When did I realize I was a geek? ;-)

I have a confession. I love computers. Well, that is to say, I love how they work and what a person can do with a computer. (After all, we aren’t supposed to love things.)
And I am a geek. And proud of it.
When did I first realize it?
When I learned enough code to realize that it’s really poetry?
Was it when I was over the moon happy that a new release of Illustrator came with .0001 accuracy when the previous version only had .001?
Was it when I bought my first mac (second hand) that had a 20 MB (not a typo) hard drive?
Was it when I took a computer graphics class and learned to write the commands to draw a simple circle?
Maybe it was when the first commodore computers came out and I couldn’t be torn away from them in the store.

Maybe it was a gradual realization.
;-)

On my 20MB, which was a Macintosh SE, I was able to run QuarkXPress. One night, very late, I hit some strange combination of keys which should have deleted the box, but instead, an alien marched slowly out and zapped my box with his laser gun. I asked some tech guys I knew about it and they had no idea what I was talking about. I think this was my first “Easter Egg” and to this day, it still makes me smile to think about it.
I had a very early version of Photoshop on one of my early computers. At that point, it was just a little more complicated than a kid’s paint app is these days. Or at least that how it feels looking back. Keep in mind, prior to Photoshop, the only way you could digitally retouch something was done by a machine made by Scitex that cost like a million dollars and the closest one to the agency where I worked at the time was hundreds of miles away. It was that or have someone hand retouch a photo with an airbrush. I remember the example they showed was from Miami Vice. Crocket was sporting a shoulder holster and the publication didn’t want that on the cover, I believe we were told, so they sent it to a company who owned a Scitex to remove it. This was really cutting edge at the time.

We hand painted our surface designs and used rubber cement for type paste-ups. Changes (and aren’t there always changes?) was tedious, to say the least.

So maybe all this history gives me a real appreciation for what I can do with my iMac. And I love it. Color change? No problem. Add some code to a web page? I can figure that out.
And if someone needs a wardrobe adjustment in Photoshop, I can do that, too. With a smile.