It’s never easy to walk away from something you’ve built, but after much back and forth with myself. I have decided to set away from Kernel and hand my half of the product over to Nikias.

There are a lot of factors that play a part, covid and the state of movies have definitely caused a lack of excited around the app for myself, but time is the main one. I still think Kernel has the potential to be big, but the time and dedication that it needs to get there is just more than I have to give.

So I did what was best and have stepped away. I will still have side projects its impossible for me not to be making apps, it’s my job, but its also my hobby. So for the time being I plan to focus on giving some much need TLC to Obtain, my weight tracking app and eventually move on to another project that will include some SwiftUI and a Mac app (which I am super excited about.)

I still have Kernel on my phone/watch and I plan to keep it there. It’s the best way to keep track of releases and the next update when released is going to make it even better.

This week I have started eating just one meal a day or OMAD as the cool kids call it (I don’t actually know any cool kids to ask, so I am just guessing.)

Today (May 30th, 2020), I’ve done it 5 days and I am actually still enjoying it. For me to live healthier I need structure without it all discipline goes out the window, the last few months the structure has been gone and my weight, unlike the Crew Dragon spacecraft skyrocketed. So it was time for a change.

I originally planned on just starting a multiple day fast to kickstart some motivation, but I chickened out and ate around dinner time. The next day, so I starting thinking about the OMAD thing and figured I’d give it a try. 5 days later I am still going strong.

Here is a quick glimpse at the last 5 days:

• 7 – 8am – Wake up get the kids breakfast.
• 9am – Start working.
• 1pm – Play with kids outside for a bit.
• 2pm – Back to work, start getting hungry
• 3pm – Getting hungrier.
• 5pm – Really getting hungry.
• 5:30 – 6:30pm – Eat.
• 7pm – No more eating.

The goal is to do the OMAD system on the weekdays and a 16:8 or 18:6 fasting on the weekends (basically eat lunch a dinner). I’ll keep you all updated on how it all goes.

🤞

Obtain Weight Tracker has been out for over a year now, in that time it has made me a whopping $292.65. I guess it is better than nothing. 🤔

I also haven’t showed it much love, so I am definitely partially to blame. I honestly felt the 1.0 was worth at least $500 with of sales, but the weight tracking market is rough.

I figure normally there are only so many things you can do in these cases:

• Remove it from the store and say goodbye.
• Make it fully free and basically stop supporting it.
• Leave the IAP and support when bugs arise
• Give it some love and add some much needed features and hope for the best.

The first two are probably the more obvious choices, but I know I am not ready to let it go, though I also don’t think I can justify spending time to add additional features to it right now. I still use the app myself and even though there are a few features I would love for it to have, there are some other app ideas I am more passionate about doing right now.

So I think the plan for now at least is to leave it in the store, leave the IAP, and support any bugs that arise (which hasn’t been many so far) and maybe next year around Oct/Nov I’ll try to crank out some more features in time for the New Years resolution rush.

What do you think? Be sure to hit me up on twitter if you have some different opinions.

For the last few years, I’ve wanted to create a YouTube channel. But just never prioritized it, until now. Last night I recorded an intro video for my channel and I plan to keep it updated weekly.

Initially it is going to be a semi behind the scenes of the process of building out additional features for Kernel. But my oldest son is also wanting to learning some iOS development this summer, so I am hopefully going to figure out a fun way to make that a series on the channel as well.

Feel free to check out the intro video and let me know what you think:

https://youtu.be/rYMxfUDnUog

So even though last year I didn’t hit all my resolution goals I still kept fairly good track of them. This year however I’m a little more concerned with missing more of them.

I’ve been so busy with my day job and working on Kernel. So, I am going to be tweaking all my remaining goal for this year a setting up new more realistic ones. Kernel has done so well that I want to be able to focus on it the rest of this year. So an additional app this year will not be happening, but I do still plan to show Obtain some love before the year is over. So here’s the current progress and the new plan:

✅ January – Improving Obtain

❌ February – Waking up at 5am

✅ March – Have read 2 books

❌ April – Under 200lbs

✅ May – Released Kernel

June

My June goal was to start a YouTube channel, but I honestly don’t have time to focus on creating what I wanted to do, but I would still like to share some things while I build out features for Kernel. So I am hoping to still get a channel up and going, just not the same as I was originally planning.

July

This one too has stayed the same. My oldest is really wanting to learn to code and I am looking forward to trying to find the best way to help him learn it this summer.

August

Goal was to pay off a card. We have already cut back and eliminated a large chunk of debt, but the new goal is to pay off both of our phones. Currently we are in Apple’s monthly payment program and I am ready to just get out of it.

September

Old goal was to release a 3rd app. Now it is my new under 200lbs goal. 💪

October

Old goal was to draw something everyday, I really don’t want to give this one up, but I haven’t had time to draw anything in months, so new goal is just to draw a few things, and also focus on adding some needed features to Obtain.

November

Read 2 more book. I want to have at least 4 books read this year apart from my Bible and comic book reading, Hopefully I’ll get to more, but with how busy I’ve been, we will have to wait to see.

December

Family month. I really want to try and reduce my side work during this month and really relax and enjoy the holiday.

So there you go, Not a massive change, but enough to help me not stress as much about hitting them all.

As part of monthly resolutions I like to post month updates looking back on how the last month went and how any progress made on other ones.

January

Sadly January didn’t go the best I just release the complication update for Obtain a couple days ago and haven’t started on the 1.2 update yet. Both of which I originally wanted done before the month was over.

What happened?

The complication update was way more then I planned for it to be I wanted to get it right and didn’t want to cut too many corners getting it all setup. I did multiple layouts and it all just added up to taking more time then I planned. But I’m still happy it is out.

February

I kinda forgot the first few days in February about my goal 😞. But the last couple days I’ve been waking up by 5:15. I am hoping to continue this even though it’s not the easiest it has allowed me to read and write a couple blog post the last couple days.

Other progress

I am almost finished with my first book, should have it done today or tomorrow. And I’m ahead of schedule in starting to build another app. Goal is hopefully to have it out by next month 🤞.

That’s all the updates I have for now here’s hoping I can keep doing this early morning thing and get even more ahead of schedule of other things I have planned for the year.

Obtain 1.3 went live in the App Store yesterday with the added ability to select different options for the watch complications.

Every complication is now supported and has at least a couple options to choose from. My favorite is still the Bezel complication you can now have the date and time displayed. Which I understand can be a little odd for a weight tracking app, but lets be real not everyone wants to scream it on the hills that they are trying to lose weight, so why not have the option to just see a small graph indicating your progress and the rest be relative information for you daily life.

This update a lot of fun, but also took me a little longer to get done. I hope you all enjoy it, if there is another complication option you’d like to see, please let me know. And if you haven’t yet be sure to download and check out the app

Ok since last year worked out pretty well, I figured I’d give this a go again and set some new goals for this year, so here they are:

January

For January the focus is going to be on improving Obtain. with releasing it last month I am even more pumped to work on it. My goal for this month is to finish expanding out the complication and also get version 1.2 out before the month is over.

It’s not going to be easy, but I think I can do it 🤔

February

Will be all about getting to bed earlier and waking up at 5am 😴. With doing that I can focus on a few things. I can get back to working out more regularly, reading my bible in the morning rather than at midnight and work on personal project before switching over to my day job work.

Right now I am lucky to get up by 7am, so that could give me an extra 2 hours each morning.

March

Have read at least 2 books. Last year I had this goal in April, but I am going to be more mindful about pushing myself with reading. 🤞

April

Get under 200lbs. My birthday is the the middle of April, so before then I want to be under 200lbs. The last time I was under 200lbs, I was at least in Jr High, possibly even elementary school. (Honestly don’t know). So getting down below has been my ultimate weight goal since forever. So might as well make it my birthday gift to myself.

May

Release a second app through Minorbits. I am hoping to finish up one sooner, but giving myself a bit more time. I have a list of ideas I think I know the 2 I want to focus on for this year, but that may change, either way I want to have the second one out by May.

June

Start a YouTube channel. This is another one of those, I want to have it started before this time, but at the very least by June I want to have my own YouTube channel that focuses on the AppleWatch. It’s my favorite device Apple makes and developing for it these last few weeks has had it’s ups and downs, but has mostly been a ton of fun. So I want to focus on a bunch of stuff the watch can do and maybe even dive as deep as developing for it videos, cause the content for it is lacking.

July

Teach my boy to code. My son turns 8 this year, so I feel its a great time to learn to code and better yet he wants to learn. So all this year I want to focus on teaching him, and hopeful have him release his own app this year. I have an idea on a good starter app.

August

Pay off a credit card. Another main focus for this year is to make wiser financial choices and in doing to get in a better place financially. I’ve been watching a lot of Dave Ramsey’s videos and plan to read at least one of his books this year and use the EveryDollar app (even though I’m not a fan of its UI). Looking forward to one day having everything paid for and not being so stressed about money and this is the year all of that begins.

September

Release my 3rd app. It’s gonna be a busy, but fun year. Releasing Obtain has been so much fun, so looking forward to coming out with 2 more ones this year.

October

Last year I had a goal focusing on learning to draw. I don’t feel that I fully tackled it and I do enjoy it. So I am continuing that this year and in October I want to participate in Inktober where I draw something new each day. This is going to be a major challenge for me and I plan to build up to it by drawing something at least every other week to continue to improve before then. I am not sure if during Inktober you’re allowed to draw digitally, but that’s my goal. I love my iPad and plan to always use it for drawing.

November

Catch up month. I’m not going to hit all my goals so this month will be all about playing catch up on whatever I missed and if I do happen to hit them all then. This month can be a more restful one, not that I’ll be resting much with waking at 5am, having 3 personal apps in the store, a YouTube channel, and a full time job. Holy cow what am I getting myself into this year 😂.

December

Family month. Like last year I want to just focus on getting things all set for Christmas and enjoying the Holliday with my family.

So theres the goals. 2019 is gonna be a fun one!

This year I took on some resolutions, I can’t tell you the last time I even tried them in the past, but I thought I take a different approach and had one item set for each month.

Sadly I didn’t complete them all, but overall I was still fairly please with how I did.

January

Use my iPad more

I’ve still had my ups and downs with the usage of my iPad, over all I feel I’ve used an iPad this year way more than any other year before. I’m also still using it to write all the posts on this blog. I also did get the new 11in and have been using it everyday since. It’s pretty amazing.

February

When I started this journey my goal was 50 days. I never expected or thought that I could have gone this long, but here I am 365 days later 🤷🏻‍♂️

Just to clarify here is what I’ve done, back on December 27, 2017 I decided it was time to finally try something new after reading Breaking the Stronghold of Food. I decided I would try to give up “sweets”, until our next Disney trip which was around the 50 day mark.

For me the key was to define early on what I was allowed to have. Here is what it came down to. I allowed myself to have Protein bars (usually RX Bars, but in the beginning it was the Quest ones) I also allowed myself to eat as much fruit as I wanted (grapes help a ton with sugar cravings) and finally I allowed myself to eat yogurts and not just the Greek super healthy kind. (even though I am enjoying those more and more).

Those were my rules and for 365day I have stuck too them. No cakes, no cookies, no candy bars, no Dole Whips 😢. It’s honestly not been as hard as I thought it would be the first month was rough, but after that saying no has been pretty easy.

I’m still not sure how long I will go, or really if I will allow myself to go back at all. My will power seems to work best when I just don’t give it any room. And I’ve never been able to stick with a change this long before or maintain a lower weight this long before either. So as of right now I’m in the if its not broke don’t fix it stage.