One thing I think is really funny are the web site owners who want to put up a FAQ because most FAQ’s aren’t “Frequently Asked Questions”, but “Questions We Think Our Visitors Would Ask if They Were Us”. But one frequently asked question I actually get is how I got my handle, y0mbo. So, since the answer won’t fit in a 140-character tweet, I will answer it here.

The start of this story begins in August of 1972. On that particular day, my father held me above his head and proclaimed, “I have a SON!” I’m sure it was in very broken English, since he had only been in the United States for a few years. He is originally from the Slovak Republic (although it was Czechoslovakia back then). My parents decided to honor my grandfathers by naming me after them. My middle name, Edward, is my mother’s father’s name. My first name, John, is the closest approximation to my father’s dad’s name: Jan (pronounced YAN).

As boy growing up, my dad called me “Janko” (YAN-ko) which means “Little John”. Occasionally, my mom called me that, too. Unfortunately, one time in the car – with my friends present – she called me that.

“Janko, what’s that?” laughed one friend.

“Is that like Rambo?” asked the other.

The two jokers riffed on that for a little while and then decided that a cross between” Janko” and “Rambo” would be “Yombo”. The label stuck, especially since they called me that the rest of the trip.

Later in high school, my group of friends started giving each other pseudonyms. My new first name was Bill, and it only made sense to put Yombo in there. So Bill D. Yombo became my monicker.

In college, when the internet started to take off, people often chose handles instead of their real names. I dug into my handy bag of pseudonyms and chose Yombo again. But instead of keeping it all alphabetical characters, I swapped the first “O” for a zero.

And that’s where y0mbo came from.

When we finished redecorating the bonus room, we moved the TV from the living room to the boys’ new hangout. That, to me, was bliss: no TV on the main floor of the house.

Teh Wife did not concur. Thanksgiving was approaching and with family due to arrive, she pointed out there would be nowhere for her bother and dad to hang out. I thought maybe they would spend their time visiting, but I hadn’t considered the post-turkey vegetative state that can only be countered by watching television.

Fortunately, our basement is finished and our other TV is down there waiting to be hooked up. So began the mad rush to clean the basement. The list was huge and included several non-cleaning tasks like “schedule pool table assembly”, “buy furniture” and “disregard the cleanliness of the rest of the house”. But progress moved along. Unpacking was both good and bad. There are boxes of papers that haven’t been reviewed in two moves.

The worst part was the discovery that some commemorative coins sets and some antique silver dimes from my grandparents had been stolen by the movers. I found the box with which they belonged, but all but one dime and the packaging for some of the coins were missing. I think a pile of centennial quarters have gone missing as well.

The best part, though, was going through all the old photos and papers that had been dumped into various boxes over the years. As I sorted them into relevant piles it was very cool to take a trip down memory lane. It was like a time machine. School papers from the youngest. Class projects from the eldest (back when he used to bring them home). Photots from rips I took with Teh Wife. Pictures of my Mom. As I went further back in time, there were newspaper clippings of my achievements in high school that my mom saved for me. Finally, I discovered a few old Polaroid photos from my first six months of life. Cool stuff.

OK, so here is a post I’m writing on the iPad. I’m not sure how the non-tactile typing is going to work. I’m definitely not sure how the auto correct is going to work. I may find myself posting some screenshots on http://damnyouautocorrect.com/ if I’m not careful (and especially if I don’t remember to go back and edit).

I was actually inspired to give this a try by a tweet from @alxconn who said he switched his blog to WordPress because of the iPad. The WordPress app for the iPad made it too easy not to use WP. Bases on that thought, I thought I’d give it a go, too.

So far, resting the iPad on something is the best way to type. I found leaning on my elbows a good way to keep my hands over the keyboard, but it was soon tiring. Sitting in bed with the iPad on my lap doesn’t offer the same control as laying it in front of me. I think the best bet is putting the iPad on the table and typing away.

The biggest hurdle is the non-tactile nature of typing on a screen. It essentially forces you to be a hunt and peck typist. I can’t accurately type otherwise. It seems to also force typing with just two fingers too, although I may be able to use a few more on occasion.