I published a post a year or so ago regarding nerds and geeks. We had a great in depth discussion at work about the differences between the two and determined that anyone can be a geek at anything, but a nerd is something far different.
A nerd is usually removed from social convention, has minimal social skills outside of their fold, they are exceptionally intelligent, and are quite often thrown by ‘the norm’.
It’s like reading my bio.
However I have always referred to myself a geek-2-nerd hybrid as I in the right circles, do have social skills, but it has to be a particular crowd. I tend to get frustrated with those who don’t see the bigger picture shall we say.
Now where does the Lego come into it I hear you say? Well the connection is simple, where there is a nerd or a geek you will find comics/superheroes of some sorts, role-play games, and quite often Lego.
My partner and I are no different as together we are involved in all of the above and more.
A mutual interest is Lego, it even played a part at our wedding when the conversation was going a little south at the dinner table (a slight draw back with only 13 people in attendance, but we wouldn’t have changed it).
You often find that something like Lego can turn the more introverted into a gleaming socialite within seconds – it works every time.
Now my best friend is again a highly intelligent professional but she is more what I would call a geek as she does have social skills, very good ones in fact, but she is too lazy to deal with Lego. She is a film and comic buff so we cannot hold it against her though.
She set my partner and I the challenge (at the wedding) of building her Death Star. I can’t remember who bought it for her as a present, but even then they must have known that 3800+ Lego pieces wouldn’t work with her.
So when the challenge was offered, out of the 4 Lego enthusiasts at the wedding, one nearly cried one got the hump and the other two (namely me and my partner) jumped at the chance.
My partner’s birthday was shortly after and he received a Lego campervan from his mother, so the condition was that the Death Star had to come after the campervan.
Here is the camper van in all of its glory, it didn’t actually take us long – the hold ups consisted of Jon not being able to find a piece, Rogue Run and a few other commitments, like work!
We have so far logged about 6 hours with the Death Star, and here are few pictures of its progress.
The aim is for it to go into a glass cabinet/ coffee table for my friend’s front room. This would add to the collection of amazing art works (both abstract, the unusual and science fiction themed), a pewter R2-D2, robots galore and several other novelty items that any geek or nerd would love to own.
The moral of the story is, if you are having a bad day, or when life throws lemons at you – sod the lemonade, get the bricks out and build something.
PS: Unfortunately I have been accused of being quite obsessive about this particular challenge by my partner, I have also been accused of neglecting him – oops!