Empower Your Inner Geek

So I’m a geek. Well, a "tech geek", but not a geek-geek. Despite the fact I’m a tech geek, I try not to be a snob with my abundance of geek knowledge and know-how. Get it? I sounded like a gloating pretentious prick there on purpose to get my point across. Geeks, for the most part, have a tendency to get a little uppity. They don’t always do it on purpose. Some are completely unaware they are coming off as all hoity-toity. It’s just that many geeks have a problem relating to people who don’t share their love of electronics. They have a problem "dumbing it down", if you will, for the average Joe. As a tech geek, I can honestly say that it does get frustrating trying to explain over and over again to my Dad why his computer is so slow. Um, because it’s filled with porn, adware, viruses and it’s just overall bloated. Not to mention the system was built 10 years ago and you are STILL on dial-up! Dad, it’s 2008. Let’s get with the times.

See what it's come to? Headset-to-cellphone pairing is so utterly baffling to average consumers that you can now hand over $10 to Best Buys stores in California (in support of the new hands-free calling while driving law) just to avoid the procedure. Seriously, it’s not that hard to pair your Bluetooth devices. If you have a finger and you can push a button, you can do it. There’s no math involved, no formulas to solve. There’s no crazy amount of complicated steps to follow. It’s just push and release. Then watch it light up. It’s like poking a baby in the belly. It just amazes me that 8 years after the launch of the world's first Bluetooth headset from Ericsson and this is where we're at, still.

Despite the fact that technology is playing a bigger role in our everyday lives today more than ever before, some people out there still fear it. They still loath it. They don’t want to change or adapt. And they don’t care to learn the ins and outs of their latest gadget. They just want it to work. Plain and simple. Whether you have a tech-phobia or computers and electronic gadgets just hate you, there is never a geek too far away to help. A geek there to lend a hand and help empower the geek within you. We all have an inner geek, whether we want to admit it or not. The trick is just figuring out how to unleash your inner geek.

I have no problem helping my friends, family and even co-workers out with their computer problems and gadget goodies. Although I do have a problem when the only time my family calls me is when they "need something" – need me to answer a tech question, need me to watch my niece for an evening, need me to help Dad with opening the pool. Whatever happened to calling me up just to say hi, how are you? That’s when being the go-to guy sucks. Otherwise, I’m more than happy to help. I’ll even teach you how to do it if you want, or if you prefer for me to just take care of it for you, I can do that too.

I think it’s good to empower the geek within you. That way you don’t have to rely on someone else. You don’t have to fork over your hard earned cash to a pimple faced 19-year-old kid behind the Geek Squad counter. I understand the kid needs a summer job, but wouldn’t it feel good to say..."I did it myself! I figured it out myself!" That geek gloat feels good, doesn’t it? See that, I knew you had it in you. And I knew you could do it. You empowered your inner geek.

And a special congratulations goes out to my tech-challenged cutie that single handily configured her wireless network all on her own this morning! That makes me proud. But, feel free to have your morbidly obese feline friend lay on your router and f it up again. That way I’ll have legit sounding excuse to stop over for a nooner.