reading my experiences let’s you know, we can’t be expected to do it all at 100%. I mean, even Barack Obama doesn’t do the dishes and Michelle Obama never slept at his DC townhome while he was a Senator. But they have identified and verbalized with each other what their priorities in life will be once they move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Obama is going to work on the Economy & hunt down Al-Qaida and Michelle is going to work on being Mom-in-Chief for the first year. (You can thank 60 Minutes for this knowledge tidbit)

My final thoughts are that time spending with loved ones is time always well spent. I think we should take a moment to remember that as the holidays come around.Be thankful for your health, your loved ones and for the passion that drives you.

She’s Geeky

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Last night I attended an event to help plan the East Coast version for the b-annRachel Leigh Cook as a geekual (un)conference event known as “She’s Geeky” The concept of She’s Geeky (cue the Beastie Boys), comes from a woman whom I had the pleasure of meeting when I was attending the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco back in April. Kaylia Hamlin, otherwise known as “Identity Woman” is a very smart gal, but doesn’t consider herself a technologist.

And neither did some of the women in the room that came out to the event. It was a small gathering and its main purpose was to talk about the planning and ideas for the conference in New York to be held later this year. One of the immediate ideas was to move the conference from October to December 2008, for several reasons. The women in the room agreed that the elections are a big factor not only in technology and the DC area, but going forward as a country have many ramifications.

It seemed I was the only semi-associated Federal Government (albeit contractor) in attendance. But my cause was heard, maybe its because I am not afraid to speak up and actually would be happy to speak at any event should I be asked (this was a side [tangent] conversation of course that happened and we will continue to address).

I will probably help develop a track at the conference around Enterprise 2.0 in Government or quite possibly just speak about my experiences as a woman climbing the corporate ladder to become the Director of Technology for Navstar, Inc.

I have also agreed to help with the marketing and promotions of the event, as those of you who know me, know of my former life in the music industry. As such, this was something I was very good at and still continue to use these skills in my evangelism of social media in Government. So who knows, I might even take up the committee lead on that. We are coordinating the planning of the event through a wiki and I do believe I know my way around a garden :)

Most of the other women, were from non-profit organization such as DC Web Women, Women in Policy and Technology (WIPT – yes they are aware of how the acronym sounds), Care2 (OXFAM), United Way, and Women Thrive WorldWide, just to name a few. I think I made some great new friends and contacts and I am more inspired now for the cause to raise awareness for women in tech and all geekdom.

I want all my female readers to reach out to me in some shape or form if you consider yourself a geek in any way (not necessarily in tech, but maybe a scifi or D&D geeks). This blog is your sanctuary and I will help you find ways to find other women like you.

If you would like to find out more about this event, please feel free to contact me or search for yourself, by googling “She’s Geeky”. Hope to see you out in December in New York.