Frenzied Daddy

I’ve recently decided that it’s ok to talk about myself as a “Runner.” I mean, really- I’m running three times most weeks, I have a goal of 500 miles in 2012 (which is totally doable if I can keep my average above 10 miles a week or 3.5 miles a run). And one of the guys in the office said that he’s a runner too.

There’s this thing we nerds do, establishing credentials, I call it “Technical Butt-Sniffing.” It usually sounds like “I develop web sites with PHP and MySQL” and then the other nerd says “Oh, really, have you heard of Rails?” and the first nerd says “Yeah, it’s ok but can be a pain to deploy for the first time to a shared host” and then they laugh together because they both have an idea of the other nerd’s aptitude. If you’re not following the analogy, it’s like dogs meeting at the park. You can see the process play out in every social group.

So, back to running. One of the guys in the office said “Oh, really? I’m a runner too!” and then … I’m at a loss. I read running blogs or websites and I don’t really know how to talk to another runner. And I had to stop myself. The first questions out of my mouth were “Oh, really, how far do you run? How fast do you go?” Because those are the questions I ask myself (for the record, about 3-5 miles per run, about 11 minutes per mile). But those are also judgement-laden questions. I don’t really care how far or fast he runs, I just want to have a conversation about running and our shared experience of, you know, putting our feet to the ground in some careful pattern of broken falling.

So I stopped him, and said that. I said “You know, I don’t really care how fast or far you run, but I do want to establish this rapport. What questions do I ask to make a conversation, so that we can talk about this?” And he responded with “Why do you run?” which is a great question. Also a great butt-sniffing question. So I asked him, why he runs. He runs because he can do it right after work and it works out great for him. Another guy in the office runs because he hates any other form of exercise. And we could all talk about that. (I run mostly because I’m cheap and running I can do with shoes and anywhere.)

What if other conversation-starters did that? “I build websites with PHP and MySQL?” “Oh really, why do you build websites?” It sounds much less like you’re passing judgement. Pretty nice, huh?

Well, that was a mistake.

I’m pretty lax on “card security.” I order a lot of things online and I use my debit card in lots of places. I suppose that’s going to have to change; I went to balance my checkbook today and found $250 in fraudulent charges originating in Canada.

I’ve never even been to Montreal!

After a ten minute stress-filled call to Keybank, the card’s been cancelled, the charges have been disputed (and the phone operator was very helpful about specifying which charges I disputed. Guy, seriously, anything in Canada? It’s fraud!). I have to file a police report. And in 10 business days or so, I’ll “probably” get my money back. They even denied one $250 charge, although I’m not sure why Key let the others through.

I’m not sure where the numbers leaked. It’s possible, though unlikely, that whomever stole the numbers also stole other personal info and opened an account somewhere else. I have to contact the credit report places and put an alert of some sort on that thing too.

What a pain in the patootie. But it could have been much worse.

Miss K had a tough question this morning for me. As we’re getting ready for school, she came into the bedroom with the hairbrush. “Dad,” she asked, “am I a geek, or a nerd, or what?”

Wow. My first thought was kind of flippant; “tell her she’s seven, and that’s all she needs to be right now.” But she was obviously serious about this, and deserved a straight answer.

“Well, kid, that’s a pretty serious question first thing in the morning. I think when a person says they’re a nerd, they mean a whole bunch of things about themselves, and I don’t like just plunking all those onto you. You’re good with computers, you like to read, sure. But on the other hand, you like to run and play soccer, you enjoy talking to people. There’s a bunch of things that people think a “nerd” is that you are and you aren’t. I’m not a fan of saying a person is this thing or this other thing like they can’t share interests. I think you should leave this open.”

We’re a family of nerds. I’m a big nerd, Ms B is a smaller nerd, Miss B is a smaller nerd. Miss K was looking for some kind of context. I’m not sure, however, that this didn’t come from someone at school.

She’s seven, so we’re getting a bunch of clarifing “find yourself” kinds of questions. How do you work this out?