My given name is not actually Verne Bunsen, it's Vann Betzel. There, I've said it! I never actually "sign" as Verne in posts or correspondence as that feels quite disingenuous; I generally stick with "VB" which is true enough.
The story. Back in high school, which was 20+ years ago now, my friends and I found ouselves at a social gathering, and at this social gathering was a fellow who did some glass work as a hobby. This fellow was regailing a group of young ladies with stories about his art and he got into explaining why, for his purposes, the Bunsen Burner was a terible choice as a heat source. One of my friends piped in and said, rather out of the blue, "Watch what you say, this is Verne Bunsen, great-great-grandson of the guy the Bunsen Burner is named for!" It stuck to me and I've been Verne Bunsen ever since whenever I didn't particularly want to use my real name. I do not enjoy thinking up clever monikers for forums and such, so it's my go-to.
In an interesting turn, I recently re-financed my house and at the closing they provided me with a list of possible aliases they wanted me to confirm or deny. Verne Bunsen was at the top of the list. I still have not managed to get comfortable with that as, other than in private correspondence with a couple of folks here on this forum, and I suppose in this post, I have never actually linked Verne with my name. Craziness...
My (current) avatar picture is a picture of my butterscotch (or maybe it's honey, I dunno) blonde Nashville Tele with F-Logo Bigsby B5. I took the picture after replacing some parts on the Bigsby, then about the same time they did the forum upgrade and my old avatar disappeared. I liked the picture so I used it as my new one.
