"WireAndWood" is a new username, but I'm not new to FreeRepublic. Until now I've been using the name "LouisWu". If you actually care why I decided to employ a new Freeper nick, the whole story is in the next paragraph. If you don't care, which is the way I would feel if I were you, then just skip that paragraph.

I spent most of my life as a professional guitarist (although I'm doing Respiratory Therapy now) . When I discovered my very first www message board (for guitarists) I wanted to use the nick "Wire&Wood" there. It was already taken. Anxious to begin babbling with the other like-obsessed people, I hurriedly made a second choice for a login name: LouisWu, the name of a character in Larry Niven's Ringworld books. Then, as my message-board fever spread I was using LouisWu everywhere, for the sake of consistency. Eventually I realized I still would like to use a guitar-related login name, and found a simple vatriation on "Wire & Wood" which was unclaimed. I have slowly been changing away from the LouisWu nick on all the boards I frequent. There was also, in the back of my mind, some concern that I may be courting legal headaches by using the probably-copywrite-protected name, especially on a place like FreeRepublic.com, which is prone to drawing flack.

I have played guitar since age 5, I got an AAS in Guitar Performance (big, friggin', sweaty, hairy deal) and I served a guitarist for the US Army Band system for eight years in the 1990s when Willie the Willie was raping our protectors, the military.