I am a nerd.
This should surprise absolutely nobody.
I own multiple computers that are smaller than a deck of cards, radio equipment that allows me to talk to strangers around the world, cameras with more settings than any reasonable person should need, and I occasionally use satellites to locate an old film canister with a logbook hidden somewhere in the woods.
There really isn’t much of a defense here.
When we were younger, being called a nerd wasn’t necessarily something you wanted. There was a stereotype attached to it. Nerds were socially awkward and obsessed with computers, science fiction, electronics and whatever else the cool kids had decided wasn’t cool.
Well, I was already socially awkward and wasn’t exactly burdened with popularity or a huge group of friends, so the nerds seemed like a comfortable place to hang out.
My father and brother were more interested in cars and mechanical things. I tried that path for a while, but my hands were too big to fit into most of the places they needed to go, and holding my arms above my head while lying underneath a car lost its appeal pretty quickly.
So I went in another direction.
Computers.
This is also why I can perform only basic repairs on a vehicle. Thankfully, I have friends who can walk me through things while I do them. Apparently I require technical support for technology developed before the microprocessor.
Computers, though, made sense to me. There was something satisfying about figuring out why something wasn’t working and then making it work. Of course, figuring out one problem usually introduced me to three new things I didn’t understand, so I’d start researching those too.
I’m beginning to think that’s how they get you.
These days, I don’t simply own a Raspberry Pi. I own Raspberry Pis because apparently one wasn’t enough.
And then I give them jobs.
One becomes a server. Another becomes a network device. Another does something incredibly specific that could probably be accomplished with a commercially available device for $39.95.
There is an important distinction between buying something that solves a problem and spending three weekends building something that almost solves the same problem.
The second one teaches you Linux.
Then one day I was sitting in the van waiting for something when I had a thought.
The minivan needs a server.
Most people probably don’t have this thought.
So I built one. WiFi hotspot, media server, music, movies, GPS and APRS capability, all running from a Raspberry Pi that travels in the van.
Did the minivan actually need any of this?
That’s really not the point.
Then it needed a name.
MiniWAN.
Apparently my nerdiness isn’t particularly loyal either. Photography gave me lenses, lighting, apertures, shutter speeds and an entirely new collection of equipment to research. Geocaching gave me GPS coordinates, maps and billions of dollars worth of satellites so I could find an old film canister hidden under a log.
Somewhere along the way I also became K7JLP, which means the federal government has officially licensed me to be a nerd over the radio.
I’ve realized that the thing all of these hobbies have in common isn’t really technology. It’s curiosity.
I like figuring shit out.
I want to know how something works. Then I want to know why it works. Then I inevitably discover that somebody on the internet figured out how to make it do something it was never intended to do.
Three hours later I have seventeen browser tabs open and something is compiling.
The funny thing is, I don’t really care whether any of this makes me a nerd anymore. Somewhere along the way the word stopped feeling like an insult and started sounding like a pretty accurate description of someone who gets excited about things other people may not understand.
I can live with that.
So yes, I’m a nerd.
I have radios, cameras, tiny computers, antennas, lenses, servers and an unreasonable number of cables that I refuse to throw away because I might need one someday.
And I still get excited when I figure something out today that I couldn’t figure out yesterday.
I hope I never outgrow that.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Raspberry Pi sitting here without a job.
That’s just irresponsible.