It's been a busy start to the year. January flew by faster than I expected, but I managed to ship something meaningful: my first Kickstarter campaign in over a decade.


The Kickstarter Journey
The big news is that I launched a Kickstarter project on January 29th! This was my white whale for the month—it consumed most of my creative energy and threw my usual routine completely off track. The project is for CNC-milled wooden art pieces, and getting it live involved everything from product photography to writing copy to figuring out the right pricing structure.

The Make 100 program was a key motivation here. If accepted, it could drive meaningful traffic to the campaign. I set the funding goal intentionally low (just 5 backers) to make it achievable, and I'm running $10/day in LinkedIn ads to see if paid promotion can work for physical products.

The early response has been encouraging—got my first backers within days, now I just need build on that initial momentum to get the ball rolling.

CNC Testing and Process Refinement
While the Kickstarter is live, I'm continuing to refine my manufacturing process. I have about a dozen different mill bits to test, and I've designed a systematic approach: cut the same gradient pattern with different bits to find the optimal combination of hole size, spacing, and depth for the best visual effect.

This is the kind of work that should have been done before launch, but sometimes you have to ship first and iterate second. I have enough scrap maple to run 11 test cuts, which should give me the data I need to dial in the details.

Clear The Sector: The Game That Won't Quit
My other major project is a minesweeper-inspired space game I'm calling Clear The Sector (working title). It's hex-based with a twist: you use logic to map out enemy positions, but then you have to fight your way out in an arcade-style battle.

January saw significant progress:

• The core logic game is playable and winnable
• I added a narrative framing device (you're essentially a disposable test pilot who gets reprinted when you die—inspired by the movie Mickey 17)
• I shrunk the hex grid to work better on mobile, which required some gnarly code refactoring that AI helped me knock out in minutes instead of hours

The game is almost ready for playtesting, though I'm still wrestling with whether to implement the arcade combat layer before getting feedback. My gut says yes—the arcade part is core to the concept.

Life Stuff
Family dynamics shifted as both kids are now at college. My son is all-in at his school in San Antonio (no car = fully committed), and my daughter is back at her place. It's given my wife and me more flexibility, which we're using to rejoin the community gym.

Speaking of which: allergies have been brutal. Some mornings I can barely see straight, which has derailed my intention to walk to the gym for that morning sunlight exposure everyone keeps talking about.

Teaching continues to provide steady income, and there may be big changes there... Still in the early talking stage.

What Didn't Happen
I didn't fast as consistently as I wanted. I didn't get the test cuts done as quickly as I should have. I didn't finish the game UI improvements.

Looking Ahead
February's plan is simpler: promote the Kickstarter consistently, finish the CNC testing, and get Clear The Sector into a proper playable demo state. I need to find a balance between shipping new things and polishing what I've already started.

The meta-lesson from January is that I'm still figuring out how to operate in "making money" mode versus "rapid experimentation" mode. The experimentation had more juice—new ideas every week, quick prototypes, learning by doing. But now I'm trying to build things people will actually pay for, which requires more polish, more marketing, and frankly, more patience than I naturally have.
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But hey, I shipped a Kickstarter. That counts for something.

I was hoping to run the first sale for bandCam in the next month...  But the band director I had been working with had to bow out...  It was primarily a scheduling issue.  One thing I didn't realize until recently, band program plan their fundraisers a year in advance.  This meant that it probably never was going to this year... I can build an application quickly, but the Directors have to juggle and plan a lot more.

So, the plan now is to keep talking to band directors... learn more about their process and focus on going to the Texas Bandmasters Convention in July.  There I can launch it with a big splash and sign up a bunch of bands to kick it off.

OK... My health goals for the last 6 months of 2025 are to average less than 2500 calories a day, sleep 7.5 hours, and beat 11,000 steps a day.

Currently, I am burning 3,300 cals a day, up from 3,161 in Jan., I have lost 10 pounds during July based on the calorie restriction... In July I slept an average of 7h 19m up from 6h 11m in Jan., and I averaged 11,907 steps per day in July up from 10,548.

I am happy with my progress so far...