Welcome to Fallout-UE.com
Let me introduce myself. My name is Matt. I'm the creator of this website, and your host though most of the writing within it. This is the "about" section of the site, so I'll start telling you about myself, the site, and everyone involved.
I'll start off with why I became interested in Urban Exploring. I guess it's in some people's nature to want to know what's left in that old abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. I just actually act on that curiosity and find out for myself. I think I have always been like this: Not satisfied until I know.
What actually spurred my interest in this, as a hobby, was my boredom. I usually hang out with my girlfriend Keti every day. One day she had made some plans with her friend Booker. I of course had no choice but to break into places. Well actually it wasn't exactly like that. I had been developing an interest in checking out abandoned buildings for about a year prior to that now that I think about it.
Shortly after my diving into this hobby Keti became interested in it as well. We decided to make a website to chronicle our adventures. At first we were rather immobile by our own means. Keti didn't have a license yet and mine was suspended. Luckily my friend Greg could be bought off as driver-by-bribe. The usual price was some gas money and brownies; occasionally lasagna was put on the table.
In the beginning the site consisted of a few decent locations, but mostly un-impressive places like a metal shack/barn down the street from Keti's old house, a graveyard of no significance other than it's name was kinda funny (Resurrection Cemetery), and a barn killed by mother nature, attached to a now unoccupied house owned by the state. There were three pretty cool places though; Empire Industries, an in town old factory, the old Wrentham State School, and of course Metropolitan State Hospital.
We started trying to fill in the lack of content really fast throughout the first month. Greg was really helpful in this by driving us around to all of these places despite his very obvious opinions that this hobby was ridiculous and stupid. By the end of the month we thought we had enough content to start a "dot com" website. We decided on the name Fallout because many of the places we were researching and trying to 'infiltrate' had old fallout shelters in them. We bought the Domain www.fallout-ue.com and borrowed some web space from Greg. Within a few days the first version of Fallout was up and ready for the Internet to see.
Originally the only viewers of the website was the occasional person who checked our AIM profiles. One of the people checking the site was Keti's "odd" friend Chas. I'd really only hung out with him once for a couple of hours, and in that span of time he managed to publicly urinate in the center of Attleboro at least twice, as well as exhibiting some other very strange behavior. He always asked to come with us to Metro, and I'd always find an excuse why he couldn't come.
Eventually he caught me at a time where I needed some extra money for gas and was going...guess where? Metro. I was expecting to get caught arrested or killed, but Chas really surprised me and was quiet and respectful the whole time. The next day Chas offered me a brand new respirator in exchange for being put up on the site as a member. I didn't really think he was serious but apparently he was, he came through on his end of the deal and that’s how he became a part of Fallout, later to become one of my best friends.
For a while after that it was Keti Chas, myself, and Greg as the regular traveling group. Then we met, and befriended a guy named Salt via the ASnet forum. Salt loved our site and wanted to become a part of it, but before deciding, we wanted to meet him so we got Keti's older brother Rob to drive us up to Danvers to meet him. He took us up to Danvers State Hospital, and got us in safely despite the firecrackers going off around us, some of which hit the security truck patrolling the building. Salt turned out to be one of the coolest people we met through the site, and we graciously accepted him as the newest member of the team.
Since May 2005 Keti and I have done most of our exploring with our friend Travis otherwise known as Moving Unit. It was only a matter of time before he became a part of Fallout. If you've been checking out the site for a while now you might have noticed the photos have been getting better, thats largely due to Travis's skill rubbing off on us.
Most recently We've been exploring with our friend Keith, when he can get time off from work, which is usually about one weekend a month. I've known Keith since high school. My first trip to Metro was me and Keith going in there with half dead store brand flashlights, during a huge snowstorm.
About this site
What goes into the production of the site? Mostly it's a lot of research. We seek out historic, abandoned, condemned, decaying, or simply interesting man made structures. Research actually consumes a lot of our time in this hobby.
I code all of the html and scripts manually in a text editor, usually metapad. This site is IE/Opera and Netscape/Mozilla compatible. With the new photo gallery system using Simple Viewer you will need Flash Player installed to see photos.
Photos are taken by myself, Keti, and some were by Greg using a combination of film and digital point and shoot and SLR cameras.
Camera List
We've gone thought quite a few camera's thoughout our adventures over the years. Most of these cameras have been destroyed in some way or another from exploring.
- Point and Shoot
- Fujifim A210
- Fujifilm A200
- Fujifilm 2650
- Kodak DX3600
- Kodak Advantix
- Sub-SLR
- Fujifilm S5000
- Fujifilm S5100
- Fujifilm S3100
- SLR
- Canon EOS 20D
- Nikon d50
- Canon EOS ELAN
- Camcorders
What camera's do wee currently use? Right now I'm using a Nikon d50 with a 28-80mm Nikon lense. Keti uses a Canon 20d with a 18-55mm Canon lense. Travis (who clearly walks away with the best pictures) is sporting a Canon Powershot, Keith's setup is a Pentax *st with a stock 18-55mm, and a 28-80mm that I passed over to him when he decided to go with a Petax because I would never end using it.
Additional Info
If you know of a place you think we'd like check out, tell us. We'd love to hear about any new places. Use the contact page to get ahold of us.
If you'd like to link to us feel free. Spreading the word about our site is always a plus for us.
If you'd like to donate money to help keep this website running. Maybe because we've helped you out or you just absolutely love our site, or for any reason at all, I've set up a paypal account where you can donate.
Matt Fallout
