DISEASE

Iwas initially recruited into the cult of geekdom by account jasona in 1987. I had an Apple IIe, heir to my then-broken Timex Sinclair 1000 but no access to a network. Sure, I did a bit of multivariate statistical analysis on one of the UCSC servers but only for hard-won work-study dollars. Who would use a VAX for fun?

Jasona and I met in the Crown dining hall (he was serving) and he decided I needed to meet a real computer. He introduced me to fnet, forum, mtrek, and mudding -- all the classic ingredients of a misspent youth. Also working in the dining hall was account serling, who many years later helped me get a job at Borland, effectively launching my career as a professional geek.

The words Le Fou in French can mean mental disease, the violent behavior of a mob, Kuru (a BSE-like prion), or madman. Because I had been reading a lot of Alexandre Dumas at the time, (I was so full of myself over the fact that I could read it in French) I signed up for my first ucscb account under that psuedonym.

I met LaFolle (the 'feminine' equivalent of lefou) online shortly thereafter. Many people assumed I chose my name based on his. Living online as lefou I became dissatisfied with being tied to someone else's account and with people who couldn't spell my login. Besides, UCSC was converting to the CATS servers...

fleaI decided to change my login to something CATS-related. I tried fleas, mange, ticks, and other accounts (fleas on cats just sounded cool) but eventually I realized I was redundantly describing a series of diseases. Combining revelation with spongiform encephalopathy, I became disease@ ucscb.ucsc.edu and disease@ cats.ucsc.edu.

(Oddly enough, twelve years later LaFolle performed the wedding wherein I married the love of my life, quark, and I was privledged enough to attend his wedding to the lovely Ms. flannel.)

My fnet (ICB) nickname "RottenHead" comes from the first geek I met, zelly. We met through mutual friends back when she was in Merrill dorms and I was in Crown's Harvey dorm. We never got along. Eventually she was to accuse me of being a completely rottenheaded wrongboy.

She may well be right.