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From Rant-A-Day
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How it Started
While I don't want to linger on some of the more depressing parts of my virtual life which occurred in early February 2008, I want to tell a story to keep the memories alive, and to remind naive young webmasters such as myself of some of the pitfalls that you are faced with as soon as you decide on your first personal domain name.
The story starts with me as a high school student; I didn't have a credit card so couldn't purchase things online until I was 18. I'd made a few web pages with a friend who I played a small part in assisting to setup a successful web design business and had made a few personal sites using Angelfire and Geocities but had never really had a serious site that I could call home. I'd compare this to living in frat houses and group houses for a few years, I still hadn't really rented my own house.
Things changed… I got a visa debit card as soon as I turned 18, and was given 200 bucks as birthday money so was ready to go ahead and buy my own domain. At the time I was 18 and wanted nothing more than to be a DJ; while I wasn't a real DJ I loved making tunes using a boot-legged copy of reason. I also had a copy of Cubase and Absynth which I used together to mix up songs and create some pretty whacked out sounding tunes. Since my name is John Gamble I took the name djgamble… I'm gamble and I'm a dj.
The Golden Years
DJ Gamble [dot] com became the home for all of my tunes and a few funky little applescripts I had created. As I grew a bit older I started doing some real DJ work, and created some more substantial programs using Objective-C, as well as some Widgets. I also put a bunch of personal photo's up there in the photo gallery section; this site became a big backup for my life, while it boasted over 4000 000 unique hits, I don't think it was ever popular. People downloaded my software and I got some good positive e-mails (including one from a grandmother who sent me pictures of herself and her cats), however any value hidden within most of my stuff was purely sentimental so I won't go into the site's achievements in much detail. What I will say is that it was like my castle… for the Aussies out there who have seen the movie The Castle; a man's home is his castle. Even if it's some dodgy little rat infested weather-board house right under a flight path, it's something secure and well… mine was something I took great pride in as it grew with me and was so easy to update that I could change it whenever I had a mood swing (which as a teenager and young adult is every millisecond no matter how slowly the rest of the world moves).
Lets fast forward. Late 2006 I finished my Master's degree in education and decided to take some time to travel the world. I headed to Japan as I went there as a 16 year old for a week with mum, and while I was very clueless about the culture, I had always had a fascination for the country. I started work in Japan on February 14 (Valentines day), that night I also went out with 2 other single boys and we got to experience Tokyo from the perspective of a bunch on single guys on the biggest couples night of the year. It wasn't lonely, it was more… exciting, exciting because I could see so many people out there enjoying themselves. I remember my first experience in a Japanese bar was when I started dancing with a beautiful girl in a dingy franchised bar called Gas Panic, only to find that her boyfriend was a pretty tough looking yakuza man. Needless to say we left that bar.
With so many similarly rich experiences I wrote many blog entries and posted many captioned and GPS-positioned photo's of my travels. While nothing big happened, I had fun, and I wouldn't trade any of those memories away for fame or fortune.
How it all Ended in One Night
Fast forward to Thursday February 14, 2008. Well, it's past 12:00 at night so counts as Thursday as I write this, but everything happened on Tuesday and Wednesday. In January my Australian credit card expired. Furthermore the records show that in December some time my web domain expired. No idea how as it was on auto-renew and every other year it had auto-renewed perfectly. I had over $5000 stashed away in that little Australian account so that if I got completely stuck in Japan I could easily get food, a hotel and a ticket home so I am absolutely sure there was no shortage of cash for the $6.95 renewal fee. Ironically there was no issue renewing my e-mail account and hosting account for another 2 years automatically (billing at over $200), however the domain bounced. The little $6.95 domain bounced.
Ironically my hosting renewal entitled me to 3 free domains, so technically if my domain and hosting provider (Godaddy) had used some initiative they could have saved my domain. Instead they sent a total of 28 e-mails to my Australian ISP e-mail account (not one to john [at] djgamble.com, which I had registered with them). After all 28 warning of domain cancellation e-mails bounced they took no initiative to contact me through other means. They had my mother's phone number and postal address on official record (all of which could have been used), and also knew my current e-mail address at the time (john [at] djgamble.com), which I had just re-registered with them in a domain/e-mail package.
Anyhow cut to the chase as soon as my domain expired a squatter from Salt Lake City called Jason Falk snatched it up and turned it into an inactive, useless, derelict parking spot. There's nothing there except advertisements for viagra and he makes a buck every time someone clicks on one of them. I'd say go and see for yourself, but to be honest I don't want him making money out of such practices, particularly when it is my family name (Gamble) and my web handle (djgamble) being used.
Beginning (conclusion)
I don't expect to ever get this domain back. I think if I contest it with him I'll only up the ante and he'll keep bidding higher and higher because he's a low life who knows how much sentimental value that domain could possibly hold for me. So that's where www.sirgamble.com entered the scene. I could either spend a year waiting anxiously for djgamble [dot] com to expire (in which case I'm still not guaranteed ownership of it), spend the $5000 rescue money in my account going to Salt Lake City to bust a cap in his ass (in which case I still couldn't physically take the domain back as it's not an object that he can leave lying in his garage) or well… buy a new domain and get on with life. Pretty simple choice I decided. Also it's nice and refreshing because I'm no longer DJ'ing, and am more into rock music so well… I don't know, sirgamble is just a funky handle. My friends sometimes call me sir, and it sorta continues the tradition of many internet handles in being a name that doesn't 100% suit me in real life (like the first, where I wasn't really a DJ, more just a kid playing around with pirated software at first). Well… I'm not quite sir unless the queen decides to knight me instead of John Howard and Joh Bjelke-Petersen (rustle rustle… what's the world coming to?) but I like the new domain. It's easy to remember and it suits me.
I guess that's the end of this plaque then… set in stone at just before 1:00am on valentines day 2008 (let the web server's American clock combined with my procrastination prove me wrong). Peace be with you all… I don't condone any violence against the man listed below, but incase you want to contact him about anything gentle and law abiding, I have provided Jason Falk's details below.
Remember… peace and love… share the love! Being from Utah Jason's probably a Mormon, so I'm sure he has a beautiful God-loving family surrounding him. God does preach forgiveness for any actions you may take against him ;)
Contact Jason Falk
Jason Falk 127 S 500 E Salt Lake City, UT 84102 United States Administrative Contact: Falk, Jason jfalk@deafworldweb.org 127 S 500 E Salt Lake City, UT 84102 United States 8014609483
