Meme Time: Growing Up Geek
Ok, it's meme time. Now, you may be surprised to hear that under my cool exterior, I was a nerd in school. No, no, you say! It's not so! Surely you were the most popular kid, Scott? You weren't beaten brutally each day for having glasses that weighed more than your huge head? Nonsense!
Alas, it's true. It's probably true for you as well, Dear Reader. Or, that's what I like to tell myself. ;)
I've written before about how I got into computers, some of the OS's I've run, that I love gadgets, and how my fifth grade teacher took me from an "at risk youth" to a huge dork. I've even done a podcast with my Dad about what it's like to raise a nerd. Of course, the Nerds will Inherit the Earth, right?
Did you grow up a geek?
Let's see what you looked like as a young burgeoning nerd or nerdette.
I'm tagging Phil Haack, Rob Conery, Leon Bambrick, Greg Hughes, and Brad Wilson.
Of course, if you're not tagged, I want to see pics of you as a kid-nerd regardless. Go dig in that shoebox you know you still have. Call your Mom, look at the photo album, and link to this post or leave a link in the comments.
Let's see some nerdy childhood pictures folks!
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
About Newsletter
To my teacher's credit, she said, "If you understand the concept well enough to write a program to do it for you, you must understand it pretty well."
A+.
Of course, many beatings ensued ;)
That was THE style at the time. Sure, if you wore those today it would be 'geek', but again, that was the style back then.
Let's see...your parents bought those because they would hold up better for an active boy who would lose them, step on them, etc... ?
Yep...that was just how it was back then :)
You look good! What the hell has happened? You look like crap now! Ha! Love your cousin. Jack
Sorry, Scott; I was the cool kid :)
To me the true test of geekdome was whether you had a chemistry set that contained potassium nitrate and sulfur. Using these 2 compounds and some garden variety table sugar you could whip up some pretty sweet smoke bombs using a beaker and the low flame of the kitchen stove. If you were a really brave geek you could have crushed a like charcoal in a mortar and mixed the 3 to make a low quality gunpowder. Of course these days you'd be hard pressed to find these compounds in a chem set because they pose a risk to national security.
Now if I could only find the photo my mother took of me the day she decided to perm my hair and put me in a yellow dress to see what I'd look like as a little girl... that photo would add all new meaning to this blog post.
Scott was very hip if this pic was taken in 1985, as possibly indicated in the upper right corner.
http://davecorun.com/images/dave_young_at_computer.jpg
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