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Explain Your Screen Name

Glenn MacGrady

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I've always been bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the dazzling array of inscrutable screen names. If you don't mind, please explain yours.
 
I think I chose mine out of panic. When I was registering, I was asked what name I wanted to use. I thought I had to come up with something clever. I went for alliteration. I often go paddling, and my last name is Pitt. I hated “paddlingpitt” almost immediately. I wish that I had just gone with my name.
 
I've always been bewitched, bothered and bewildered by the dazzling array of inscrutable screen names. If you don't mind, please explain yours.
I first came to Maine and paddled the Allagash in 1981. I never left. I just made the name up when I needed one to participate in the digital age. Yeah It was a long time ago. I’m sorry if it “bothers” you.
 
I first came to Maine and paddled the Allagash in 1981. I never left. I just made the name up when I needed one to participate in the digital age. Yeah It was a long time ago. I’m sorry if it “bothers” you.

Me3rivers, welcome to site membership! Feel free to ask any questions and to post messages, photos and videos in our many forums. Please read Welcome to CanoeTripping and Site Rules! Also, please consider adding your location to your profile, which will cause it to show under your avatar, as this is in many ways a geographic sport. We look forward to your participation in our canoe community.

Screen names don't actually bother me. I was just referring to a favorite tune from Pal Joey ("Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered"), especially as later sung by Doris Day while I was learning to canoe in Maine, which I assume is what your "me" stands for. That's informative and interesting to know. This thread is mostly in the nature of getting to know each other a little bit better.
 
Although I use the lower case "s" when I sign off, my name, Snapper, was given to me when I was 4 days old. It's a long story but due to family arguments I didn't have a name until I was 3 days old; and it still didn't please anyone but my parents. The problem was my parents married out of ethnic & religious norms for my grandparents. My father came from an Italian Catholic background and my mom from a German/Dutch Protestant one. For two years after they married my grandparents didn't even speak to my parents. So, when the male heir appeared, naming rights became the new battleground.

Anyway, on the fourth day of my creation, my dad said every time I was hungry, I snapped my mouth open and closed like a snapping turtle going after something. Apparently I never cried to express hunger. I just snapped. From that came the nickname Snapper; which is now my legal name.

That's all for now. Take care and until next time...be well.

snapper
 
I’ve been building and paddling strip canoes since 1978 when I was 22 years young. MDB and I, along with another couple, regularly paddled many ADK waters in my strip canoes and would meet the same folks repeatedly. Quite a few of them knew my face, and that I was “that stripper guy”. Flash forward to 2006 and I needed a screen name for some “other” ADK outdoor related forum.
So stripperguy was a no brainer.
In full disclosure, I did have an impressive physique back then and some fairly good dance moves…but no tear-off pants!
 
Good friend of mine died shortly before I signed up to the forum. He called himself Boreal Bob, because he liked the boreal forest that circles the northern parts of the earth. I happened to need name in a hurry when I was signing up. Birch wasn’t enough so I added Boreal as I really am taken with the beauty of boreal birch forest.
 
Chick came up with mine. I was on here under many iterations of Viking, but due to some technical issues - no doubt caused by me - I had to keep re registering

As is the way with me, my frustrations and computers are closely linked. After launching a number of expletives and threatening to throw my laptop out the window, she completed the process, and when asked for a name the only boating related thing that popped into her head was Keeled Over. She thought it was rather clever, so I kept it.
 
A bit of a long story, but it’s a nickname from my early 20’s.

I was working at a Theater in Chicago as a sound guy. My buddy and roommate, another Bob, who was an electrician was on stage in a scissor lift focusing a light during a break in tech rehearsal. The director of the show, who was an owner of the theater, and well known actor was in one of the front rows. My buddy proceeded to drive the lift off the front of the stage and hung off the end precariously tipping toward those seated. As you can imagine there was a lot of screaming and folks were diving out of the way. I was up in the sound booth watching in shock and awe. Someone in the theater office came over the Clearcom (intercom) next to me asking what in the heck was going on. This Clearcom connection between the booth and office was rarely used and was notorious for sounding garbled. When I excitedly and briefly explained the current events it must have sounded like gibberish because when the theater manager came out on stage after everyone was ok she yelled “And who was the expletive who yelled Cheese and Beans in the Clearcom!?” And a nickname was born. No one I know calls me this anymore, but when I was looking for a handle when I started here there were several Bobs and I didn’t figure I would be that active anyway.
 
Mine is a contraction of my company name, first seen in 1978 as part of my Telex address.......

This is a Telex machine. It was used to communicate with International suppliers, many of whom used the contraction to identify the boxes of stuff they were shipping to me, my staff picked up on it and it just became a thing. I first used it online with the original Ontario Canoe Routes board in 1996 (OCR became CCR then MyCCR).

telex.jpg
 
I didn’t figure I would be that active anyway
You're pretty active for being an intended wall flower (and that's good. I had no intentions of being any more than a casual lurker [with a registration] when I joined)

My screen name goes back to college days... "Gamma" as in the 3rd chapter of my fraternity (nationally) and I was the 1214th member to be initiated into that chapter. I've used it pretty much universally on anything "internet" and, as a screen name, it has never been already taken.

I've sometimes regretted not just using my given name & I've thought about changing it (for branding purposes) since starting the website but I keep coming back to "screw it, the interactions here are for fun... not everything has to be branded".
 
Mine's a bit weird. I have an aversion to a large percentage of manmade, woven fabrics. I have yet to meet anyone with the same condition, but from what I've been able to glean, it fits the description of a mild form of "Sensory Processing Disorder". The same sort of thing as when nails are dragged across a chalkboard, the noise made by rubbing styrofoam, or the squeak of cotton balls. For me, it's polyester, rayon, and the feeling of a dry, microfibre towel that "sticks" to dry skin - among others (like bug netting - blech). I get terrible goosebumps and need to dig my fingers into something to make the feeling go away. I can sort of tell by looking at a fabric if it will have the effect, but it makes buying clothing/gear online a bit of a pig in a poke.

This first manifested when I was about 4 years old. As I was a child of the 70's, polyester was everywhere. My mom was dressing me and I complained that my pants were scratchy and that I didn't want to wear them. I put up quite a fuss, apparently.

Nobody calls me by the name - it's my own invention.
 
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