Projects That Shaped the Journey
For more than two decades, I’ve built websites, blogs, campaigns, and storytelling platforms that blend creativity, community, and curiosity. From personal writing challenges and family journals to grassroots advocacy projects, sports initiatives, and digital archives, each project reflects a chapter of my journey as a writer, creator, community builder, and lifelong storyteller. Explore the projects that helped shape both my voice and my path.
Some people collect resumes. I collect projects. These are a few of the places where writing, curiosity, and life have taken me over the past half-century.
Project Title: What the Fvck (F-vuck)
Original Website: www.whatthefvck.com
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/whatthefvck
All of a sudden, 49 hit me. I’d been writing since I penned my first book in grade 7, and blogging since the inception of GeoCities. I was tired of dreaming, so I grabbed a fvcking spoon and challenged myself to write at least 300 words every day for 365 days.
Project start date: Nov 4, 2022
Project end date: Nov 4, 2023
Last post on site: February 2024
Project type: 365-day writing challenge
Subject: Wanna-be handyman. Husband. Dad of two. Step–Lare Bear to one. Servant to a 110-pound dog, two cats, a raccoon, two-minus-one hamsters, a gecko, and the beautiful chaos that somehow held it all together.
Project Title: Just We Family Blog
Original Website: www.justwe.blog
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/justweblog
This site began as an experiment in family storytelling—a place where I hoped all five of us would share our adventures, reflections, writing, photography, and whatever life happened to throw our way.
The spark came after rediscovering my old Shaking The Tree blog on the Wayback Machine and realizing how much I missed having a place to write. I had also been documenting our wedding journey online, and the writing bug had clearly found its way back.
Like most family projects, life eventually caught up with us. Between work, school, sports, and the added challenges of COVID-19, getting everyone to consistently contribute was never easy. Although the original URL is gone, this archive remains one of my favourite digital time capsules.
Some of my favourite pieces in this collection come from our 15-day West Coast RV adventure—an unforgettable loop through Hollywood, Las Vegas, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, and deep into Oregon in search of the world’s last Blockbuster.
One moment still stands above the rest: cresting the summit near Government Camp on U.S. Route 26, looking out toward Mount Hood, and realizing there were thousands of feet between us and the valley below before the long descent toward Bend.
While the family oohed and awed at the breathtaking sight, I suddenly found myself white-knuckling it through an unexpected winter storm, quietly wishing Scotty would beam us back home to safety.
It was one of those moments where awe, fear, and family all met at the same curve in the road.
Project start date: June 19, 2019
Project type: Family blog
Subject: From movie and book reviews to overcoming anxieties, sleeping in bathtubs, camping trips, RV adventures, sharing our art, collecting last names, first concerts, and capturing the little moments that became our biggest memories.
Project end date: March 27, 2023
Proeject Title: Then They Were Five
Original Website: www.thentheywerefive.com
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/thentheywerefive
On April 4, 2015, I met the woman I would eventually marry. In that first year together, we discovered we both loved planning big events, and we were determined that our wedding would be the pièce de résistance.
I proposed to my now wife, Tara, on March 16, 2018, in Cuba, and from that moment, the wheels began to spin—from choosing venues to finding the perfect DJ for the big day.
Why Then They Were Five? Because on June 29, 2019, our blended family of five officially became one.
This site now lives on as an archive—a place where we can revisit the excitement, the planning, the chaos, and the magic of a day that people still talk about all these years later.
Project Start Date: January 14, 2019
Project type: Wedding blog
Subject: The story of two families becoming one—from the proposal in Cuba to venue tours, late-night planning sessions, and a wedding celebration we’ll never forget.
Project end date: June 29, 2020
Project Name: Save Ivor Wynne Stadium
Original Website: www.saveivorwynnestadium.com or siws.com
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/siws (not active yet)
There are moments in life when being called foolish is the first sign you might be onto something.
When Hamilton began debating where to build a new football stadium, I was quiet at first. West Harbour seemed like a reasonable option. But when the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and city hall started chasing sites across Hamilton, I found myself asking a simple question:
Why not at least explore rebuilding where football had always lived?
At first, I was dismissed. Called naïve. Called unrealistic. More than once, a fool.
I organized my first rally… then cancelled it because I was nervous. People noticed. I got called out. So I picked another date, stood my ground, and held it anyway. The turnout was modest—The Hamilton Spectator made sure everyone knew that—but by then, this wasn’t about numbers anymore. It was about conviction.
What started with fan forum debates soon became my first delegations at City Hall, countless blog posts, and hours spent digging through archives at the library, learning about the history of a stadium originally built in 1930 as Civic Stadium for the British Empire Games, long before it would become Ivor Wynne Stadium.
Then one morning, driving to work with my wife and kids, I heard it on the radio.
They were going to rebuild in place.
Months later, the old stadium would come down, a new one would rise on the very same ground, and the campaign many laughed at would become something even I had trouble believing.
But looking back, the real lesson wasn’t about being right.
It was about what might have happened if two sides had put their egos aside and explored the one option nobody seemed eager to discuss—preserving history at 75 Balsam Avenue.
Maybe a deeper look at rebuilding where Hamilton football had always lived, right out of the gate, would have led everyone to the same conclusion—that a brand-new stadium elsewhere was the only practical answer.
But at least that decision would have been made out of discovery, not desperation.
Instead, as the 2015 Pan American Games drew closer, timelines began to matter more than exploration, and compromise eventually replaced curiosity.
The ground that had carried Hamilton football for generations deserved more than an eleventh-hour conversation. It deserved to be celebrated, seriously explored and, if necessary, respectfully ruled out—not revisited only when the clock was running down, and everyone was left with the sour taste of warm Labatt 50 in their mouths.
Technically… I won.
And somewhere along the way, the National Post wrote a story called:
“One Man Never Gave Up on Ivor Wynne.”
Project start date: August 2010
Project type: Grassroots advocacy campaign and community blog
Subject: City hall delegations, fan forums, library archives, rally signs, nervous first speeches, and one stubborn belief that Hamilton football belonged exactly where it had always called home.
Project end date: TBD
Project Title: A Beautiful Night For Football (ABNFF)
Original Website: www.abeautifulnightforfootball.com or abnff.com
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/abnff (not active yet)
There’s something different about football in Canada. Maybe it’s the smaller stadiums, the rivalries that span a century in some cases, or the way complete strangers can feel like family by halftime.
A Beautiful Night for Football was born during a time when our local team was struggling on the field, and attendance was beginning to reflect it. Rather than focus on wins, losses, standings, or league politics, I wanted to celebrate everything that made our Canadian game special beyond the scoreboard.
This project wasn’t about statistics. It was about people.
It was about connecting with fans from across the country who shared photos, stories, and what they loved most about the game. It was about giving away tickets in exchange for memories that deserved to be told. It was about annual pre-game barbecues at our house, and remembering Grey Cup moments spent with family gathered in garages long before “man caves” became a thing.
It was about the years when something felt missing from the league, with football absent from our nation’s capital, and how that absence reminded many of us just how much this game means to the communities it calls home.
It was about my uncle sending me an old photo of the converted school bus he once painted in team colours—instantly bringing me back to those childhood rides to games, long before I ever thought about writing any of this down.
And ultimately, it was about the memories, friendships, traditions, road trips, backyard barbecues, painted buses, and how the game still brings us together today.
Project start date: July 2008
Project type: Blog celebrating the beauty of our Canadian game
Subject: Fan stories, rivalries, road trips, backyard barbecues, family traditions, and the unforgettable moments that make Canadian football about far more than what happens between the goalposts.
Project end date: July 13, 2010 (succeeded by Save Ivor Wynne Stadium)
Project Title: Shaking The Tree (STT)
Original Website: www.shakingthetree.ca (now reborn under STT2)
Project Archive: www.larrypattisonjr.com/shakingthetree
Full History of STT: www.shakingthetree.ca/history/
It was December 2007. A handful of us from the now-defunct McMaster University Writer’s Certificate Program had formed a small writers’ group, meeting once a month in each other’s homes to share pages, trade feedback, and dream about creating something together.
On a snowy drive to one of those holiday gatherings, Peter Gabriel’s Shaking the Tree came through my speakers, and by the time dinner hit the table, I had pitched it as the perfect name for our shared website.
The group eventually drifted apart, as life tends to do, but the domain stayed with me.
By 2009, Shaking the Tree had taken on a second life as my personal blog—a home for the stories that didn’t quite fit anywhere else. From postcard-length fiction to parenting, politics, music, social issues, sports, and the everyday chaos in between, it became my digital home for more than a decade.
In 2015, I deleted it. Full-stop. No backups. del *.*.
Years later, after a deep dive into the Wayback Machine and a little unfinished business with a URL that had fallen into the hands of spam merchants, Shaking the Tree found its way back to me.
Some names, it turns out, are worth reclaiming.
And after all these years, this one still has branches worth shaking.
Project start date: March 11, 2008 (first known web capture, though it likely started earlier)
Project type: Personal blog
Subject: Fiction, family, music, politics, home projects, writer’s groups, midlife reflections, and the everyday questions that still keep the branches moving.
Project end date: June 19, 2016 (last known web capture before its eventual rebirth)
Some chapters live in the archives. Others are still being written.
All images and logos on this page were created by Larry Pattison Jr. © All rights reserved.