Tom Tuerff's Glob -- er, Blog, or something

WE ARE SUCH GEEKS

If you live long enough, you will find that you, and everybody you know, is a geek about something. If you've ever read this blog before -- and I presume you have, you know that I get absolutely, blatantly geekish over two things: Presidential Trivia and Traditional American Music forms -- folk, blues, bluegrass, etc.

I'm a SUPER geek as far as presidents go. My friend Pete once told me at a party that in a room full of sci-fi geeks, which we were, people who were wearing Star Wars t-shirts 30 years after the fact, I was still the biggest dork on the planet because I was wearing a "James Madison's Montpelier" T-shirt. (I didn't mention that I actually have two of those.)

As for folk music I am guilty as charged. You've seen my act. I am the only person in my entire family who gets as giddy as a schoolgirl when I am confronted by a folk festival. I LOVE music festivals. My family HATES them. My dog HATES them. My birds and my iguana, if taken, to folk festivals, would POOP on them.

Now, on the other side of this coin is my wife. Over the past seven or eight years Janice has become a complete Harry Potter geek. She is really geeky about this. If she and JK Rowling were playing "Harry Potter Jeopardy," Jan would probably win.
She (and I, because hey, I'm her ride and I liked the books) belongs to a local Harry Potter fan club and that's okay because the people are nice and the parties are fun and the food people bring to the parties are always really really good.

The club has a party about once every season, usually on the solstice/equinox points (no real HP connection there other than it's just easy to remember). This spring, the party is going to be at our house.

And for the very first time, my geekiness is coinciding with her geekiness head-on. The very same day that I will be playing at the Glendale Folk Traditions Festival, March 21, that evening we will be playing host to Jan's Harry Potter meetup group.

Geek syrup.

But wait...it gets geekier. The HP party is going to have a special guest geek!

Steve Vander Ark is the Harry Potter Geek's Geek. How Geeky? He runs the online HP Lexicon, which he recently turned into an unauthorized book, available at bookstores everywhere. He's currently on a signer's tour which will bring him to Phoenix on the same weekend as our HP party. So he's coming by.

Steve is such a HP geek that JK ROWLING used his site to check things when she was writing the books. He knows more about her stuff than she does. If he were the third contestant in the aforementioned Jeopardy game, he could probably easlily answer "JK Rowling's Bathing Suit Colors for $1,000, Alex."

This is geekdom with a hat on.

I know this sounds like "When Geek Worlds Collide" but I suppose it could be worse; like evolutionists sharing convention space with creationists.

Anyway, if you feel a strange amount of geek energy in the air on 3/21, it's all our fault.
Just thought you should know.

TT