That Smith

Laura and I are pleased to announce the newest members of That Smith family.

Members as in plural, and I’m not talking about the baby.

Over the past few weeks Laura and I have been working on new websites.

If you are familiar with the name miniwanker, you’d probably be surprised to hear I brought that domain back from the dead.

It’s not one of the new sites, but is where I complain about crap in order to keep my sanity. It’s a lot like mumbling inappropriate/inaudible stuff through speakers at drive-thru windows then saying you’re trying to make up your mind, except on a blog.

The new ones are domains we created or purchased earlier this year but haven’t put to good use until now. The new additions to our family of sites are:

Baby Smith - [baby.thatsmith.com]

Laura wanted a site/blog dedicated to everything about the baby and we weren’t able to purchase his name (made an offer, but no luck), so this is where the site is for now.

She writes on it every other day or so about what the baby is doing and eating, and how the pregnancy is coming along. It might sound pretty boring, but most formerly pregnant people I know keep a journal for their babies as well.

ProGreeting - [progreeting.com]

ProGreeting is a site I made back in September when I wrote about new business ideas and one I came up with to make money on the side. I never shared the idea and ended up having to drop it because I switched jobs. That’s the kind of thing you can read about on ProGreeting.

I don’t have many opportunities to write for any of the sites because Laura only lets me do it when I’m at work on weekends, but ProGreeting is where where I write about small business failures. I got to know several at my old job, and currently have two half-written articles about them to finish for this weekend and next.

BEERdad - [beerdad.com]

I bought beerdad.com a few months ago because I saw the domain was expiring and figured it would be a good purchase. Then in November I started the new hobby I hinted at in my summary of 2007. If you haven’t guessed or tried any yet, that hobby is brewing beer.

So far I’ve made one batch (56 bottles) of premium beer and kind of wrote about it on the site. I plan to make another batch and write more after I finish the first one. BEERdad will also be where I occasionally write my take on parenting. Cheesey I know, but I couldn’t let such a nice domain name to go to waste. The previous owner bought it in 2001 and had a coming soon message on it the entire time.

Ski Wichita - [www.skiwichita.com]

The last new site I’ve been working on is Ski Wichita, and when I say working on, I mean give just enough content to go public.

It may be a funny domain to have because for Wichita, but I registered it a few weeks ago because the front page of the Wichita Eagle says we might get a man-made ski area in the near future. Something similar to Snow Creek or the indoor area being built by the speedway.

At the time I had an offer to register a free domain, so I decided to register Ski Wichita. If an area is built in Wichita I will put ads on it and work out a deal with local vendors. Or, if plans fall through, I can always use it for travel information.

Either way, because of how search engines rank sites, I should have the first result for skiing in Wichita in no time. Most search engines currently give higher rankings to sites that have been around longer too.

Those are the new additions to our family. As always, the other members are listed at the bottom of www.thatsmith.com and on thatsmith.net.