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After I posted my article about raising funds for the Ronald McDonald House, I received a message on Facebook from a high school friend with whom I haven’t spoken in quite some time. Sarah thanked my wife and me for what we are doing because her Sister and Brother in Law used the resources of the Ronald McDonald House with their four year old daughter Mattie. I wanted to share Mattie’s story with you if you have a moment.

When Mattie was 2 and 1/2, she was diagnosed with Meduloblastoma (malignant brain cancer) the size of a golf ball. She had it removed the day before Thankgiving and was transferred to St. Jude’s, where she remained for almost a year, and she was discharged without success.

Mattie’s mom and dad then enrolled her in an experimental study at Sloan-Kettering in NYC where she lived at the Ronald McDonald House. She was discharged with no cancer. Mattie then traveled back to St. Jude’s twice for body scans/MRIs/spinal taps where she remained clean until her 2nd round of scans. She was then transferred back to St. Jude’s where she was taken as a candidate in a special experimental study.

Heartbreakingly, Mattie became overcome with pain in her leg and she was found to have cancer consuming her leg and in her chest cavity, and at that point, further treatment was not possible.   She is currently on hospice at home, in a wheelchair, because her leg is due to break at any moment. Mattie has a blog where you can learn more about her and read her story. You can also read more on Cincinnati, Ohio’s News 9 website.

Since Mattie LOVES receiving mail (like any child her age), Sarah and her family organized a “card shower” for Mattie for Christmas, and she received over 2,200 cards from around the world. Mattie’s fifth birthday is coming up on April 4, and we would like to make it more special for her. In the next few days, if you happen to visit a card store or supermarket and can send Mattie a birthday card, she would be absolutely thrilled. You don’t need to send anything other than a birthday card and a little note, since she has everything else she needs.

Mattie’s address is:

Miss Mattie Powell
16725-TU
Fayette Ohio 43521

The Ronald McDonald House is a great organization that helps children and their families, and I am even more glad Karen and I are supporting it with your help.

A special thank you goes out to the following domain industry friends and colleagues who have contributed to help us achieve our fundraising goal:

• David and Michael Castello – Castello Cities Internet Network
• Fred Mercaldo – Scottsdale.com
• Nat Cohen – Telepathy
• Craig Rowe – WhyPark
• Warren Royal – Name Futures/Bobbleheads.com
• Michael and Judi Berkens – Worldwide Media, Inc.
• Brandon Abbey – Escrow.com
• Susan Prosser – DomainTools/Name Intelligence
• Francois Carillo – Domaining.com
• Tim Davids – GeoOwners.com
• Andrew Allemann – Domain Name Wire
• Bob Mountain – Namemedia
• Jeffrey Reynolds – AmericanFlags.com
• ValleyOfLife.com

Hoping you are enjoying this nice Valentine’s Day Sunday today. I can’t believe how many big events are happening today (other than the fact it’s Valentine’s Day. The Olympics continue, the NBA is holding its All Star Game in Dallas, and the Daytona 500 are all happening today. Meanwhile, here are a few thoughts and updates from me:

• Thank you to everyone who came out for the Domainer Get Together in New York City this week. Somewhere between 25-30 people showed up for the last minute event, which had David and Michael Castello as honored guests. After we finished the cocktail party, a group of us went to dinner and the Castello Brothers treated us to dinner. Not only are they generous with their expert knowledge, but they are also very generous in general. It’s always fun hanging out with these guys.

• I’ve been watching the Olympics and keep seeing commercials for World25.org, Quincy Jones’ website where you can download the 25th anniversary remake of Michael Jackson’s and Lionel Richie’s We Are the World, with proceeds benefiting Haiti’s earthquake victims. Kudos for registering World25.com and World25.org and forwarding both to WeAreTheWorldFoundation.org. How in the world did someone register WeAreTheWorldFoundation.com before Quincy Jones got the .org? If you come up with an idea for a website, grab the domain name ASAP. The walls have ears.

• After you launch a website and start ranking for the primary keyword phrase, don’t rest on your laurels. Start making an effort to rank for related terms and phrases. DogWalker.com is #1 in Google for “dog walker,” but I have been making strides on other terms. According to SEO Book’s Rank Checker, the site has improved to #8 for dog walkers and #22 for dog walking in Google. These will become important sources of traffic assuming they continue to rank higher.

• I want to wish a good and prosperous new year to all of my friends who are celebrating the Chinese New Year.

• Back to the Olympics and domain names for a second. I have been using the Olympics as an opportunity to learn about new sports and try to register some domain names related to them. One example is LugeSleds.com, which I was able to buy yesterday. Don’t know if it will be worth anything, but it’s worth a shot I suppose.

• Congrats to Donna at Domain Boardroom on the strong results in Andrew’s survey. Aside from selling domain names in various places, DBR is really the only domain chat forum where I participate. The results are strong considering the limited number of members vs. the huge communities that exist elsewhere.

I just received an email from Rick Latona announcing that he is raising money for his climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro in March. The money he and his group are raising will be donated to The Water School to support simple, safe, strategic, and sustainable clean water solutions to the developing world. Through their programs, TWS provides clean drinkable water using extremely inexpensive and locally available materials.

There is a fairly large group of people from the domain community who will be making the trip, and the complete list can be found on the Kili2010 website. Rick’s fundraising goal is $19,340, which amounts to $1.00 per foot that he and his group will be climbing.

You can make a donation directly on Rick’s pledge page or you can donate to one of the other climbers. My company just made a pledge to help Rick achieve his goal, and I hope you will think about doing the same.

I hope you are either celebrating Christmas with your families and friends or enjoying a nice day off today. As the year winds down, I want to say thank you to a the readers who visit my blog, and especially those who contribute to it with comments and feedback. The dialog is what keeps me actively blogging to share and learn.

I would also like to give a special thank you to the advertisers who helped support my blog this past year. I appreciate their business, and I sincerely thank them for advertising on my blog. Here’s to a successful 2010.

National A-1 Advertising – NA-1 owns some of the best possible domain names, and they are always willing to pay for the great generic domain names.

Rick Latona – Rick was one of the most active members of the domain industry in 2009. His company will be running the TRAFFIC shows and auctions all over the world in 2010. Also a great big THANK YOU for the wine from Vino.com!

LuxuryNames.com – The company introduced a high end domain sales newsletter this year and held a successful domain auction. I am looking forward to seeing what they do in 2010.

Escrow.com – I almost exclusively use Escrow.com for my domain sales and purchases that require an escrow service. I’ve had great luck working with them and especially like their customer service.

WhyPark.com – I’ve been doing quite a bit of testing with my domain names that are targeted but don’t get a lot of type in traffic. I’ve seen an increase in traffic to many of these names, and I am looking forward to sharing results in the new year.

Domain Capital – If you are in need of financing for your high value domain names, these are the guys to see. They are trustworthy and fair, which are the most important things you need to know.

DomainStryker.com – Save time finding expiring and dropping domain names on Snapnames, Namejet, and Godaddy, with their recently introduced service.

NameDrive – They’ve brokered close to $16 million in domain names since 2006! They are looking to help sell revenue generating domain names.

MiniSites.com – This company burst onto the scene in 2009, and they’ve made some great looking mini-sites for quite a large number of clients.

Domainvestors.tv – Morgan Linton has been all over the place this past year. He recently started a domain-specific television show and has actively been building his company, while teaching about his business.

DomainTools – I use Domaintools’ Whois lookup several times a day, and I use their other tools very frequently as well. The industry wouldn’t be the same without them.

Traffic Vault – Andrew is a SEO and marketing expert who was featured in Long Island Business news this year. He has given me quite a bit of SEO and marketing advice, which has been helpful to my sites.

Inforum.in – This is the place you go to learn and discuss business if you are a .IN ccTLD investor. There’s a lot to learn in this great domain forum.

NoParking.com – If you are tired of parking your domain names, get in touch with these guys whose personalized touch can help your domain names make money.

Domaining.com – Francois isn’t an advertiser on my blog, but he is a big supporter of my company and the entire domain industry. His site has given many people added exposure, and he is always doing what he can to balance domain investors’ needs with those of the bloggers – despite not speaking English as his first language.

Special Thanks:

I also want to thank the following companies and people for their support with my blog this year:

Kevin Leto – Big Ticket Domains

Moniker – Bary Meyerson, Monte Cahn, and Victor Pitts

Mike McAlister – Six One Five Design

Michael Sumner – DN Media

Snapnames – Jonathan Stanfill, Theresa Armington, Michele Van Tilborg

Oversee.net

Mike St. John

NameBee.com

Photo Credit:   http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenmanning/ / CC BY 2.0