This piece reminded me of someone else who "escaped it all": Paul Lutus [1].
In the spring of 1976, he built a 12 x 16 foot (3.65 x 4.87 meter) cabin in Oregon and developed Apple Writer [2] on his Apple II. He documented his story in a piece entitled, Cottage Computer Programming [3].
[1] http://www.arachnoid.com/administration/index.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer
[3] http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/cottage_computer_programmi...