Everyone I know calls me Mike, but it wasn't always that way. My birth certificate shows my name as Michael and for the first ten years of my life, my parents, teachers, classmates and friends called me by my given name. I was Michael until I realized I might have a say in the matter.
I remember as a pre-teen preferring the name Mike to Michael. As a teen, I started asking teachers and friends to call me Mike, when they weren't calling me Booner, or something worse. Eventually it got to a point where just about everyone, including my brothers and mom, called me Mike.
I dislike the name Michael. To me, it sounds stuffy, conservative and boring. Michael is a name for accountants or opera goers or Bible thumpers. Mike is cool, open minded, fun and funny. Mike is me.
I've been Mike so long, I hardly react when someone calls me Michael. I practically forget that's my name, and I sometimes forget to use it when filling out banking or legal documents. When I picked up this domain name in the late 90s, I didn't even consider michaelboon.com. Heck, it's probably still available. Go ahead and grab it, it's no use to me. I became a Mike long ago and I don't intend to turn back now. For me, it was an easy call.
