Our stories are even closer than you think. I looked for people like me in my college town, but it was a small city with few tech businesses (mostly state government contractors), so I didn't find much. Now that I've returned to coding, I decided to move out to San Francisco so that I could be a part of a larger community. I've been out here for just over a week now and I've already been to a conference and have an interview with a startup tomorrow. (Not as a developer, but still!) There are tons of meetups and interesting events out here, so I'm really optimistic about the future.