Nerd Culture

I refer to myself as a nerd quite frequently (exhibit #1: the header above). I get a wide range of responses to my proclamation.

Some people go with "Noooo! I don't think so!" which means one of two things. 1) They've never met me or 2) They put a negative connotation on the word "nerd".

The most common response is nervous laughter while they try to ascertain how I feel about my own label.

But the response that spurred this post is the admonishing "Don't say that!" Somehow, in the current heyday of geek chic, being labeled a nerd is still seen as an unfortunate occurrence.

I have no qualms about calling myself a nerd.  I wear it as a badge of honor.  I care about something(s) enough to be considered a nerd.

But then I really blow people's minds with the sheer diversity of my nerdscape.

Comics, Sci-Fi (not SyFy), computers, fantasy books, Star Trek/Gate/Wars, documentaries, music deconstruction, baseball stats, genre TV shows, gadgets, math......

Wait just a second my opinionated opiner, I like some of those things but I'm not a....nerd.


And here's where the conundrum comes in.  Given the current accepted definition of "nerd", everyone is a nerd about something.

Patton Oswalt may have written the best rant ever on this subject.  He points out that the internet gives us instantaneous access to a wealth of information that would have taken basement dwellers of old years to compile.

Why argue about how many episodes of Star Trek TOS had Kirk hooking up with a pastel-colored lady when all it takes is a quick Wikipedia search?  You want to own life-sized replicas of Ian Holm circa Alien AND Fellowship of the Ring?  Look no further than Ebay/Craigslist.  You might just find some herpes while you're there.

So, my dear reader(s), I say embrace your emerging nerdiness.  Accept your irrational obsessions.  And don't be afraid to read that Farscape/Care Bears crossover fanfic just because Karen in HR would think you're weird.

Life

Life shouldn't have to be what happens in between work and sleep.  Work should try to wedge its unwanted ass into your life.  Why is it that to be considered "successful" you have to put work first?  Now that I have an infant in my house I feel like I'm missing 800 things everyday that are WAY more important than anything I'm doing at work.

With respect to jobs, I always hear "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."  That would be great if someone would pay me to play music, or stare at boobs, or read comic books, or play video games with my son, or eat buffalo chicken.  But I don't see anyone offering me jobs in those fields right now. (I'm holding out for a cross-over.  Maybe boobs covered in buffalo sauce? Or playing music with my son?  Or just the boobs?)

Why is it accepted that you're going to hate your job?  Including drive-time I spend roughly 50 hours per week dedicated to my job.  Quick math lets me know that I waste 2600 hours per year doing something I don't enjoy.  Why is this normal?  Does anyone start college wanting to be phone support?  Or an accountant?  Or middle management?  No.  You get stuck there.

I don't mean to sound like a whiny teenager but my family is the only thing I'm remotely happy with right now.


But that's all that matters.  Right?  Well, kind of.  Loving my family doesn't help me feed/clothe/bathe/spoil them.  And it sure as hell doesn't make me hate the job any less.


But loving your family should make all the bad things worth it.  Well, then I must be broken.  I love my family, and I will do anything for them, but it does not make everything worthwhile.  I'm not okay with wasting any intelligence/talent/initiative that I have for a paycheck that almost pays the bills.  Just so I can turn around and give every bit of that money to multi-billion dollar companies.

I have always adhered to the philosophy of "don't sacrifice today for what might happen tomorrow".  Doesn't that also apply to me?  If I throw away my dreams and desires and put on my Corporate Andy hat just so I can put food on the table, am I not doing that same thing?  If children are our future does that mean that our future is over?

I'm struggling with how to feel about how I feel.

Am I a selfish bastard for bitching when I actually have a job and three other human beings dependent on me?  Or am I an idiot for basically giving up on my dreams at 25?

I have no idea.

Andy Boot Camp Update 3/25/11

I few weeks back I posted about finally wanting to do something about the spare Michelin Man I'm carrying around.  I made several bold statements and I still intend to keep every one of those goals.  But Life gets in the way, or should I say, Life takes precedence.  My wife and I had a baby girl a little over a month ago and she, along with my wife and son, are more important than anything else right now.

That being said, all is not lost.  I have made some progress.  Not as much as I hoped for but a little bit is better than nothing.  Here are the completely irregular weigh-in totals:

01/14/11          318.6 (That's embarrassing)
01/21/11          319.2 (I must have made a wrong turn at Albuquerque)
01/28/11          317.6 (Slow and steady wins the race?)

03/10/11          307.8 (Stress is a hell of a drug)
03/18/11          314.2 (Wait, what?) (Disclaimer: This is the only weigh-in done at night)
03/25/11          309.8 (Back on track....I guess)


I'm not necessarily happy with the progress so far but I'm creeping closer to the exit from...Tres-town? Drei-ville? Three's Company? Tri-force? I haven't decided what to call the magical sub-300 pound threshold.  Maybe "making my re-entry into Earth's atmosphere from my own orbit"?

Oh well, thanks for all the support and please enjoy this awesome Blind Melon song about the number three.

Is College Still Worth It?

I got a statement from my student loan people recently. It said I paid $5600+ in interest on my school loans in 2010.

This means that in the two years I have been paying on school loans, the same amount of time I was actually in school, I have paid just under $12,000 in INTEREST. While my principle balance went down less than half of that.

And did I mention this debt was spread out over seven different loans because of various rules? Or that four of these loans (consisting of over 2/3 of the total amount borrowed) were accruing interest while I was in school?

All of this adds up to me paying 176% of the total amount borrowed by the time the loans are paid off.

If you've endured the grammar and numbers and are still reading this, I would like to thank both of you.

I bring this up to ask the question:

Is it still worth the investment to go to college?

I have heard all of my life that you can't get a good job without a college education. Yet everywhere I look I see people making $15-25/hr with nothing more than a high school education (and several people making WAY more). And I question if some of these people went to a real high school. Meanwhile, the suckers (those of us to went to college) might be making the same amount, or maybe a bit more, but with YEARS of school loans to pay off.

Is it worth making $6000 more a year if every bit of that has to go to school loans for ten or fifteen years? Right now my school loan monthly payments are about $50 less than my mortgage payment on a three bedroom house. I could afford a SECOND HOME with the money I'm throwing at school loans. How many doctors are out there making $100,000+ and still struggling because of ridiculous amounts of school loans? I would venture a guess somewhere in the "quite a few" range. (I'm nothing if not scientific.)

College as a whole is a very worthwhile experience. Between the knowledge gained, acquaintances met, and the experience acquired, several years spent in college can greatly influence a person's future. But I think the experiences and learning habits that a person develops may outweigh the fun facts a person may take from his classes.

Now, I'm not an idiot (at least not solely based on the prior sentence). I am not implying that the subject material is worthless. I certainly don't want a doctor who doesn't know his uvula from his vulva (I'll let you Google vulva yourself) diagnosing my mystery illness. But I think that the techniques learned with respect to observation and analysis are more important than trying to memorize every possible piece of information about your chosen career path.

I learned many things in my years of college. But I would put my current "Things learned in college" to "Things learned on the job" ratio at about 15:85. And some things, such as proper terminology, I am forced not to use. You should see the looks I get when I throw out words like "browser" or "forward-slash".

So, what do you think?  Does a college degree (I'm not going to say education) mean as much as it used to mean?

Daughters

Hopefully by the time this post is published I will be a proud papa of a new baby girl. If not, then I'll have one pissed off pregnant wife.

I've heard a bit of advice about raising a daughter but it all seems to be focused on what could/will go wrong. Here's a gem that stuck in my mind:

If you have a boy, then you have one penis to worry about. If you have a girl, then you have everyone else's penis to worry about.

Couldn't you easily switch the genders and genitalia and still have an accurate statement?

I think this sort of mentality is contributing to my anxiety about having a daughter. Fear of the unknown is ever prevalent in my life. I like to be prepared for anything and everything. You can never have enough money/time/blood/energy/information/towels to be prepared for every situation.  So I think I'm psyching myself out about parenting a girl.

I always hear about the bad stuff. However, I don't think any of these issues have anything to do with my latest child being female.

She'll have you wrapped around her finger.
Valid concern. But only valid because my son has already shown how susceptible I am to such tactics.

Just wait until she starts talking.
Have you met my son? If he's awake, then he's talking. And I doubt my daughter will be making lightsaber noises for six straight hours on a daily basis. (I wouldn't be too upset if she did though)

Look out when she starts driving.
I'm nervous about my wife driving. Not because I doubt her skill (if she can dock a 46' boat on Lake Erie in choppy seas, I think she can handle navigating a parking lot in a Mercury). But my concern is all the other idiots on the road. My child being female doesn't affect my limited trust in human intelligence.

Just wait for the teenage years. 
I don't mean to sound like I'm constantly degrading my son, but he's a bottle of black nail polish away from an angsty teenager right now. And he can't tie his shoes yet.

I just don't think all the drama people assume will come with having a girl is warranted. Yes, her clothing budget may be astronomically higher than my son's. But my son may need hundreds more for musical instruments or new cleats. I honestly think it will even out. For all I know, my son could be the fashionista and my daughter will be begging for a new batting glove.

Dads are always going to worry about their daughters. I just think I need to spend more time worrying about making sure she's safe and happy now rather than how much of a bitch she might be when she's fourteen.


#FamousLastWords