Non-Domain Related

Apparently there was an earthquake in DC this afternoon, and it was felt up in New York City and Boston. I was at a lunch meeting with a domain investor friend in town for Affiliate Summit, and we didn’t feel anything.

When I left the restaurant to walk home, I saw people on their cell phones and from their varying conversations, I was able to determine that people felt an earthquake in the city. It’s scary to try and use a phone and get the message that all circuits are busy.

This sounds crazy, but I’ve always been curious about what an earthquake feels like. Guess I missed my chance to know.  Maybe next week in San Francisco (just kidding… no earthquake please).

I am a big New England Patriots NFL football fan. A couple of years ago, I was in a fantasy football league and found that all of the games were more exciting when there was something on the line.  I am participating in a fantasy football league with some friends, and I want to see if anyone would be interested in a domain investor football league using Yahoo (this will be a points league)

The buy in will be $100 per team, and I will collect the funds and then distribute them to the winners at the end of the season. There will be ten teams in the league and the winner will receive $600, second place will receive $250, and third place will receive $150.

If you are interested, can pay $100, and can participate in a draft some time this week or next (most likely on this Wednesday or a week from Wednesday), post a comment here. If there aren’t enough people, I won’t set it up. I will be in touch with those who comment though.

PS: If you’re one of those people who likes to complain about non-domain related (or domain sales) blog posts appearing on Domaining.com, here’s your cue to whine email Francois to lodge your complaint and then he can email me about it.

This isn’t related to domain names in any way, but I want to pass along some advice to you based on a recent experience.

The other day, our dog Lucy got really sick. She was throwing up and had other stomach ailments. I will spare you the gory details, but it wasn’t fun for us, nor was it fun for her. When it got really bad, I brought her to the emergency vet, and we thought that she had some sort of stomach bug.

After $2,000 worth of tests, the vet saw that there was something in her stomach and said they would need to do an endoscopy to hopefully get whatever it was out. If that didn’t help, she would need surgery to remove whatever was there. We went with the endoscopy, and luckily they were able to remove the latex glove that she had somehow eaten.

Long story short, we just picked her up and she’s doing much better, but the bill was over $5,000. Luckily, we have pet insurance and they will cover somewhere around $2,500 of the total bill. We pay about $300/year for the insurance, and as you can see, it’s a great deal for us.

The other day, I was just thinking how little Lucy has cost us this past year. Of course, once you start thinking about that, something is bound to happen. I use to think pet insurance was similar to dental insurance – nice to have but it never covers your major dental work, and that’s frustrating. Although our vet bill is still high, we’re lucky to have saved $2,500 of the total bill.

If you have a pet, especially if it’s a curious dog, you should get pet insurance!

I bought a new MacBook Pro a few weeks ago, and I set it up this week. For the first time, I opted to purchase a computer monitor so I can sit at a desk in lieu of hanging out on the couch with my laptop.

I did a bit of research, and I opted to purchase a 23″ LG monitor. The best price I could find was on NewEgg.com, by quite a margin. I ordered the monitor late on a Monday night, and I had it by Wednesday. Unfortunately, it looked a bit grainy and had what looked like a shadow when I used Excel, so I went shopping for another monitor today at Best Buy.

After taking home a Samsung monitor and seeing that it was much more clear than the LG monitor, I went through the return process with NewEgg. Truthfully, I was expecting the worst and figured it would be a pain to do. Luckily, I was wrong – it couldn’t have been easier. Not only did the UPS return label get emailed to within moments, they didn’t even charge me a re-stocking fee.

Although I didn’t keep my purchase from NewEgg, I had a great experience with the company. I wouldn’t hesitate to use them in the future, and if you have computer needs, you should keep them on your list.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my blog was coming close to receiving its 25,000th comment and I wanted to do something fun when that happened. I didn’t want to broadcast this because it would likely encourage superfluous comments, and I didn’t want that to happen.

I had a “secret contest” on my blog that only I knew about. I decided that the person who made the 25,000th comment would receive something that I use every day and couldn’t be a domain investor without. The winner will receive a one year paid membership to DomainTools (Standard), courtesy of me (disclosure: I am paying for this and not getting a discount).

This membership includes the following tools:

The winner is a person who has commented regularly on my blog who uses the nickname “Poor Uncle.” I’ve sent him an email and will coordinate with DomainTools to set him up with the account. It might take a few days to get going because I am on vacation, but I will connect with Susan and Monica at DomainTools to make it happen ASAP.

I really want to thank you all for visiting my blog and contributing with your comments. I believe a blog is only as good as its readers’ contributions, and I really appreciate your making my blog a much more interesting place to read and learn.