2005 Year In Review

What an amazing year. I started 2005 living out of a rented house and single. I end 2005 owning two houses and engaged to a wonderful woman who has inspired me and challenged me to go beyond what I thought was possible.

The turning point of 2005 happened in June when I was vacationing in Shanghai. I was at the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower and that’s when I asked Sarah to marry me. Meeting Sarah has changed my life, and for the better. My friend Carl has told me that if she hadn’t come into my life I would still be renting and driving a $100,000 sport car. In other words, I would be living the life many typical guys dream about. And I really thought I was living the good life until I discovered how much more fulfilling life can be when there is someone else to share it with.

2005 mark the first time I became a home owner. Owning a house has always been one of my goals. I just didn’t expect it to happen so soon. This just show the effect an inspiring woman can have on a man. After buying the first house, buying the 2nd one was easy.

Not only did I moved into a new home in 2005 but so did my web sites, which got moved out of dedicated server hosting and into their very own servers co-located at the NetNation data center in downtown Vancouver. This will be the final move for the sites. Currently, TTZ sites are powered by three high end Dell PowerEdge 1850 servers. I expect to add one or two more servers in 2006.

The year showed amazing growth on the internet. Not only was traffic up on my sites but advertising exploded beyond the dot com heydays. Blogging became a household word. I saw shares of Google go pass $400 and kicked myself for advising Sarah not to buy it when the stock was “only” $175.00.

2005 also saw remnants of the buying frenzy from the dot com boom days. News Corp bought MySpace for $500 million and then buys IGN for $600 million. Yahoo bought 40% of Alibaba for $1 billion. eBay buys Skype for $4.3 billion, then buys Shopping.com for $600 million spare change. Weblog Inc. got sold to AOL for $25 million. I expect web properties to continue to be a hot commodity in 2006 and may even try to position a site or two for sale.

Goals for 2006

The end of the year is when everyone makes resolution for the New Year. I don’t believe in resolution because they’re too easy to break. I believe in making clearly defined goals and with that in mind, and in no particular order, these are my goals for 2006.

Get Back To The Gym

I really slacked off with fitness in 2005 and that was really not acceptable. I plan to resume my gym going ways once I get back from the 2006 CES. I would go back on Jan 1st but I know my muscles would be sore for a week while they readjust to the new routine. Having sore muscles is not a good way to go to Vegas. Besides, any gain made would be killed by all the CES parties.

Expand The Dot Com Empire

2005 saw explosive growth across all web properties, especially the TTZ Media Network, which now comprises 19 high quality content sites. My goal for 2006 is to continue to expand my internet reach by adding more sites to the network and more content to The TechZone. You will also see a Chinese version of The TechZone in 2006.

Help More People Achieve Their Internet Goals

They always say it’s lonely at the top. Well, if the top would teach some of what they know to the bottom, then they may not be so lonely. My network business model requires me to help others in order for me to succeed. Some would say that is a self serving motive. However, I was helping fellow tech sites before I started my network. And I made no money from it. Seeing other people succeed at their goals is in itself a reward and I will continue to do that in 2006 and beyond.

Buy More Real Estate

I thought I was doing pretty well before I met Sarah. However, she has come to help me realize just how one dimensional my vision was. If it wasn’t for her, I’ll still be renting. Now, we’re going to build a real estate empire. I would like to add 2 to 4 more properties to our real estate holdings in 2006.

Strengthen The Family

Family is the foundation of growth. Without family, you don’t have a past or a future. My parents are now retired and I would like to be able to provide for them the way they provided for me. My brother is adding another member to his family and I want to be there for him if he needs me. Sarah and I would like to start a family. One of the nice thing about being a dot com mogul is I have a lot of time for family. I want to make myself more available for Ashley and hope that we can spend a lot more time together than we have in 2005.

Travel More

I took five trips in 2005. I would like to double that for 2006. Traveling expands vision. And expanded vision creates new opportunities. I always thought I would live in Vancouver all my life but as I travel more, I start to see other possibilities – like living in different cities during different times of the year.

Make This Blog Into Something Worth Reading

JohnChow.com is just my miscellaneous ramblings about whatever is on my mind. However, I would hope that my ramblings are worth reading. My stats show that over 100 people read this blog everyday. If reading my blog does something good for you, no matter how small, then updating this blog is worth my time.