Hey, do you like having electricity in your home?  I sure do! What about the radio? It’s awesome, right?

How much do you love your cell phone?  If I’m more than a few feet from mine, I literally – and I mean literally – get anxious. How about neon lights? They’re fun, right? Or your TV remote control? Without it we would have to stand up and walk to our television and press the up button about four dozen times to switch to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo on TLC.

What about radar? I’m totally pleased to know that it exists when I’m being propelled at 36,000 feet through the atmosphere at 500 miles per hour.

(Warning: this is a nerd post.)

Fellow nerds, gather round. Guys? I love us. I also love all of the things listed above. Guess what? One nerd invented (or pioneered the study of) all of them. That nerd was actually a Supernerd by the name of Nikola Tesla.

Though I consider myself a nerd much like Tesla, we’re a bit different. When Tesla was a kid, he could perform Calculus in his head. I still use my fingers to subtract. Thomas Edison was one of his first employers. My first employer was an ice cream shop. He pioneered the science behind X-rays. Yeah, well, I pioneered the science behind the Goonies All You Can Eat Baby Ruth Movie Watching Marathon (I personally think I win that round). He’s got car companies and power plants and airports and moon craters named after him. I … uh … let’s move on, shall we?

Aren’t you curious to learn more about Nikola Tesla? To find out more about him you should visit the Nikola Tesla Science Center. Right now, it’s located in NOWHERESVILLE, USA. That’s right, this Serbian-born, Naturalized US Citizen (he’s been said to have valued his American citizenship more than anything else) has, so far, received from the US a couple of statues and a street corner. To top it all off, basically everyone else has taken credit for his pioneer work and inventions.

Well, guess what? His original lab, property and tower on Long Island, New York (named Wardenclyffe) still stands and guys, it’s for sale!  Hey, that would be way better than all of us hanging out at 40th Street & 6th Avenue (aka Nikola Tesla Corner)! In fact, Friends of Science East, Inc., a not-for-profit organization incorporated by the State of New York, was established in order to develop a regional science and technology center on eastern Long Island on Tesla’s original lab site, and with 50% matching funds from New York State, they’re trying to raise enough money in the next six weeks ($850K of the $1.7M needed) to buy the property before a commercial developer purchases it for a shopping center (though it sounds like a plot from a kid-hijinx movie starring Gilbert Gottfried, I swear, it’s real life).

So if you are reading this post on your iPhone in an electrically-functioning building in Times Square, while buying batteries for your TV remote and listening to Top 40 on the overhead radio, maybe throw a couple of bucks at this IndieGoGo campaign being organized by The Oatmeal.

Nerds… friends of nerds… I call upon you: it’s time unite.

(P.S. Nikola was 6’6″. Tall boy nerds = hottest nerds, ever)

Image via Tesla Memorial Society