-=> Quoting Damon A. Getsman to Nancy Backus on 02-Apr-2015 01:36 <=-

 DAG> Thank you for catching me up with the repost on here.  Not sure how
 DAG> I missed this one...

Other than getting behind, and/or not checking DADS...?   ;)  Kidding
aside, hopefully it had actually made it to you... there is always that
possibility, that it didn't.  
 
 NB>> I've never really seen the point of using the alias... unless one was
 NB>> thinking it would shield some bogus persona...  But then I've almost
 NB>> always been posting in echos where one's real name was important, like
 NB>> genealogy, where the whole point was to connect with real people who
 NB>> might be your distant cousins, working on the same ancestral lines as
 NB>> you are...  ;)   And it's better to say only things you don't mind being
 NB>> remembered, whether in face-to-face or in some electronic media... or
 NB>> even old fashioned snail mail..  :)   Of course, since I'm in an
 NB>> environment where sometimes people are indeed using aliases (some areas
 NB>> more than others), I've also honed some skills in figuring out who was
 NB>> who anyway...  :)
 DAG> Well when I was younger for a little while, when I first got into
 DAG> things in my early teens, I thought that maybe it was a shield.  Like
 DAG> I've alluded to before, I had a little naivety on my side.  When that

Also, the aliases were definitely more part of the teen scene... and in
certain networks...  I just never bothered, except in one local message
area that was somewhat a role-playing area... taking on personas to go
with the theme of the bbs... :)

 DAG> started to crumble, it was more like a badge of honor..  I'd been a
 DAG> [very briefly] published hacker for a bit, and I'd gained a little bit
 DAG> of repute with some of the alias-only BBS communities that I'd been a
 DAG> member of.  It was the fantasy of being an alias-known hacker that kept
 DAG> me going in it for so long.  Not sure why I even still really have it,
 DAG> now, but I don't really bother to keep it separate... Except for a
 DAG> limited extent against my professional persona...  Though anybody who
 DAG> knows enough to delve into fido and the other nets would learn right
 DAG> quick where the pair-up is at.

Probably.  :)

 DAG> I've never been too terribly good at matching text styles to
 DAG> posters, at least when they're trying to be dubious about it.  Never
 DAG> been looking in networks where I was looking for IRL people, either.  I
 DAG> guess I've always thought (and found) that the aliased people I knew
 DAG> would give me their names one day if they decided I was decent enough
 DAG> to meet up.  Lo and behold I have found quite a few that way, and some
 DAG> of them have, indeed, become my best friends and a few that've gone
 DAG> above and beyond have helped me in some of the most desperate stretches
 DAG> of my life before. 

Aliases or not, the bbs community has indeed been just that, a
community... and I've made fast friends over the years, too... both
locally and more broadly..  :)

 NB>> If you do check out the cooking echos (both Fidonet), be sure to stick
 NB>> around for a while to get answers for your questions... I've seen too
 NB>> many dip a toe in and not stay long enough to see that people have
 NB>> answered them... it might take a few days, like other Fido echos... ;)
 NB>> But you can ask for specific types of recipes... and expect that you may
 NB>> well be inundated, so be prepared to capture them for use later... :)
 DAG> Oh yeah I understand the traffic flow with the nets these days.  ;) 
 DAG> I haven't posted much of anything yet in there, but I will as soon as
 DAG> the kitchen is clean and I've got some time to think something through.

No problem with just jumping into conversations there, either... 

 DAG> I guess I've got plenty to write about (apart from the actual
 DAG> trademarked recipies) working at the place that I'm at right now, if
 DAG> nothing else. 

A staff's eye view of a restaurant, for one thing...  ;)

 NB>> The subjects there are quite diverse... from Old Time Radio (OTR) to
 NB>> trains (model and actual), to what things were like when we were growing
 NB>> up, to ham radio, to weather, and back and forth and all around again...
 NB>> some health issues, some small talk... It's like sitting around the old
 NB>> pot-bellied stove on our cracker barrels... ;)  And cooking is like
 NB>> pulling up a chair to the kitchen table to talk about food and cooking
 NB>> and all...  ;)
 DAG> I've noticed that.  I very much like it.  :)  Kind of makes me jones
 DAG> a bit for some campfire time.  That's coming up very soon here, though.
 DAG> I hope to have a trip to the trees under my belt before April is
 DAG> through here. 

At least your weather probably will cooperate for that... ;)

 NB>> I don't remember seeing you there (certainly not recently)... maybe it
 NB>> was a weather echo for one of the other nets...?  I was only mentioning
 NB>> Fidonet echos... since those are the ones I know the best.  Dovenet I
 NB>> lurked in from time to time in the past, but haven't even done that
 NB>> recently at all... One of the bbses I use regularly happens to have a
 NB>> few nets available, and I've been lurking in the general chat echoes for
 NB>> those, just to get an idea of what they are like, but haven't seen any
 NB>> reason to join in...
 DAG> You know now that I think about it I think that solar stuff was
 DAG> posted in BAMA or Fringe Theory talk or whatever it's called.  I've
 DAG> posted some solar stuff in the HAM radio echoes, too, where the solar
 DAG> weather updates go, but I've not received a whole lot of talk back on
 DAG> those areas yet.  I lurk in many areas where I'll jump in if given an
 DAG> appropriate opportunity.  ;) 

Ah... those are areas I've not been hanging around in... :)

 NB>> I moved the rest of the message to a new one, as this was getting
 NB>> pretty large...  ;)
 DAG> Gotcha.  This one turned out to be the perfect size for me to
 DAG> respond to quick before I need to be in the shower and off to work. 
 DAG> More will follow.  :) Best wishes!

Hopefully by now you have received that second message... I did try yet
again, and it seems to have been making it around, so hopefully it will
have reached you.  :)

ttyl          neb

... A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time.

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