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It’s a custom 46’ Watercats sailing catamaran. It is 62’ tall and 24.5’ wide.
We picked it up in Freeport Florida, 3 hours inland from the gulf. It’s already been an adventure. This post is about all the pretty pictures. I’ll write more about the challenges later. Yes, we’ve seen dolphins. They were swimming all around us. We bought 150 acres in southern Oregon, on top of a mountain (technically a butte). We have views in every direction, including Mt. Shasta.
Our home perfectly frames Mt. Shasta. A life bio/status update As of May 2021, I am in St. Petersburg, Florida as our boat is being fixed up. We have a 46 foot sailing catamaran. I am originally from Metro Detroit. Growing up, my dad was unemployed on and off from the time I was in 3rd grade. I know what financial insecurity feels like. I funded undergraduate and graduate school for myself. I still have $100k of debt from it. I worked at PG&E, a fortune 200 utility company in California, then briefly at a utility scale wind company. I was laid off and then I co-founded a startup, UtilityAPI. We built the product, grew the team, and funded the company. We raised private and public funding. I was named a Forbes 30 under 30, I spoke at two White House events, and guest lectured at Stanford and Berkeley. After 3 years it was time for something new and I consulted for a year, then joined Tesla's Leadership Development program. I had 6 bosses in the first 6 months. I ran a war room for Model 3 deliveries, tracked down vehicles and documented processes (or lack there of). During end-of-quarter pressure, my husband sexually assaulted me. It was a tough time. The leadership program was rotational, so I secured a new role in material flow engineering for the Shanghai Factory. The first week in the new job my boss for that role changed. After material flow, I joined inventory control. I am thankful to my bosses during that time. I filed for divorce in June 2019. It was finalized later that year. I sold our condo. In July 2019 I met Rus at Fly Ranch. We have been together ever since. We house sat for a few months and then settled into an apartment in Jack London Square in Oakland. I continued to work at Tesla. I bought a Mazda Miata Convertible around Thanksgiving. He bought a van in February and worked on his tiny house on his property in Joshua Tree. March: with the lockdown in sight, we decided to live #vanlife on this property and build tiny houses. I worked remotely. It was much better to be in a beautiful desert than in the anxiety-filled bay area. one month in, he dug a trench to run power and water to the property from the neighbor's house. We were there for 2 months, then it became too hot. He also needed surgery in Los Angeles. He had sliced his left hand when cutting a bottle into a water bowl for some puppies we rescued in the desert. After the surgery, we went back to Oakland, and social unrest started. Restaurants and businesses were boarded up, the Target was looted. The city I loved was unrecognizable. It didn't exist anymore. Covid fears and social unrest on top of it. It was too much. Why were we staying there? We stayed in the van around Sonoma for a few weeks, then returned to Oakland to pack our things up. Life was stressful to the point where I went on leave from Tesla. We dropped off most of our stuff in Joshua Tree, then headed to his parent's house in Phoenix. My grandma died in May and we attended the memorial service in metro Detroit over the 4th of July weekend. My mom moved back in with my dad and brother. We were there for 2 months, waiting for supplies to come in so we could really build out the van. It was over 115 degrees 90% of the days. We found a property we liked in Oregon and bought it: 150 acres on a mountain top, with an off-grid home. Views in every direction. It had a metal exterior and reclaimed wood beams from a mill. We bought it sight unseen for $260k, less than anything in the bay area or even northern California. When we arrived, visibility was under 200ft because of wildfires. We immediately had to go get the UTV we purchased because we couldn't get up our "driveway" with the van. We drove through just burned forests to get to bend for the UTV. We settled into our place in Klamath Falls and I officially left Tesla in early December. Rus and I married in December 2020. The January 6 insurrection accelerated our plan to get a boat. We found the catamaran in February and closed on it in March. We hired a captain and flew to Pensacola, Florida to get it. The captain sailed us into two storms. The main sail ripped and we lost an engine. Now, we're getting things repaired. Professionally, I made my first angel investment and also spoke at an entrepreneurship event for the US State department. The past year has been more challenging than what I can put into words right now. The world is suffering, and we feel that on the individual level in a myriad of ways. Depression is real. Mourning is real. I mourn the loss of the city I loved and the lifestyle I worked for. There are many more struggles that I have been through during this time, and I'm not ready to share them all. There were many dark days. He took my confidence. I’ve reclaimed it now. I’m finally happy for the first time in years.5/5/2020
 My husband sexually assaulted me on March 16th, 2019. Today marks the one year anniversary of my telling him that we were getting a divorce. It took me six weeks to convince myself and gather the courage to pursue divorce.
I described what happened to me to a therapist and she said it was physical and sexual assault. He attempted to force himself in me and he hit me when I resisted. After, he explained to me why it was my fault. I made him feel that he “was not a man”. A week later he hit Pepper, our dog. It’s sad that it took him hitting our dog for me to truly take action. The week in between, I tried to figure things out. One should never have to google “should I stay with my husband if he hit me?”. With therapy, I can now say that he sexually assaulted me prior to March - he would push inside when I told him to wait, and it hurt. Because being intimate with him hurt. I’m sharing this because this is a type of sexual assault that is not often shared. We were married for 5 years, 8 months and were together for 8. The previous 2-3 years were emotionally abusive. For previous years, he diminished me in so many ways, including my femininity. He convinced me that his love was dependent on my weight, and that broke my mind. I could not process it. That’s not love. It’s not the kind of love I wanted. He even diminished my business decisions. He couldn't understand why my startup didn't have a successful exit in 2 years. Meanwile, he was making just above minimum wage as a journalist. We went to couples counseling and he ignored the therapist’s feedback. We stopped going. We would talk about it again and again, and I felt carved out and in agony. He would stare at skinny young women and would deny it when I noticed. He took my confidence. I’ve reclaimed it now. I’m finally happy for the first time in years. He decided to go to AA and to get a psych evaluation. He hoped for a bi-polar diagnosis, but the psychiatrist said he wasn’t, and in not so many words, said that he was just an asshole. That’s how Scott described it. I didn’t think it was the alcohol, but other things, such as self loathing and anger that surfaced when his inhibitions were lowered. I told him I was going to file for divorce on May 5th and paperwork was filed on June 2nd. We agreed to our asset split in August, sold our condo in September, and the divorce was finalized on December 2nd. Scott Lucas is a journalist and editor at Buzzfeed. _______ All of this occurred while I worked at Tesla full time, supporting the Shanghai factory, inventory control, and pilot builds for Model Y. It was not easy. I'm thankful to the teams I was a part of for their understanding. Early on in the divorce process, I would stare at my screen and want nothing more than to crawl under my desk. We've been living in Wonder Valley for 17 days now. I'm continuing to work at my day job, while helping build during breaks and in the evenings.
We've made tremendous progress, with Rus doing most of the heavy lifting. We finished most of the exterior of the tiny house, and started sealing the untreated wood. We installed the doors and re-leveled them. We figured out how to rekey the locks in a very simple way. Very exciting. The tiny house is 120 square feet, which allows it to be unpermitted. The footprint is 120 square feet and we've added 200 square feet of deck. The queen bed loft will also count as additional square footage for living space. The livable space is now larger than my first place I lived in San Francisco. A week into staying here, we had our first shower at a campground in Joshua Tree. For us to stay here more than a week, I asked for running water and our own place to plug electronics in. Up to this point, we were going to our neighbor's house to fill up water jugs and charge what we needed. With this request, we asked our neighbor if we could run a hose and an extension cord, and they agreed to it. It'll be minimal use, but if there is a noticeable different in their electricity bill, we'll chip in. They have a well and can draw unlimited water. We stay away from the news, though I scroll through Twitter frequently. My Twitter feed is informative, and also uplifting. It keeps me updated on what is happening in the Bay Area, Tech, and Clean Energy. My Twitter is also diverse. I've been becoming more relaxed out here. It's an hour-by-hour experience. I'm finding a new role in my day job which will use more of my skillset. The journey has been up and down because the business is cutting operational costs where they can to extend the cash runway. Six months ago, I wanted to check out of work and society. In March 2019 my then husband sexually assaulted me. A week later he hit our dog. It's sad that it took him hitting our dog for me to make the final decision on divorce. Once should never have to google "should I stay with my husband even though he sexually assaulted and hit me?" I told him I was going to file for divorce on May 5th and paperwork was filed on June 2nd. We agreed to our asset split in August, sold our condo in September, and the divorce was finalized on December 2nd. We were married for 5 years, 8 months and were together for 8. The previous 2-3 years were emotionally abusive. He couldn't understand why my startup didn't have a successful starting in 2 years. His love was dependent on my weight. All that being said, a break would be nice. Now here we are sheltering in place with Covid-19. I'm staying on pretty undeveloped land in Wonder Valley, 5min from the Eastern entrance to Joshua Tree National Park. It's beautiful here. The weather is sunny to puffy clouds, with highs around 70 and lows around 45. The desert is quiet and healing. We've been busy working on building this place out and there will be more healing as we settle in here. Until next time, Elena Thinking about going rural? Here is a blueprint on how to homestead while still taking zoom meetings3/28/2020
This is a stream of consciousness.... enjoy!
For the past two weeks, I’ve been living offgrid in Wonder Valley, 5 min from Joshua Tree National Park. It’s 9 hrs from my apartment in Oakland in the Bay Area. I’m working remotely on my devices and joining zoom video meetings. It’s been great to be here: so much more relaxing than being in a city surrounded by people who might have Covid-19. I feel very fortunate that my bf already had this land, and we were already designing and building the second tiny house together. We also got a container to put on the property so that we could secure out equipment. It’s peaceful out here. There are no lines at grocery stores. It’s easy to practice social distancing on raw land, and neighbors a ¼ mile away. Luckily, our neighbors have a well and were willing to let us run a hose to our property, as well as a power extension cord. With power and water, albeit at a minimum level, staying here is sustainable. I visited this property back in January to help my boyfriend build tiny houses. There are two tiny houses that are both about 80% done. I’ve put some thought into what it would take to create another homestead property from scratch. It takes three things:
Homesteading (stream of consciousness): Property: Around Joshua Tree and Twenty Nine Palms, It’s possible to get more than an acre, with no utilities, for under $10k. It typically takes about 30 days to finalize a real estate transaction, but with cash, it could be done faster. The extra cheap properties can be pretty far out and most likely are only accessible by dirt roads. Not all dirt roads are made the same, so ask the listing agent about the road quality. Ironically, land in Joshua Tree and further east to Twentynine Palms and Wonder Valley, do not have Joshua Trees. Much more of the land to the west and north has Joshua Trees, from Yucca Valley up to Landers. The further east and north you go, the land becomes more basic and generally only has scrub bushes. With water, anything will grow. The foliage is only limited by water. When a property has water, there are generally big trees and plants surrounding it. Grey water will also enable plant growth. Shelter: Basic tent, van, or adapt a shed for a bed setup My bf got a 2019 Ram ProMaster 2500 high top in Arizona for $20k in January. The high top means that we can stand up straight in it. It’s a big deal for back health. We haven’t had a chance to build it out to a gorgeous VanLife van, but we spend $100 on a very basic functional conversion. We have black and yellow storage boxes plus some trimmed plywood as a platform for a full-size bed. We used the remnant of the fancy plywood (a $35 1in sanded plywood 4ft by 8ft board) to create a table, which is supported by more storage boxes. We already had a foldable mattress from Ikea, but Amazon as a memory foam mattress for under $200. We also purchased handing shoe racks from Ikea as convenient storage and hung the racks from the ceiling. It was a cheap build-out hack! We use the van for shelter and transportation. If you have another vehicle, but it’s not big enough to sleep in, a bell tent, will do well. Amazon has them for $400-$600. On our property, we made tent platforms with reclaimed pallets and cheap plywood. The platform can be used as a deck or you could put the tent on it. We finished the plywood with There are sheds that are a good basic structures from $500-$2,000 at Home Depot or Amazon. Another option is Jamaica Cottages, but you’d have to wait for delivery and then build the structure. Other prefab structures are actually way more expensive than you think. The cool basic prefab studios or 1-bd homes are $300k+. Yikes. If it’s a permanent structure, you’ll have to permit anything that has a footprint of over 120 square feet and 12 feet tall. As far as I know, anything that isn’t permanent is fine to put on a property. Water: Super basic: With some detective work and diligence, you can find a place to fill up water containers in town. One gallon per person per day is the standard measure for portable water for drinking, food, and dish cleaning. If it’s an option: run a hose from a friendly neighbor. Our neighbor’s water is delicious, even tastier than city water. Big water tank: A 2500 water tank, plus a basic water pump, plus delivery and hookup, is $1300. And water delivery of 2000 gallons is $125 in Wonder Valley. There is one water tank guy and one water delivery service in Wonder Valley. 125 gallon food grade tanks are also available, but water is only delivered in 2000 gallon increments, so a 2500 gallon tank allows you to have a little left while calling in another water delivery. It’s not completely off grid, but it would work to some level for some time. Tractor Supply, in Yucca Valley, also has water tanks, but I believe we’d have to figure out delivery and we’d have to rig the system ourselves. Dig a well: In the more rural areas without a water system, about 10% of people have wells. Wells cost $10-15k to drill, with water pumps and storage containers on top of that. In the desert, there is some risk that the water could be brackish (too salty to be potable). Electricity: We started with 4 small solar panels, only $12 from the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Oakland. It allowed us to charge anything via a USB: our phones, a 2012 MacBook pro with the lightning adapter, the iPad we watch Netflix on. I have a 3-prong laptop charger for my clunky work laptop, so running a line from my neighbor made sense. If we wanted something more permanent, there are power lines on the property so we could have PG&E drop a meter on the property, but we think this would be about $2k. Not too bad, but we dug out conduit under the road from our neighbor, plus some extension cords, and that was under $300. It’s our Minimum Viable Product. In the next year or two, we will figure out a solar + wind offgrid electricity system. GoalZero has kits from a few hundred dollars to $2k that could solve all our power requirements. Other basics:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elenafoukes/  Networking can be daunting. It can be awkward.
It is also rewarding. Networking can help get you the career you want by meeting the right people:
Most jobs are never posted online, so you need to know people at the company you'd like to work at, which means networking is a key part to finding the role you want. I used to be terrible at networking. It took a lot of practice to figure out how to do and, most importantly, not waste my time. When you go to an event, any event, ask yourself why you're going. What's your goal? Is it to learn things? Meet people? Meet a specific person? It'll focus you while you're there. Learning If you're there to learn things, the talk will be useful, but so will the other attendees. For example, if you want to learn about clean energy software and you're at a cleanweb event, as other attendees "Hi, I'm John. This is my first time at a cleanweb event. Have you been to their events before?" Follow up: "I'm here to learn more about the industry. Are there other events or resources you recommend to learn more?" Or - "What brings you to the event tonight?" is a great icebreaker. Meeting people, or a specific person No matter what type of person you're looking to meet, whether at a specific company or a specific individual. find the organizer. They're likely to know some of the people in the room and they can connect you to the right person, even to people who could be hiring. If it's not the exact person you're looking for, that's ok. Have a conversation with them, and mention that you're at the event to meet "a person from X company" or "other people in product management", then they can point you in the right direction. Meeting a speaker If you're looking to meet the speaker at an event, do your research ahead of time. Know what they look like. Go up to them before the event, because afterward, there will be other people who want to talk to them. Be short with your conversation. Say why you want to connect with them, get their contact information, then follow up with them that night or the day after. Many people take the contact information of people and never follow up. Getting out of a conversation/making the most of your time Don't spend too much time with any one person. You'll know within a few minutes if the person you're talking with is someone you'd like to connect with. Options for ending a conversation:
If you're having a good conversation with someone and you'd like to continue it, suggest that you connect (exchange contact information) and have a phone call or get coffee with them. Follow up Follow up with people you met the sooner the better. Happy networking! This is the running list of events happening in and around SPI 2017 in Las Vegas.
Monday, September 11th CivicSolar & Aerocompact SPI Happy Hour 3-5pm Tue, September 12th Research Findings from the Solar Workforce Diversity Study Industry Trends Booth 4434, 11 am-12 pm Orange Button Investor Panel: Using Standards for More Efficiency in Solar Finance 12:30 pm - 1:00 pm, Industry Trends theatre Best Practices in Building a More Diverse Solar Industry Industry Trends Booth 4434, 2-3pm Orange Button Live Demonstration, Hall H, 2:30 - 5:30 pm Celebrate with WRISE at SPI booth #1114, 9/12 4-6pm, toast at 4:30 Tweetup 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM PDT Orange Button Networking Mixer, 5:30pm-6:30pm, Ballroom H Sungrow SPI Cocktail Party (Live Music | Entertainment) 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM It’s not a pipeline problem. It’s about loneliness,competition and deeply rooted barriers. From the New York Times  A year ago, dressed in suffragette white and addressing a cheering, weeping convention, Hillary Clinton stood for possibility. Now she is a reminder of the limits women continue to confront — in politics and beyond. More than 40 years after women began pouring into the workplace, only a handful have made it all the way to the top of corporate America. The percentage of chief executives of Fortune 500 companies who are women just passed 6 percent, creeping up (and occasionally dropping back) at a glacial pace. Why don’t more women get that No. 1 job? Read more HBR came out with two must-read studies recently. They reveal clear and measurable differences in how different genders are treated. It's staggering.
Here they are:
Why do men need to read these articles, too? Female leadership (including founders) offers higher ROI - 63 percent higher ROI. Also, it's been quite a year for white women, people of color and nonbinary people in tech. In case you any of the developments or your head is spinning and you're in need of a recap, here is Megan Rose Dickey's summary. |
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