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What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

Okay, the deal with the nickname - Well, Kokogiak is an anglicization (sp?) of an Alaskan Native word ("Qupqugiaq"). The Inupiaqs have a legend of the Qupqugiaq, a giant ten-legged white bear that lives on the ice packs. Tales from Greenland to Siberia vary, and the Qupqugiaq is either benevolent, scary, or just another creature. It's also the name I chose for my now-defunct business, (print publishing, web work).

I got started on all this through playing around with BBS's in the early 90's, then reading (in Wired I think) about this thing called Mosaic and how cool the WWW was. It took me ages to find, download install and use Trumpet Winsock, and then Navigator, but when I did, it felt so cool.

It was 1994, so there wasn't much to be seen, but I do remember the day I viewed the page source for the first time and how the light bulb went off - "wow, that doesn't look so difficult". Thus began my long crazy journey (newspaper webmaster - small webdev house - MSNBC.com - drugstore.com - amazon.com - monster.com - -bostonglobe.com - and most recently, photo editor at theatlantic.com)