User:Spiffy sperry

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This user is a Christian. PL This user is Pro-Life. This user supports recycling. Secondhand smoke is one of this user's pet peeves. This user supports the ban on smoking in public places.

STL This user is a St. Louis Cardinals fan. UIUC This user is or was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This user has completed a marathon!!! This user plays football, but prefers to call it soccer.

This user is a musician. This user enjoys singing. This user has a baritone vocal range. EAG This user was too slack to make Eagle Scout.

This user is interested in astronomy. This user loves problem solving. This user enjoys solving Sudoku puzzles. ?met? This user prefers metric units and cannot figure out why Americans have such a hard time with them.

This user is proud to be a Wikipedian. This user lives in Illinois. This user is a member of WikiProject Illinois.

I live in Illinois, USA, where I work at a state government agency. I have been interested in Wikipedia since June 2004, and a contributor since September 2005.

Contents 1 About Spiffy 2 Wiki projects 3 Articles that make me chuckle 4 Advice 5 External links 6 Footnotes

[edit] About Spiffy

My interests include astronomy^a, climate change, and my own genealogy^b. Also I am a semi-avid runner, having completed two Chicago Marathons^c.

My username, Spiffy Sperry, was bestowed to me by a lovely elementary school teacher.

I lived through and experienced the momentous March 2006 Tornado Outbreak and the uneventful 2008 Illinois earthquake.

[edit] Wiki projects

• environmental articles related to my former employment
• adding sort keys to category labels (Wikipedia:Categorization#Category_sorting) - mostly for "List of" categories, so the 'L' section isn't crammed (now made easier by Template:DEFAULTSORT)
• "wikifying" deadend pages (Special:Deadendpages) - remember the guidelines on linking!
• General clean-up
  • Category:Articles requiring unit attention
  • fixing brackets and quotes (Wiki Syntax)
  • fixing double redirects (Special:DoubleRedirects) - apparently, there's a bot for this, so anything I do is a shameless way to pad my edit stats
• various pages related to tropical cyclones (mainly due to my obsession with spreadsheets)
• County and Township articles for Illinois

[edit] Articles that make me chuckle

• Recursive acronym and Backronym
• Strategery and More cow bell
• The Colbert Report and Truthiness
• Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
• WP:HOLICTEST - WP:LAST - WP:SPIDER - WP:STUPID

[edit] Advice

1. Be wary of insurance companies. One auto insurance company tried to lay partial blame on me for running a green light when their client ran a red light and totalled my car.
2. If you run 500 miles over 6 months training for a marathon, use something more sturdy than the plastic tie they give you to affix your electronic chip.
3. Donate blood, regularly.
4. Be a Gas Buddy! You know you watch the prices anyway.

[edit] External links

• my Yahoo! LAUNCHcast station - listen to music I like (no guarantees)
• Places I used to have time to contribute to:
  • Climate Audit
  • RealClimate
  • Environmental News Network (forum currently closed)

[edit] Footnotes