You know that moment? The one when you realize you should have gotten a bill, but haven’t seen it? That happened to me two months back when I forgot to check an old email account and didn’t find the reminder to renew my old domain name: gentasebastian{dot}com until one (1) day after the renewal period ended. When I contacted the registration people, they said it would cost over a hundred dollars to get it back, or I could wait until July 27th and re-register it.

Well, I waited. Who else would want a website with my distinctive name, anyway? Over a hundred dollars doesn’t come easy these days, and it didn’t seem like a problem. I spent the time moving from Blogger to WordPress and updating the blog. When the day finally arrived, I tried registering it, but was told it was ‘taken’. That’s the same message I’d gotten the other three times I’d tried during the waiting period, so I figured I was early. I tried later that day, and again the next.

Finally, I typed in the URL and found a weight-loss scam has bought my name! I’m guessing they thought I had a large following because of an anomaly of visitors when I blogged about my bariatric weight loss.

Well, it’s infuriating. Not only did I have to register the less direct gentasebastian-author.com, I have to chase down all the links I’ve scattered across the netosphere and change them. AND I need to apologize to YOU who try to get to my site to learn about my books and instead find yourself being sold a suspect weight loss program. I DO NOT ENDORSE THEIR PRODUCT, and I am most sincerely sorry if you’ve been subjected to it, quite literally, in my name.

But…isn’t the new place sparkly? I hope you enjoy looking around, and welcome back to the same old website, albeit with a brand new domain name.