Did you ever find yourself having a very technical conversation at work and suddenly have the thought flash into your mind, “I can’t believe this is me having this conversation… and understanding it!”? I guess it’s a common nightmare to imagine yourself in a situation where you are exposed as a fraud who actually knows nothing. That you’re a poser. But I don’t have that nightmare. For some reason, instead, my brain finds it hilarious that I’m ever taken seriously at anything. I’m a poser, and I’m getting away with it! Bwah ha ha ha ha ha!

I currently work in IT, but I don’t consider myself a computer expert by any means. I’m not a computer geek by training. I just kind of followed my interests and wound up here. So occasionally I’ll find myself deep in a conversation with the best minds at our company, and while they are listening intently to whatever it is I’m saying, a part of my brain suddenly starts laughing at the absurdity that any of these people take me seriously. The idea that I not only can participate in their discussions, but can actually add insight, is astonishing to me.

Something happened to me today that shed a little light on how I found myself where I am today. You see, I work in the field of Geography Information Systems (already I can feel eyes leaving the page… I promise that later I will share a recipe for a kick-ass margarita, so keep reading!). My boss told me this morning about a new dataset we received, and I actually got excited about having, at my fingertips, mapping of historical canals in the Lehigh Valley. It was then that part of my brain rolled over laughing at what a nerd I was. The other lobe stood up for itself, though.

“But, isn’t it cool that we can know so much about what makes a place unique? Think of the things we can do with that data!”

“You fucking geek”, scoffed the other half of the brain, and then proceeded to give the first half noogies and take its lunch money.

So I began to think about how I ended up in a profession that can still occasionally excite me.

When I was a teenager, in order to get out of the house and have some time to myself, I would go on long bike rides though the residential neighborhoods and suburbs of southeast Erie. I would think about the people who lived in those areas, and how their lives were different because of the surroundings they grew up in. Their local park was different than my local park. What was it like to have no corner store nearby? Or to have a shopping plaza instead? What was it like to grow up in an apartment instead of a house?

When I heard about the profession of landscape architecture, I thought I had found a profession that could interest me for my entire career. I would design neighborhoods. I would influence how generations of people grew up by providing the ideal environment. So, I got a degree in landscape architecture. But it wasn’t as interesting or as satisfying as I had dreamed during those bike rides.

In practice, my job was mostly doing only what the zoning ordinances prescribed. And there was no influence over quality of life. For a while I got to design parks almost exclusively, but even that was a series of compromises between budget and other peoples’ requests. I spent a couple years being miserable and not fully understanding why. Job dissatisfaction was a part of it.

And then a series of coincidences allowed me the opportunity to make a lateral move inside my company to the GIS team. I had a little experience with the software, as well as a great aptitude for computers, my landscape architecture teammates quit to start their own firm, the GIS guy was looking for help, and the Vice President liked me enough to let me name my own position. I’ve stayed with it ever since, even as the GIS team lost and gained members, and moved from Engineering to IT.

But what I realized today was that what I was really thinking about on those bike rides was geography. Geography isn’t memorizing state capitals; it’s the study of places and man’s relationship to them. What I was really interested in was not creating neighborhoods, but learning about what makes one place a neighborhood and another a just a row of houses. Where is the line between those places and why? The knowing is enough for me. And, with luck, once in a while I can provide that knowledge to someone who can use it do something important.

In practice, that something important is more often to plan sewer maintenance, but still. The toilets’ gotta flush. It would be a crappy neighborhood if they didn’t. (Read that again. Sometimes I’m so clever I sicken myself.)

So if I occasionally get excited about some new obscure layer of data that has just become available, well, then I’m a geek. It’s another piece of the puzzle that helps us understand the world we live in. Analysis of that data shows us the world in a way we haven’t seen before, either because we never looked at that way, or it was too complex to do before computers made it possible.

And as a by-product of becoming good at GIS analysis, I became knowledgeable about software, databases, and programming. Which means I can participate in conversations at work with people who are much smarter than I, and occasionally bring a bit of experience that nobody else has. Which I still find amazing.

For those of you that skipped ahead to the recipe, I don’t blame you. I promise that this margarita is a better blend of sweet and sour, and less sappy, than that prose I just posted. This isn’t a totally original recipe; I stole the ingredient list from a great local Mexican restaurant. But the amounts are made up by me. If it turns out to be your secret recipe, slag off. I don’t care.

GERRY’S FAVORITE MARGARITA

Mix in an Old Fashioned glass with ice cubes.

2 shots Cuervo 1800

2 shots Cointreau

About 1/2 shot of Rose’s Lime Juice

Lemon juice; just enough to cloud the drink.

I never actually measure, the point is that it’s about equal parts Cuervo 1800 and Cointreau, some lime juice, and a splash of lemon. Ideally, it would be served with a salted rim and a lime wedge, but I can’t be bothered with that at home alone. Which, as we all know, is the most satisfying way to enjoy a drink that is 90% liquor.