The Way of the Geek

I have always been a geek.  Since the youngest age, I wondered how things worked, how this did that, or why this happened when I pressed that button.  Many an item in my childhood home ended up mysteriously malfunctioning, with what appeared to be bits missing in some cases.

To nurture this, mum used to buy me electronic kits, build-you-own gadgets and things like that.  My step dad got me into computers from about 9 years old - the old Acorn Electron was my first proper computer.  The magazines he used to get had page after page after page of code that you entered yourself, and made your own programs.  And when it didn't work, you had to go through the code to find what you did wrong.

Over the years, I've not changed much.  Computer stuff has always been part of who I am, messing with gadgets and gizmos, looking inside things when they go wrong to see if I can fix them without any actual knowledge of what I am doing.  You may laugh, but I've repairs a shower, I've repaired a tumble dryer, I even got a broken washing machine to function for another two weeks after it completely ceased to function.

And the point of all this?

Well, a couple of years back, I umm'd and arr'd over what domain name to buy, and settled on 0ddness.co.uk and, then a few months later, managed to get Dan.English.co.uk for a reduced amount.  Kellie, all through this, used to laugh and take the pi$$, telling me how much of a geek I was.

Take a wild stab in the dark what she did last night.  We were sitting quietly pottering around on our laptops beside one another, when she made a sudden *squeeeee* noise.  "I can buy my name!" she exclaimed.  "Er... what?" I asked, dreading the answer.  "I can by kelliecastleman.co.uk!"  I just looked at her.  I couldn't help it.  The comments from a while back telling me how sad I was came rushing back.

Clearly, the girl has been around me too long.  Whatever I have is catching.  However...  I decide to nurture it, and show her how to go through the process of buying it.

And she did!

So, later on, she's going to start blogging again, and I'm going to redirect "her name" to her blog.

And before you proclaim "But Dan, this is ONE thing, that doesn't make her a geek" you're right... But.  This isn't including the Sony Ericsson W995 she decided to get with me because of the features on it - not just "Oooh pretty".  Nor the fact she has a 48" LCD TV in her room - that she connects to her laptop in order to watch iPlayer.  Nor the 52" TV in her lounge that is connected to a Wii - who's sole purpose in life is so she can watch Doctor Who on there...  Hooking her phone into her stereo to use it to play her mp3s.  Working out how to set up her network to stream her music anywhere in the house...  That - despite her contract being up in just under a year for her phone - she's looking at what's available NOW to get an idea...

The list goes on and on ;)