Author Jen Meyers

Getting My Geek On

I reverted to a total geek today as I played with a bit of html to format the book for a couple of my betas’ e-readers. Can I tell you how much fun that is? I think I should have been a programmer because I was getting such a kick out of making things happen with little bits of code.

Now, I should tell you, here, that what I did was insanely easy because someone had already done it, created a tutorial, wrote the code I needed, and posted it online. (Thank you Guido Henkel. I think I love you.) So it’s not like I came up with it all on my own from scratch. THAT would be really impressive. Right? I know. But still. It was so totally fun (and I do believe I clapped a few times when I’d check what I’d done in a browser and it had actually worked!). I had to do a little bit of problem solving with a couple of issues and figured them out quickly. Html is logical and systematic, after all.

Can you tell I’m a total geek?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you that I actually went to computer camp one summer when I was a kid. It was in Switzerland, if memory serves (which it may not–it was not quite thirty years ago, after all, and I was like 12 or 13 at the time). Sounds snooty, doesn’t it? It wasn’t. At least not for me. My family lived in Germany at the time, so going to camp in Switzerland was like going to camp in the state next door here. But it was cool. One of my roommates was from Japan and she taught me a little bit of Japanese, most of which I have completely forgotten. Oh, and I learned some programming at the time, too, which I loved. And it was in DOS. Remember DOS? Ancient computer language. Does anyone even use DOS anymore? I have no idea. (I probably would if I were actually a programmer.) This was before Macs and waaaaaaay before Windows.

I feel so smart and technologically handy today (but a little bit old–dang, that was a long time ago). What made you feel smart today?

2 thoughts on “Getting My Geek On

  1. kmeyersvt

    Geek is good :) And DOS commands still come in handy when your computer dies. Start/Run/CMD and you'll get to the beloved C prompt!I clapped a little today at work when a vendor finally did what I needed them to do. I also clap a little when my java bill print templates do what I want. Geek is good.

  2. j. meyers

    It IS good. So fun to make things happen the way you want them to. Especially when you don't *really* know what you're doing . . . makes you feel like you do. ;-)