Hi. If you've never been here before, welcome. If you've followed a link from my old blog that led you here, welcome back. This is the latest iteration of my somewhat neglected blog.
You're probably wondering why I've gone to all the trouble. The answer is simple: geekiness. I'm a hopeless geek. If there's something new and different, I have to try it, and I have to try it in all possible forms. Basically, I'm never happy with the finished product, so I keep looking for ways to improve it.
The last time I tried to improve it, I hit on the idea of re-branding my online persona, using the baptismal name I was given when I was baptized and chrismated into the Orthodox Church. Since Larry Anderson is a fairly common name, and Lazarus Anderson is not, this seemed like a stroke of brilliance to me, at least initially. As time wore on, however, it became obvious that there were a few problems with it.
First, outside of my priest and a few people at my parish, nobody (and I mean nobody) calls me Lazarus or knows me by that name. This means that I was forever explaining to people why I was writing under a name that most of the world regards as not my own (even though, technically, it is). While the notion of a nom de plume is a fairly common one in the literary world, it doesn't work so well in the world of the Internet, where people look for names they know, unless you're looking for anonymity*and then, one's real identity usually emerges anyway. Just ask Fake Steve Jobs.
Second, it's long. Using lazarusanderson as a Twitter handle sounds fine until you've tried to type it in using the keypad on a Razr. I've always wished for a shorter name, and that ain't it.
Third, it fairly screams Biblical. If I were writing about exclusively Christian themes, it would make sense, but I'm not, and as time passes I find myself less interested in writing about Christianity and Orthodoxy than I am in writing about technology and the web. This is probably because I am painfully aware of how little I truly know, and I don't feel I should be presenting myself as some great Orthodox sage when in reality I am struggling along just like everyone else. I am not an expert. If you want to know about Christianity, read the Bible, or the Philokalia, or Fr. Alexander Schmemann, or Jaroslav Pelikan. Or better yet, go to a church and experience it firsthand. Anything I could write would pale in comparison.
On the other hand, Larand has been kind of a trademark for me for a very long time, as anyone who knew me during my McDonald's career can attest. For the abbreviation-challenged, it combines the first three letters of Larry with the first three letters of Anderson, and it's nicely compact and easy to type on practically anything. Hence my Twitter handle, larand, and the address of this blog: larand.wordpress.com.
So, it's back to square one. I'm Larry Anderson, and this is my blog. While nothing is set in stone, I plan to stick around here for a while. You can also find me at my homepage, which as of now is www.larryanderson.org. Thanks for visiting.