Kili2010 - Climb Kilimanjaro with top domainers and help provide clean water for those in need
October 20, 2009 by Rick Latona · Leave a Comment
We are happy to announce the launch of Kili2010.com, a website about our March 2010 climb of Mount Kilimanjaro.
As previously written, a bunch of us are going to climb that big rock right before the Nairobi ICANN meeting. We are doing it for the exercise and experience but mostly to help bring clean water for those in need.
It would be great if you could join us. Yes you.
Quebec, a little-bit of Europe in North America
October 11, 2009 by Rick Latona · 4 Comments
I’ve spent the last 9 days in Quebec meeting with clients in Montreal and the surrounding area. I got to bring my family along as well which is always nice. My daughter gets a week off during October. I never got a week off during October. 
Quebec is really a gem of a province. The Rough Guide to Montreal put it best when they said Vancouver has the majestic scenery and Toronto the high-powered business atmosphere but Montreal is the most cosmopolitan. Like its roots from Paris it’s a real fashion capital. High-end clothing stores are on nearly every block in the downtown area and we wouldn’t leave our hotel room without being dressed to kill. It’s also nice to hear all the French spoken. My whole family shares a love for languages and it’s great to know that such a place exists 45 minutes by car from a U.S. border.
Montreal is a great pedestrian city were you can walk to an endless amount of shopping and eating choices. Even during the dead of winter Montreal offers the world’s largest connected underground malls and tunnels allowing you to traverse more than 40 kilometers of shopping, movies, fitness centers, ice skating rinks, office towers and condo buildings so you never have to go outside. That’s a good thing since it snows there 50% of the days between December and February.
The food we had was amazing. Dim Sum in China Town, Linguini and clams in little Italy, the best bagels the world has ever seen (they claim New York’s bagels are twice the size and half as good), and one heck of a Rueben sandwich. Let’s not forget the Poutine, Quebec’s invention that is now throughout Canada. Poutine are French-fries with chicken gravy and cheese curd. I had to look it up but the curd is taken from fresh white-cheddar, for those of you who care about such things.
While I wasn’t in meetings, I had a chance to go on three different tours.
We went to the Laurentian Mountains, apparently at the best time to go. The leaves were all changing colors but had not yet fallen due to rain. We were told that if we came only a week later it would have looked like winter.
The next day we went to Quebec City, which is the most European city I’ve seen on this continent. It really looks like a French village. If you live in the North East corridor and are looking for a nice weekend getaway with a special-someone, I strongly suggest this town. We were only there for a few hours and it wasn’t enough. Two-three days would be perfect, it seems.
The other trip that we had a chance to go on was a bus tour to Ottawa, Canada’s capital. I found it fascinating how easy it was to access the Parliament building. You could go into almost any chamber with no appointment. We even got to watch the lower house get prepared to vote. We could have watched the entire vote but we didn’t want to get stuck in the room so we left before they closed the doors.
Before we left Montreal we also had a chance to see their world famous botanical gardens and the 1976 Olympic park. Speaking of Olympic parks, I realized this week that I’ve seen too many of them. I don’t know why I’ve seen so many. It’s not like I’ve set out to see every Olympic stadium. But if I count them I’ve been to and up to the actual stadiums in these cities: Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Barcelona, Seoul, Los Angeles, Montreal, Munich, Mexico, Tokyo, Berlin, Lake Placid and Amsterdam. I’ve digressed enough.
Flooding, what are the odds that the two cities we work in get hit?
September 27, 2009 by Rick Latona · 7 Comments
During my recent trip abroad, my home town of Atlanta was pummled with rain. I returned only this Friday after it was, for the most part, over. My wife promptly reminded me that I’m always away when disaster strikes.
One time, when she was pregnant, the city froze over and the power went out in our neighborhood. Over the phone I told her to go to the nearest hotel with working electricity. Problem was she couldn’t open the power garage door to get the car out. We got her to saftey using friends but that’s a memory that won’t fade any time soon.
During the Atlanta flooding last week no harm was done to my office or staff but we were shut down a couple of days. Ryan made the correct judgment call to close up when 2.5 feet of rain was dumped on Paulding County where he resides. It would have been wrong to ask anyone to drive. I’m glad he did that and I’m glad that everyone was safe. Seems the worse of what hit our camp is we all have a lot of clean up work to do to our yards as there are branches and debris everywhere.
Now, it appears our operation in The Philippines is at risk. Considering our team there is much larger than our team in Atlanta and their resources and access to assistance are much less than what we enjoy here in the States, the problem is much more troubling.
My sincerest and best wishes to everyone in the greater Manila area. Stay safe. Don’t worry about work assigned to you. Just don’t get hurt and protect your family.
Back to the top - Climb Kilimanjaro and help provide clean water to those in need
August 13, 2009 by Rick Latona · 4 Comments
In March of 2010 ICANN will stage an event in Kenya. Being that it’s only a reasonable drive from Kilimanjaro a climb needs to happen. Want to join us?
We’ll be raising awareness and hopefully a lot of dough for The Water School in the process, a non-profit organization supported by Internet businessman extraordinaire Gregg McNair and an organization that Gregg is slowly but surely getting the whole domainer community to support.
Besides an incredible 6 day workout, you would be spending time with me, Jeff Eckhaus (the president of eNom) and surely many other high-profile individuals.
Fraser Edwards (he runs The Water School) will be coordinating the event. Please hit me up if you would like to join us on the climb and I will put you in touch with him.
I’ve already climbed the mountain once and can attest that it is a game chaning experience that you will never forget. I blogged about it afterwards here.
I’ve decided to go for my own ICANN extension and compete with .com
June 24, 2009 by Rick Latona · 25 Comments
Greetings from Sydney Australia.
What’s amazed me about this current ICANN meeting is the sheer number of companies and individuals lobbying for their own extensions with ICANN.
Last night we went to a party, hosted by Wolfgang Puck and the good people over at Mind and Machines. Chef Puck is going after .food. Are the restaurants all going to line up for these names? We’ll let the market decide.
Or how about Shaquille O’Neil applying for .basketball? Maybe with his bankroll, it doesn’t matter if you drop half a million on it just to see what would happen.
Therein lies the issue. For many corporations and high net-wealth individuals it really doesn’t cost that much money to secure your own extension. At least, not in the grand scheme of things and not if ICANN finally gets the initiative launched.
The meeting has a very Washington DC feel to it. There are lobbyist everywhere. Even though any extension with two bidders will enter an auction, most companies are openly promoting the extensions they are going after. One would think that is their way to getting competitors to shy away from going after the same one.
More likely, these companies are putting on an aggressive lobbying effort. There in-your-face marketing puts their wannabe babies on the forefront of the ICANN board’s minds.
I guess you can’t blame them. If you want to get your extension passed it is a good way to go about it.
Therefore, I’ve decided to apply for my own extension. My idea is so huge and ground breaking that you may want to open a savings account now to be ready to snatch up my domains during my land rush period.
It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime ideas that will be a game changer. Starvation will no longer be a global problem. Everyone, everywhere will have clean water. Cats will play with dogs. It will stop raining in Vancouver and the Cubs will win a World Series.
Are you ready for the idea?
dotICANN
Yep.
.icann
You could have politics.icann, lobbying.icann, painfullyslowandtediousmeetings.icann, wheredoesallthemoneygo.icann and of course, the super premium travel.icann. These boys and girls do love to travel after all.
Seriously folks, there are not going to be dozens of new extensions or even hundreds. Expect thousands of extensions over the next 5-6 years.
It’s a land rush of a new and different order.
Heading back from Spain. What a wonderful time. What great people.
May 5, 2009 by Rick Latona · 7 Comments
I’m returning from the Domaining.es forum in Valencia, Spain. What a great trip. The people, the country and the city have been fantastic.
I’ve never been invited to stay in someone else’s home so often. This was the most hospitable and welcoming group of individuals I’ve come across in some time.
From the beginning I was welcomed with open arms. Unless something significant comes up, I’ll return next year for sure.
Special thanks to (and in no particular order):
Dietmar J Stefitz (my host with the most)
Daniel Dryzek (and his lovely wife)
There were 40 more people there but I’m afraid I didn’t get all of their business cards.
The .es extension is going to do very well with this group of people as the early adopters.
50 thousand Americans shaking in their boots sounds like… Domainers beware. Obama is about to get America paid.
May 4, 2009 by Rick Latona · 5 Comments
I’m not one to regurgitate news articles as blog posts but this one is relevent to the domain community.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that Obama’s administration is going to crack down on offshore tax avoidance in a big way.
Many domain companies, fortunately not my own, have setup offshore operations. I wouldn’t want to be them right now.
From the article:
“President Barack Obama will flesh out a proposal included in his February budget blueprint seeking to curb the practice of parking foreign earnings in offshore tax havens indefinitely. By some estimates, $700 billion or more in U.S. corporate earnings have accumulated in overseas accounts in recent years.
The plan to be announced Monday will go further. It aims to change the legal treatment of offshore subsidiaries and structures that companies have used to avoid not only U.S. taxes, but taxes in other developed countries as well.
In addition, the administration will strive to tighten rules that have encouraged thousands of Americans to open offshore bank accounts in an effort to duck U.S. taxes. The plan would increase information reporting and tax withholding as well as penalties, and make it harder for foreign account-holders to win cases in court. The administration promised new enforcement tools to crack down on tax-haven abuse.”
Valencia bound. I really wish I had practiced my Spanish before this trip.
April 30, 2009 by Rick Latona · 7 Comments
I’m off to Valencia today for a small but I’m sure worthy meeting of domainers in Spain. I’m looking forward to meeting new people and relaxing a bit.
While we are still pushing our extended auction and will be working through the nights closing deals on the remaining names from the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. show in Santa Clara it is also time to focus squarly on Amsterdam.
So here I go to Europe to rally the troops.
No sign of a bad economy at Disney World. Mickey Mouse is making a lot of cheese.
March 18, 2009 by Rick Latona · 4 Comments
After a week at Disney I’m glad to be home. It was fun though. One thing is for sure, The Walt Disney Company got plenty of my family’s hard earned money.
With the main resort hotels fully booked and 45 minute or more wait times for the major rides, it is hard to imagine they could be struggling.
This time around we had a really great time, though. In the past, Disney has caused more family stress than it has cured. It was always unnecessary stress as well while the kids were young enough that they would have been satisfied with a simple trip to the beach rather than something as elaborate as a 6 day park hopper pass. And it doesn’t have to be a big trip to the Hawaii Islands to make them happy.
At 9 and older though they can ride most of the rides. We had a really great time. Their newest park, Blizzard Beach was probably the biggest hit. The little one even had the guts to go down the Summit Plummet, which scared the hell out of me.
Here’s a video of her getting off the ride: p3130015
Check out my view of the Inauguration
January 20, 2009 by Rick Latona · 8 Comments
7:00 A.M. Woke up
8:00 A.M. Left for the event
8:45 A.M Got in line
11:00 A.M. Still in line and kicked out because Pennsylvania Avenue stands between me and the security gate. Then president elect’s motorcade was coming through so if you weren’t in you weren’t getting in.
11:30 A.M Back at small rented apartment.
11:35 A.M. Sitting on the couch watching it on t.v.
Even Mariah Carey couldn’t get in. She was about 20 feet from me in the line. I tried to take a picture but couldn’t. It was so cold and packed it was really miserable.
At least I won’t get behind on emails now. At least Obama is in office and Bush is out. At least I got this watch.
