why shakedust

A few people have asked why I go by shakedust, so here is the story.

When I was in high school I was in Bible quizzing for one year in a non-denominational league. In that year I determined that I was either not going to study at all or go all out. I eventually went all out. That meant that I went to more tournaments than I would have otherwise attended.

Most teams had names that simply described where they were from like Berien, or Quad Cities, or Pittsburgh, or Detroit. Some teams had cute names. Our church team was called the Outcasts based on some verse from Jeremiah. The team name Gardner Chapel would have sufficed, but at the time we thought a cheesy team name would be fun. I still think it was.

That year the league from Akron sent two very good teams to a tournament that I attended. One was called Return of the Magi and one was called Shake the Dust. The names were out of two separate passages in Matthew. In the main quizzing room the scoreboard could only hold so many letters so long team names were abbreviated. When I saw the Shake the Dust team playing in that room for some reason the condensed Shake Dust looked cool to me and it stuck in my memory.

Fast forward to my Freshman year in college about six months later. My roommate was setting up my first IM name for me. He asked what I would like to use. I literally came up with ideas for twenty straight minutes and everything that I liked was already taken. In an act of desperation I asked if shakedust was taken. It wasn't. I used it.

Now I frequently use shakedust as a username because it is almost never taken. In fact if it is taken when I try to use it, I usually assume that I must have already requested that username at that site before and go to the "Forgot your password" section of the site.

There you have it. The name originated out of practicality rather than something incredibly deep. At least "Off the Bridge" has some meaning.