Nathan's Occasional Blog

I’ve always identified myself as being a geek.  I’m highly technically oriented, I love computers and took that avenue for my career, I’m a passionate musician, and I can be a little socially awkward if not shy towards situations and people I don’t know.

But maybe I’m a highly-functional geek since I also love sports and “back in the day” used to play basketball, and even played a season each of organized football and baseball.  On weekends in the Fall you’re very likely to find our TV tuned to a football game, be it college or NFL.  I’m also able to force myself to work through times when I need to be social for business, etc.

Worse for my geek creds, If you want me to build you a computer I find that a daunting task with too many options; I’d rather buy a Dell or HP box than build my own.  I’ve never gotten into some of the more popular geek/nerd TV shows; I’ve seen the Star Trek movies but never religiously watched all the TV series.  I’ve played D-and-D once in my life (back when I was 12 or so), and didn’t quite get what all the fuss was about.

But lately I seem to be reconnecting with the geek/nerd roots I’ve never had.  My wife Alicea has me reading a massive historical fiction series (Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels) and I’m loving it.  I’ve been spending time on some home tech projects like running network cables through the walls, upgrading our NAS, a power supply on our Media Center PC, and planning some other big projects.  I’ve started exposing our daughter Kaitlyn to the Star Wars movies – she loves them.  And I’m finally starting to get into Dr. Who.

The Who I remember from growing up were the episodes broadcast on PBS here in the States in the 80’s.  They had crappy production quality (even for that time) and just seemed way too weird.  But over the last year or so I’ve been periodically listening to Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist Podcast, and Chris is nothing if not a complete Whovian.  On top of that, over the last 3 months of being home with our newborn son, Alicea has been blowing through all the modern Dr. Who episodes on Netflix – and I’ve seen a few of them and loved it.

Today is a turning point.  When we got home from church I had a serious debate on whether to put on the Seahawks game or starting watching more Dr. Whos (I started watching the modern series yesterday with Kaitlyn).  Football won for a little while, but Dr. Who is on now.  Maybe we’ll watch some more football later – maybe not.

So it seems this is the season of rediscovering my geek roots.  Let’s build a computer and watch nerdy shows.  Will it last?  I’m not sure, but I hope so.  This body’s done playing sports.