Fearless

In July of 1995, I finally got around to regis­te­ring some domain names for myself. I didn’t even have my own ser­vers, but I saw a sort of land grab taking shape and wan­ted to homes­tead. Among others, I grab­bed phobia.com, merely because I thought host­na­mes like agora.phobia.com for mail ser­vi­ces and arachne.phobia.com for that new web thing would be fun. (I didn’t think to reserve my own name until much later.)

I later moved my per­so­nal web­site from nyx.net to phobia.com, where it resi­ded for nearly a decade before I deci­ded to cen­ter my per­so­nal brand on the tra­de­mark I was born with. It will still take years to move away from “pho­bia”, if I ever manage to change every online account I left its foot­print on.

Late Octo­ber 2006 I sold it for a tidy sum to a fellow who is big in the “inter­net real estate” industry. There was some drama as I got lar­ger offers after already agreeing to the sale, but I deci­ded my inte­grity is worth a few grand, even if only escrow.com would have thought less of me. He tur­ned around and sold it for nearly twice as much, but that appears to have been to a sub­si­diary for the IRS’s benefit.

I’ve not been made wealthy over­night, but it will sure help pay for the wedding.