My identity/personal brand

I’m doing a search of “my personal brand” which is pretty much just my name. I’m a little disconcerted to find out what’s out there. I’ve googled myself over the years and am familiar with what I find. I look like I have an interest in the Internet, economics and herbs. That’s OK.

But I’ve just found a listing of my old addresses and phone numbers at www.zabasearch.com. Some even have a birth date. I’m pleased that I’ve frequently lied about this fact over the years. (But only online. If you ask me in person, I will tell you the truth.)

It also looks like Intelius has a really old email on record. It makes me wonder if I should be frequently changing the one I use. I looked up the name of an old friend I’d like to get in touch with again, and apparently Intelius could, for a fee, give me phone, address, average income, and value of her home. That’s creepy.

I began my search at pipl.com. It posts photos. One of them was of a man I know who lives in Pakistan. Another is of a professor at the U. These photos that are not me are from comments I left on a Ning site.

Another search site is www.yasni.com. It pulled up old meeting minutes. And a photo of some man I’ve never met. It also displays a tag cloud. These are my tags: Abuzzahab Archives Buckley Bunge Burks CEHD Christian College December Economics Education Francis George Great Human Development Interview James Tobin January Knowledge Center Magazine Marketing Maroon Minnesota Nobel Prize Robert Stigler TargetX University Winner Writing

I see that I still have a Friendster account. I didn’t set it up. Some woman in the Philippines did, but she used my yahoo email to do it. And every so often she gets back in somehow. I can tell because I start getting IMs and emails telling me “I love Asian women.” Also creepy. But I checked and Friendster still reports I’m old and married and in the U.S.

Apparently I set up two MySpace profiles. I’d never noticed. I don’t use either. I have a Spoke account I totally forgot about. Somehow it has me working in Duluth. But the photo is me. I think I’ll just delete it. I think LinkedIn has supplanted Spoke. But now I have to determine what email address I used when I signed up.

This is making me think more carefully about having multiple email accounts and signing up for things just to see how they work. I might have to create a personal “un-brand” for such purposes. That might be fun. Who shall I be? Maybe I’ll be that 98-year-old CEO who makes $25,000 a year that I sometimes pretend to me when completing surveys asking for personal information I see no reason for having to complete.

I find it funny that I was asked during an interview what social networks I belonged to. I have forgotten so many of these. I signed up for Jaiku over a year ago and it’s similar to Twitter. I never used it.

Hey I made scholar.google! That’s kind of cool. The article is old, but it’s been cited twice.”Kristeen Bullwinkle (1998) suggested that more integration of textbook, Internet, and websites would enhance the learning of economics.” Who knew?

Check on who is using your preferred Internet username and curse away: http://usernamecheck.com.

If you’re overly curious about yourself, take a look at http://jobmob.co.il/blog/online-reputation-management-resources-tips/ and go to town.

Dogs I have known

My first dog must have been Sugar, who I do not remember. But I’ve heard so many stories of how after she died, the neighbor dog would come every morning and wait at the back door for her. It’s too bad that dogs don’t get to run around with their friends any longer. It was often fun to see a few dogs playing in a field together. But I also recall riding my bike or pony past loose dogs and being terrified that they were going to chase me. And often they did.

The neighbors had a German shepherd I was particularly scared of. When I was maybe five years old, I went outside one morning and saw part of a kitten on one side of the sidewalk and it’s leg and thigh on the other. That dog had torn my kitten apart. He also got loose once and left a trail of baby rabbits (we raised bunnies) across our yard and the neighbor’s. And once, while riding my pony, Pokey, on the sidewalk on our way home with my sister, that dog ran out and jumped up high enough to get its front legs on Pokey’s back. I fell to the ground. Pokey was such a good pony that while she did step on my chest, she only left a bruise.

Mostly I think dogs are good for you. I miss taking Judd out walking during the winter. The colder it was, the happier he was to be outside and running. I’m sure he was responsible for most of my vitamin D intake during those months. I loved feeding off his emotions and élan. He’d rather run than eat.

Although when he did eat he didn’t always make the best choices. He once ate baking soda that my sister had in her barn to use on the goats. It was during the winter. His poor little tummy make all sorts of racket and he left large foaming piles out in the yard.

Dogs seem to be easily confused. My sister, Everbelly, had an Irish setter named Casey. Casey was a very good and well-behaved dog, but she thought she was a cat. This didn’t pose much of a problem until both she and the cat had babies. Casey chose to nurse the cats rather than her puppies. Even after the cat had weaned her kittens, Casey would nurse them. My sister used to find her with bloody nipples and have to kick her and one persistent kitten apart. Casey managed to raise only one of her own puppies and each time the cat had kittens, she lactated. Later Everbelly had another dog, a border terrier, who would nurse baby goats.

Perhaps female dogs are simply very maternal. I remember my father talking about how every time they brought my oldest sister home, and several time during the day, they would have to unwrap her and show her to the dog. She was very protective of the baby and would frequently need to check on her. It gives a new meaning to the word bitch.

Weird/interesting dog facts:

• Teddy Roosevelt’s dog, Pete, ripped a French ambassador’s pants off at the White House.
• Basset Hounds cannot swim.
• Three dogs survived the sinking of the Titanic—a Newfoundland, a Pomeranian, and a Pekingese
• Up until the late 1800s, Collies were known as Scottish Sheepdogs