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First, "why "plusaf"? Short Story:
I'm a chronic depressive. Didn't realize it, consciously, until I was about 50! It's probably hereditary [choose your parents carefully!], and probably caused me many problems throughout my life, but the true realization and diagnosis [and treatment for me] didn't really dawn on me until then.
Ah, but that's getting just a little ahead of the story.
I was working in a "sales development" department. For years, whenever I wrote anyone a note, I'd sign it at the bottom as "--AF" , a long dash and my monogram, a combined A and F... my hardcopy "sigfile" for that day and age.
I discovered that I was feeling depressed, more and more, blaming most of it on a really critical and negative and very assertive woman manager we had at the time [names and more stories are available upon request, and maybe donation...]. One day, she simply walked down the aisle past me and I suddenly thought, "I must be doing something wrong; what's she going to rip me up about now?"
That day, I happened to notice that my sigfile basically comprised a large negative sign next to "me." What a negative association, and at the end of everything I was writing!
I immediately decided to reverse the "polarity" of that negativity to a PLUS sign preceding "AF": +AF.
Suddenly, I felt better. I was associating positivity, not negativity, with myself, for the first time, it seemed, in ages.
Around the same time, I dabbled in the concept of "creative visualization," the belief that if you picture something would happen, it eventually would. I'd convinced myself that I'd done something like that back in 1969, "creating" for myself: a draft deferment, a Corvette and a girlfriend. The Universe delivered them over a three month span, in that order. I was hooked.
So, what could I ask for now? I knew immediately what it was: "that the [expletive-deleted, available upon request] manager would somehow be removed from my organization chart... removed from my "food chain" and as quickly as possible."
In a month or two, the word began to spread that the "manager" had gotten a very nice promotion and was being transferred to a position in Europe!
The message was delivered to four of us "sales development people" standing and chatting one day by one of that manager's best friends. It was amazing: she described the promotion and the tranfer and all, and the four of us asked her to convey our congratulations and best wishes to the Transferred One." Her friend of course agreed and walked away with a proud smile on her face.
As soon as she was out of earchot, all four of us simultaneously said, "Good riddance! Not soon enough! Not far enough away!" and burst out laughing.
So, ever since then, the sigfile remained: "+AF." Several years later, and several massive org chart changes later, I became the webmaster for my department's server, learning about HTML and usig the server and our internal network to help our sales people get information more quickly, using this miraculous new "web" thingie. Another year or so later, I decided to put a personal website up, and after pondering a while for a name, decided that "plusaf.com" conveyed all I wanted to convey. Some pronounced it "ploo-saff"; I tend to pronouce it "pluss-ay-eff." It doesn't matter that much. It's still www.plusfa.com, and after something like ten years or more, it's still mine, and I'm still having fun with it.
So, that's where the name of the site came from, for those of you who have wondered [and I know some of you have... you've asked!]
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