User:Manushand

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[edit] About Me

My name is Manus Hand. Yes, that's my real name. Yes, I know that Manus is Latin for Hand. But it is also an old Irish name. I pronounce it (in a true bastardization of the Latin, and unlike the Irishmen who share my name) to rhyme with Lawn-Bus.

I grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, and I'm passionate about my love for that city and state. In 1976 at the age of twelve, the Governor of the state and the state's commission for the celebration of the United States Bicentennial granted me money to travel around the nation (and Canada) and present the citizens of all of the towns, counties, townships, and cities named "Wyoming" with honorary citizenship in the state, a trip which saw me collecting proclamations and keys to cities, being featured on the Today Show, and hearing Walter Cronkite mispronounce my name on The CBS Evening News.

I live and work in the Denver, Colorado (USA) area. For a living, I am a software designer, architect, coder, tester, supporter, maintainer, etc., working on an online banking solution for credit unions that I built back in 1997 and which now is used at a growing number of billion-dollar institutions.

For (semi?)serious fun, I am a citizen of the Kingdom of Talossa, and I don't see why you shouldn't be too. I am also active (though, unfortunately, not as much as I was for so many years) in the Diplomacy gameplay hobby, having founded the Internet home page for the hobby and traveled the world in sometimes successful (but usually not) pursuit of championships. Ever since the earliest days of the Internet, I have maintained a Website chronicling my travels to the gravesites of the U.S. Presidents, a site that has seen me featured on C-Span, the Discovery Channel, The New York Times Magazine, and a whole bunch of other places.

Someone even started a Manus Hand Fan Club. It's a strange world, isn't it?

In the life I never find or make any time for, I would write novels (good ones!) and work on an inherited stamp collection that is somewhere around here, if only I had time to find it and marvel at it.

I'm a Roman Catholic of mostly Irish extraction, a fan since my toddler days (thanks, dad!) of the traditional music of that land of my ancestors. True to my heritage (and to my dad -- thanks, dad!), I'm also a fan of [beer]] and and spirits of all kinds, such as, oh, just to pull one out of the air, whiskey. That's whiskey with an E. And thank you too, mom, for just as many of my varied loves in this life.

Both my parents contributed to my deep love of learning and, like you, I get lost in Wikipedia whenever I have nothing better to do (or even when I probably do have something better to do).

My wife Angela and I are the proud parents of two high-school age kids, one of each gender. Having done it, I can tell anyone out there who hasn't raised kids that everything you hear about this adventurous undertaking is true. From the "your life will change" warning that everyone laughs at when they are told it before the birth, to the "and when they get to be teenagers, God help you," all of it is true. Especially the "it's the best thing in the world" part.

[edit] My Wikipedia Contributions (a small but growing list)

• Corrections to typographical and grammatical errors wherever I find them.
• I seem to totally get into helping edit the pages for the TV Show The Office.
• The page concerning the Kingdom of Talossa and its language.