[Nerdspresso] Digging Up My Fossilized Dino Baggage with Jurassic World Rebirth

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I was working my first grown-up job during the summer of 1993. It was a production company that made medical news reports. They sold them to small TV stations around the country so their local news could cover the same breakthroughs as larger markets. My job was to proofread and fact-check all the scripts, which made me very popular with all the reporters. You want to tick off a seasoned journalist? Just have a 23-year-old question their choices.

It was a humble start to what I thought would lead to a glorious career in the media. Working overtime poring over scripts, I was paying my dues. Obsessing over every detail, I racked up long-distance fees calling doctors and scientists so I could check the accuracy of our reports. In truth, I was an earnest nerd with a yellow highlighter, a medical dictionary and delusions of grandeur. I was not very popular in the office, but it was a start.

Remember this Nerdspresso column from Jeff Stanford about the best movies to watch during the Thanksgiving holiday?

GOBBLE GOBBLE!

Today ... double-checking the spelling for pneumococcus. Tomorrow ... Hollywood! I took it all very seriously, spending hours and hours in a tiny office with piles of scripts and videotapes. I stayed late and came in on weekends. Took additional assignments to curry favor with my corporate overlords. When my friends called me on a Friday afternoon to invite me out for pizza and then to see that new Spielberg flick about dinosaurs, I politely turned them down. I had work to do.