Happy Father’s Day To All Techies

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com

Everyone has a daddy. It’s a simple fact. To blow your mind with another great factoid, everything has a daddy as well. Something always comes from somewhere. I was just blessed enough to come from a dad who is just as big of a tech-geek as I am.

Without my father, there’s a good chance I would not be working for redOrbit. To be more exact, without my father I wouldn’t exist at all, but let’s not be that guy.

A brief rundown of the kind of father I grew up with. Currently, my dad has more video game systems than me, a newer smartphone, a better television, a whole house audio system, and a really cool imagination that can essentially find a reason for him to get just about any gadget he shows interest in. It’s pretty much the perfect make-up for someone who needs a dad to talk tech with.

Sure, we have our conversations about life, music and sports, but technology has been an interest he instilled on all his kids from the beginning. My dad is an original hipster techie.

In the 1980s, dad jumped on a wagon that didn’t become a bandwagon until after the iPod by purchasing his first Macintosh computer. I didn’t grow up in a household with an IBM and a blue screen, but instead grew up with a Mac.

Because of my dad, I am one of a very few number of people that know Sherlock is not just a name for the famous detective, but is also the predecessor to Spotlight, the helpful search tool on a MacBook or iPhone. When everyone was bragging about how much software a Windows computer had available, I was bragging about how my computer still worked.

Dad didn’t just influence my nerdism for Apple gear, but also ushered me in to a world full of flying spaceships and lightsabers through games like Dark Forces. He and I would work hours and hours in the 90′s as we tried to conquer General Moch and his Dark Trooper project.

I remember when he came home from a date with my mom, and they had just watched the first Jurassic Park movie, and all he could talk about was the special effects. It didn’t take much longer for home surround sound systems to catch on, and my dad to catch the fever for it.

Soon enough, our house was buzzing with sounds that would creep up behind you, or around you, and make you mesmerized as you watched Will Smith kick some alien butt for two years in a row with Independence Day and Men In Black.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, and began the “Think Different” campaign, that’s when Apple started to really develop into what it is today. Even the way a product was packaged became a priority to the company, which ultimately also sparked a family tradition.

Our family bought our first iMac in 1999, kicking off a new tradition by snapping photos while saying “Ooo” and “Aah” as each seal on the packaging was broken. Dad was without a doubt the most excited, but it was that passion that was instilled in his kids’ memories that turned us all into the fanboys (and girls) we are today.

Eventually, almost every room in the house had an iMac, an eMac or an iBook somewhere tucked away, thus enabling me to be able to record my first garageband demo. Without Dad’s enthusiasm for technology, I don’t know that I would have ever had the skill set to Google-up my dreams and find a college to go to and learn about songwriting.

I remember traveling around with the band Luminate in 2007, and getting a phone call from dad, telling me he was talking to me on an iPhone. The moment we had returned from the road, it was the first thing I wanted to see. Dad was one of those customers who had gotten an iPhone so early that he was given a $100 Apple credit because they lowered the price of the device just months after its release.

It didn’t stop there. By the time I had gotten my first iPhone, dad was just a couple months away from getting his second. Then, Apple decided to release the iPad, and dad was one of their first customers. Still to this day, I do not have an iPad, but it’s again one of the first things I grab when I go home to visit the parents.

There are not a lot of guys out there who have been out gunned by their dad when it comes to owning video game consoles. While most dads probably scold their child for spending too much time gaming, my dad calls me to tell me about his latest accomplishment in the most recently released Call of Duty title. Although he may have a Microsoft Xbox 360, a PlayStation 3 and a Nintendo Wii, I can still take him, for the most part, when it comes to the Sony device.

If having all three of the main consoles isn’t enough, what gives him even more of an edge is that he still busts out his Sega Genesis when his childhood friend Steve comes over to play “Streets of Rage.”

So while most kids have to catch their parents up on the latest technology trends, I have to ensure I’m up-to-date so I won’t be shown up by my old man. It is a rarity to have a dad that is so cool and trendy, but it is even rarer to be able to think of that same guy as one of your best friends. To my dad, the Apple fanboy, the Halo warrior, and the avid gadget hunter: Happy Father’s Day.