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Our Mom and Dad

Our Mom and Dad are both scientists. Dad is a chemist and Mom is a biochemist.

If you want to know about Geeks and Nerds, meet our parents. Their idea of "going out" is going to the library or book store. When we eat spaghetti they have an enthusiastic discussion about the high heat capacity of tomato sauce. When they see the rainbow colors of a drop of oil in a puddle, they get all excited about thin layer refraction. When they see a bug, they'll not only tell you what kind it is, but also inform you of interesting facts about its life cycle or physiology. They read Scientific American for fun.

As you probably guessed, our parents met each other in a laboratory. They took an Invertebrate Zoology class together in college where they learned about creepy crawly things that have no bones. Just how romantic can it be to peer at worms under a microscope?

When they read about Stephen Hawking's family they couldn't figure out what was so odd about this:

Basil King: "I can remember visiting the Hawking home several times. It was the sort of place where, if you were invited to stay to supper, you might be allowed to have your conversation with Stephen, but the rest of the family would be sitting at the table reading a book--a behavior which was not really approved of in my circle, but which was tolerated from the Hawkings because they were recognized to be very eccentric, highly intelligent, very clever people--but still a bit odd." (p. 16 in Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time: A Reader's Companion, Bantam Books, New York, 1992)

When they aren't tinkering around with test tubes, Dad likes to read comic books and drink Pepsi. Mom likes all the James Herriot books and loves to eat M&Ms. Both of them like Sci-Fi books. They have read just about all of the Star Wars books, and keep looking for new ones to read. Both of them loved Gary Larson's Far Side cartoons, and they were so disappointed when he retired. And of course, both of them are absolutely addicted to the Internet.