Alive and clicking

I got bored the other day and Googled myself. It sounds painful but instead turned out to be just a little bit disconcerting. It seems there is more than one of me. OK, my homepage came out as number one on the Google listings, which was gratifying, but there were 39,400 other hits, and not all of them were me (Look, I didn’t go through them all – I wasn’t that bored). So there are other Steve Wheelers in the world, probably hundreds of them, and they have some interesting, and sometimes bizarre occupations….

Some other Steve Wheelers ….

• a student at North Georgia Technical College (Who, where, what, eh?)
• an Associate Professor of Accounting in the Eberhardt School of Business, University of the Pacific, California (I wish)
• the bass guitarist for the JJ Kasner Band (I actually can play the bass but will not lower myself)
• an Environmental Health and Housing Consultant (nope, far too boring)
• an Astro-photographer (sounds like a paparrazi)
• an Ice skating illusionist! (I’m speechless….. but just to prove I’m not making it up there are pictures of him in action at: http://www.genting.com.my/en/live_ent/2000/magiconice/index.htm)
• a Sculptor, Swordsmith and Cutler (nice combination mate)
• a Proctologist (No, seriously, straight up!)

The most famous Steve Wheeler (Number two on the Google listing) is an American abstract painter/artist who was born in 1912 and died in 1992 (Dead? And I had so much to offer….). This is not so funny, because on the electronic library system at the University of Plymouth, I noticed that they had me (the living one) confused with dead Steve. So all my publications were listed as Steve Wheeler 1912-1992. Some of my students, I thought, might be disconcerted to be taught by a deceased person. Maybe that explains why some were not turning up for my lectures.

So I e-mailed the library and explained that I wasn’t dead, it was mistaken identity, 'I’m alive and clicking' I said, and could they resurrect me please. They told me they would dig up somebody who could change the records. It took more than three days. I’m now restored to full corporeal presence on the library records, and my students have one excuse less to miss my lectures. Yahoo!