Not much new on the home front. We're still in the same house, working the same jobs, and doing a lot of the same things. Mari is now 7 and will be starting 2nd grade in September which is pretty exciting for her. First grade was her first time in a big school (she went to a private kindergarten at her pre-school) and there were some issues getting used to the new environment. At least she had some areas to improve upon! She played soccer for the second year, and tried out softball this year as well. It was amazing to see the growth and development of all the kids' skills. In the first game, hitting the ball pretty much insured you made it on base, and making it on base virtually guaranteed making it to 3rd. By the end of the season, girls were catching fly balls, getting outs at first, and covering for players as they went out of position to play the ball.
I think the biggest change since two years ago is that we sold our two letter domain (EP.com) and moved the business to EPage.com instead. We got a proverbial offer we could not refuse and took the plunge. Our trademark and all the branding has been for EPage, so it did make sense to use that, and if we could be compensated "fairly" for the domain, then why not? Of course the other party was not wonderful to deal with, but all in all I think it all worked out just fine. EPage is still running classifieds and is one of the oldest commercial businesses on the web. Last time I mentioned we had just launched AdJungle.com and it is still there. AdJungle makes it easy for publishers to manage banners and sell them on their own terms. We are growing it organically, and have had over 3,400 sites sign up to use us. We're on a pace to serve about 50 million banners this month, which still makes us pretty tiny compared to those serving billions!
I've done some travel for business, going to San Francisco for Ad:Tech every year, and Las Vegas and Orlando for Affiliate Marketing conferences. We still go to Yosemite with the rest of my family every spring and Arizona to see Charlotte's family just before school starts. I brought Charlotte and Mari to Orlando this July, which was our first trip there for all of us. Charlotte and Mari checked out the parks while I was working the conference, and then I joined them for two days after the show. Mari and Charlotte went to Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom, and we all went to Epcot, and then to Magic kingdom again. My single favorite ride was Soarin' which simulated flying (with your feet hanging) over the California countryside in front of a huge screen on a hang glider. It was very cool. We all had a great time, but we ended up bringing the heat and humidity back to Southern California with us so we could break all those records. Even in Redondo Beach where most houses do not have air conditioning it was hot. The house would be about 80 when we got home from work, and might cool down to 76 by morning. Of course, the A/C at work was found to be running at half capacity, so the building got up to 85 degrees by the end of the day, making home feel cool by comparison! If you don't remember, I grew up on Woodland Hills and my parents are still there. Now everyone has heard of it because of the 119 degree record temperature and 20 something days over 100 degrees.
As always, you can see our lives in pictures (at least after I have uploaded them) at http://epage.com/brad
Brad Waller