Welcome to the first issue of Andrew Magazine. In this periodical, I’ll be covering the life and thoughts of Andrew.

I originally started the blog in 2013 to challenge myself to write better and to find my voice. I enjoyed writing the blog, but writing has always been hard work for me. I was very self conscious about my writing. I still am self conscious about my writing, but I was then too.

The last blog post I posted on here was from 8 years ago. I still want to write better, and I still want to find my voice. I think that 8 years is a good amount of time to procrastinate on a project, so here we are again.

I finally did it. I built an app. It is a terrible and unoptimized mess made by someone who has no idea what they are doing. But it works! I built the app to solve a very specific problem: my memory.

Since moving to Austin, I’ve become a regular indoor climber. It’s the workout I do the most because it’s not too hard on my back, and — unlike most workouts — it’s not super boring. Part of the reason I find climbing so engaging is that each route is a problem. It’s a combination strength, technique, and problem solving.

When I climb, it feels like I’m on the hunt for the perfect route for that session — one that will challenge me but not cause injury. I’ll often find that perfect route in a session. It’ll kick my ass. I know I can do it, but I might be just a little too tired that day. I’ll vow to come back and take the route down next time I come to the gym. Unfortunately that never happens, because I can’t remember shit.

Hence the app.

I’ve thought a lot about maintaining a spreadsheet of routes I’ve attempted, so I can remember which routes I’ve conquered and which I’ve vowed to return to. But over time the routes change and there are a lot of characteristics when it comes to a route, like difficulty, type, number of attempts, etc. Every time I started to make a spreadsheet, I realized the admin of maintaining the spreadsheet would be more work than just trying to remember things. There was just enough complexity to make this a perfect candidate for an app and an actual need. But apps are really hard to build.

The problem with apps is that they are complicated. Apps have a lot of components like code, a database, ports (whatever those are), hosting, front end, back end, and APIs. I’ve been doing technical work for the past 10 years, but it has never been app work. All of the components in isolation are not too hard. Stitching them all together on the other hand sucks.

I have tried building something I can publish and share for years. Either the idea is too complicated or — more commonly — my idea has too many technical components that keep me from completing the project. I can’t emphasize how cool I think it is that I was able to build and deploy the entire app in a single day. It has a login, it’s online, and it tracks all of the attempts I make on climbing routes with just a few presses of a button. My buddy Lee was able to add a few routes himself when he went without me yesterday.

Anyway. Now I have the app. I can log my climbs and keep track of which routes are my white whales and which routes I can skip because I’ve already completed them.

I’ll be sharing more things in the life of Andrew in future issues of Andrew Magazine. I’ll be covering everything from literature to pretending that I’ll go an open mic to play music again. I’m hoping to just leverage more creative energy this year. Reading and watching and climbing and chatting are my favorite things, but it’s fun to force myself to actually make something.