Some are again asking “why does the site use the moniker J²?”

It’s really a two-part story.

Part One:

I am a “jr”. That means that I am named “after my Dad”. His name was Jerry. Thus, I am Jerry Jr. Interestingly, I have never really been called “Jerry Jr.” From as early as I can remember, I have been called “J.J.” — except of course, at work, where I was simply called “Jerry”.

Here ends Part One — My name is “J.J.”

Part Two:

I attended UC Davis for my law degree. As is typical for grad students, I decided to not focus entirely on the law while I was attending Davis. One of the “diversions” was learning how to Scuba dive. Now, it is important to realize that I was at a university. Everything must fit into a semester-long format. It matters not whether it is (i) “non-linear differential equations” or (ii) learning how to start a charcoal grill. One semester. No longer. No shorter.

So, this was not your one-hour resort scuba class.

And the class was taught by wacko ex-NAVY seals — at least, I recall that they were ex-NAVY seals — they felt like wacko ex-NAVY seals — so I will just go with that — it’s not like you can ever track down someone like that and ask.

These folks did the “I only have one name” thing way before Cher or Madonna or Rhianna. Their leader was a guy named “Omaha”.

For this class, we had to buy a whole bunch of “stuff”. They called it “snorkel gear” but I think that they got kickbacks from the local dive shop — but I digress. There was a lot of gear.

On the first day of class, these folks asked us to take out our little bottles of white-out (yes, “white-out” was labeled “snorkel gear” on the syllabus — or more appropriately, it was “for labeling our snorkel gear”) and place our “mark” on each item of our gear.

“I want some small unique mark that clearly identifies the item as yours,” Omaha says. “For example, J.J.’s mark should be J²”.

And well that mark has stuck.