That’s me on the left.
I’ve already been posting here for over a month, so time to make it official. I go by the moniker “MattCreate”. Why? Because my name is Matt, I sometimes create things, and it’s a lot easier to remember and write than Matt Shalvatis. I’ve probably seen my last name spelt 100 different ways.
And what are some of the things I create? Photography, photo art, woodworking, writing, coding, fixing things. Not that I’ve ever made much money doing that. Except the coding part. But still, it’s enjoyable. I dabble in many things, a few too many things probably, which is why I’m only getting around to an intro 6 weeks after I started posting.
I consider myself semi-retired, with a stress on the semi, because saying I’m retired sounds so final. I intend to grow and develop and experiment with new things just as long as I’m able to and it makes sense to. Before this, I spent a number of years as a programmer, the old-school COBOL type mostly, first in big telecom, then in state government. Since then I’ve done some investing, Wordpress, Photoshop and photography.
So, what types of things will I write about?
About my current life.
I am an American, born and raised in NJ, USA, but am now a long term resident of Kiev Ukraine. Why Kiev? Well, my wife is from here and she seems to like the place, so hey, why not?
Kiev in winter can sometimes be a magical place, but usually not. A typical winter is 1 hour of sun followed by 3 weeks of clouds. This is one of those few (partly) sunny times.
Kiev in summer can be glorious. No hot and sultry weather here.
Though in summer, we often spend time at our dacha (summer cottage) out on the river.
I may occasionally write about living in the former USSR (from my wife’s perspective) and my Russian wife (don’t call her Ukrainian). That’s a story in and of itself.
Life as an expat.
Well it probably makes sense at some point to touch on life overseas. I haven’t seem much written about this type of thing here on Steemit, so how it might go over is a bit of a mystery, So I might not focus too much on this right away.
Travels and Photography
Luckily, I have had a chance to travel a bit. Not nearly as much as I would like, but I’m sure many people would tell me that I have nothing to complain about. Some of my travels have even been a bit unique.
South Korea.
While you might be impressed by this, this particular destination was courtesy of the US Army, many years ago, when regime change was not so prevalent. And it certainly beats getting posted to, oh, let’s say, Iraq. But it did plant in me the travel bug.
I never really did like the types of “vacations” my father took us on. He and mom would load us in the car for a 7 - 14 day road trip. Drive 400 - 500 miles one day, stop for the night, then repeat it until we got home. Slight exaggeration there, but not by much. Then I found myself doing the exact same thing. I finally figured I had to break that habit once and for all. How? By doing things I’ve never done before. Like what?
Canoeing and Rock Climbing, Rio Grande, Texas
No Image at this time!
Kayaking the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California) Mexico
Canoeing the S. Nahanni River, Northwest Territories, Canada
Life on a private island & Aztec ruins, Belize
Chernobyl/Pripyat

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
Various Locales, Turkey
Roman Archeology
Moscow, Russia
Photo Art
Not being content to doing only photography, I’ve dived into some photo art too.

All previous images are mine.
At some point, many of these photos will get their own post.
Health & Healing
Even though it appears I’ve lived a pretty healthy lifestyle, the decades of sitting indoors behind a monitor caught up to me big time. I’ve had two angioplasties, (2002, 2004). Moving overseas shortly thereafter, which allowed me to escape from the junk food culture of the USA, ironically meant less time outdoors moving around and doing exercise. Remember those typical winters I mentioned before? Add to that a number of years working from home and you’re dealing with one hell of a sedentary lifestyle. One that led to bypass surgery. So I’ll likely write occasionally about...
Food

Image from Pixabay
Supplements

Image from Pixabay
Exercise
Image from Pixabay
And what you should and should not believe about maintaining good health. Believe me, many companies would rather profit by keeping you sick than by seeing you healthy. Well duh, big surprise there!
Quotes
Just because I like quotes. And it helps me keep my mood, my focus, and energies up.
So if any of this sounds the least bit interesting, I look forward to you stopping by and looking at what I’m up too. Or have been up to.
