Having an identity crisis

Occasionally someone will ask, "Who is Russ Miller?" I have often wondered myself and decided it would be better to first find who I am not.

I "Googled" myself. To "Google" someone means you type in a name on the Google search engine and hunt the Internet for every reference to that person's name on the World Wide Web. According to Google, my name is mentioned somewhere in cyberspace more than 2.9 million times.

I can tell you I am not the session drummer named Russ Miller who has recorded with the likes of Cher. Nor am I the "distinguished" professor of computer science at the University of Buffalo named Russ Miller, and I'm not the Russ Miller with a doctorate's degree in mathematical logic from the University of Chicago.

These three people show up as the top search results for Russ Miller. I've never heard of them before now. I also bear no resemblance to their photos.

I have never written a survivalist's handbook. I'm not the Russ Miller who recorded a rock and roll song called "I Sit in my Window" in 1958. I didn't pitch for the Philadelphia Phillies in1927-28. I don't run a prosthetics business in Colorado Springs. I'm not a retired senior vice president of marketing now helping run a factory in the Ukraine.

I didn't write the book "Parallel Algorithms for Regular Architectures." I have nothing to do with career counseling for the State of Michigan. I am not the director of Golf at the Broadmoor. Don't confuse me with the Russ Miller who's a member of the Citizens' Alliance on Electoral Reform.

I am not traveling the world with someone named Maxine. I'm not a comic book illustrator. I don't play the saxophone. I am not an Ohio State University mathematics professor. I have never worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the commercialization manager for the Tennessee Mouse Genome Consortium.

We are now through with the top 50 most often hit Web sites that mention my name, Russ Miller. Obviously, many of these Web sites I visited are referring to some of the same guys but not the one I see in the mirror.

That drummer, for example, is all over the Web. He writes how-to drumming books and sells a little wooden thing you attach to the side of your drum that you hit your stick on. He's also listed on a lot of sheet music. He must arguably be the most famous Russ Miller who has ever lived.

It took about 30 minutes to scan the 50 most visited Web sites that mention my name, Russ Miller, and I still have more than 2.9 million more Web sites to visit. At this rate, if I spend 12 hours a day continuing my search, I can expect to have looked at them all in time to ring in the new year, 2011.

I have nothing to do with the Run for Russ Memorial Fund in Chino, Calif….