JUST FOR FUN--HOW DID YOU GET YOUR FORUM NAME?

[jemac]

Back in the early 80's. I was into computers before home computers were a thing.  For Christmas, my father bought me a digital subscription (300 baud dial up) to the Greenville News.  He chose the username "jemac", a mixture of my first and last names.  As a hat tip to my father, I continue to use jemac in one form or another for most of my user names.

Jemac

[JoeZ]

JoeZ is my name and is therefore what I prefer to be know as. I dislike anonymity. Sorry that I'm not sorry about it.

[Ohio Piper]

Chris Garlich and I go by the forum name Ohio Piper.  Born and raised in the Buckeye State and I play the bagpipe. 

[Messer]

My last name is Schmidt - that's the German "Smith". Messer is German for blade/knife - so a Messerschmidt (or Messerschmitt) is a Knifesmith/Bladesmith.

I have been a custom knife maker in the past, so the alias Messer seemed appropriate. Plus, I'm a fan of WWII aircraft and Messerschmitt made some good ones!

[ProgressNotPerfection]

At my first Appleseed event, my perfectionism was getting the better of me and Catch 10-22 couldn't understand why I was disappointed that all my shots were within the 3 or 4 "ring" of one of the targets.  My darling husband kindly informed him that my disappointment was that they weren't all a dime size group in the 5 "ring".  At which point Catch 10-22 gave me his now infamous side eye and told me those groups were juuuuuust fine.   

Fast forward a month or so when I'm trying to find a Christmas gift for hubs, and these forums were the only way I could get ahold of my shoot boss from that event and still keep the gift a surprise.  When the system forced me to create a name in order to be able to message my SB, I immediately remembered his advice against perfection.  Therefore, Progress not Perfection was born. 

The funny thing is, so many prior posts have talked about how life experiences inspired their forum name but mine is kind of the opposite.  Progress not Perfection started as my forum name and has morphed into a life motto/daily reminder. 

[Bundt Pan]

Very creatively, but someone already had chuck, so added an initial

[JustKim]

bump

[AdmiralKirk]

CaptainKirk was already taken...

[Mike AKA Bandaid]

I was a firefighter and a paramedic for many years. While on a fishing trip with several friends (who are all in the Army, and ALL about nicknames) we hiked in to a high mountain lake. During the 8 mile hike in, I had a couple of incidents that resulted in some scraps and bumps. So, after applying the necessary band aids, one of them looks over and says, " Jesus Mike, you're the medic. You're supposed to hand out the bandaids, not need them. Band Aid, ha ha! That's your nick name!"
Now, in the fire service, much like the military, if you get a nickname, it sticks. You can either have fun with it, or whine and cry, and then the blood is in the water, and the sharks will come in! I chose to accept it, and it has been my nick name for years.
In 2019, I hike the first 1,000 miles of the pacific crest trail, and my trail name? Band Aid. Within a couple of hours of hiking on the trail, I had a couple of booboos and scratches, and the bandaids came out. Another hiker instantly said "Dude, you really did earn the trail name "BandAid"!

[mmirate]

Like many others based out of the Northeast, I am just brimming (not!) with nominative creativity.

Shortly after I heard about Project Appleseed, I saw there was a forum, so I just put up the same username (first initial, last name) that I've gotten used to putting everywhere else around the Internet.

Even after my first several shoots, taking a hat, taking a red hat; all the way until I made it to my first IBC, nobody told me these usernames were supposed to be readily pronounceable in the field!

[NJrefugee]

Mine was easy. I had escaped the totalitarian, anti-2A state of NJ and found freedom, liberty, and sanity in Texas!

[Gus]

In 1983 I was tagged with Gus as a nickname. This was at my first duty station, Tinker AFB Oklahoma. For some reason on the squadron bowling team, everyone had a nickname based on the initial of their middle name. The catch was you could not choose your own nickname.

I guess I liked it because it was my nickname throughout my Air Force career and to this day. Anyway, it works for me.

In Liberty,

Gus

[wingwrench]

A couple of jobs ago... The owner of the business bought out several businesses at the local county airport. I had the choice of winter lay offs ( not much Winter paving / excavating work in Michigan in the Winters) or go work out at the airport. I was an extra set of hands for the A&P's / I A. For around six years. Neat job!!

Hence WingWrench.

[JustKim]

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW!! (BUMP)

[Steck]

You know someone named Smith who gets called Smitty?  Well, it's like that...

Anyhow, I'm  thisclose   to changing my legal name to my forum name, it's that prevalent.

[Smallbore (Timothy_D)]

My original "Rifleman" name upgrade ("La Victoire Ailee") came from the Phantom of the Opera. It was a nod to several things in my life over the last 30 years.
Problem is, pronouncing it in French confused the Hell out of Appleseeders.

So, rather than try to explain it, I just picked a discipline that I started shooting a couple of years ago and . . . here we are.

I'm still debating adding "Vintage" to it, since I run a 70 year old Remington 513T and canvas coat against the other competitors' modern Anschutz and Walther rifles wearing full leather shooting garb.

I definitely stand out as a relic on the line.

[LDB415]

My initials combined with everyone's favorite day of the year, income tax day. (It's rememberable)

[Fulcrum]

I joined the forum before becoming a volunteer. I was just a shooter with questions, and I had been advised on the r/appleseed subreddit that I would get better answers on the forum, so I joined. The first thing you have to do, of course, is pick a username. I've made the mistake before of picking a username without giving it much thought and then being stuck with it for years, so I paused to think about it.

I wanted something related to the theme of fighting for Liberty and throwing off tyranny, but I didn't want it to be straight out of the American Revolution. I'm kind of a science fiction movie nerd, and I've always thought the rebellion fought by the underdog Rebel Alliance against the powerful Galactic Empire in Star Wars echoed some of those themes. I was staring at the screen, trying to think of a Star Wars-inspired name, when I looked up in the corner and saw the Simple Machines logo — a lever and fulcrum — and it immediately clicked! In the Star Wars universe, Fulcrum is a code name used by the agents of a secret network who recruit for the Rebel Alliance, gather and distribute information, and assign operations to different cells of the alliance. That's where I got the name Fulcrum.

[Potato_Hole]

Mine was the nickname of my 9th great grandfather, who as a young boy was hidden in the "potato hole" (his brother, "tub", was hidden under the wash tub) during the Indian raid in Virginia in 1644 that resulted in the death of their father.  The fowling piece used for defense of their home is in the state history museum in Richmond.

[Zorak]

In the 90s, some friends and I drove from Michigan to Jim Thorpe, PA to play in a world record paintball game. Over 3000 people attended. To get there, we drove through the tail end of a hurricane. We got up way too early, got lost in rain-soaked fields (or more properly, our local guide got us lost in fields so wet that he couldn't recognize things anymore) and then we ran around firing paint pellets at people for hour. When we got back to the hotel, we were absolutely wrecked... and Cartoon Network was airing a Space Ghost: Coast to Coast marathon. That madness infected us all, but I was the most terminally online, so I started using Zorak as an FRS radio call sign (during games) and forum handle before anyone else got to it.

[American Amazon]

"We are no ways dispirited here, we possess a spirit that will not be conquered. If our men are all drawn off and we should be attacked, you would find a race of Amazons in America." -Abigail Adams (letter to husband John dated 9/20/1776)

Regarding an earlier post in this thread: The very very best forum name, in my opinion, belongs to MinuteMom!