A Day, A Week, Hemant, A Year

I was recently doing a vanity search on Google. Searching on “Hemant Naidu” came up with the usual results putting this blog at the number one spot, and the “Not There Benefit CD Against Wal-Mart” bringing up second place. Surprisingly I had never performed a search on my nickname, “Naids”. I thought for sure that this blog would again be at the top of the search results. Instead my blog came up in the number seven spot.

Up at the top was a website called naids.org and when I clicked on it there seemed to be a lot of links to AIDS websites. Very interesting. Then not much further down the search results there was something that caught my eye – “Urban Dictionary: naids”. Imagine my surprise when I followed the link and found out that “NAIDS” has come to mean:

The kind of AIDS that you get from sharing needles.

Oh my god, I have NAIDS! I never should have shared that needle with Miles.

So I just wanted to take this moment to clarify the meaning of my nickname. As most of you know, my last name is “Naidu”, pronounced ny-doo. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine the origin of my nickname – merely a shortening of my last name to “Naids”, pronounced nides. The urban dictionary word “NAIDS” is an acronym, and is pronounced nayds.

There is NO CORRELATION with my nickname and the urban definition. My nickname IS NOT a reflection of my immune system not functioning due to me sharing needles with drug addicts. I CAN GUARANTEE that my immune system is strong and that I have NEVER used a needle for recreational drug use. The only needles ever inserted into my body have been administered by trained medical professionals.

Note that these search results are based on Google’s current Page Rank for websites containing the word “naids”. Hopefully over time the Page Rank of my pages will creep to the number one position.

It was about two and a half years ago that I started to dabble in photography. I had always had an interest in it, but just never had the equipment, or took the time to learn about it. It was at this time that I took the plunge and spent some money on equipment and workshops, learning the details of the art from trained professionals. I can’t stress how much I learned from working closely with those in the industry. It let me learn things about my hobby that I would never have learned from books, or the internet.

One of my projects in an Intermediate Portrait Photography class required the students to spend some time with a subject to take shots of them in various poses. One of my friends was in a local Guelph band and it turned out they were looking for someone to take photos for them. It worked out great for both of us. Free photos for them, and great practice for me.

I took in a number of their shows, letting me fire off a lot of shots. I managed to get some decent ones out of the many I took. I found it difficult get really good shots at the shows since lighting was an issue. It wasn’t until the band and I arranged a session at a local studio that I finally got some pretty strong shots. After firing off around 500 photos, there was a number that I was really pleased with. I burned the photos for the band on a DVD and handed them over. It was up to the band to use them as they wished. I figured they would end up on their website and on their upcoming CD. Cool!

I don’t know about anyone else, but every once in a while I Google myself – that is I do Google search on ‘Hemant Naidu’ just to see what pops up. I Googled myself this afternoon and saw the usual – my name at the University of Saskatchewan Alumni page, a few websites I used to run, and a whole bunch of information on other guys named ‘Hemant Naidu’. But today I noticed one extra – Not There benefit CD Against Wal-Mart’. After clicking on the link I saw that the CD was done as a protest against the building of a Wal-Mart in Guelph, Ontario (it’s a long story, and I’m not going to get into it here) – and I was on the credits for the CD, under ‘Artist Photos’.

Since I still do hold the city of Guelph close to my heart, and do support the effort of the CD, I decided to purchase one online for a cool 25 bucks. Plus, I think it will be pretty cool to see my photos, and name on its insert! I’m not sure what photos they used, so the suspense of its arrival is killing me. I personally think this is pretty cool, even though it was only a benefit CD put on by local Guelph artists. But hey, I can’t expect to be on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine yet!

You can check out the website for this benefit CD here.