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By the way, I am in negotiations with Ted Turner to have these pictures colorized.
For now I guess that I could say that my parents "preferred" black and white.
That sounds much better than the photographer saying:
"Color? Isn't that something that Jules Verne wrote about?"

Good question...and one I have been asked many times. I generally say that he is my "alter ego" or my "evil twin." His origins are based in mistaken enunciation (no - that is not part of the Catholic confirmation process). Stan is actually a name I picked up a few years ago at the office.

When I answered the phone, I apparently would talk maybe a bit too fast, which went very well with talking too much. When I said "this is Dan", the "isDan" ran together and some people understood me to be saying "this is Stan." When some of the customers asked for Stan we all just shook our heads. It was somewhat perplexing until we figured out it was me, and then it was just funny.

I worked on my articulation but phones have a tendency to obscure a few letters and "s" is one of them. The perpetuation of Stan was inevitable. If I was not going to be able to get rid of Stan, I figured I would make the best of him. Any mistake I made was blamed on "Stan." Memorable phrases like "Stan has left the building" and "Stan? Stan's not here man" became office standards. Stan even made his way into everyday office talk with grammatical variances such as "Stan this into the computer"(verb) or "Oh no. We've been Stanned !!" (verb,transitive).

In general, Stan is the guy that shows up about the time the second glass of wine is down. Vino Veritas ! He tends to talk a bit too much and can give away too many of my secrets. Be careful you don't give him too much tequila or he thinks he is James Bond on a mission for Her Majesty. "Moneypenny, bring in the next one. I'll interrogate her myself !!"

He also gets into my personal business pretty often, causing me to occasionally say or do the wrong thing, usually when I am dating someone. I would never personally be scared of closeness or intimacy...but that Stan, he can really be a tight-ass sometimes.

While Stan was in his infancy, the Atlanta Journal newspaper ran a radio spot in which a guy named, interestingly, Dan had an evil alter ego named, interestingly, Stan. I still need to find out if I should be getting royalties on that deal. Public notoriety did seal the process though and Stan has been my faithful - or fateful - sidekick ever since.