Source: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-photo/slowloris/52_deg_south/1137384000/dsc_0049.jpg/tpod.html

The thing with having such a common name is that it’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because googling yourself brings up tons of other people, all with your name, and you can get lost in the crowd. The bad comes when you go to the emergency room and the nurse tries to look up your file. After she scrolls through nine of you and you provide your middle name and a mailing address, she finally finds your chart.

I don’t usually google myself since the few times I’ve done it have proved pretty fruitless. But, one night about a week ago, I googled myself for the heck of it. After adding some search terms that I hoped would narrow down the number of results, I got an interesting view of where some of the articles I’ve written for the Herald have gone.

It was kind of fun, discovering where some of them ended up. And I got a nice surprise when I found that the Washington Post had picked up a story I wrote on lost fishing gear. I have no idea how they got a hold of it, but there was my byline, right above the words I had written.

So to those of you who don’t bother to google yourself because of a common name, you should try it some time. You might be pleasantly surprised.