Hehe, thanks for sharing, Les.  Yes, I too was a major geek in high school.  I wore Izods and, in my junior year, carried almost all of my schoolbooks under my arm throughout the day.  Of course all that changed after I went to college… lol These days, I am a mostly domesticated, “reformed” bad boy!

Sorry Les, you were a good lookin’ kid. No pity here.

I love me some geek, myself. I finally wised up and married one. And I’m keeping him!

OK, I’ll admit that those are two better pictures that don’t really show off my geekiness. It’s the curse of the school picture I suppose. Lemme see if I can dig up a couple that really show me at my nerdiest.

I think I made up two entirely new words in that paragraph…

Actually, Google has over 18000 results for ‘nerdiest’ and 161000 for ‘geekiness’

Hey, you were pretty cute, what happened?  lol, j/k, couldn’t resist.  And nerds rock! 

Well I’ve not been able to find some of my geekiest pictures yet, but here’s a few that should help illustrate the point:

First up a generational pic:

From left to right in a clockwise direction we have my sister, my mother, myself, my grandfather, and my great grandmother (who’s looking a little geeky herself in that pic). You’ll note I was going for the “deadly serious” look in that picture because I thought it made me cool. You’ll also note the personalized COMMANDER VIDEO t-shirt I’m wearing attesting to my already long-standing video game addiction.

The above is from my 16th birthday party and the young woman who’s humiliating me in that pic was my girlfriend at the time, Jeannie. She ended up marrying a completely non-geek guy during our college years. We kept in touch for quite awhile, but it’s probably been close to a decade since I last heard from her.

Speaking of college years, we come to the following…

As you can see I’m in full-on geek mode with this pic. The handsome man to my right in that pic is the infamous Trabian Shorters. We’d been friends ever since kindergarten, but alas this was just prior to my “asshole stage” during which I managed to ruin that friendship. Last time I saw him was at Bill Owen’s funeral. Still, it made for a good nerd picture.

Ah, but it is the inner geekiness that counts—you don’t look all that geeky to me, Les.

Personally, I found myself a “hunk-a-hunk-a burnin’ geek” too and gave up on bad boys forever.

And geeks DO make the best lovers because they don’t go into it thinking that they know it all. Nothing better than a lover who listens . . .

Nope, sorry Les, still a hottie...with your Napoleon Dynamitesque thing you have going there!

But “geeks are the new hotties”...so maybe I’m having trouble seeing it.

I think the one of you in the red shirt and suspenders is the only one that looks remotely geeky.  You really need glasses to pull the look of to completion.  The one with your girlfriend actually makes you look more like a jock.  Sorry Les your not much of a geek.

You had a shirt for your BBS… Awesome.

Wasn’t that black guy in revenge of the nerds?

Wow, I’ve never had to convince people I was a geek before. This is a first for me.

Seph, yep, I did indeed have a t-shirt for my BBS. My daughter still wears an orange version of that shirt and Ralph the Mannequin at the top of our stairway wears the last remaining green version. I think we spent around $80 at local silk screener’s shop for around 30 shirts or so in various colors. We sold a handful to users of the BBS and gave a few away as prizes. The two remaining in the family are in surprisingly good shape considering they’re around 23 years old now. Wow, my daughter is wearing a t-shirt that’s almost twice her age.

Moose, I always thought Trabian was more of a young Bill Cosby type based on his sense of humor than the dude who was in Police Academy.

Hehe, Les, didn’t you know that having a girlfriend automatically disqualifies you for geekdom?

Holy Sh*T! Mom with no gray, you thin and me looking like I’m trying to suck in my belly and all that is happening is a bad boob shot. LOL.  How old were we there?  Wait maybe I don’t wanna know.

Les, I was thinking more of Lamar than Michael Winslow.

Oh, OK, yeah, I guess I can see that.

Hehe, Les, didn’t you know that having a girlfriend automatically disqualifies you for geekdom?

My thought exactly. And at 16 already.

Sorry, Les, you’re not convincing us - you likely were a total, straight, upstanding pillar of society guy. This must be your way of rebellion.

OK, so I wasn’t a total geek and was able to land a girlfriend or 12 in my time. But I had to work really hard to do it.

I’m still stunned at Theocrat saying the one pic makes me look like a jock. I was so not a jock in my youth. Jocks and I didn’t tend to get along. I always thought they were abnormally big and dumb. Figures I’d grow up and be big myself…

...and I’ll just leave it at that for now.

It’s not just the girlfriend.  It’s the fact that you don’t look ridiculous in a tank top.  Your arms are not ridiculously thin or fat.  I think there is some semblance of pectoral muscles under the shirt and your neck actually looks pretty thick or your head is disproportiantely small which would still be a jock trait.  All nontraits of a geek.  I was going to suggest, banking off of the desire to redo the pic on the site you could increase your geek factor significantly if you just had someone photoshop in manga hair on your existing pic.

yeah and you need to retouch the 2 first pictures you showed us.

They are very nice pictures but there is too much dust on them. Hehe!

Hi Les,

My name is Carey and I used to know you...i found your site because occasionally i google Trabian Shorters’ name and of course I always find tons of entries under his name and this time I found you because of this picture of you and him....I don’t know if you remember me or not but I do remember your obsession with Dr. Who and I know I went on at least one occasion to your folks house and maybe even stayed....i think Trabe took me to some new year’s eve party back in 1988 or 1989 and you might have come with us ohhh i don’t remember but I was a total Trabian lover when i was a freshman and sophomore at MSU in 1988 and 1989 and still miss him...think the last time i saw him in person was at his wedding but got in touch with him earlier this year to find he’s no longer married.  I’m happy i found your blog/site because it just brings back memories...and looking at your Bill stories..i think i met him as well....anyway...maybe you’ll remember me…

Carey aka Careybear (name given to me by Trabian and was a member for short while on his Cosmic Sloth soccer team still have the shirt!! )