…the most wonderful thing happened.  A beautiful baby boy was born near the banks of the Saigon River in the city now known as Hồ Chí Minh to a U.S. soldier and a Vietnamese national midwife.  They named him Huu-Tai, which means skillful.

Huu-Tai moved permanently to the US, embracing his Vietnamese and American heritages joyfully and without confusion. He was renamed James on his naturalization documents.  He was and is fully American and fully Vietnamese. He is proud of his heritage and proud of his family history.

James grew up a Vietnamese-American in an unkind post-war America, unforgiving of one who had no part in what occurred. He endured racism and hatred, intolerance and ignorance, even in his own family. He stood up for himself, his brother, his mother.  He never hid from his reality.  He always stood proud, though often wounded by those who through their ignorance saw him as someone to be shunned, hated and ignored.

He had many friends growing up, but as I understand it, they were a rather rag-tag bunch.  He loved people for who they were on the inside – not what the rest of the world saw on the outside.  His own pain from the racism that surrounded him profoundly affected how he viewed the world.  Thankfully for the world, he turned that pain into tremendous compassion, a heart for service and a willingness to be part of the changes rather than part of the reasons things had to change.

Life had many things in store for James, many more than a single blog post can capture.  Every breath he has taken, every moment he has lived, contributed to the man he is today.  While the road wasn’t always easy or even cleared, he walked on, sometimes afraid, sometimes without caution, but always with purpose.

I was blessed with his arrival in my life at a time when I needed a friend.  I never thought I would be so madly in love with my best friend, but one day, he said the words that changed our lives forever.

What if…

I believe that we have the capacity to love many, to share our hearts and our lives with many. But I also believe that lasting love, enduring, deep, passionate love that binds hearts and souls for eternity requires care and feeding. It’s a living thing capable of cycles of  joy, passion, injury, hunger, impulse, anger as well as starvation, suffering and death.  Although “What if” changed our lives, James knew that the newness and excitement of “what if” would wear off if not treated like the most delicate, fragile, priceless thing in the world.  He taught me to love without condition, to share without reservation and to live without limits to the possibilities of tomorrow.  He showered love upon this wounded soul and set me free from a past that could have crippled me had I let it. I learned to trust even when my life experiences told me I should run and never look back.

So why am I telling you this?

Today is the celebration of the day that someone I dearly love and respect was born.  It’s not just any birthday. It’s his 40th birthday.  Forty is a milestone because of our culture, not because it actually means anything.  Because of the pop culture significance of this day, it seems appropriate to share some of the reasons why I love my husband so madly.

True to the name he was given at birth, he is skilled – as a father, as a husband, as a friend, as a partner, as a designer, as a man who influences others.  He will be embarrassed by this tribute because he is also humble.  He will say he’s not all this, not perfect.  But I haven’t said he’s perfect – he’s simply perfect for me.  I love him for all of his imperfections because they are what make him who he is – a perfectly flawed wonderful amazing man.

And now a note for my dearest husband

Chuc Mung Sinh Nhat, Huu-Tai.  Em yêu anh. Wo ai ni.  Je t’aime.  Je t’adore.  Ta gra agam ort.  Ayor anosh’ni. Eg elska tig. Aloha wau ia oi.  Ti amo.  It doesn’t matter how many times I say it, how many ways or how many languages. I love you.  Thank you for loving me, supporting me, showing endless patience and grace towards me and sharing your life with me.  Thank you for the role model you are for our sons and the many ways you sacrifice in order to do what is best for the family many times over what may be best for you personally.  Thank you for leading, for guiding, for following when I run too far ahead. Thank you for being the place I run to, not from, the love and partnership I crave and the balance I need.

Each moment is a gift.  Thank you for sharing your moments with me.

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In late July we’re headed to PA for what we hope is the first of many geek festivals.  G33kapalooza will be held July 24-26, hosted by none other than @lwcavallucci (also known as my sistah from another mother) and @chriscavallucci.  Coming in for the event is another very special geek gal whom I have come to love and respect, @gloriabell.  We’re excited to have the opportunity to commune for a geekified weekend with good friends.

UI/UXers are an awesome group of folks who truly invest in the community.  James and I have truly grown as a result of the networking we have done over the past few months.  It has been exceptional for me because the women I have met are the most honest, authentic and supportive professional women I have encountered in my various career iterations.   So while it is awesome that a number of us are all getting together, I must admit that I am completely and utterly excited to have a Geek Girl Power Summit with Lori & Gloria.   The respect and admiration I have for these two knows no bounds.  I look forward to having the chance to further solidify our personal and professional connections.

Let the wild rumpus start: No dates present

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Anyone who knows us is fully aware of our geek pride.  We wear it on the outside – so much so that even our cars tagged with Geek plates.  True story! True, true.

It seems that geek is chic these days, but we were geek when it was very uncool.

On this soggy, unseasonably cool day, I would like to share with you a video that says it all.  Thanks to @seattlegeekly for tweeting this!

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Geek Pride

Yes, I object. I object to the statement made by my dear husband, HeGeek, in his last post. We are NOT all geeks. Not even close. In fact, I must say that I am tired of all the so-called geeks out there – the wanna-be geeks who are the diet coke of geek – just one calorie, not geeky enough!!

It wasn’t long ago that being a “geek” was a bad thing. People spat it out as if it was an insult, snickering and giggling and making fun of us as we walked by. Unless of course, they needed something, and then they’d be nice – really really nice – just long enough to get what they wanted.

Being a geek is chic now, so everyone wants to be a geek. It doesn’t work like that, yo. You must have some sort of techy, geeky component to your “geekness” or you are definitely not a geek. Do you know Unix like I know Unix? Can you program in 10 languages and are learning 3 more, just for fun? Can you normalize a database or hand tag HTML? Can you build your own PC or create a home network? These are geeky things. These things make you a geek.

Being obsessive about Star Wars to the point where you can speak Klingon does NOT make you a geek. It makes you really really odd, but not a geek. You can know every single Heisman winner and how many of those guys went on to play basketball or how many also won the Walter Camp Award, but you are a Sports Trivia Buff but NOT. A. GEEK.

Science geeks…maybe…but certainly and most definitely NOT…Bacon Geek. NO! Bacon does not make you a geek – no offense to the bacon geek, but dood, you don’t qualify as a geek simply because you know a pig-load full of information about all things bacon. You are a guy who knows a lot about bacon. NOT. A. GEEK.

If you don’t understand my rant, you are not a geek. If you are one of those peripheral wanna-be geeks – look – we can’t all be millionaires, we can’t all be beautiful, and we can’t all be geeks.

Love us. Covet us. Worship us if you must. But understand – you aren’t a geek, but we love you anyway.

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Geek shirts, wear them proud!

I’ve been called a nerd before and I have always responded, “I’m not a nerd. I am a geek.” To which someone would ask, “What’s the difference?”

Easy.

A Geek is a nerd with social skills. To further back this up, I pulled up the always amusing, but sometimes informative, Urban Dictionary.

Listed below is one of the definitions listed on the website.

GEEK

One of four titles used to classify someone based on their technical and social skills. The other three titles are nerd, dork, and normie.

The difference between the four titles can be easily shown in table form:

Normie ……… Tech Skills (NO) – Social Skills (YES)
Geek …………. Tech Skills (YES) – Social Skills (YES)
Nerd ………….Tech Skills (YES) – Social Skills (NO)
Dork…………. Tech Skills (NO) – Social Skills (NO)

Normie: A normal person. Blah.

Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.

Nerd: A socially awkward person who has learned technical skills due to the spare time they enjoy from being generally neglected. Their technical knowledge then leads normies to neglect them even further, leading to more development of their technical skills, more neglection, etc. This vicious cycle drives them even more into social oblivion.

Dork: A person who, although also socially awkward, doesn’t have the intelligence to fill the void with technical pursuits, like a nerd, and is forced to do mindless activities. Almost always alone. Usually with an XBox. Like playing Halo. All day. Every day. Not even understanding how the Xbox is making the pretty pictures on the screen. Very sad.

So as  you can see, GEEKS rule!

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