This is overdue, but better late than never.

It’s clear to any of those following this that whatever legs the project had have been cut out from under it. The Kickstarter didn’t take, and without that funding there was no way I could do the project. While I conceived this whole thing as a self-improvement project with little design on turning it into something marketable, I was convinced of it’s marketability by some friends in the publishing industry and therefore made the effort to raise proper funding.

Those same friends, in light of the Kickstarter failure, have implored me to shelve the project itself for the moment until such a time as I might be able to legitimately shop it to publishers. That’s fine, but what does that mean for me? Like I said, this was supposed to be about self improvement.

So now I’m in Chicago, without the money for travel I’ve decided to stay here. I have a place, a part-time job and some money in the bank. That doesn’t mean that I can move about the country as I’d originally planned, but with proper budgeting I can do a lot of what I set out to do in the Chicago area. It’s going to take me a little more time to get all my ducks in a row, but I’m working toward it. At that time I’ll start attending weekly boxing courses and doing as much volunteering as I can around the city while saving money for things such as the zip line course.

Once everything gets going I’ll put a link to Amazon Payments on the site so that anybody who might want to help out, or anyone who pledged money but I didn’t receive it because of the Kickstarter failure, can put money directly into the fund. It won’t be the same project I originally pitched, as I won’t be able to video document things as much without more funding, but I’m still going to do it. Hopefully as the project picks up steam some publishers will get interested or, if nothing else, supporters will donate along the way.

Thanks to everyone who donated to the Kickstarter and who gave me such great media coverage. This is a setback, but not an ending.

The first workout is in the books and I feel great. That’s right, I said GREAT! Now, let me preface this by saying that I don’t know jack about working out. I’m a chubby nerd who is supposed to be a bean pole, so clearly I’m doing things the wrong way. I’ve been reading a lot about working out, general exercise, fitness, nutrition, dieting, whoa, whoa, whoa! These are not terms that your average male nerd loves. I’m a lot more inclined to have opinions on which fast food places $0.99 value menu offers the best options than I am to tell you the bet way to get trim. Finally, I had to enlist my trusty part-time, “gosh, okay, I’ll help you of course” research assistant to put me on the right path. She used to be a runner, she is a total badass, she occasionally laughs at me (occasionally means a lot, right? Do I have that right?). With her guidance, I managed to put together a quick, simple workout that I can do now, while I’m locked away at my parents’ house waiting to kick this thing off. Just simple, “throw your own weight” around stuff that doesn’t require a gym. So this is what I did today.

25 sit-ups – 25 lunges – 25 push-ups – 25 sit-ups with 7 lb. barbell – 25 squats with 7 lb. barbell – a mile walk for cardio and cool down.

Not bad for a novice, right?

Let’s see if I can even walk in the morning.

Check back here for constant updates about the status of the project’s funding and also to track the progress of my training.  Just because the project isn’t funded doesn’t mean I can’t start building up to my daily workout regimen.  While I don’t expect to be working out like the Dark Knight right out of the gate, I will start working on getting my conditioning to the level it’s going to need to be at to complete something of this magnitude and you lucky readers get to see a sneak preview of what’s to come, since I’m going to get started on that right away!

Thanks for your support!