When Did I Stop Being Me?

Back in the Olden Days when the internet was not open to the general public, and AOL was just an "online service," I chose "saraphen" as my Screen Name.

When my employer, a government agency which included telecommunication services for the State of North Carolina, revved up into the "information highway" (how hokey was that?), I jumped in too. The first search engine I used was gopher. I submitted a search through ftp, and two days later I got my answer via email. Even in those early days, I was Narciss-surfing...looking to see if I could find me!

I continued to use that same saraphen moniker whenever I joined a new website. At times I joined websites and used saraphen as a place-holder, so nobody else could use it and pretend to be me. AH-vanity!! There were times when my motive was stalker prevention, but now that I am no longer stalker-bait, I rarely search for me.

Then it happened one day I accidentally fell into "Bing." You know what my first search was. Bing's answer asked me to exclude results for "seraphin," and asked "Do you want results for saraphen." Cheeky little search engine, isn't it? So I clicked on saraphen and it gave me some of my places on the internet as well as several sites for the drug Sarafem (Prozac by another name). GEEEZ!

The last straw was when I requested images of saraphen and I got photos of this big guy!!

Kevin Seraphin