Sunday, September 15, 2013

Trans H4CK-Day Two

Photo: The panel is amazing!! #transh4ck
Day Two of Trans Hack dawned as another overcast and cool morning in Oaktown stubbornly hung around until a little after 1 PM to reveal another cloudless blue sky northern California day.  

I had an interesting night after I got back to the hotel because there was a Skyline High School reunion party happening until 2 AM and didn't get to sleep until 3 AM because some of the reunion folks were parked on the street on my side of the hotel keeping the party going instead of taking their behinds home.

Photo: Gender in tech panel with Twitter engineer @danadanger and author @naomiceder #transh4ckBy the time I walked my dressed down self into the Betti Ono Gallery for Day 2, it was underway and embarking on its groundbreaking mission of creating social justice apps for the trans community.

The six teams of trans hackers and allies were hard at work as I arrived at 9 AM continuing to put them together with a break scheduled at noon for an informative and interesting Gender In Tech panel discussion moderated by Fresh White.

Once it was over an hour later the hackers returned to work on compiling their projects that they hope will earn them Trans Hack cash prizes later today when they present them to be judged

While they were doing so we also had a pair of the latest tech toy in Google Glass that people were eagerly trying out.  Of course it was not long before the hackers in the room familiar with my blog realized the TransGriot was in the Trans Hack house.

Photo: Grinding #transh4ck
While some of the assembled hackers congratulated me about my almost eight year old blog and asking questions about it, I was doing the same for them in terms of marveling at the work, patience, skill and hours it takes to write computer code and turn it into a finished app or computer program.

It's a skill I envy them for having.  

The apps and programs are quickly taking shape with the work lasting long into the night and through breakfast, lunch and dinner from local area eateries.

Speaking of lunch, I spied a place across the street from the gallery that served pizza by the slice and decided to try it.   I was well pleased with the quality and size of the two slices I got.

In the interim I was interacting not only with the hackers, but many of the people in the Oakland community, Trans Hack supporters and having long conversations with them on a wide variety of issues.

I even broke out another one of my little known hidden talents when I did an impression of Robin Leach, who used to host the 1984-1995 TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous that Nick Cannon is supposedly discussing doing a revival of in response to a humorous comment Kortney made.

The big day will be happening in a few hours as the groups make their presentations at the New Parkway Theater, the judges ask their questions, and the winners of the inaugural Trans Hack prizes will be decided and announced.

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