Spurred to Action: Buying Maid Appleton

The story of how Maid Appleton came to be has already been explained. What few people know is how the site came to be.

After the juice was loose and I continued traveling, I wanted to make the project more permanent. I thought of making a website although I had no idea how to make one.

When I visited websites I liked, I would right-click and select “View page source” to see how the site was built. I’d then copy/paste that code and modify it to make my own website. Needless to say it was a very tedious process, but I learned a lot.

Now that I knew how to build a website, I needed to buy one. I had no idea how to do that and I kept putting it off, figuring the price would be cost-prohibitive.

Research proved that it wasn’t all that difficult, but I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it or of the time commitment or any number of other variables.

Then, one night I had a dream. I was talking with a leader from church and a group of people when they started inquiring what everyone had done that weekend. People named the various things and when it got to him he said “I bought a website”. That piqued my curiosity since I was was wanting to do the same thing. I asked him what the url was and he said “MaidAppleton.com”.

My heart sank and I woke up panicked. I felt like if I didn’t buy the site then obviously someone else would, so I got out of bed, logged onto my computer, and bought the domain name.

With that done, I had forced myself to put it together. I started the process. Now I just needed a way to release it to the world in a creative way.

“Old” and “New” Names

While growing up, whether it was while traveling with my family or while learning geography, I was always curious about why a number of places had “New” in the name, but none seemed to have “Old”.

As I had the opportunity to further travel for work and pleasure, the listed “New” and inferred “Old” became more apparent.

In case you are wondering how many instances of this there are, wonder no more. I’ve created this handy table to help out.

 

Old vs. New

A list of places by their "Old" and "New" names.
"Old" NameLocation"New" NameLocation
BraunfelsCity north of Frankfurt GermanyNew BraunfelsCity northeast of San Antonio, TX, USA
BraunschweigCity in state of Lower Saxony, GermanyNew BrunswickProvince in Eastern Canada
BrightonCity in England, U.K.New BrightonNeighborhood on north shore of Staten Island, NY, USA
CaledoniaNorthern part of Scotland (today)New CaledoniaSouth Pacific
DelhiNorthern IndiaNew DelhiNorthern India
EnglandCountry in EuropeNew EnglandRegion in USA comprising Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
GloucesterCity in Massachusetts, USANew GloucesterCity in Maine, USA
HampshireCity Southwest of London, EnglandNew HampshireState in Northeastern USA
Hyde ParkPark in London, EnglandNew Hyde ParkArea in Long Island, NY, USA
JerseyIsland in English ChannelNew JerseyState south of New York in Northeastern USA
LondonCity in EnglandNew LondonCity in New Hampshire, USA
MexicoCountry south of USANew MexicoState in USA that borders Mexico
WindsorCity west of London, EnglandNew WindsorTown in New York, USA
YorkNorthern EnglandNew YorkState in Northeastern USA
ZeelandSW of South Holland in the NetherlandsNew ZealandSouth Pacific

 

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