Author Archives: Cam

CamHughes.com

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Own your domain name. Register it. Otherwise someone else will and you may not like what they put on it. I finally got mine: camhughes.com. I’ve wanted to get this domain for years, but it was owned by another party. It finally dropped and I guess good things come to those who wait. I’ve also had my eye on cameronhughes.com but it was also already owned (and is now squatted by Network Solutions). Cameron Hughes is also a wine maker with a fairly large Internet footprint so there’s some potential competition there. And to be fair, I’m really “Cam” more than I’m “Cameron” these days, so camhughes.com is my first pick. Go ahead- type www.camhughes.com into your browser. Ah yeah- it goes right back here.

Even though she doesn’t really care I picked up my wife’s domain name (www.francoisehughes.com) and redirected it to her blog. Interestingly franhughes.com is taken, but since Francoise  prefers her full name things worked out just fine.

You know what I want? I want to be the first result for me- for “Cam Hughes”. Right now I’m not. I’m in the top ten, but that doesn’t quite cut it. Also, much to my chagrin I share “Cam” with some girls (sweet girls who tweet). The women can share “Cameron” but “Cam” is clearly a guy’s name. It’s a freaking car part. Nothing feminine about that. “Pass me the cam so I can massacre this guy when we race.” Yes. Not “Pass me the cam so I can rest me tea cup on it.” Hell no. Luckily I’ve learned a few things about domaining and SEO in the past couple years. Mark my words people. When you type “Cam Hughes” into Google- yeah, all seven of you- the first result will be me.

On a separate, but not unrelated note, domains names are a blast. I’ve been actively engaged in building a portfolio (nothing to sell, just stuff to use). Some of it’s for business, but some of it’s just for fun. For example, I just picked up camshq (dot) com.  Some of my businesses end in “HQ” so I figured that I could have my personal headquarters at Cam’s HQ. For now it’s just a redirect- I already have way to many blogs set up. Yes… too many blogs.  But I know there’s one more coming for sure. More on that later though. I often wish I could go back in time and pick up some great domains names. Digital real estate is cool.

Oct 24, 2014: I recently sold the aforementioned domain name. I see they have turned it into a porn site. Awesome. That’s one thing that I don’t enjoy about my nickname. To many unsavory things are linked to the term “Cam.” Ah well.

February 24, 2015: The guys I sold the domain name to apparently left my personal contact information on the domain. Now if you do a search for my email address it looks like I run a porn website. Geez. Awkward. I got them to change it, but it could be a long time before Google alters their results.

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Cam Hughes (<– Oh! SEO keyword!)

 

December 2010 (Extreme Edition)

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December has been crazy. Sometimes I like it crazy. But sometimes I wish time would just stop and everything would disappear so I could catch my breath. Sometimes you get what you wish for… 

I got a reprieve from my phone about a week ago. I don’t use a case to protect it- I don’t drop my phone often and when I have it’s always been from a sitting position. While I was climbing out of a borrowed car my phone slipped off my lap and onto the ground. I have done the exact same thing before and I got a light scratch on the screen and a nick in the casing. No suck luck this time. The screen completely shattered (this was from a drop about two feet high onto asphalt). I had the phone repaired but it took five days. I literally felt the quality of my life plummet. There was no way to be connected with things and I felt unreachable and disassociated from my life and work. Unpleasant to say the least. But more surprising, after getting my phone back the feelings I had didn’t go away. It definitely bears more investigation. 

 

At any rate, I have (obviously) switched to the iPhone. It’s been an amazing companion and has simplified (complicated?) my life. I really like Apple’s OS and, aside from the fact that they have banned Flash, don’t have any serious issues with the phone. And no issues with ATT for that matter (glad I got locked into the unlimited data plan before they did away with it though!). Iphone? That’s my phone.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah… December…crazy.  Work gets incredibly busy with all the holiday orders coming in. I don’t want the order volume to change and it would be ungrateful to complain , but I wish there was was an easier way to get everything done. Still, overall I’d day we’ve done remarkably well.  We have an amazing team at work and this year wouldn’t have been possible without them . So, “thank you” Aaron, Alise, Amanda, Ammon,  Anna, Apana, Chad, Fran, Jake, Jane, Jim, Justin, Mark,  Levi , Ryan and Robot Bob. All of you are awesome!

People who don’t work in retail must get a lot of time off. Everyone’s got something special planned for December. I love the events, but I wish I had more time for them (although I haven’t been sick at all this winter and that’s been wonderful!).  We’ve been to some great parties, ginger bread house competitions, movies, family gatherings and there’s a ton more to go to.

Yeah, sometimes I wish time would just stop and everything would disappear so I could catch my breath. I’d better be careful though. Sometimes you get what you wish for… 

Posted December 19, 2010

Cold Wheels

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Well, it’s winter again. I park the car and get depressed. It hasn’t snowed too much, but this time of year the ground is peppered with gravel and debris. The cold doesn’t help either (it affects traction). There are little breaks in the weather here and there and I take my car out, but a once a month drive just doesn’t do it. A Vette is kind of a silly thing to own sometimes.

Ideally winter would be a good time to get some projects done. Sadly, I’m in the retail industry and there isn’t much free time during the winter. All I really have to do at the moment though is replace my wideband sensor (they go bad occasionally). Right now it defaults into error status after a few minutes of driving. I might just unplug it since I don’t really need it now since the car it tuned. But I wish it was working…  Yeah, my wideband will be my winter project.

And that’s a wrap for the year. I’ll see you guys in the spring!

Posted by Cam Hughes,  December 10th, 2010

2010 Home “Improvements”

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Once in awhile we wish we could go back in time and change a few things. A light switch here. Speaker wiring there. An additional electrical socket, a few more bedrooms, a whole different house. Just sometimes. But the truth is, we’ll be here for awhile (it would e a shame to uproot our kids). So, may as well make the best of it! We’ve done a lot o little makeover projects this year. Forgot about the return on investment- these improvements are just things to make us more comfortable.

Fran enlisted our neighbor, an interior decorator named  Stacy Slaney, to redesign our Master bedroom. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. The redesigned room is warm, comfortable and elegant.

Here are some pictures I borrowed from Stacy’s website. I like them better because they show the before & after. It’s a definite improvement!

Stacy also added  highlight walls in the kid’s rooms (pink in the girl’s, blue in the boys’).  She  also painted a wall downstairs in the kitchen/dining area with a dark sage.  The new colors really add a depth to house. Who knew painting a few walls could feel so good?

And heat tape. We did it for you. Each year water freezes in our gutters and starts to drip onto the entry walkway. This results in a thick patch of ice affectionately dubbed “the porch of death.” We finally did something about it. The heat tape melts the ice on the front portion of our roof and runs all the way through the front gutter system. Fingers crossed. We also had and electrical socket added on the eve so we could plug in Christmas lights. We should have done that when we built the house…

We also fixed our driveway (again). Around here most of the driveways were poured by Hadco. With a few exceptions they are all falling apart. Initially we complained so much that Hadco re-poured our driveway at cost (I think that was supposed to be a secret, but it was still a rip-off  so who cares?). Within a year it was falling apart again (not to mention sinking). So, this time we used a company called RepairCrete to resurface and seal the driveway. Fran had them do the front porch in red with a snazzy texture. It really turned out great. Now we’re anxious to see how this holds up during the winter. Is it too much to ask for a good driveway?

RepairCrete, Roof Heat Tape

Also of absolute riveting fascination:  ceiling fans!  The red one went in the basement (in place of a can light).  The other fan is in the office. It’s always too hot or too cold in there so a fan helps us regulate the temperature.  Man, I love ceiling fans.

In an earlier post I mentioned how my “man room” had become the new laundry room. Well, the laundry room finally became a mud room. Classy Closets came by and whipped us up a set of shelves that would put Ikea to shame (and don’t get me wrong- I love Ikea). It’s really nice to have a place to come in and take off shoes  and jackets. Plus there’s a ton of storage space for tools, cleaning supplies and what not.

And here’s a fun little side project. We redid our floors in granite. Okay, you got me. It was granite laminate. And it was Claire’s dollhouse. Fran disassembled it and moved it into the basement. Before reassembling it she wanted to recover the floor (you can clearly see why!). The project ended up taking three hours and I did my usual grumbling and complaining. This is a big dollhouse. Now we need to paint the  roof red. Or maybe just “lose” the roof.

And that’s about it for 2010 home improvements. In some ways it’s nice to stay in the same house for so long- you get settled in and you can start to make changes you want. And if you’re going to stay for a long time you don’t need to worry about resellability as much. Do things you like becuase you want them.

Posted December 05, 2010

Work: Store Update

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I really wanted to get our store finished before Cyber Monday hit. No such luck. Despite our bet efforts we didn’t quite make it. But I’m really excited about our progress!

We pushed our counters up closer to the door to make a more normal size store. This makes the area feel less intimidating and it keeps customers in the right area (believe me- if you don’t corral them they wander off to restricted areas and grope the products without shame).

We also started building out more shelves. There will  be about five times as much storage space  in the store once we’re done (we basically turned two thirds of it into a “classy” warehouse). Figuring the design took a long time and then building the shelves is taking even longer. I want to give a shout out to everyone at work who helped on this- I couldn’t have done it without you guys!

We’ve made some more progress that I will post in the upcoming days. I’m afraid that actually finishing the store will have to wait until there is a holiday lull. Or, possibly until next year. I hate waiting.

Posted November 29th, 2010

And then Cam was gone (?)

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The first Monday after Thanksgiving has been dubbed “Cyber Monday.” It’s the day that people typically start their online shopping. It’s real people. It’s very real. I just barley survived it. Sadly this marks the potion of the holiday season where the work is endless, the customer are relentless and it’s a mad race against the count down clock of Holiday doom. I love it and I hate it. Overall it was an amazing day for our company in many ways.

In any event, I typically disappear for about a month while we shovel our way through endless holiday orders. Time is sparse (ha, like it wasn’t before) but this year I’m determined to keep my head above the water. So far I haven’t slept at work, I haven’t gotten sick, we have our Christmas lights hung, the tree is up, our shopping is done and I’m cautiously optimistic that we may survive.  Maybe this will be the year that December doesn’t destroy me. Fingers crossed!

Posted November 29th, 2010

Other Fun Stuff…

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While I was in Disney Land I found this sweet  picture of Donald Duck as Boba Fett. Some things are just made to go together. Chocolate and peanut butter, milk and cookies and Star Wars and Disney. Anyone familiar with my hobbies will know that I collect “art” (for lack of a better word). The store at Disney Land wanted too much for the print so I got it on eBay and then had it re-framed. I have nowhere to put it, but I thought I should share the awesomeness.

A couple of months ago  I decided I should start reading again. It had been nearly a year since I polished off any books (the Twilight series was the last thing I read).  I decided to to start with  William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride.” I enjoyed the book. It fleshed out a lot of areas I felt the movie skimped on. Goldman’s humor is hit and miss, but works for the most part. The story is not quite the fairy tale the movie makes it out to be. Worth a read for sure.

The second book I read was Orson Scott Card’s “Pastwatch.” I’d had my eye on this book for a couple of years, but had never made the time. It’s a very well written account of what is essentially an alternate history. Some parts of the book are very intellectually disturbing and I enjoyed the way Card challenges our current complacency with acts of horror buried in the past. Another book I’d recommend (I generally enjoy Card’s work).

I’m current reading Tony Hsieh’s book “Delivery Happiness.” It’s an entertaining a history of his involvement with Zappos and the the creation of their well regarded business culture. So far so good.

I’ve also got my eye on a couple more business books but with the holidays coming up I’m afraid my reading time will be pretty limited. Still, I’m going to try to find time to squeeze in something. I had forgotten how much fun reading can be.

Posted November 20th, 2010