Well, hello, hello, hello! And Hi! And, How the hell have you all been??? Welcome to my newest incarnation of the Holmes-Page! I figure, its had been like 2 years since the last design, and while I still liked that one, it was time for a change. Plus, I needed to get some new hosting cuz some unknown problem happened with my last one, making it impossible for me to connect and change/update/add anything to the site. As that a whole bunch of people have made changes to their profiles or have been added to the circle - and even more cool - that quite a few more Missing Holmesez have been found - not being able to reflect that on the site was getting annoying.

So, here we are! A brand new look and some great new sections and features. And now with the new hosting, I have the ability to do a lot more than previously and - with luck and a lot of effort - I will soon be able to get the Holmes-Page to its originally-intended state; with log-in functionality so you all can change your own information, and I can focus on other stuff. Yay.

You'll notice a few new improvements to the site even now. Just a "quick" overview of these changes:

Where have all the pictures of everyone gone??? They are still right up at the top where they always are... but SOOOO much better than before. In fact, this is something that I have dreamed of ever since the first incarnation of the Holmes-Page went live. Its called a QTVR or Quicktime Virtual Reality, and is designed for 360 degree panoramic pictures, so that it looks as if you are really there. But I knew I could use it for my own purposes - to display all of my friends at once, all in a continuous (circular) line. The TRUE circle of friends! I am so geeked about this. And better still that my original image, what I called my "Eight Feet of Friends" because it was 8 feet long when printed out, is now more like 11 feet of friends and ALL of them are in this QTVR. You will need the Apple Quicktime plug-in to view the file. And to see it, all you have to do is use your mouse and click on the Holmes-Page logo at the top-center of the screen, and with the mouse button depressed, drag left or right to scroll in that direction. The farther you go, the faster it scrolls. When you let go of the button, it stops. AND, to make things even better, pressing the Shift button on your keyboard will zoom in, and the Ctrl key to zoom back out. You can scroll while zoomed in and scroll up and down while sideways for a completely immersive experience. Or something like that. So awesome.

News - I had been posting little blog-like posts every now and again when I found someone or something cool happened... but now, as you can see to the right of this main page, I have added a news box where I will be listing these events from here on out. I figure it makes it a lot easier for you all to see what has happened and what has been updated.

Streamlining - The way I see it, there really are only 3 reasons people come here (for the most part) - and admittedly, they are the 3 reasons I put this site together in the first place. As such, I have made the Roster, the Photo Gallery, and the Missing Holmesez list front and center, and everything else that was secondary can now be found on the 'Stuff' page. I have made some updates to these pages as well... so definitely check them out, but the big focus is now on the aforementioned 3 main sections.

Networking - This site is and always has been about finding friends and keeping in touch with them better (not that I'm all that great at it even still). But as such, I figured that the advent of all of these other new community-style websites (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) ergo, Holmes-Page rip-off sites (hehehe), was just another means to keep in contact with folks. To that end, I have added everyone's 'other site' information to both the roster, and your individual profiles. I believe I have all of the Myspace accounts properly added and a few random other ones as well, but in case I missed some, please let me know asap and I will add them accordingly.

New profile sections - along with the 'other site' links, I have added a few new sections and have changed the layouts a little on the profiles. Sorry, but no longer are you able to 'customize' the look of the profiles, cuz that was just getting annoying. In lieu of that, however.. for anyone who has a profile, I will allocate some space on the photo gallery for your own photos and I will give you log-in information so you can upload them yourselves. Your albums will be linked to from both your profile and from the roster in the 'More Pix of Me' section. But there are also new sections like the 'Gripes' section - allowing you a little room to bitch about stuff... always makes for interesting conversation. I have highlighted any new sections in the profile set-up form so if you just want to add to your existing profile, you will know which ones to fill in, else you are welcome to fill it all out and send me a whole new profile.

Added Privacy - I have added a password to get into the Holmes Safari party information to keep out unwelcomed guests. I will also make your profiles password protected if you so desire. You are still welcome and encouraged to enter only as much information about yourself as you feel comfortable sharing with the world, so I really don't see this as being used too much, but I am just letting you know that it now exists.

So those are the new, added features to the 2007 Holmes-Page.com Website. As always I am accepting suggestions on how to make it better, any help I can get with the actual making part (eg PHP programmers, etc.), or anyone who would like to help out in any other way. And as always, you will be able to make a donation to this site from the link provided below, if you see fit. All money that I receive for donations go directly to the maintenance, upkeep and operational costs for this website. My many thanks to the folks who have already donated something. It helps, and it helps to keep me motivated because I know that people are coming and enjoying themselves!

Aside from all of that, I hope you have fun looking around this new site, and I hope to see all of you very soon! You are always in my thoughts and you will always be my Holmesez!

Cheers!
Nick J. Steglich
Holmes-Page.com Owner & Webmaster

The Holmes-Page Explained

About 9 years ago, I came to realize that alot of what I truly held near and dear to my heart - my friends - had slipped away from me by virtue of time passing, people moving and moving on, folks possibly passing away unexpectedly, or otherwise disappearing from my life. I had flitted my way through college making some amazing friends, alot of whom I lost touch with because they graduated and left, or, unfortunately, because I was too wrapped up in my life at the time (see: girlfriend). I had also lost touch with a couple of really close friends from high school which was really quite devestating for me because I thought that they would be around for forever. But, sadly, I was wrong. And these connections that I had made with people faded and disappeared, and I was left with a hole that I couldnt fill.

I have always been a friend-oriented person. Be it my astrological sign (leo), the meaning of my name (the people's honor), my happy and nurturing upbringing, or my unyielding desire to just make other people happy - I have always felt very comfortable in large groups of people, and have always relished the opportunity to learn about them and spend time with them. In short, friendship means everything to me. A man can have the most money, the biggest house, the fastest car, the best job, or as the addage goes - the most toys. But to me, he does not have anything unless he has friends. Its all meaningless - the material things in life - because your friends are the vessels by which you got there, and the support that helped you, the shoulders to cry on and the laughs that made each new day worth living.

I thought about all of this and the fact that I had only my fading memories of college friends, a handful of pictures, and really no good way to find all of these folks... and I realized that I never wanted to feel this way again. In fact, I wanted to try and find EVERYONE who ever meant something to me, and at the very least, tell them that because I think it truly does matter. And it just so happened that the friends that I had managed to retain through my final years of seclusion - my very closest and best friends - formed an amazing group of people whom I was very much in love with. These were, by all rights, my holmesez. I am STILL, to this day, absolutely amazed that I managed to find my way into this crowd - all of whom were and still are - some of the most talented and unique minds I have ever imagined possible, let alone have met. I would count myself as blessed for knowing just one of them. And here I was, still on the peripheral edge of this circle of friends with the sudden realization that I wanted desparately to honor them all and never lose touch with any of them - and the idea was born.

Fortunately, I had just started to get into making websites for a living, and fancied myself as rather enterprising with the whole thing... and it all, also, happened right about the time when the popular homeboy saying, "Whaddup Holmes?" was being used as a common greeting. We bastardized many a saying back then, and this was no exception. Slowly "holmes" was used in people's names, screen-names, as reference to people in conversation, and the whole idea of it permeated into being that we were a group of holmesez. And as such, we became the Holmes Family. So that, coupled with the play-on-words of the common internet term of "Home Page", I created and established this website, the Holmes-Page!

My goal for this website - and it HAS worked time and time again in this regard - was to help keep tabs on the many folks who made up the Holmes Family even if they moved away or got married and changed their last name... and even more importantly, to use my knowledge of search engine optimization to help locate some of the folks who had fallen off the radar by virtue of their name being searchable and found even if someone else was looking for them. And indeed, I have now found about a dozen 'Missing Holmesez' that exact way - that someone THEY know does a search on their name, finds the site, and then tells them about it! So its working great!!! And many more people have been found as well. It's truly fantastic and I am proud of how well it has worked so far. Now that community websites are popping up all over the place because of the success of websites like Myspace.com, my job has gotten considerably easier, and even more people have been found that way and added to the Roster. I do have to mention something though - for anyone reading this who doesn't know someone else who is on here - this website is NOT like Myspace or Facebook (ie not for just anyone). This site is designed specifically for our single and unique circle of friends. Only. Sorry. Of course, if you would like to get to know us better, we are always welcome to new friends becoming new Holmesez!

So... its all working great. The site functions as it should. People have been found. The circle stays tight and close, and no one is forgotten about for too long. I am happy because I know that I have provided a place to convene and share my friendship with the greatest group of people I have ever known - My Holmesez.

Very Sincerely,
Nicolas Jerel Steglich