Some people run with the cool kids…I run with geeks. That’s right, I hang with the dorky crowd and I am mighty proud of it. I am a geek, my husband is a geek, and most of my favorite people are geeks.

Because the currents of nerdery run deep within our group, it should surprise no one to discover that some of us found ourselves at the Geex Expo, a gaming and electronics show, recently. Jacob, Jeremy Rowley, and my brother Drew were eager to check it out so we all headed up there for a Saturday of geekery.

The Geex Expo has videogame demos, DDR competitions, LAN gaming, and cosplay contests. It also has vendor booths for everything from anime societies to clubs that make their own armor. While we had a lot of fun staring at the geeks in their costumes, perusing the nerdy merchandise, and playing some old school StarCraft, our greatest source of entertainment turned out to be Jeremy.

A few weeks ago Jeremy tore his calve muscle playing soccer. This injury was mostly a result of him having weak unexercised muscles according to the doctor, which sounds about right. Jeremy was directed to take it easy on his leg for about a month but because he keeps getting too tempted to participate in activities he’s not supposed to do, like volleyball at Jason’s birthday party, his calve is not healing the way it should. Consequently, that boy’s been hobbling around slower than an 80 year old who just had hip replacement surgery. Jacob and I therefore insisted that he rent a wheelchair at the show for our sanity as well as his comfort. He protested at first but soon he was grateful he didn’t have to walk. I’m not entirely certain we did him a service though by making him get that chair. Having the wheelchair gave him the strength to play DDR at the expo more than a few times, which was definitely not something he was supposed to be doing. He felt more than a little putout that his injury would not allow him to participate in the show’s DDR competition and he consoled himself by getting his dance on before the contest began. He would dance a song and then hobble back to his wheelchair and complain about his throbbing calve but then a few minutes later we would find him drifting back to the DDR station like a moronic moth to the flame. I’m not sure why he felt so compelled to play DDR at this event given he has his own exquisite homemade DDR pads, which he himself claims are better than the ones they had at the show. Whatever the ill-devised reason, and despite mine and Jacob’s protests, Jeremy wound up playing DDR a number of times until his leg hurt so bad he could barely even stumble back to his wheelchair. While the thought of Jeremy’s idiocy makes me shake my head and roll my eyes even now, it did prove quite amusing and I’m sure it will continue to entertain as we make fun of him for it through the years.

There may have been many snicker-worthy nerds at the Geex Expo either parading around in their World of Warcraft costumes or skipping meals and showers to play LAN games nonstop until their eyes were ready to riot but, in my opinion, nothing quite compares to the nerdiness of one Mr. Jeremy Rowley who completely disregarded explicit doctor’s orders because he just couldn’t handle watching other people do DDR without doing it himself. Jeremy’s actions may seem only borderline eccentric until you once again remember that he owns a perfectly good DDR pad that he can play with at home at anytime. Yes, it is that last bit of information that reminds us that Jeremy is not just your run-of-the-mill mildly-unstable geek but an uber geek. Feel free to nod your head in disbelief or snicker right now-whatever you feel is necessary and befitting-I feel it necessary to do both.

I am a nerd; I make no attempts to conceal this fact from the world. I embrace my nerdiness like one might embrace a fuzzy Tribble or a cute little Ewok.

Since nerdery comes natural to me I concocted a brilliant plan when my friend Cameron suggested that a group of us get together to watch New Moon, the latest Twilight movie. I decided to take on the task of hosting this cinematic gathering and turn it into more than just a movie viewing because, as with all of my undertakings, I was not satisfied with it being just your average bash. I didn’t want this party to consist of a few of us squished on a couple of couches squinting at a tiny LCD screen so I rented a giant movie theater room at Noah’s that was equipped with 20 plush electronically controlled recliners, a giant projection screen, and a booming sound system. Sweet!

I invited a bunch of my fellow Twilight freaks to fill these comfy seats and made sure that they were adequately sugared-up during the flick by providing lots of snacks including some buttery vampire bite cookies and a pack of tasty werewolf cupcakes. The cupcakes took me 4 hours to decorate. Yeah, they were kind of a pain, as werewolves often are, but they turned out pretty cool so I guess they were worth the Carpal Tunnel I almost developed from squeezing all that frosting.

After the movie I tested everyone’s Twilight knowledge with a trivia contest. I had drool-worthy prizes for the winners: an Edward Barbie doll, a 1000 piece Jacob puzzle, a t-shirt professing the wearer’s love for Jacob…basics that every girl needs. But apparently what I remember from the Twilight books is not representative of what everyone else remembers. Jason has long told me that I have a “memory trap”, a reservoir of useless information floating around in my head that I can access at any given moment. I never really believed him until now. I came up with over 60 trivia questions from the Twilight books; they started out easy and increased in difficulty as they continued. I knew the answers to all but the 10 hardest questions even before I consulted the books for confirmation so I thought the Twilight fans attending my party would at least find the first 30 or so no-brainers. I was wrong. They struggled with the answers from the get go. My trivia game therefore didn’t last nearly as long as I had expected. Sorry friends, next time I will not rate question difficulty based off what I can personally recall. Apparently Jason is right and I am a bit of a memory outlier.

Regardless of the brevity of my trivia extravaganza I thoroughly enjoyed this get-together and the chance to wallow in nerdiness. I think I will repeat the experience next year with a Star Trek or Harry Potter themed event cause there are very few things sweeter than getting your nerd on.

Jason and I love experiencing our world, whether that’s through a bike ride in the mountains or a concert in the park. Last week we did a lot of experiencing.

For starters, we went to a Snow Patrol concert. It was awesome! Of course, if I didn’t absolutely love Snow Patrol in the first place I wouldn’t have drug Jason to their concert. Although I wasn’t surprised by how skilled the band was live, I was surprised by their size: 2 drummers, 4 guitarists, and a keyboardist. I guess with all the layers in Snow Patrol’s music I shouldn’t have been too astonished that that many musicians were required to create their unique sound.
My favorite part of the evening was their performance of “The Golden Floor”. This song’s haunting melody and catchy rhythm made it an instant favorite of mine when I first heard Snow Patrol’s new album, A Hundred Million Suns, but seeing it played live exceeded all my expectations. One of the band’s drummers pounded away on some giant metal drums throughout the number. The intensity of his beating gave the song a primal feel and made the experience unforgettable.
Plain White T’s, the opening band, also put on a great, but extremely short, show. Their lead singer, Tom Higgenson, was sick and so they only played a few songs. Even though Tom was barely able to talk he managed to sing without sounding very strained. Since I really liked what little they played for us, I’ve decided that I need to purchase their CD.

Our second cultural event of the week was a Real SLC game. We won some amazing tickets for this game at a silent auction event for a charity. Our seats were right on the sidelines, behind the team benches. Sweet! As fate would have it, the day of the game was an incredibly rainy one. Blast! We loaded up for the match with lots of rain gear and garbage bags – everything we could think of that might decrease the soaking we assumed we were about to receive. And then the miraculous occurred: as we were traveling to the game the skies cleared and the night turned into a beautiful autumn evening. It was still cold enough that hats, gloves, jackets, and scarves were needed, but with that bundling it was pretty pleasant and, more importantly, it was completely dry.

Two days later we headed up to Salt Lake City again, this time for Star Wars: In Concert. Fantastic! A giant LED screen, Anthony Daniels (C-3PO) in the flesh, a live orchestra, actual props from the Star Wars films, and more geeky fans than you could possibly imagine made for a splendid nerdfest!

Hooray for three memorable evenings!