Conquering the Wild West One Wikipedia Page at a Time

Submitted to Company Newsletter in August 2009

So my new hobby is updating Wikipedia pages. Unfortunately all the topics I find fascinating are either not Wiki material or already covered.

• How to live in a West Village apartment with six foot ceilings with a shower in the kitchen and a ladder to get to your catacomb-like bed space – a topic I know well but not Wiki material.
• The pilot episode of 30 Rock – already covered.
• Islamic calligraphy certificates, Diocletianic Persecution, Certified Public Accountants – respectively, fascinating and covered, fascinating and covered, no clue what this is but apparently covered.

So what topics are left? What topics are truly riveting but obscure enough to still be unclaimed in the Wiki-sphere? Accounting pronouncements.

Apparently, if Wikipedia were a land-run, with settlers in their Conestoga wagons scrambling about the virtual plots of potential topics and laying stake to their choices of prime real estate, topics like Lance Armstrong would be like verdant land next to the sparkling, fish-bearing river. And yet, accounting pronouncements would be the equivalent of the dried up, infertile clay plot with annoying neighbors, which is why I was able to secure some forsaken Wiki space for my latest contribution. Ah yes, I wrote this Wiki page – SFAS 157. So if you’d like to add citations, pictures, discussion, etc, we could really fix her up and have a “homestead” we could really be proud of. Figuratively speaking, in keeping with the settler theme.

Other tidbits I learned while writing this article.

• Gopinath Muthukad founded the first magic academy of Asia in Thiruvananthapuram, present-day Trivandrum and the capital of the Indian state Kerala.
• The design of the Conestoga wagon, with its boat-like shape and sturdy frame, explains why I was able to successfully ford the river in the game Oregon Trail numerous times.
• Oregon Trail was actually a television series in the late 70’s; it was cancelled after six episodes.
• Apparently there is a Tasmanian politician named Lance Armstrong. I’d probably vote for him just for the name.