Growing up Geek: The late bloomer
"It's not supposed to do that."
My model rocket had spun out of control and reached maybe half the height of the other students' cylinders. They had clearly spent hours lining up the fins on their solid-fuel powered pieces of round cardboard for optimal aerodynamics. I decided it would be cool to have my rocket twist out of control before deploying its parachute. I even spray painted it chrome and added blue and pink drips for ultimate radness. It looked like an 80s pop band had barfed on it. It was perfect.
Actually, not so much. My first and last time attending a Tehachapi High Rocket Club launch wasn't going as planned. In addition to the other students being disgusted with my contribution to the day's excitement, the teacher -- whose name escapes me (although I do remember that he wore a very large geology-themed belt buckle) -- did little to hide his disdain. As far as he was concerned I was wasting everyone's time. To be fair, maybe I was. These were the school geeks and this was their fun. I was just an odd kid that rarely spoke up in class yet somehow got kicked out on a regular basis (I would eventualy get kicked out of that high school entirely because of my horrible grades). I didn't belong out there in that field listening to them talk about velocity and computers. I was imposing and once I figured that out, I grabbed my rocket and wandered off. No one said bye.
That was the "geekiest" thing I did in high school and I pretty much failed on every level. Of course I had no idea what being a geek entailed. I didn't read comic books, watch anime or enroll in computer classes. In fact, I didn't use a computer in any real sense until I was 21. Instead, I was in FFA (Future Farmers of America). I learned to drive a tractor and raise then kill livestock. While I had no plans on being a farmer, I routinely took animals to the local fair. I learned how to break horses and broke a few ribs in the process. Even though I eventually rose to the rank of chapter vice president, I was quiet and spent a ton of time by myself riding my bike, skateboard or scooter. The friends I did have didn't talk about comic books, computers, Doctor Who or Dungeons and Dragons. They were either in FFA or were kids whose parents had moved them from Los Angeles to escape the lure of gangs.
In fact the closest thing I came to using Windows during high school was when someone I sort of knew joked that Bill Gates said, "640K ought to be enough for anybody." I had no idea who Bill Gates was or what 640k meant.
All my geek cred (what little there is) came after high school. Two of my post-school friends were enormous comic book nerds. The kind that had a $120-a-month subscription for select titles at the comic book store in Bakersfield 45 miles away. Their rooms were filled with white boxes packed with mylar bags stuffed with the latest X-Men, Spiderman and something called the Avengers. Instead of buying my own, I read their comics. I tore through the Infinity Gauntlet series and learned that Batman and the Joker have an extremely dysfunctional relationship. The first time I really used a computer, it belonged to these friends. It took a few years of their influence but I eventually knew of, and frequented IRC. I could name most the members of Alpha Flight and I understood the difference between a Pentium and PowerPC processor. The peak geek moment was when I found myself working on my Magic: The Gathering deck.
I eventually went to school for design where I figured out how to get around a computer's security. It came in handy when you didn't want the IT department snooping on you (and the applications you're installing) while in the lab. I chatted online with people that called themselves hackers and would routinely just disappear, forever. I bought 2600 magazine and learned about Blue Boxes and Kevin Mitnick's incarceration. I may have gone too far.
Fast forward a few years and someone started paying me to write about technology which sort of seems ridiculous considering I was more comfortable on a skateboard than at a keyboard growing up.
When I talk to other tech journalists they tell me about using a computer as a kid or watching old episodes of Doctor Who. From geek child, to geek teenager to geek adult. They knew where they were headed. My path was less straight forward. Instead it was like that rocket. Spinning out of control until gently landing in the middle of some nerds. Except now, I'm sticking around.
