A rose by any other name...

ShadowRun300 made a very astute/funny observation on one of my last musings that made me realize that I owe ya’ll some more details.  

The internet is an interesting little world where you can find just about anything about anybody.  All you have to do is Google someone and voila you have their entire history down to what shoes (or is that shooz?) they wear.  When I started out on this journey almost 5 years ago, I was concerned about just how much to put out there for the world to see.  I am a cautious soul and always paranoid that someone will use this information to no good end.  Some have put themselves out there and I am in awe of your courage/stamina.  From the friends I’ve made over the past few years, I know more about other people’s injuries/illnesses/maladies than I have about my own family.  I have had the distinct honor/pleasure of meeting two great blogger friends in the real world and was able to share some of my history along with several lame stories/jokes.  So in the interest of transparency, I thought I would peel back the curtain a bit to let you in on my little world. 

First of all, I go by several names on the net, some used more than others.  I am not trying to hide behind any nefarious intent, but when I set up various accounts years ago, I created a few different names because 1) it was easy to remember, 2) wasn’t sure of the site security, or 3) the name was already taken.  Over the years, I have dropped a few of the handles because, quite frankly, it was silly to maintain several different personas.  

Agg79 - First of all, as SR300 discerned, my agg79 nom de plume comes from my Alma Mater:  Texas A&M University (or as it was originally called, The Agricultural & Mechanical College of Texas).  Located in the middle of east Texas, a good 100 miles from any major metropolis.  Close to 50,000 students take up residence there every fall/spring.  The 4 ½ years I spent there had a major impact upon my life.  I entered college as a young, introverted, long haired, know-it-all high school punk, and left with a degree, a commission and the love of my life.  Some people may have heard of this school, it has a certain following, a certain spirit that is hard to explain.  People go there for different reasons.  For me, it was an epiphany and gave me direction in my life and made me the warped person I am today.  The nickname for anyone who attends school is Aggie (from the Agricultural legacy) and we wear that title as a badge of honor.  I cannot even begin to count the amount of Aggie stuff I own/wear.  Agg79 is a subtle reference to my school and the year I graduated.  I tend to use this in a lot of my e-mails correspondence, various shopping sites, and my Disqus profile.  I even tied my profile photo to a self portrait I did when I was last at Philmont Scout Ranch (channeling my inner Ansel Adams).  If you get ever a note on your blog from some kook called agg79, that's moi.   

What a stud...

Aluminut – many moons ago, when I was just a novice on the net, I stumbled across the blogosphere and started following a number of blogs on a regular basis.  At one point I was reading up to 40-50 regular every day.  I was mostly a reader and didn't make a lot of comments (due to my foot in mouth fear).  Several have dropped off the radar, retired, or just disappeared altogether.  At one point, I was inspired by this crazy blogger lady who lived in up in Minnesota and her funny/entertaining tales and pictures of her kids, friends, co-workers, winters, bowling, and life in general and I decided that I would attempt to enter the world of blogging.  When I created my site, I had no idea what I was doing so I set up my profile with the name of Aluminut.  That is a deliberate misspelling of Aluminum in deference to my affinity for Airstreams.  I own this name across a few other sites whenever we are talking trailers. 

Tanker00 – Not sure where I parked this one, but it goes back to my stint in the Army.  Defers to my field of expertise driving the ultimate ATV (M60A3).  I don’t use this one any more except for one old AOL profile.   

J Gwyn or Gwynn79 – this goes way back to my days when I was working on my MBA in Business School.  Several profs had us do case studies on fictitious characters and I created a Jason Gwyn personal that I would model after my own experience/opinions.  I have always liked that name - I sorta felt it had a 007 ring to it (The Name's Gwyn, Jason Gwyn).  I’ve used this profile to set up accounts for various on line newspapers just to read the opinions section and it's set up on my yahoo mail and Gmail accounts.  

I've been working to purge out some of these older names as they've lost their true meaning and I no longer really need them, but it hard to break away from your roots.