I didn't mean to be a geek at the NewYears party. Really I didn't. I brought my laptop, and the host told me I could set it up at a table. I think that the intent was for me to post on FB or something like that. I had a set of data from the Faulkes that was burning a hole in my pocket, and so I told myself I would just look at one field.
I was looking for asteroids and started blinking the images, when the 10 year old daughter of the host came over and asked what I was doing. I explained to her and asked if she wanted to help. She had a huge grin on her face as she pointed out a faint, moving blip. Sure enough she had found an asteroid.
As other party goers noticed the excitement of my young helper and they started coming over and looking. Pretty soon about a third of them were looking over my shoulder. There were more people looking for asteroids than singing Karaoke. Ariel found one which she wanted to be named afterher cat PK. Her husband – who is a psychiatrist – didn't find any asteroids, but did find a dragon and a bunny. He named them both Rorschach. Our host was a comercial driver with a civil engineering background. He asked me if I was going to come join the party; a few minutes later he was hunting and spotted his first asteroid as well.
In all there were 5 potential finds. I really didn't mean to be a geek at the party, but since it was astronomy it changed my moment of geek into geek shiek. Everyone atthe party wanted me to thank LCOGT for sharing the skies with them.