Regina Dugan was right about geeks!

From NPR, 5 Nerds To Watch in 2013:

Regina Dugan says there's a lesson in that. As she told a TED conference last year, "You should be nice to nerds. In fact I'd go so far as to say if you don't already have a nerd in your life you should get one."

One of the reasons I've been slacking on my blog is because I've been hanging out with geeks (not to say I'm not a geek), including my brother Steve, who is in town for a mining conference. I am lucky to have plenty of nerds in my life.

Advantages of hanging out with geeks:

Situation 1: I bought some yogurt covered cherries. The yogurt is actually "chocolate yogurt" which doesn't even exist except in the Sunmaid laboratory. The cherries are near their expiration date and while the cherries are good the chocolate yogurt is not. A geek friend and I are doing experiments to determine the best way to remove the chocolate (yogurt, heating, lemon juice) so I don't have to throw the cherries away but can get rid of the disgusting yogurt.

Situation 2: I'm trying to get Steve to buy a TENS machine because I LOVE mine. He scanned something on my TENS machine and was able to look up the model and web site quicker than I could find the information on Google. He also scanned something on my friend's dishwasher because he wanted to know if it was a model that had been recalled because the dishwasher turned itself on and wouldn't turn off.

Situation 3: We had a massive snow storm on Sunday. A true geek has so many "toys", including snow blowers, that you never have to shovel snow manually.

To be fair, there are some disadvantages:

Situation 1: Eating a cherry that has been soaked in vinegar will probably make you throw up even if the vinegar is effective in removing the chocolate yogurt.

Situation 2: Having easy access to information about a dishwasher model may encourage geeks to take the dishwasher apart to see if they can fix it. Steve's girlfriend jokes that my family takes our friends' faulty machines apart, and, if unable to fix them, leaves. Then the friend has to buy a new dishwasher.

Situation 3: I discovered on Sunday that the snow blower has a tube on the top that you can move to change the direction the snow blows. If you happen to have a friend who is a mischievous geek he may aim the aforementioned snow blower tube at you while you are shoveling snow manually. And then you get a face full of snow. And then the geek friend laughs because you look like a human snow man.

hahaha