Writer's Block: Your Username
Aug. 18th, 2008 02:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
furrbear[Error: unknown template qotd]
I've always been something of a telco geek, including, back then, knowing all the prefixes that went with each central office.
Mid-1980s: I was moving to a new place on Fort Worth's west side and called SWBell to arrange phone service. The representative rattled off the new number, "377-something."
"377?," I asked. "Is that a new exchange?" "Yes," she answered. "Umm, are the last 4 digits 2327 (BEAR) available?"... "Great, I'll take them.
Thus I started with 377-BEAR, handy since US Hwy 377 ran nearby.
About a year and a half later, I was moving closer to downtown, next to the museum district, to be closer to the hospital where I worked. Being the same central office, I got to keep the same phone number. But the association with Hwy 377 no longer fit.
So, one afternoon, taking a break from a Numerical Analysis take-home final, I started playing to see if the letters associated with 377 spelled anything. WOO-HOO! EUREKA!!!
I now had FRR-BEAR for a phone number. (That's where the double-R comes from.)
It worked. I'm bearish and certainly furry. Fast-fwd to the '90s: Moved. No longer had that number, but the nickname had stuck, so the online moniker "FurrBear" fit.
I've always been something of a telco geek, including, back then, knowing all the prefixes that went with each central office.
Mid-1980s: I was moving to a new place on Fort Worth's west side and called SWBell to arrange phone service. The representative rattled off the new number, "377-something."
"377?," I asked. "Is that a new exchange?" "Yes," she answered. "Umm, are the last 4 digits 2327 (BEAR) available?"... "Great, I'll take them.
Thus I started with 377-BEAR, handy since US Hwy 377 ran nearby.
About a year and a half later, I was moving closer to downtown, next to the museum district, to be closer to the hospital where I worked. Being the same central office, I got to keep the same phone number. But the association with Hwy 377 no longer fit.
So, one afternoon, taking a break from a Numerical Analysis take-home final, I started playing to see if the letters associated with 377 spelled anything. WOO-HOO! EUREKA!!!
I now had FRR-BEAR for a phone number. (That's where the double-R comes from.)
It worked. I'm bearish and certainly furry. Fast-fwd to the '90s: Moved. No longer had that number, but the nickname had stuck, so the online moniker "FurrBear" fit.
