In last night’s mad rush for Facebook usernames, it really should come as no surprise (to myself) that I didn’t manage to get “sandrafernandez.” There are hundreds of us in the US alone, and I never manage to get that user ID secured for myself. But I guess I was hoping that I was going to be quick enough to find it available on Facebook.

As a backup I used to use sandrafdzh, because I could always count on the fact that it was never taken. SANDRAFDZH = Sandra+FDZ(Fernandez)+H(Herrera); i.e., my name. It was unique and available. The problem was that it’s hard to remember it you don’t speak Spanish.

Sometime in the last few years I started switching to SandraSays. I secured the domain name and started this blog. I changed my Twitter ID, and people actually started remembering it. Somewhere along the line, SandraSays became my recognized ID. (Though I do still have sandrafdzh in several accounts, including Flickr.)

So now I have www.facebook.com/sandrasays as my Facebook “vanity URL.” And it’s a good thing I’m OK with it, because Facebook states pretty clearly that I cannot change it later.

Were you luckier than I was?