Raw half-formed ideas, and the ones that did NOT work out. No spin.
Last updated — June 2026
Free national-circuit resources built by a small-program debater who didn't have them.
DebateDaily was a free resource hub for competitive Policy (CX) and Public Forum (PF) debate, co-founded with Christina H. after years of building a debate program from the ground up at a small high school. As the program's founder and only four-year competitor, I knew how difficult it could be for regional teams to access the institutional knowledge that larger programs took for granted. We set out to close that gap through practical resources, candid writing, and the kind of advice we wished we'd had ourselves.
The site published daily and near-daily commentary on competitive debate while hosting evidence files, case resources, drills, topic analyses, exercises, speech tools, coaching materials, and reference guides. Everything was offered freely. Although it operated alongside my private coaching work and other debate ventures, DebateDaily itself was never monetized.
DebateDaily became the first project I built that genuinely found an audience. Over its lifetime, it accumulated roughly 5,000 visitors, more than 300 shared files, around 30 published articles, and a suite of practice tools used by students and coaches across programs much larger than my own. I learned that impact and sustainability are different skills. The mission remained meaningful, but daily publishing, community expectations, school obligations, and my eventual hiatus from competitive debate made the pace impossible to maintain.
Looking back, I'm proud that we tried to do the right thing: make high-quality debate resources more accessible to the students and coaches who needed them most. If I rebuilt it today, I would move slower, publish more intentionally, and design it for longevity rather than momentum.
Small-batch fabrication and goods out of the NC High Country.
Small-batch goods out of the NC High Country — 3D printed parts, vinyl-cut stickers, small custom hardware runs. "Appalachian" was doing real work in the branding: things made here, by hand, in the mountains, not drop-shipped.
Didn't survive contact with the unit economics. Small-batch physical goods have real COGs: filament, vinyl stock, time, packaging, shipping. Margins thin enough that the throughput required is incompatible with a one-person shop with three other things going on. FishStix Creatives absorbed the vinyl/sticker portion; the rest quietly dissolved.
Stickers, graphics, and assorted small-batch visual experiments.
Spun out of Appalachian Manufacturing Co. to give the vinyl and print work its own identity. The idea was to keep creative output separate from the fabrication side and build a small catalog of original designs.
Inherited the same structural problem as its parent. A sticker shop needs either a large catalog with consistent demand or a connected audience to sell into — FishSTIX had neither in sufficient quantity. The design capability lives on inside Activism Motorsports and personal projects. The storefront does not.
We proved that a small public school without a coach belonged on the national stage.
TCRSD began after Leo Hu transferred from a nationally competitive South Carolina speech program and discovered that T.C. Roberson High School had no speech and debate team of its own. Together, we founded the first program in school history. Christina H. joined almost immediately and became instrumental in shaping the team's speech culture, student leadership, and mentorship.
What started as a handful of students evolved into a fully functioning forensic program competing in Policy (CX), Public Forum (PF), Lincoln-Douglas, Congressional Debate, and speech events through NSDA, NCFL, and TOC circuits. Without a dedicated coach, students built the infrastructure themselves: recruiting members, securing approval, fundraising, organizing transportation, registering entries, coaching novices, writing curriculum, running practices, communicating with parents, and keeping the program alive year after year.
For four years, I was the only student who competed continuously from the program's founding through graduation. During that time, I served in various capacities as President, Debate Captain, coach, mentor, private instructor, and tournament director while balancing the responsibilities of being a full-time student. The experience taught me nearly everything I know about leadership: institutions are built through consistency, not charisma.
Against every reasonable expectation, a coachless startup club from a public high school grew into a nationally competitive program. TCRSD qualified students to the NSDA National Tournament on three separate occasions, produced NCFL national qualifiers, earned recognition at district and state competitions, introduced dozens of novices to competitive speaking, and hosted the official Carolina West NSDA District Qualifier during its first year of existence. Most importantly, it created a place where students could find their voices and discover that they belonged in rooms they had once assumed were reserved for someone else.
Clean-sheet FWD competition build for autocross and hillclimb.
The data logger platform is real and functional. The vehicle build is not — it lives in research while the RX-8 and Miata serve as active competition platforms. Listed here because "early-stage research with no car" is the honest status.
Not dead — genuinely stalled on resources and sequencing. The telemetry stack gets real testing on the existing fleet first, which is the correct order of operations. Comes off this list when there's a chassis to put it in.
Drivetrain-Aware Performance Analytics Calculator, publicly accessible.
The calculator exists and works. A polished public-facing interface does not. Normalization tool for autocross and hillclimb that accounts for drivetrain config, tire classification, elevation, and power-to-weight — an honest attempt to make lap time comparisons more meaningful than PAX alone.
The PAX critique writeup and elevation weighting model are both in progress — the public tool is waiting on the research being stable enough to stand behind. Keeps getting deprioritized behind active competition season work.
A proper results platform for the Appalachian Hillclimb Series.
AHS runs on enthusiasm and spreadsheets. A real results platform with live scoring, class breakdowns, and historical records has been scoped. FishTankTech is the obvious home for it. Finding the time is the problem.
Consistently deprioritized behind active competition season work. The spreadsheet solution works well enough that urgency never quite tips over into action. Will get built eventually.
The Cremean and De Lavergne virtual estate has a site placeholder and a clear vision. Building a proper digital archive is contingent on the physical materials being organized first. The domain exists. The content does not, yet.
A plain HTML dashboard over the Docker stack — no Homarr, no Heimdall, just a single well-built static page with links and service status. Started twice; both times interrupted by something more on fire. Still on the list.
"Nothing Is Ever Finished — Only Abandoned." The stuff on this page proved the quote.
Things that are alive live at /now.