Sunday, December 11, 2011

Cozy Rosie is named


Our Airstream needed a name. Somehow, referring to “it” as "it" didn’t seem to describe “it.”

Cozy Rosie

I need to back up for a moment and talk about our desire to name objects.

One of my responsibilities at work is serving as an administrator for several UNIX (Linux) Web servers. All of these servers have names that they go by on the Internet.

I was having hardware issues with a new server, which was under warranty. I called the service department and started explaining the issue. In the conversation, I started calling the machine by its name and explained how it was the backup server to another named machine.

That was when the service technician asked if these machines were running Linux and not Windows. When I said yes, he chimed in that he knew it because UNIX people always name their computers then start talking about its personality.

Since I work with UNIX/Linux computers, naming inanimate objects seems normal to me.

Some of the first names we considered were TravelStar Galactica or the Aluminum Falcon. While these were great names, they didn’t seem to fit our camper.

We settled on Rosie since this was a play on the World War II Rosie the Riveter campaign. That was shortened to Riveting Rosie, which lasted about a week. That was when my wife remarked how cozy it was in Rosie. At that point, our Airstream had a name and it was Cozy Rosie.

I think the service technician was correct in suggesting that UNIX/Linux people not only name things, but they also assign personalities to them. Cozy Rosie definitely has a growing personality—something we continue to learn about as we continue our adventures in Rosie.

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