Is now mine.

For my entire life (okay, the twelve years the internet has been mainstream) I didn’t have any hope I’d actually own my name’s domain.

There’s a pro football player with the same name, as well as several other quasi-famous people. I thought they’d be all over the bidding wars, life savings in hand.

As it turns out, no bidding war required. I saw its availability a few days ago and could hardly believe my eyes. It’s worth at least $1,000, probably much more. I know this because a month ago, the company that owns brandonsmith.net offered me that domain for $600, and .coms are worth much more. I paid $97 for mine. It’ll be indispensable to my career from now on.

In a few years I think I’ll buy up a few domains for potential kids’ names. It’s only $10 a year to maintain ownership of each one, and I suspect it could help them quite a bit in life.

This purchase also motivates a redesign of my little corner of the Interwebs. I’ll probably use Columbia’s web team, but I won’t use their hosting since there are lots of restrictions. Luckily a friend of mine has offered me free hosting since he has unlimited space and my material is pretty small, all things considered.