arrived at UCSC in the fall of 1989 with my Mac Plus and 1200 baud modem fresh from crawling BBS-s over the summer ready to get one of those 'free computing accounts' I'd read about in the college literature. (They had *banks* of modems... ooooh)

Eventually I find my way into the bowels of the CATS building. Thinking I'd
pick some cool name I start filling in the form and realize the name is too long. That end of the hallway might be too close to Elf Land because I was at wits end trying to compose an interesting name in the allotted letters. So 'bagera' was born to be pronounced 'bagheera'. (Think 'Jungle Book').

I started out on fnet mostly. I think I went by 'blue eyes' or something. It was a huge time sink but it was fun to sign on and have people greet you, get invited to private rooms, run your own room or just lurk. I got pretty bored with it after a couple months.

Working in the computer labs got me rubbing shoulder with the geek crowd. I think my first event was a latke party in Kresge grad student housing. (It might have been thrown by 'falcon' and 'dove'.) After that it was all down hill. Late night doughnut runs, drunken debauchery at the Resort, married women, women with boyfriends, Hell's Geeks and movie nights. The only permanent damage is that I prefer 'vi' over 'emacs'.

Rarely someone might ask what my name was, but mostly it just 'was' and I stuck with it because it was different even though it wasn't as cool as 'lettuce', 'tripstr' or 'amity'.

I'm your 'Out of Body Buddy'!