Coming Soon: Website Renovations 2018

This website being re-designed, re-launch by 2018

UPDATE: THE WEBSITE RE-ORGANIZATION HAS NOW BEEN COMPLETED!

Below is the original article that accompanied the announcement of this re-organization.

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Anyone who has visited here over the years has watched my website undergo a number of previous renovations.

Those changes and renovations have ranged from the design of the page, to the topics emphasized, to the actual name of the page itself.

It began with "Philly Cops" all the way back in the late 1990's. That first site was created as an early place for police officers, especially Philadelphia Police, to get information and news regarding our department and profession.

Within a couple of years, another site called "Domelights" had been developed. 'The Dome' dealt with the same topics. I liked it's format and the dedication of its founders and managers, and so decided to direct my own efforts in another direction.

Sometime around 2004, I decided to direct my efforts at politics. "The Right Way" was a short-lived effort that presented my opinions on various political and social issues from a conservative perspective.

About a decade ago, I decided to check to see if my own name was available as an internet domain. It was, and the "mattveasey.com" site under my own name was born.


Over this past decade the emphasis of the site has changed a few times. At first a continuation of the political and social direction of "The Right Way", I began to incorporate pieces written on any topic that sparked my interest.

At one point, I tried to turn the site into a purely family site. The intent there was to make it a place where our extended family of kids and cousins, aunts and uncles, could catch up and stay in touch with one another.

Then along came Facebook almost immediately. So many family members joined up and got in touch with one another quickly that it became a perfect place to stay in touch.

Over the last half-dozen years there have been three major changes in direction. The first was to a religious and spiritual emphasis. Next came a change to baseball, specifically my hometown Philadelphia Phillies. Finally over the last year or so, to overall baseball coverage.

It was the fall of 1997 when I purchased our first home personal computer and logged on to the internet through the AOL service. Amazing to think that it was a full two decades ago. I began writing soon after. Most of those early pieces are lost to time.

Thankfully when starting "mattveasey.com", I was able to recover a number of pieces dating back as far as 2004. Those are now available here. If you flip through the "Archives" in the left sidebar, you can see the evolution of the topics and direction.


Another thing that I hope you can see is the evolution of my own writing. It is an old axiom that "writers write" - it's in the doing. I enjoy the writing, the self-experession and sharing of ideas.

I'm a writer, whether ever getting paid to do so professionally or not. And so I have to write. I've learned a great deal along the way, and believe that both my style and presentation have improved over the years.

What I have learned in making all of these changes in direction and format over the years is that I have a lot of opinions on a wide variety of issues. It's becoming time to get back to that variety.

Evolution of the Online Social Network

Like a great many other people my online social networking presence has moved in recent years from AOL to MySpace and on to Facebook.

Letting go of one site or technology is sometimes difficult. You get comfortable and familiar with the process at a location and become very reluctant to let go.

You also set up things like photo albums, icon pictures, favorites lists, friends lists, and many other features and so letting go feels like you wasted a lot of time and effort. But eventually the fact that things simply are better at another location is going to catch up with all of us.

I first got online over a decade ago, when we purchased our first home PC in late summer of 1997.

At that time, AOL (America On Line) seemed like a miracle. You could interact immediately with people all over the world, and organize your friends and family together in groups that allowed you to easily interact with one another.

Sharing pictures, videos, and ideas in programs from email to chatrooms to IM's (instant messages) allowed me to reconnect with family members that I had lost touch with, and develop new friendships that never would have happened without this new technology.

The AOL service was the standard for years, and frankly I couldn't imagine anything coming along that could be better than their product.

Santa Beats the Recession

So the American economy has been in a recession since late last year? Now there is a shocker to most people in the country. One thing that we can at least be thankful for this year is that gas prices have dropped by more than half in most areas since their summer peak, just in time for the winter heating season.

So your retirement fund has taken a hit, you are thinking more about running up credit card debt, and you really would like to cut back a bit on your holiday spending. What can you do that will still enable you to feel more like Santa Clause than Ebeneezer Scrooge this Christmas? Plenty.

The first thing that you can do is what might seem like an easy place to cut back, but in fact you should not, and perhaps you should consider expanding. That would be your Christmas card list.

The fact is that Christmas cards have become extremely affordable if you just shop around. You can go lavish and spend $20 or more for a box of 18 cards. But why do that when you can also find nice ones of twice that number for half the price?

You can hand them out at work and school, and even to most of your family members and neighbors. But make sure that you mail a bunch out to those who live far away. A Christmas card is your opportunity, perhaps the only such opportunity that you will have during a year, to let people know that they matter to you.