Tomorrow, Nov 10th, is the 234th birthday of the United States Marine Corps. Bob Parsons has already posted his annual “birthday card” to the USMC on GoDaddy.com:
He also wrote in his email announcement:
I’d also like to extend this tribute to all of the men and women serving in all branches of the U.S. Military – Army, Navy, Air Force or Coast Guard. Thank you all for your tireless dedication to keeping our country safe.
Bob Parsons
He might not be that famous by name, actually, but as the founder of GoDaddy.com Bob Parsons has probably had a bigger impact on the Internet than any other Marine. In just a few years GoDaddy has become the biggest domain registrar in the world, three times as big as its nearest competitor.
As a former Marine, Vietnam vet, Purple Heart recipient, and IT entrepreneur, I thought he’d make a perfect person to highlight during Project Valour-IT. On top of that, his company assembles an electronic Marine Corps birthday card every year. They haven’t put the 2009 card up yet (I reckon that will be out on Nov 10th), so instead I’m putting up a link to last year’s card.
GoDaddy.com / Bob Parson Tribute to the 233rd Birthday of the USMC
I think I’ll see if I can contact him personally for a donation to Project Valour-IT. Wish me luck! 
Edit: couldn’t find a contact for him, but did find the GoDaddy Cares charitable request form, which I’ve submitted. Cross yer fingers, and please consider donating yourself if you haven’t already. Thanks!
It looks like my test message to my Jirel email address came through okay this morning, so I think I’m officially moved; still need to get my game stats pages working again, though.
If you’re seeing this post, then the DNS update has propagated to you and you’re live on the GoDaddy host. I messed up various things with my seat-of-pants migration, but the Wordpress stuff all appears to be working okay. My email may be bouncing right now as my new account setup has a status of “Waiting on MX record” — which I don’t understand, because all my DNS entries should be updated and correct; I may have to contact support, which thus far has been excellent.
Also, my game stats pages appear to be broken right now, but I’ll mess with that tomorrow. Time for bed!
If you play MMOGs at all, and especially if you engage in player-vs-player (PvP) combat, you know that INC means “incoming.” I’m moving my hosting from GeneralHosting to GoDaddy. I have free hosting that comes with my domain registration, which will trim $8 a month from my online expenses, plus GoDaddy gives me more control over my site configuration, including DNS settings (CNAMES, etc.), MySQL database creation and control, etc.
There may be a short hiccup when I make the cutover, but otherwise I expect the transition to be pretty smooth. Once I have done mine, I will work on moving over my in-laws’ site, HowardsCustomFlatheads.com.
See you on the other side!
You know, say what you want about the dude and his marketing strategies, but the fact remains that Bob Parsons knows how to build and run a business: he grew Parsons Technology from his basement business into a $64M sale to Intuit in 10 years, and GoDaddy has grown from a new registrar to the market leader, three times as big as its nearest competitor. I really appreciate his no-bullshit demeanor and the fact that he takes the time out to produce his informative, entertaining video blog. Yes, it is also self-marketing, but it’s obvious he’s having a good time while providing the lessons he’s learned in business over the years.
Check out his current video blog entry: http://www.bobparsons.me/Blog28.html?watch=1; and I’ll paste his “16 Rules for Success in Business & Life In General” here, too:
He’s a Vietnam vet who gives a shout-out to the USMC on its birthday every year. I don’t even agree with a lot of his politics, but he I think he’s pretty cool.
/thumbs up.