What I'm building right now
The projects in progress, experiments I'm running, and things I'm learning as I figure them out. This is where ideas turn into working prototypes.
Active Projects - June 2025
Personal Website & Content Engine
The Challenge: Building this site as a central hub that can grow into a content creation and posting engine. The goal is to eventually automate blog posts, social media updates, and cross-platform content distribution.
Current Progress:
- ✅ MVP site structure and design
- 🔄 Moving from vanity site to project showcase
- 📋 Planning content automation features
- 📋 Designing social media integration strategy
What I'm Learning: How to balance personal storytelling with technical capability demonstration. Also exploring how AI can help with content creation without losing the personal voice.
Next Steps: Get the basic site deployed, then start building the content management features that will make this a working system rather than just a portfolio.
The Hook Venue Improvements
The Challenge: Constantly improving the live music experience based on what we learn from each event. Right now focusing on expanding our reach to younger audiences while maintaining our core blues and general music crowds.
Recent Updates:
- 🔄 Testing new lighting configurations for different event types
- 🔄 Developing YouTube content strategy for "I Wanna Play There!"
- 📋 Planning acoustic improvements for the main stage area
- 📋 Exploring merchandise and branding opportunities
What I'm Learning: How venue management is really about community building. Each crowd has different needs, and the physical space has to adapt without losing its core identity.
Contact Maintainer App Enhancement
The Challenge: Taking the personal contact management app from "works for me" to "could work for other people." This means better UI, more robust automation, and easier setup.
Current Focus:
- 🔄 Redesigning the interface for easier contact management
- 📋 Adding template system for different types of outreach
- 📋 Building better integration with existing contact systems
- 📋 Testing with a few close contacts to refine the automation
What I'm Learning: The difference between automation that feels helpful and automation that feels robotic. It's all in the details of timing and personalization.
Currently Learning & Exploring
AI-Assisted Development
Experimenting with how AI tools can speed up development without losing the custom problem-solving that makes projects interesting. Finding the balance between efficiency and learning.
Modern Web Deployment
Moving from traditional hosting to platforms like DigitalOcean App Platform, Vercel, and others that handle scaling automatically. Less server management, more time building features.
Video Content Creation
Building out the YouTube strategy for The Hook and learning how to create engaging behind-the-scenes content that people actually want to watch.
Advanced DMX Lighting
Taking the venue lighting from "functional" to "experience-creating." Learning about programming complex lighting sequences that enhance different types of performances.
Current Experiments
"Issue-Style" Project Documentation
Testing whether deep-dive project stories (like "The Month I Learned DMX Lighting") are more engaging than traditional project portfolios. Early results: people definitely prefer the behind-the-scenes stories.
Automated Social Media Cross-Posting
Building a system to take one piece of content and automatically adapt it for different platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube community posts). The challenge is maintaining the personal voice across platforms.
Community Building Through Transparency
Sharing more of the process, mistakes, and learning curve rather than just polished results. Testing whether people connect more with the journey or the destination.
How I Track Progress
"The best projects are never really 'finished'—they just reach a point where they're useful enough to solve the original problem, and interesting enough to keep improving."
I don't believe in perfect launches or waiting until something is complete. Better to get something working and improve it based on real use than to plan it to death before anyone sees it.
This page gets updated as projects evolve. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, depending on how fast things are moving. The goal is to capture the actual process, not just the highlights.
Want to follow along?
These projects evolve constantly. Check back to see how they're progressing, or dive into the completed builds to see how similar challenges got solved.