Moving on
I got an email this week from Google, telling me that the email address [email protected] is no longer recoverable. I get a lot of spam, so of course, my first thought is that it was a scam. It stated that the email address has been turned off because it "hasn't been used within a 2-year period". Scam emails usually have some blatant call-to-action button in them, so given that this didn't, I assumed it was some sort of elaborate way to get me to click on another link in the email and thought nothing else of it.
But then, as I was sitting on the toilet, an idea came to me as all good ideas do when in that position: what if this email was real, and maybe there was a previous owner to this domain that had linked Google to the email address? It's times like these that I realise how incredibly valuable the Wayback Machine is (maybe just to digital archaeologists like me).
A few months ago when I started thinking about setting up this blog and figuring out what domain to get, I started with marcgilbert.com (taken by a seemingly defunct blogger who had some eclectic writings), then traversed into other combinate variants of my first name, last name, middle name (if I was feeling esteemed), and then started thinking that I don't love typing more than I have to (ironic), and "marcg" seemed like an idea to search for, even though I knew there'd just be some TLD nightmare like marcg.ai or marcg.ru that probably wouldn't sit well with me nor readers.
When I found this domain available, I was really surprised. I mean, what are the chances for getting your first name and the first letter of your last name dot net in 2026. Especially when your name is Marc Gilbert, which is not that uncommon. I remember finding it and thinking "wow, this is either a goldmine or no one else is dumb enough to buy it!", so obviously I snapped it up and, well, that's how you're reading this now.
I assumed I was the first to ever own it, and indeed, felt very clever that I was the first to find it. Alas, I'm still a dumbass.
So anyway, I end up on the Wayback Machine and start going through some of the snapshots and, hey, hey! There's mine at the start of this year! Then there's an empty period of a couple of years and... well, well well, there's something from 2017! The snapshot from 2017 is borked, so I go back a bit further, and the earliest that works is March, 8th, 2016, but it's a 403 forbidden error.
Going further back to May, 24th, 2012, we take a strange turn where the site becomes Japanese, and when translated, seems to be about American Politicans?
Welcome to American Politicians!
This site is a site that provides information that beginners can not listen to anymore .... I hope that everyone can solve some of the problems that go through.
Thank you very much for your support.
Ooo...kkk...
Further back we go!
Seems that this website was 404ing on August, 11th, 2011, on a Japanese website called "Blogger Alliance", that presumably someone was using to host and/or promote their blog.
Between 2007 and 2009, we get a lot of 302 redirects to /blog, so let's see what we've got there.
Ah ha! Now we're getting somewhere. It seems the former marcg was a very committed Ron Paul libertarian (October, 25th, 2007).
There's a lot of posts on the blog, mostly focused on Ron Paul, but Marc (Gallagher is his last name it seems) retired the marcg.net domain from Ron Paul musings at the end of October 2007 and started sending folk to libertymaven.com instead. Digging through the snapshots of libertymaven (honestly: great domain), it seems to have fizzled out on November 12th, 2012, after Paul ended his campaign run in 2012, not having secured the Republican nomination.
A shame, seems like the blog was really well produced and had a lot of... wait. What the fuck is that?
"If you ever find yourself wanting/needing to purchase ammo then check out our other endeavor that is still going strong: AmmoSeek.com. It may come in handy someday…"
The rabbit hole knows no bounds.
AmmoSeek.com was started by Mike and Marc in 2009, as a place "to help gun owners find in stock ammo at the best prices available online". Seems to be a search engine/price aggregator for ammunition. I love this guy. Not because I like guns, but I love the way his story is piecing together. Marc Gallagher seems consistent.
Being in Germany, I can't get to the website easily (blocked here it seems), but I get the jist of what Marc and Mike are doing. It's interesting seeing this journey unfold in reverse. But, what happens if we go even further back?
I love this dude. He shares some poetry (pretty damn saucy!), he links to hyperreal.org, which is about dance, music, art, "altered states of consciousness" and other rave related topics. He even links to Google to help people find this brand spanking new search engine! Gosh, I forgot how the internet worked back then.
Marc's resume is there, and having a dig, he seems like a really switched on fella. Way ahead of the technical curve, helping administer systems for the Department of Defense (to which Marc states he had Top Secret clearance!), doing some seriously nerdy shit. Pretty cool.
I spent a bit of time digging, but mostly I find just a guy, doing his thing similar to what I am doing here, and finding his interests and passions and looking to share them with the world. It seems to have eventuated in him doing AmmoSeek full-time (that's so great! I love the entrepreneurial spirit, as it's something I'm soft-pursuing as well with my coffee. Marc, please write me if you have any tips), and he seems happy according to a more recent photo I found of him. He's smiling just like he was back in 2004.
I like that in his first post when his blog took to Ron Paul musings in 2007, Marc wrote: "I hope my last words are not 'Oh Shit!' ... I’m not sure what my last words will be, but I would hope they would be something a bit more poetic." His poetic streak seems to have followed him around. Maybe they still do.
When I bought this domain and started this blog, it turns out I had just moved into a house that already had a bit of history. The internet is pretty old, and there's only so many names that people can twist into a workable domain, so it makes sense that ownership shifts, new people come along looking to spruce the place up. But if you lift up the floorboards you might find some old newspapers. Maybe behind the wallpaper there's a hidden note (we did that as kids, I seem to remember), and if you dig around a bit more, you find out there's someone, perhaps more like you than you realised, who is living their life and likely never knew their story would be something that manages to capture anyone else's attention. Well, Marc, your story captured mine for this entire week. Thank you!
I'm glad I wasn't the first person to own this domain. I hope I won't be the last. I hope Marc Gallagher is proud of what he finds here, even as he seems to have moved on a long time ago.
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.