Origins

I feel like I once wrote a post titled Origins already, but, here goes again... I've been asked by two readers about my namesake, and so I figured today would be as good a time as any to divulge.

In fourth grade, I was taking a test and finished early, so I had some time on my hands. I looked around the room and remember locking into the alphabet displayed across the top width of the chalkboard -- you know, that cursive correct-form alphabet that no one actually still uses once they pass the fourth grade? Anyway, I started combining letters and resulted in:

ZACKMANBEEDOWLOW

It turned into the name of a comic book character I only slightly developed. He looked like this guy to the left. What followed was zilch, however, and I never actually created anything past a name and a face.

However, when my family got the internet during my seventh grade year, America OnLine was the big name in service. Those three telephone numbers, all of which were usually busy, resulted in a person spending up to thirty minutes or so just to actually connect to the 'net. Once on, of course, it took just loads of time to actually complete a task as simple as checking email, or seeing a website. Goodness, it was so long ago and so slow ago. Either way, when we got AOL, I was able to choose a username. I chose Beedow, which, as you may have already surmised, is an abbreviated nickname derived from the aforementioned moniker.

Flash forward to the present time. I use Beedow as a nom de plume and am consistently referred to by this pseudonym on the world wide web.