Beginnings and Endings

For most of my life I have been what most people would call a geek. 

Like some show pet, my mother trained me to read at a freakishly young age, and then I would get the “privilege” of showing off my reading skills to all of her friends, relatives and neighbors.

At the tender age of ten, some of my friends approached me to help them learn a new game that they were starting to play. Unfortunately, there were lots of big words in the rulebooks that they didn’t understand, so they wanted me to read the books and teach them to play. I read the books, taught them to play, became the Dungeon Master, and dove into the deep end of the geekdom pool with my earliest forays into role-playing games, starting with Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve been playing rpg’s ever since.

In high school, I earned the title of “band geek.” I was a trumpet player in my high school and college bands, majored in Music Education, and even became a high school band director. I taught in the public schools for fourteen years.

Almost three years ago, I went through a “dark night of the soul” and re-evaluated my life. I left teaching and quickly caught on in retail management. I am now the manager of a video game store and an avid gamer (both tabletop and video). It doesn’t get any geekier than that.

“Now you know what we are, now you know what you are.”
- David, The Lost Boys

I browsed some of the online dictionaries to see some of the definitions for “geek” they were offering. It was not pretty. Merriam-Webster’s contribution is “a person often of an intellectual bent who is disliked.” Dictionary.com offers this: “a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual.” The Free Dictionary gives us: “A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy” and “A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.” I guess you get what you pay for.

I used to blog.

I actually wrote a blog post almost everyday for about a year. My blog had a small, but loyal following and was quite well regarded. Unfortunately, my old blog was somewhat limiting. After a year or so, I felt that I had “outgrown” it. I drifted away from it, and from writing. Recently, a friend of mine started a blog that inspired me to start this one. It took me a couple of months to actually put my fingers on the keys and start typing, but here I am, starting Geekcentricity. My plan is to write about life, work and everything else from my own geekcentric perspective.

For a couple of days now, I’ve been planning for today to be the day I launched Geekcentricity. For a day of beginning, the universe provided an ending. Actor Corey Haim was found dead of an apparent drug overdose this morning at age 38. His role as Sam Emerson in 1987′s The Lost Boys was a seminal performance for budding geeks of the time. So, I dedicate my first post to the memory of Corey Haim. There will be many more to come, so stay tuned. In the words of Corey’s Sam Emerson, “Don’t kill anyone until we get back to you!”