Colonel Edward Grayson

Seventeen years ago when I was just a young punk of 18 years I considered joining the Marine Corps. I had told my grandfather, Colonel Edward Grayson that I wasn’t worried about getting into any wars. “Who did we have to worry about, the Chinese?”

The Korean War veteran and member of the Chosin Few looked at me and said, “you don’t want to fight the Chinese. They keep coming”. “They keep coming”, he said. I imagined then, as I do now, a Chinese body wave attack, 150,000 strong rushing at him and his 30,000 American counter-parts bunkered down in the frozen northern, reservoir of North Korea. It’s a vision I have thought of many times over the years with increasing admiration of what this great man has endured in his life. More and more Chinese entered the battle shortly after and completely encircled the American Army and Marine units in the area. My grandfather was one of the 12,000 Americans that made it back across enemy lines to safety.

Born in Mississippi in 1922 and raised in that state by a Baptist minister, during the great depression, his childhood was anything but the luxury we see in today’s world. At 19 he enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served in every enlisted rank from private to master sergeant. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1952 and was promoted to colonel in 1973.

To put things in perspective, World War II started for the United States in 1941 or the same year he enlisted in the corps.  By the time he was finished serving our country we had already finished the Vietnam War 35 years later. It’s my belief that his career covered a span of the most influential years of our country’s history.

When he was 20 years old he was taking a rest on a south pacific island after a beach landing aboard a Higgins personnel transport vehicle. After a lieutenant yelled at him and told him to put his helmet back on; a Japanese sniper shot him right in the head. The bullet entered the chamber of the helmet, spun around inside but did not exit the inside of the helmet and did not enter his skull. He survived that too.

This man was struck not once, not twice but three times by a bolt of lightning. Have you ever heard of such things?

Finally, in the end, it was father time that proved to be the only force capable of sending him to the afterlife.

What I would like my children to know is that their great-Grandfather was one of the greatest of the greatest generation. He was not only brave but hard-working, courteous, thoughtful at all times and just a good person overall.

My admiration for him is stronger than ever and I will miss him.

Pig butt anyone?

You have to admire a country with such a passion for ham, or Jamón to be correct in Spanish.

Here in Madrid you can really splurge on the tasty asses of swine.

I personally prefer the jamón ibérico which is taken from Black Ibérian pig which eats only acorns while roaming oak forests between Spain and Portugal. It’s a romantic thing to think of them hobbling around eating nuts waiting to be slaughtered. It’s romantic because in the States it’s usually the abused animals that taste the best like baby calves that hang in the air on ropes and are never allowed to touch the ground for fear of their meat becoming less tender.

A small plate of jamón ibérico will set you back about 20 Euros or more than 30 dollars U.S. but it is worth every Euro cent.

The olives here are tasty as well but they aren’t nearly as funny to write about.

On the subject of meat, for the domainers who are reading this, it’s interesting to note that cubesteak.com does over 1 dollar a day for me on AdSense. That name shouldn’t do so well. Clearly it is because the name has a mini-site on it and isn’t parked. If you’d like me to help you put mini-sites up on your names and you are willing to pay my team for their time, drop me a note with the names you’d like done and we’ll get back to you.

Decisions, decisions…

I often get questions about the Lincoln in the header of this website. That car, isn’t actually mine. I told my designer I had an old convertible Continental so he just looked one up on the net. Being that he lives in the Philippines, it wasn’t exactly easy for him to come over and take a gander at the real thing.

What I own is a 1965 Lincoln Continental convertible. It is a frame off restoration done by Mobsteel Customs out of Detroit.

I bought the car off of Albert Haynesworth. He’s the Tennessee Titan football player that stepped on that guy’s face a couple of years ago. If you pay attention to such things… It was a big deal at the time for Sportscenter fans.

These pictures you are looking at were taken from Mobsteel’s website. The car for the most part still looks the same but the roof isn’t working and one of the door handles fell off. Thus, it is at a specialists shop at the moment.

Some of you might recognize this car. It’s the same make, model and year as the ride from the opening sequence of HBO’s hit T.V. series Entourage. The big difference is that their ‘65 Lincoln had the original wheels, hub caps, etc.

Which do you think is better? Now that I have it at that shop, I’m trying to decide if I want to replace the Mobsteel logos with Continental logos and put the original wheels back on the car.

What would you do?

How to become a scratch golfer

I’m a bad golfer. Ok, I’m a terrible golfer. What sucks is that I have tried so hard. I take the lessons, I get out and play, but I still suck.

So what’s a guy to do? Well, I suppose I’m the kind of guy that takes things to the extreme.

This past weekend I went looking for a golf cottage. My goal was nothing less than a house with a driving range in the backyard. Well, I found one. It’s a modest home with four master bedrooms, a game room, a movie theater, etc. Yes, I’m being sarcastic.

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t committed to this house. The cost is enough to make a grown man cry. Damn, I sure want it though.

Did I mention it comes with memberships to 6 courses, a marina on a large lake, the clubhouse and it is only 90 minutes from my home in Buckhead?

Maybe if I do buy it my daughters will grow up to be billionaire lady golfers. That could justify the price!

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I Hope Dollars.com Sells for Millions!

A lot of people are emailing me about Sedo’s auction of Dollars.com that is going on right now. They ask because they know that I sold the name for 650,000 dollars just this past July.

Right now the auction is at 750,000 Euros with four days left in the auction.

I want it to sell for millions. I have no regrets as I did well when I sold it. Stephane and the folks at Virtual Network SA are also good people and they deserve to profit on the deal.

More importantly, Sedo’s auction of Pizza.com and this auction of Dollars.com are proof that the domain market can survive and thrive during a recession.

I still have tens of thousands of domains left. I’ll make far more money by the market continuing to rise than I ever could have made had I held on to Dollars.com for a bit longer.

Something is Wrong with WordPress

Anyone who has tried to post something on this site or fill out one of my contact forms has either received an error or been told that everything was fine, only for nothing to happen.

We’ve recently upgraded to the newest version of Word Press so that might be the problem. Either way, I’ll post as soon as the problems have been resolved.

In the meantime, you can email directly at rick AT ricklatona.com if you need anything.

Also, the newsletter subscription is still working, if you haven’t signed up yet I suggest you do!

I think I got carried away in my home office.

The Dell salesman had to tell me that I could hook up four monitors if I wanted to. He just HAD to tell me that. Actually, I can push a button on my universal remote to push whatever is on my fourth moniter to the LCD TV at the other end of the office so I guess technically, it would be five monitors.

Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s great. I’m not having any problems finding things to cover up the pixels with. Email on one, an inventory spreadsheet on another (minimized for the purpose of this post), browers on the third and IM messages on the fourth. No problem. I do feel more productive.

I just bought my dream car

What do you guys think of my brand spanking new 50 year old 1958 Corvette hard and soft top convertible? Click the links below to see the pictures.

Side view of the vette

Front View

Rear View

 Quote from Wikipedia “The 1958 Corvette saw another body freshening and more options available. This year had the most exterior chrome and was the heaviest of the C-1s. From it’s quad headlights and hood louvers to it’s twin trunk spars and bumper exiting exhaust, it was the flashiest Corvette ever built.”

In to Africa - Why I hate Domain Capital

So it’s been what? 4 days since I launched this blog? Now I’m going to Africa to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro so it’ll be a solid two weeks until I update again.

Those that know me well know that I’m not exactly a pillar of health. Hell, one of the reasons  I signed up for this experiment was that I thought it would motivate me to get in shape. While I’ve certainly been to the gym more than normal I’m hardly a poster child for Mountain Climber’s magazine.

Now to add insult to my inevitable injuries Domain Capital has announced that they will donate 30,000 hard earned American dollars to a children’s cancer fund if I summit. Some of my other compadres have anteed up as well and there is now over 45,000 dollars on the line for dying kids if I manage to reach the top. Like I need that pressure.

On the business front I’ll also be missing the closing of Sedo’s GEO domain auction, the TRAFFIC auction in Vegas amoung many other deals I have working. I’ll have a satellite phone with and will be somewhat in touch but definately not much.

My team will keep buying and when I return there will be a huge pile of domains to unload cheap. So sign up for the newsletter if you haven’t already to get the scoop and please, wish me luck.

Sedo’s GEO Domain Auction

I’m not sure how well they have promoted their new auction but there are some real gems on this list. Check it out at http://sedo.com/search/searchresult.php4?auctionevent=globalauction&language=us&partnerid=37836 

 Here are some of my names that I have listed:

Iran.com
Rhodes.com
Versailles.com
ChristChurch.com
Zoetermeer.com

True to form, they were all priced to sell.

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