SHIP LOG: Backseat Games · App Store 1.4.0 · 2026-10-16 · Built with Cursor

Backseat Games 1.4 is live on the App Store — two new road-trip games on the host board, Hangman Solo that feels like the rest of the car, and a five-sign hero that finally matches what you can play.

What’s new in 1.4​

• Hangman and Color Catch join License Plates, Sign Game, and Travel Bingo — five games on the roadside signpost
• Hangman Solo with Easy / Medium / Hard from a local word list, cream road-dash letter tiles, and a hitchhiker drawing that grows as you miss
• Host chrome painted so the new games read as real signs, not stickers

The polish pass landed on TestFlight earlier this month (Hangman roadside solo); today that train is on the public App Store.

Go play​

Backseat Games on the App Store

Free to download and join. One-time host unlock if you want to run the lobby. More on the Backseat Games home, privacy, and support pages.

The paperback launch put Barry on a shelf. This week he also fits in a Kindle — same chores-vs-imagination picture book, same oversized-hoodie kid, now as an eBook you can open in seconds.

Barry has a lot to do today. Mom says so.
Between chores and shopping, only a big imagination will save the day.

What happened​

• Published Barry as a Kindle eBook alongside the premium-color paperback on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B0HKGHVKTL
• Kept the Homol Works home at /barry as the place for tone, favorite pages, and what’s next — Amazon stays where you buy (print or Kindle)
• Took another step on the “digital Barry” path promised at paperback launch: short reads and screen-friendly formats, not only ink

Paperback or Kindle​

Pick the format that fits the kid (or the kid you used to be):

• Paperback — premium color for the coffee table and bedtime pile
• Kindle — same story for travel, grandparents’ devices, and instant gifting

Both live on the same Amazon listing. /barry still has the cover, spreads, and the “more Barry coming” roadmap.

Get Barry on Amazon

Hangman and Color Catch already landed on the board last week. This pass was about making Hangman Solo feel like the rest of Backseat Games: road chrome, a difficulty you pick once from a local word list, and a hitchhiker drawing that grows as you miss — so the car game reads like a roadside stop, not a generic puzzle screen.

1.4.0 with this polish is on TestFlight now (not live on the App Store yet — expecting that later this week).

What happened​

• Painted Hangman and Color Catch onto the host hero so all five games read as real roadside signs
• Gave Hangman Solo an Easy / Medium / Hard choice backed by a local phrase list
• Cream road-dash tiles for letter slots, a wooden hitchhiker drawing as you miss, and host setup that makes solo difficulty an explicit pick
• Tightened the Solo difficulty sheet so Easy / Medium / Hard are clear before the trip starts

On a client SPA this week I shipped facility address + pinpoint radius search: geocode through a swappable Azure Maps service, filter with SQL geography, and persist coordinates on writes without failing the request when Maps is down. Product names and tenants stay off this page — the reusable pattern is the point.

What happened​

• Added facility radius / pinpoint search against geocoded addresses (not just text match)
• Wired a swappable geocoding service (Azure Maps in environments that have it; fake / no-op for local and Maps-down paths)
• Persisted coordinates on facility writes and filtered nearby results in SQL geography
• Extended OpenAPI + tests so the contract and happy/failure paths stay honest

Hangman got a real roadside solo loop on TestFlight, a client SPA picked up facility address + radius search with Azure Maps, and I started leaning hard on GrokBot to talk to my Cursor workspaces — while Homol High kept the week-of-10/12 packs moving and teammates kept audit, contacts, and document uploads moving.

Highlights​

• Backseat Games: painted Hangman and Color Catch onto the host hero as real signs, then gave Hangman Solo a local Easy/Medium/Hard word list, cream road-dash tiles, and a wooden hitchhiker drawing — 1.4.0 is on TestFlight (App Store live expected later this week).
• Started heavily adopting GrokBot: bots that chat with my Cursor workspaces and help orchestrate work inside them (Homol Works marketing, Homol High, ops dashboards, and more).
• Homol High: shipped week-of-10/12 Day Pack v3 (Mon–Fri) — Jacobs Geometry Chapter 2 Week 2 with the Homol test Friday 10/16, atomic-theory / periodic Chem, classical WH start, and ELA launching 1984.
• Memento Mori: stopped tinting ornate tab PNGs into solid circles and loaded chrome sooner after the post-launch restore pass.
• On a client SPA engagement: facility address + pinpoint radius search with scripted Azure Maps geocoding landed (my slice); teammates continued audit logging, contact management, resumable large-file uploads, document download/zip, and API input validation (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• Backseat Games — Hangman Gets a Roadside Solo Loop — local difficulty lists, hitchhiker drawing, five-sign hero
• Facility Radius Search with Azure Maps — geocode, SQL geography filter, Maps-down resilience

Memento Mori actually went live, Backseat Games grew two new road-trip games (and had to bump versions again because Apple closed another train), and Homol High switched Geometry onto Jacobs while shipping the week-of-10/5 packs.

Highlights​

• Announced Memento Mori as live on the App Store (launch post), then bumped marketing version to 1.0.1 so post-release TestFlight uploads can continue, and restored ornate chrome PNGs after the deferred-preload / SF Symbols-first pass.
• Added Hangman and Color Catch to Backseat Games, then bumped the App Store marketing version to 1.4.0 after Apple closed the approved 1.3.0 train — same recovery pattern as last week, this time with the new games on the next number.
• Homol High: switched Geometry to Jacobs (chapter-test Fridays only for Homol Geometry worksheets), moved ELA onto a daily 3-part novel log with Tuesday/Thursday Home Ec hours, and shipped week-of-10/5 packs (Jacobs Chapter 2 Week 1 plus the atomic-theory start).
• On a client SPA engagement: standardized REST conventions, URL-based API versioning so v1 and a sample v2 can coexist, reference-data endpoints, and authorized document download / multi-select zip landed across several merges (details stay internal).
• For a property-management SharePoint engagement: branded property listing web part plus list customizer, property import, Entra-driven leadership stamps, and grouped list views (details stay internal).

Learn More​

• (no deep-dives kept this week)

SHIP LOG: Memento Mori · App Store · 2026-10-01 · Built with Cursor

Memento Mori is live on the App Store — a private life-in-weeks calendar for seeing your 90 years clearly, setting three goals each week, and staying present without handing your data to the cloud.

What it is​

Your life as a grid of 4,680 weeks. The ones you have lived, the one you are in, and the ones still ahead — not to alarm you, to help you choose how to spend this week.

• This Week — three goals: work, friends & family, personal
• Life calendar — mark meaningful weeks, add notes and reflections
• Dreams — a life list you can break into steps
• Memoir — weekly reflections that accumulate as you go
• Home Screen widgets — life progress, goals, and dreams-vs-time without opening the app
• Private by design — data stays on your device; export a backup anytime

Version 1.0 is free — no ads, no IAP.

Why it shipped now​

App Store prep started earlier this summer: Skia calendar, brand-coin widgets, hub pages on Homol Works, then a long stretch of review hardening (widgets, SF Symbols chrome, post-tutorial boot). Today it clears the last gate — it’s actually downloadable.

The Memento Mori home on Homol Works has the screens, the widgets shot, privacy, and support. The App Store listing is where you install it.

Go try it​

Memento Mori on the App Store

If a widget goes stale, a reminder misfires, or something feels wrong for how you reflect — email me from the support page. v1.0 is a beginning, not a victory lap.

The polish build was ready for TestFlight — then Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 marketing train. This week’s story is less “new features” and more “ship the hardening under the next version Apple will accept,” while Android stays parked for the long haul. 1.3.0 is live on the App Store now; the next release is where new games show up.

What happened​

• Hardened the three launch games: invalid Sign Game feedback, plate collection, scenery rotation, review prompts, and host-gone recovery (mostly polish, not screenshot-bait)
• Pinned expo-store-review to 56.0.3 so the iOS archive compiles cleanly against Expo 56.0.9
• Bumped the App Store marketing version to 1.3.0 after Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 train — and that build is live in the App Store
• Left Android parked for quite some time (Play listing assets recorded; no public Android push and no “coming soon” tease)
• Lined up the next version around new games, not more 1.3.0 polish

Barry finally hit Amazon as a paperback, Backseat Games jumped an App Store version train to ship 1.3.0 live, and a client SPA week stacked Entra, SQL facilities, and document upload work.

Highlights​

• Launched Barry as a premium-color paperback on Amazon and gave it a dedicated Homol Works home at /barry — cover, favorite pages, buy link (full launch post).
• Shipped Backseat Games 1.3.0 live on the App Store after Apple closed the approved 1.2.1 train — hardening more than new visuals; Android stays parked for quite some time, and the next version is where new games land.
• On a client SPA engagement: Entra pilot + SQL-backed facilities catalog, composable facility filters, Internal Static Web App stubs, and a document upload API slice landed across several merges (details stay internal).
• Refreshed Homol Works Microsoft Learn badges/trophies from a fresh “Download your data” export.
• Homol High’s week-of-9/21 day packs were already covered in last week’s stub — still the teaching spine for this window.

Learn More​

• Backseat Games — App Store 1.3.0 after the closed train — 1.3.0 is live; next version brings new games

I wrote Barry over thirty years ago. This week it finally became a real paperback on Amazon — digitized, restored, and published from a dedicated Barry workspace in Cursor.

Barry has a lot to do today. Mom says so.
Between chores and shopping, only a big imagination will save the day.
A picture book about never letting your imagination go.

What happened​

• Published Barry as a premium-color paperback (ages 4–8) on Amazon: amazon.com/dp/B0HKGHVKTL
• Finished the long arc from childhood manuscript → color restoration → KDP print — with Cursor as the day-to-day co-pilot in the Barry project
• Launched a dedicated Homol Works home for the book at /barry — cover, favorite pages, Amazon buy link, and a peek at what’s next
• Started treating Barry as an ongoing character world: more stories and digital content ahead, not a one-and-done upload

Why a Barry page on Homol Works​

The Amazon listing is where you buy the book. /barry is where Homol Works shows the tone: lighthearted pages from the finished color finals, the oversized-hoodie hero, and a clear path to purchase. It’s also the place I’ll point when Barry shows up again in digital form.

What’s next​

This launch is the first public chapter, not the last. I’m planning more Barry stories and digital experiences around the character — short reads, motion, and other experiments that keep the same “chores vs. imagination” spirit. If you grab a copy for a kid in your life (or the kid you used to be), thank you — and keep an eye on /barry as the world grows.