Where does your SBO username come from???

justsomeguy · Dec 22, 2014

Okay, I'll come clean.

Douglas Adams' great book The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, has a character named Zaphod Beeblebrox, a megalomaniacal president.

His psychologist, when asked to describe him, replied, "He's just zis guy, you know?".

mrducks · Dec 22, 2014

Doc_holiday said:
I heard it similar

A B C Da Puppies?
L M N O Puppies
O S A R, C M P?

Thanks Doc, I can add it to the very long list of things I don't quite understand. Like your user name, have read a lot about the guy. Very interesting fellow.

DHaranSailor · Dec 22, 2014

Mine comes from my favorite book series and one of the lands in it, D'Hara. The series is the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Found it when I was younger and find a lot of inspiration in it. Second is fairly self explanatory here.

group9 · Dec 22, 2014

Where I used to work, we were divided up into groups. At the time I first got on an online bulletin board, I was in Group 9, so I picked that as my sign on name. I have kept it, even though I retired from that job four years ago, because it is easy to remember.

I would rather start using "Hye Won" the name of our boat (named after our adopted Korean daughter, her birth name).

Phyrexii · Dec 22, 2014

My Australian wife's favorite childhood teddy bear's name is Farex, named after the mascot bear of a popular Aussie brand of baby food (the equivalent of the Gerber baby here). To my American ears, it sounded like "Firex". Back in the day, when I played a lot of online first-person games, I presumptuously adopted the name for myself (aren't I my wife's favorite teddy bear now?), but I wanted a unique spelling - aka Phyrex... BUT, to my surprise, the name was already taken! (Does she have another 'teddy bear'? Hmmmm...) So, I appended the II, and forevermore became known in the webosphere as Phyrexii.

shnool · Dec 22, 2014

Only because some of you have seen me post elsewhere.

My nick is unique... but doesn't have the great story most of yours has. Because its a "non-word," it has provided me a unique login for most systems around.

I too started with AOL username of "SHNOOL." And Genie before that, and Compuserve before that, and gulp, Prodigy before that... Circa 1987 I was online (before online was the internet). Yep it was my user account on BBSes, oooh what are they? Yep I had my OWN BBS too... Duh "SHNOOL's BBS"

But the story, actually dates back to nineteen seventy something. My brother is 10 years my senior, and of course my idol... He got his license when I was 6, and I hung around him when he'd allow it. His next door neighbor friend was in tech school for auto repair... he owned (who didn't) an early 1970-71 mach 1 mustang. Anyway I'd go over and generally get in the way while they'd shoot the breeze and work on his car. The neighbor kid "Steve" had a teacher that called all the unnamable parts of the cars "shnoolies" instead of "whatchamacallits, or doohickeys." When one day I got my chance as a 6 year old to "help" by climbing into the engine compartment and "SHNOOL get that SHNOOLIE down there." A 6 yo doesn't know part names so it would have been pointless to tell me what it was anyway. The name kind of stuck. For a while I was "SHNOOLie" then "SHNOOL." It's been with me for so long I can't remember when it wasn't. Pretty much only family still calls me SHNOOL, and mostly just my brother.

I've thought about trademarking the name but never bothered... I registered the domain name though. I'm an IT Manager, and house my own web servers for a couple of our companies, but my website is virtually non-existent. I spend so much time with computers/servers that I just can't be bothered (although if you use the wayback machine, you can find some funny old websites I built back in 1995-2000). I really just use it as a bare bones photobucket for myself these days.

Now if we wanna talk boat names... I had some great stories behind some of them...
"Goochy's Wish" - Capri 14.2
"Chute 'n' Dog" - First name of my Capri 25, renamed the day I bought her.
"Galileo's Dance" - not my naming - my Capri 22
"Anticipation" - Rename, rechristening of my Capri 25

--- as yet to be named present boat currently in winter storage getting a pretty extensive refit ---

Meriachee · Dec 22, 2014

Jackdaw said:
Story behind the pic:

I was soloing Jackdaw when a friend called me. John (the photographer) had just gotten to his boat and asked me to sail by so he could snap a few shots. We kept the 235s on a small Minneapolis lake, on buoys. The buoy field was in the NW side close to shore. On this particular day is was blowing 15-20 out of the NW, so while there were whitecaps on the other side, the buoy field was mostly in the lee. Except when a huge puff comes out of nowhere. Like in that picture. You can see the wind is way aft for the point trim the boat is in. I was in the process of easing the main when John snapped that. Not great sail trim, but a great picture!

No explanation or qualification needed. We see that a lot where the wind is coming over the trees and doesn't really show up for a couple of hundred yards, I liked the look of the bow digging in, and how it inevitably raises the rudder, but the clean flow fore and aft is cool, she's just really starting to load up.. Hang on, smile and wave. Those are the best times!

Winkie · Dec 22, 2014

Winkie , the nickname given to me by my mother.

capnrick · Dec 22, 2014

I am a local musician. When a friend of mine heard I had bought my boat, he introduced me on stage as "Captain Rick". I liked it, so I decided to use it as my stage name from then on, but I shortened it to "Cap'n" so as not to offend anybody who actually had the credentials (more like "Cap'n Crunch" than Captain Smith) After ten years, it has become my username here as well as most other places.

caguy · Dec 22, 2014

quadrille38 said:
Well now that's a boat name question rather than an a SBO name question.

Quadrille is of Celtic origins and refers to a four partner dance.
Also used in the equestrian world to refer to a four cornered pattern.

We saw the name in an article referring to a famous racing boat by the same name and for several reasons it seemed to fit
We are both of Irish decent
There are 4 in our family
We spent many years supporting our youngest daughters equestrian interests
it is our 4th boat - as in its our fourth dance with a boat
we liked the sound of it and
it's not some tongue twister that is going to befuddle everyone who tries to hail you on the radio.

I suspected that it has to do with the dance of sailboats before the starter gun goes off.

oldiesrocker2001 · Dec 22, 2014

Mine is (like Dave's) my original E-mail address plus the year I began using the net in earnest. Mine also describes who or what I am, having been a working musician for nearly 5 decades and a teacher for 4 of those decades.
I am also a man of many interests, and often spend as many of the warm weather days "murdering" the game of golf as I do sailing. Since I've lost dozens of golf balls but never a crew or passenger on my boats, I can only assume that I'm a better sailor than I am golfer.

Scott T-Bird · Dec 22, 2014

Jackdaw said:
Story behind the pic:

Not great sail trim, but a great picture!

I thought the rudder looked a little hard over. Small lake sailing at it's finest!

sunman · Dec 22, 2014

BEREA

26D single handed rig'd
them that know ( the meaning of the name ) know,
them that don"t
I wish U would

justsomeguy · Dec 22, 2014

sunman said:
BEREA

26D single handed rig'd
them that know ( the meaning of the name ) know,
them that don"t
I wish U would

So, enlighten us, if you wish?

down_shift · Dec 22, 2014

down_shift is my yahoo email, created about a week after yahoo mail opened in 97'. Combinations of my name were already taken so this was coined to represent the nickname my motorcycle buddies called me in the late 80's and interest in automobiles and racing that I still carry with me today. It is used in all forums that I participate in. It was funny when Nissan rolled out _SHIFT as their branding tag line in 02'.

lucky man · Dec 22, 2014

where my user name came from

I drove a gasoline tanker for a living. I was stopped on the interstate at a wreck with an empty tanker full of gas feumes that's when it could explode.I was rear ended one at a time by 3 different drivers 2 were driving cars at 75 mph at the last one was driving a 18 wheeler going 75 mph. they all took turns hitting me ,I have major health problems with back and neck .I am a very ----very ---LUCKY MAN I am still here. I piddled on a old hunter till I got her looking good now Ive taken up sailing and I am loving it. Thanks to God.

Sennaya · Dec 22, 2014

Sennaya means hay in Russian and the old Sennaya Ploschad in St. Petersburg, Russia is the infamous hay market in Dostoevsky's writings where all sorts come together. I have lived on the modern Sennaya Square and admired the sailors on the Finland Gulf. https://www.facebook.com/StPetersburgYachtClub and there is a Macgregor dealer in St. Petersburg, as well. The admiralty is 300 years old there and many ships port there as well as many boats on the 43 islands that make up the city. Sennaya is a great place to see sailors and vessels of all sorts and thus my fondness for Sennaya. Though ice fishing is the more visible activity in Winter

Check out the Sea Chanty festival if you visit in summer https://soundcloud.com/shantychoirmir

Meriachee · Dec 22, 2014

mrducks said:
Mine's not Mr Ducks as most think, it's from an old joke about they way country folk talk. I heard it as a child in Texas and it stuck. It should be done vocally, but this will have to do. You hand someone this and ask them to read it. It's a conversation between two people.

cmducks
maintducks
osarcmwangs
libmrducks

translation

See them ducks
them ain't ducks
oh yes they are, see them wangs (wings)
well I'll be, them are ducks

I like silly things, and have used this for many years.

Ok, I'll ask the question that everybody else was thinking; Do you know Jase and Willie, and if you do, would you let them on the boat? (and please don't take that out of context)

LuzSD · Dec 22, 2014

Our C30 is called First Light. We wanted to find a way to refer to her more personally so it was suggested that she could be affectionately called 'Luz" as it means Light. We were in San Diego when I joined this site so LUZ SD was perfect!