On My Domain Names

I've had a handful of domain names over the years. I still use most of them for something. I've had others over the years, some of which I let lapse because I just wasn't doing anything with them and didn't see that changing, but here are the most important to me.

ownsu.net

Those that knew me when I was in college, or that exchange email with me to this day, might recognize this domain. I primarily use it for email these days (brent@ownsu.net is my primary email address) but for a long time, I used brent.ownsu.net as the main entrypoint to my website. It should still work today, but I don't advertise that around much these days.

I bought it back in the day as a vanity domain meant to be "blah owns you" where I'd create DNS records for friends or projects that wanted a site. I thought it was clever - but considering how many times I've had to explain it to people over the years I think I probably was wrong now. But I've had it for a very long time and changing my email address now would be super painful, so it's here to stay.

b-rent.com

This was perhaps my favorite domain that I ever owned. b-rent was a nickname of mine towards the end of my college years, and while I never used it for email, I did use it for my website for over 15 years. Then one day, an italian company approached me out of the blue and asked if I'd like to sell it. I really didn't want to do so, but they made me an honest offer and after a bit of negotiating I decided to sell it to them.

So I no longer own this domain, but I did get some sweet sweet cash for it.

openpile.org

At one point in the past, I was working with OpenStack on a project at work, and I got frustrated with the experience. I exclaimed "this isn't a stack... it's a pile!". Use your imagination for the type of pile that I was implying. I quickly scooped up that name and I've had it ever since, and now that I don't own b-rent.com any longer, I use it for my personal site.

In the event that anybody associated with the OpenStack project ever chances upon this, let me explain myself... I understand that the project has come a long ways since its humble beginnings, and that it works well enough now. That's very nice, and I'm happy for you. I still think it's a cool domain though.