Rather than talk about what item39.com isn’t. Let me tell you what it is.

During an all to recent episode of life that found my grandmother in the hospital 5 months shy of her 95th birthday, I found myself in one of those states of mind that is most akin to molting. Over the years I have come to recognize this state and have tried to usher in changes in life that I would like to see.

I have a cousin that, even though I am older, I look up to. He is one of the smartest dudes I know. He sparked up a renewed interest in web building.

I mean, I do this all the time for fun, or just to learn some new code trick.

My current projects are:

• ScottSlusser.com – This site. I post code snippets that I have written to do this and that.
  • A lottery number generator that tries to find the most recurring number combinations
  • Diving into the world of AI Art Generation
• LocalFarmersMarket.com – A list of Farmers Markets across the country queried from live data from the USDA
• MyMotelHunter.com – Stemmed out of a text conversation with the same cousin. I took it as a challenge to figure out how to data mine Google. As well as write a WP theme from scratch.
• MichianaEpoxy.com – A side business in the real world. Installing epoxy floors. This is the business site.
• MichianaTheatre.com – In the works: Trying to get a one stop place for all of the theatre in the area. Link out for tickets. I need to write code that will pull this data automatically. It was a manual task and it was tedious. Perhaps I need to hire it out.
• Owl & Crow Publishing – Seeing what all the fuss is about in the low-content self-publishing market
• PhotoMobo – I just dismantled this site. I am not sure what I am going to do with it.
• The Fiat 850 Project – Alas, I do not have this car any longer but I can’t seem to part with the site.
• SellingSongs.net – This site was part of a challenge that a couple of co-workers and I engaged in. Not particularly proud of it, but not ashamed either.
• The Swarm Syndicate – This is the fledgling idea of some POD products sold on Etsy. At this point I have sold 2 products.
• The Vehicular Project – A bare bones experiment in very low quality content. I reposted about it here.
• 3FootFall.com – A site to house some music compositions and such. Be kind. This site needs to be redone, well, they all do, but this one for real.
• PrimaOptix.com – An online telescope retailer

Projects in the back of my mind:

• An online retailer of cycling kit
• A site that finds current free kindle book on Amazon
• desktop pattern by AI download site
• a disc golf online retailer
• a weight loss app idea that gamifies and peer pressures
• A couple of 3d printed product ideas

Man, when I type them all out, it seems excessive. Maybe it is …

So the idea is to start small. Building a site on spec so to speak. Keeping an eye on a recurring monthly or quarterly pay structure. I have targeted some local businesses whose websites suck.

Which brings me back to Item39. This name is just one that has stuck around for a very long time. As long ago as @wurks, which I know doesn’t mean much to anyone but me. So, it will be reborn into a web developer / SMMA / marketing firm.

I think sometimes that I should stop chasing after dreams. They seem to be too elusive to catch. It is easy to become frustrated and aggravated. I have essentially taken the last year off from chasing those hard to catch, shiny, and seductive sirens. As we ease into winter and I must resign myself to the indoors more than I would want, I find myself hearing the call again.

This time I am going to try to do things for the sake of the things. Do the things because I like doing the things. The outcome won’t be any more, or less, likely to be the same. But, at least I will enjoy the process.