Columbia--Good place to date a "nerd"?

    Last week at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon in his State of the County Address County Exec Ulman highlighted the many mentions our County gets in national publications.  We all have heard about Money Magazine labeling us as the second best place to live.  But did you know that Match.com called Columbia the 8th best place to date a nerd?  Places in Silicon Valley and university towns placed ahead of us but with NSA and APL it is no surprise that we have many engineer and computer folks in our area.  Somehow Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have made being a "nerd" cool.  As someone who has three family members employed at APL I think that the old stereotype of someone who has mechanical pens in a plastic pocket sleeve or has the image of the picture above is far outdated.  Some of the most interesting folks I met running with the Howard County Striders were NSA and APL folks. I don't want to image how different our community and schools would be without those two local employers.