domain

Letdown-iversary

~ garrettpinder ~ 1 Comment

Womp womp…

Okay folks, I was PLANNING on writing a big, bright, shining awesome entry today because it’s nearly the third anniversary of the inception of BookSick. Some of you may recall last year I mentioned that someone purchased the domain for booksick.com and I marked in my calendar the expiration date – today! I woke up early, charged with purpose, to snatch up the name. Well… it didn’t quite work out as I intended. What resulted was about two hours of frustration, and an unintentional course on the registration, expiration, and ownership of domains, from which I gathered the following:

Perks:
– The (old) booksick.com site has been down for several months. I’ve checked periodically.
– The current domain owner has allowed the renewal to lapse.

Drawbacks:
– There’s a 27 day renewal grace period, during which time, the current owner may renew.
– If unclaimed, the domain is put on hold for 30-45 days.
– Then there’s ANOTHER 30 days for the original owner to repurchase. (How many chances do they get? Come on!)

If I’m Desperate:
– I can backorder the domain through services like GoDaddy (ick ick ick!)
– Hire a domain acquisitions agent (ugh…)
– End up spending upwards of several hundreds of dollars. (NOT happening!)

I could possibly get the domain now, but I would have to hire someone for $69 to then negotiate with the owner, which could cause them to renew and then inflate the cost. Then pay a 10% commission to the agent (which they’re saying has to be a minimum of $60) which means I would be spending upwards of $730 — when I could have purchased it through WordPress for a measly $25. Why won’t I let this go? Or why not go for the .net or .co? Or what about booksickblog.com instead?

No. Why? Because – and that’s that. This domain WILL be mine. Period.

Until then, I’m going to play the waiting game. After all these periods of holding and pending and deleting from the Registry, assuming no one else in the world wants this domain, I should be able to pick it up once it is released back into the public pool. So basically, by the middle of November, if all goes well, I can then purchase the domain without paying crazy amounts of fees.

Please, give me strength to hold out until then!

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Rules of the Domain

~ garrettpinder ~ 1 Comment

As I approach another anniversary with this blog, I decided to go through and do a bit of housekeeping, both on the site and at home. After packing up my life and moving to a new apartment, many of my books have been scattered throughout my living space without any sense of order or proper placement. Though there may be a box or two of books still taped up, I was able to organize all that had been unpacked.

The end of summer marks the end of sunny vacations and hot, sticky days, but as autumn draws closer, my mourning is cut short. The fall ushers in a new school year. A time when the air is filled with potential. High expectations and a recharged sense of accomplishment. My summer has been far from uneventful — I believe I have read more books this summer than I have in the past several years. The selection was not the most traditional beach reads, but working my way through The Sickness has kept me steadily motivated.

Now that a new semester approaches, I am faced with a staggering mountain of books to read. (I should have known… it’s a young adult literature class!) Thirty-five books in total, to be read over a fourteen week period. “Oh, for sure I already own a good chunk of this reading list,” I thought. But after looking over the selection, I only recognized three titles: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, A Child Called “It”, and Flowers in the Attic. Less than 10% of this list were books I had heard of. I took pause. After a few calculations I looked down at my paper in disbelief.

Total Pages: 11,080

That staggering number has me freaked out. That’s an average of 121 pages every day — I’m lucky if I can read 12 pages a day! I took a moment to consider a few points: I’m starting the reading list early. I do not have to purchase any books. I have at least an hour of listening time for audio books every workday.

“Okay,” I said polishing my glasses, “Let’s do this!”

The last item of business to attend to was my domain. Not my living space, but my web domain. WordPress has been offering that I “Go Premium” ever since I started this blog, and underestimating my early commitment, I put off purchasing the dot-com for my site. Today I decided to make the purchase, solidifying my little blog in the Internet world, only to be sadly disappointed. “Go Premium today – make http://www.booksick.me yours” said WordPress. Wait, “dot-me”? What happened to dot-com? I quickly typed into the navigation bar, hoping my fear isn’t true… but unfortunately, it seems as though someone else has purchased the dot-com domain for booksick. It seems to be some type of search aggregator, but to be honest, I didn’t spend much time on the site, refusing to give the other pages more hits.

After a bit more research, the knife of remorse only dug deeper. The domain was purchased 31 August 2013 09:24:00. Just two days ago. The expiration is 31 August 2014 09:24:00 — and you can bet I have set my calendar. I’m staring down that date, now charged with even more purpose than before. It will be mine.

*  *  *  *

Currently, I’ve finished the two books chosen for Week 1, and I am working on a book from Week 2. I also found a book from Week 4 on OverDrive that I’ve been listening to while I wait for my holds at the library. Though my school books will not be listed within the master list, I will be sure to address them in each entry.