Proud to be a Geek, Part I

OK, in the (maybe) final installment of the introduction to Doug, we will discuss the finer points of being a Geek and owning it.  ;-)   Historically, the term Geek has had a quite varied interpretation.  From a more derogatory term being confused with "nerd", "dweeb", and the like all the way to the highest esteem of "misunderstood genius".  Well I probably fall somewhere squarely in the middle of all that, but suffice to say that I consider the term Geek to be very much a term of endearment.

I think my guidance into the greatness of geekdom began at an early age.  Although I only vaguely remember my maternal grandfather, "Granddad" always put off a "geek vibe".  He owned a radio repair shop, owned an early movie camera, and I just always felt that had he been born closer to the birth of the personal computer he would have been a great innovator along the likes of Bill Gates.  I'm not sure why I think that really....I guess it is because I DIDN'T really know him, (he passed away when I was 3) and my mom of course spoke of him often.  So maybe I just filled in my own revisionist history there.  But regardless, on my list of influences, he's up there.  My other grandfather had a brilliant mechanical mind and was an inventor but he didn't have many geek qualities.

I do remember sitting around with various family members watching "Star Trek" at an early age, although I never really became a Trekkie.  This was most likely due to one of the top Geek events in history occurring when I was five years old.   1977's blockbuster movie release "Star Wars" had to be one of the more significant pop culture events that I "owned" in my lifetime.  It helped that I was at the perfect age to gobble up the wonderful action figures and toy spaceships that accompanied the movie, but it will forever hold a special place in my Geek existence.  Of course "Empire", "Return of the Jedi", and later the early "Episode's" would further shape my world.  From that point on I favored SciFi entertainment and was also a big fan of Battlestar Galactica among others.  I did get into Star Trek TNG some, but I still wouldn't call myself a Trekkie.

My geek progression continued with my involvement in Webelos and Cub Scouts. (and a short stint in Boy Scouts)  I think interest in Scouts is very much a geek trait and I often wish I had continued on with it.  But it got me interested in a lot of things geek, like the physics of Pinewood Derby, and the outdoors/"life sciences", and other tools of the geek trade.  In parallel, this is also when my interest in model trains blossomed...another activity high in Geek content.  I remember other "signs" of Geekness, like reading my uncle's Popular Science and Omni magazines.  Oh, and my cousins and I became quite good at chess in our junior high years.  :-D

My interest in science was paramount, too, and this parlayed into my interest in computers as well.  We had an Apple II computer in my 5th grade science class and that is what I would term my first real "aha" moment with computers.  I had been exposed to computers and video games before, but this was key and it wasn't long before I had received my first computer, an Atari 400.  This one was mostly just a glorified video game machine, and soon after I got a used Radio Shack computer where I did my first programming.  This followed by a Coleco "Adam" that never really worked right and my parents eventually returned it and for Christmas of my 7th grade year I finally recieved "the one"...my beloved Apple IIc.  That little workhorse carried me all the way through high school, although by that time I had been exposed to several IBM PC clones.  This culminated in my high school graduation gift...a PC clone laptop computer. (specifically, an Arima 386SX-20 with 2MB RAM and a 40MB Hard Drive, which was close to an exact replica of the latest Compaq laptop at the time.)

(to be continued...)