*Big* week
I didn't intend to spend most of this week like I was doing a personal hackathon, but I've been updating a bunch of projects at once and it was a ton of work in a short time, so it's time to show them off.
Statham Punch gets a refresh
Years ago, I was joking with a friend in a theater as we sat down to watch a new Expendables movie starring Jason Statham. I said "I wonder how long it'll take before he punches someone in the face?" and to continue that joke I started the timer on my watch and showed him my wrist. Later, I posted a screenshot of my watch to Twitter with the caption that it only takes 14 minutes to enjoy a punch in that flick, and people seemed to love it, so I kept doing it. Then I took all my tweets over the years and posted them to a single page website.
I recently added his latest movies and redesigned so it's easier to update in the future.
Haughey.com gets a revamp
The first .com domain I ever bought was my last name, in 1997. I initially ran a blog there in 1999 but moved my blog here in 2001 to its own home. Ever since, my Haughey.com site has languished as a weird portfolio or resume or wiki and eventually it just became a one page way for anyone looking to contact me.
I decided to scrap the old one and make it a one-page portfolio that showcases my job experience, writing, and photography. It's still not the most useful site but it feels like a better representation of me.
Our NWSL book is now completely online and free to read
My wife and I have followed women's pro soccer closely for over a decade and when the league was adding new teams several years ago, I thought about how I'd personally been to almost half the stadiums, and with a few flights I could see the other half and write it all up for anyone else traveling to see pro soccer games in unfamiliar stadiums.
Over the course of three months of 2024, I visited every stadium in the country and started writing a detailed guide on the best places to sit and best things to eat in every stadium, along with what stadiums do right and what they get wrong. I didn't finish the project until the end of 2024 when I put it out as an ebook, but I never liked the slowness and lack of control even self-publishing gives you. I always wanted to make it public and web-native, where edits and updates could be instant and regular (and the whole thing could be a living project that lasts for years instead of being frozen in amber on paper).
So it's now all online here, and I'll be updating it throughout the year with two new teams and one new stadium for an older team left to review. I'm in LA this weekend for a game and will revamp the BMO stadium review after my third revisit when I get back.
Matthew Haughey
More projects and updates
I redesigned this blog and added a bunch of features the Ghost CMS that I always wanted. I built a personal gym app that tracks my specific workouts and lets me record weights and view those as graphs over time. I'm knee-deep in three different woodworking projects with a couple more on the horizon. It's also Spring in Oregon and that means I mowed a few acres of lawn, weedwhacked another acre of overgrown grasses, and I've rewired an electric mower and had to jump start my tractor all this week.
This has been my most productive week in months, so I'll be taking a long nap today to celebrate.
