Wow. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since I launched The Luke Norris Experience. And what a crazy five years it’s been.

No, I’m not going to once again go into why I started this thing or anything like that but I’m so happy that I did this for a number of reasons. What started as a simple blog has turned into an online portfolio where people can go to read just about everything I’ve ever written. And as of this morning, people from 73 countries on six continents have done just that over these past five years. That’s pretty freaking cool to me.

This is also the official launch of the new design that I’ve been tinkering with the last few weeks. When I got rid of LukeNorris.net (remember that thing?) and made this the one-stop shop for all things me, I had this idea of how I would work the “article portfolio” thing and I just kind of had everything jumbled up. If I, or anyone else, was looking for something specific that I’d done in the past, I had to search through so many pages looking for it. And after I started writing more and more for all of these different websites, that became quite a chore. So I’ve gone ahead and added every topic I’ve written on to the main menu at the top to make this thing a lot easier to navigate.

So if you’re looking for a baseball article I’ve written that you’ve enjoyed in the past, just go in there and run through it. (Note to self: you haven’t written a baseball article in over a year and you need to fix that.) I’m debating a “Favorites” section for my bigger topics as well, which would make things even easier on myself when I’m pitching myself to websites, so let me know if that’s something you’d enjoy seeing. Or if you’re looking for one of my old podcasts that I did for Binge Media, they’re all in here now as well.

And, of course, the “Up Close & Personal” section, which is still the heart and soul of this website and the main reason I started it, is still here, even though I haven’t written anything specifically for this site since 2016, which is something that desperately needs to and is going to change. I’m not going to get into this right now but the last year and a half has been pretty tough on me. I don’t know if I’ll get back to doing “The State of The Luke Norris Address” or not (skipped 2017) but one thing I realized over the past few weeks during this redesign was that I don’t write enough for me anymore. And that’s a problem. I got so wrapped up in doing these things for money, which is obviously a necessity, that I stopped writing for myself and stopped writing for fun, which has produced some of the best work I’ve ever done.

The main point of this is really to just say thank you. Thank you to the guys at Binge Media for giving me that first shot to get my stuff out there. It’s something I won’t forget. Thank you to every site that’s given me a platform. Things may not have worked out at some for various reasons but I’ll always be thankful to anyone who gives me a chance. But most importantly, thank you to each and every person who has ever visited the site or supported me during this crazy venture. I get comments from people I’ve never met from around the world and that’s truly humbling and amazing and something I never thought would happen. So I thank all of you so much for that. Keep ’em coming.

But it’s the support that I get from those that truly care about me that mean the most. So many of you have stood by me when I’ve gotten down on myself about things and that’s something I’ll never forget. You tell me to keep going and that I can do this. I know that I’ve got to do some other things to help make ends meet and I’m fine with that. As long as I have these people believing in me and the ability to keep believing in myself and the things that I know I can do (which is hard for me sometimes), I’m going to keep pressing forward. I’ve done some nice things but I know I’ve got more in me and I thank each and every one of you for pushing me to be better.

Thank you for five years of The Luke Norris Experience. There’s a lot more coming.