This started out as a web hosting company.

No, seriously, this was where you, my customers, would come to pay your bills and send me customer service emails. This was the website of a company that gave you space to put your webpages. I named it ‘dwink’ as a shorthand for d.w. inc., because the domain was available, and because it seemed like a good idea at the time. I had these kickass business cards for my consulting business, and I could sell people websites along with the hosting for them if they were so inclined. It seemed like a grand vision.

Then I learned something: I hated running a hosting company. I hated billing people, wasn’t fond of managing a multi-domain email service, quickly bored with tweaking apache configs and setting up the same damn MySQL databases so people could have blogs, and I constantly thought: “Some day I’m going to write the Killer Python App which does all this for me.” And then, I avered, I’d be able to bring in lots more websites and start actually making money on the hosting thing.

A few weeks after I started the Killer Python App To Do All My Dirty Work, my highest-paying consulting gig offered to hire me on as an employee. The deal was this: I work a ton of hours for them, get paid a good salary plus bennies plus bonuses, and have absolutely no time left over to host websites. Duh, what would you pick?

Now I work tons of hours as a software engineer & team lead, business analyst, and all-around-good-guy, making it easier for my firm’s compliance officers to stay on top of all the regulations they are responsible for.

And this hosting company is now just another damn blog.