I was browsing around the intarweb this evening during a little bit of personal rest and relaxation time when I parked my browser over at Chris's page for a little while.

I had already read all the posts that were there, and I don't visit any other web pages, so I decided to hang out and see if I could find anything new to admire and enjoy. Maybe some heretofore unnoticed color was going to suddenly jump out at me and make me see the page anew. Whatever it is that I was doing, it's obvious that it was pretty desperate.

After looking for several minutes and accepting that I wasn't going to get anything new out of his site's familiar look, I took notice of his "flair." Chris has a bunch of what we computer nerds call "flair" on the right side of his site. From it, a casual browser who is unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Sells can learn quite quickly what he's all about. Flair is a way of saying, "These are the gangs I run with." Chris's flair is extensive and makes it quite clear that he's everything from a Microsoft employee to an IEEE member.

Then I got to thinking about how I didn't have any flair on my site. I said to myself, "Rory - you're a guy without any flair on your web site. That's like being a man without any chest hair, but I guess you're that too, so maybe it's not that weird."

I suddenly felt so naked. There was my site, getting hit by lonely computer programmers from all over the globe, and I didn't have a single piece of flair up. It is, of course, because I don't have a right to any. If we were to compare my current status to, say, that of someone in the military, we'd learn fairly quickly that I should be about as well decorated as a janitor in the navy who spends most of his time going AWOL and stumbling back onto the ship each night in a drunken stupor with a new venereal disease and a desire to share it with the rest of the world.

That's pretty harsh, and I knew it when I thought it. This got me thinking a bit more. I started talking to myself again: "Why should Chris get all the flair? Just because he earned it?"

It all started seeming so bourgeois - just a few people at the top who did all the hard work, hoarding the awards and the grandeur. What a bunch of baloney. It's like saying that you should only wear a police uniform and pull people over in their cars if you're actually a police officer, or that you should only practice medicine if you're a licensed physician. Where does that leave proles like me? Do you have any idea how long it takes to go to medical school? What if I want to operate on people, too?

So I took matters into my own hands. I saw that I had a lack of flair and that Chris had more than he needed, so I stole his. If you're reading this post in an aggregator, then just fire up your favorite browser and surf on over to http://www.neopoleon.com to see my new list of flair on the right hand side of my site.

In a way, this is sort of like a modern day Robin Hood story with the only major difference being that, after stealing loot from the wealthy, Robin Hood didn't keep it all for himself.

I plan to keep the flair up for a few days, or until Chris gets really mad at me.

In the meantime, I am now:

- A Microsoft employee

- A .NET Software Legend

- A Windows Forms coding hero

- An INETA speaker

- An IEEE member (in good standing, of course)

- The International High IQ Society (yes - I'm all of it)

And I've gotta say - I'm feeling pretty darn good.

Also, my hourly rate just tripled, and I'm available for speaking engagements if you'd like somebody with my qualifications to come to your business and make you more smarter.

Yup. I even think I can feel a few chest hairs sprouting.