Introducing BugsyLand™

The sun will rise, regardless of me being out there to document it. Subscribing to BugsyLand™ is the best assurance to put more sunrise into the world. Though sunrise is only the latest chapter of a life committed to putting ideas into the world.

BugsyLand™ is a membership platform created to support a world where we can create together. Think of it as Bugsy+ or BugsyPrime, or my personal Patreon—a behind-the-scenes look, special access, feedback, and a way to contribute to the community projects we build along the way.

Though sunrise is the largest slice of the pie, these creative efforts go well beyond Year of the Sunrise and helps me invest more time into other community efforts such as 906 Day, Plaidurday, Fresh Coast Film Festival, and of course, encouraging others to watch more sunrises.

The goal, is to continue to inspire more moments like this, this, this, this, this, and more. And if you read the comments here, I would love to inspire more of this in the world while setting out to document sunrise in a way that’s never been done.

For as low as 28¢ per day we can put a lot more sunny (and cloudy) content into the world.

What do you say? Let’s create more, together.

Want to make a simple contribution? Consider a monthly coffee to fuel more sunrise content. You can also find me on the Cash app at $BugsySailor.

Not ready to commit? I understand. Considering subscribing to my very occasional YOTS newsletter or making a one time contribution with a publication request.

It’s not perfect, but I hope to bring you along on this process of what it means to be a full-time artist (err, “creator” if you insist. ugh) in this day and age.

BugsyLand™ Membership Perks

• 20% discount on all Upper Peninsula Supply Co. purchases
• 20% discount on all Year of the Sunrise purchases
• Access to live Office Hours calls and archives
• First dibs and discount on any future YOTS books
• Access to exclusive content including sunrise outtakes
• Downloadable mobile and desktop backgrounds
• An small annual token of appreciation
• And hopefully, much more to come

Most importantly, your membership puts more sunrise into the world, literally.

Upcoming financial goals

Few of my financial goals are related to obtaining more photography gear, which may come off as the obvious goal. But camera gear often comes last. From plaid to sunrise to the Upper Peninsula, they all fall under the umbrella of being a nerd of the web before all else. While everyone is talking about their countless streaming subscriptions, my subscriptions look much different.

Here’s a taste of the tools I plan to add next to streamline and simplify an ever growing portfolio of projects.

⏳ Buttondown ($79/mo)
Since this project began, I have failed to keep my promise of an occasional newsletter. I still believe I can get there. The first culprit, Mailchimp. Mailchimp has been my go-to newsletter service for over 15 years. But the joy of using it has gone. It got slow, it got expensive, and it became more and more corporate. For months I’ve been exploring new options, finally landing on Buttondown. Though it will be a money saver from my current Mailchimp account, there is still a pretty heft lift of importing and transferring everything. I’m loving the simplicity of Buttondown. I think the biggest opportunity is that Buttondown operates with Markdown. This would give me an easy solution jumping between websites to e-newsletters as all my websites are now in Markdown. No more clunky HTML templates.

⏳ Obsidian ($8/mo)
Speaking of Markdown, I’m newly obsessed with Obsidian, which is another Markdown-driven application designed for writing. Because it is built on Markdown, it means converting project notes, journal entries, and various writing to my Markdown-driven websites a nearly seamless process. This is exciting! The biggest challenge right now is that I have thousands of project notes spread across multiple platforms. With the syncing integration, simplicity, and use of Markdown, this budget-friendly tool gets me excited to write and publish more. Oh, and it’d be super easy to write my newsletters there too.

⏳ Plausible ($19/mo)
Plausible is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics, or if you’re new to this, tools for measuring website traffic. I had been a passionate proponent of Google Analytics for years, but the joy for it left me a long time ago, especially when having to migrate to GA4. I’ve long been wanting a simple solution to fall back in love with web analytics. Plausible seems to be the answer. Additionally, its lighter weight and doesn’t feed into the corporate data machine. While not a complete necessity, there are some added tools and functionality I’d certainly love to tool around with across my various websites.

✅ Memberstack ($25/mo)
If you’re reading this, then Memberstack is already here. The BugsyLand memberships have been enjoyable to work on, but the previous solution was a little hacky. After researching lots of different platforms, I landed on Memberstack, which is the backend service to manage user memberships. I’m excited to now have it fully integrated into YOTS, though I hope to build a permanent home for it elsewhere, as this is simply one project of many.

… and one bonus tech gadget for consideration.

🤔 Garmin Smartwatch ($300+)
I’ve been thinking about this for a longtime. Without question, there would be a lot of advantages to wearing a smartwatch each morning. Namely, Garmin has a built in feature for a sunrise alert (unfortunately, I think you can only set one alert). I do not like pulling my phone out at sunrise to check the time, but many mornings its a necessity to do so. A dumbwatch would solve this just as easily (except with bulky winter layers) and cheaper. However, I’m very intrigued with the idea of building a series of GPX routes to work with Google Maps and the website to show how much time I’m spending at sunrise, and to understand how much walking I’m doing on a lazy versus an inspired morning. It is a rare tech piece on the wishlist, but it still has nothing to do with the photography gear, but to enhance the experience of getting to and from sunrise… on time.

What the public doesn’t see is the extensive list of tools behind the scenes to make all these projects a reality. I’m a firm believer that the knowledge and usage of available tools greatly influence the outcome of a project. I hope to flush out this list for all to see.

While these all come with a lot of new time commitment, I especially love that each is independently owned (for now) and managed by small teams. It helps keep my website investments out of corporate pockets and in the hands of independent developers, which aligns nicely with everything I’m trying to do here.

The next projects

One of the most frequently asked questions I receive is, “What are you working on next?” There has never not been something. It has been about what I’m willing to share.

Join to see more. Monthly | Yearly | Lifetime

The Dream (as it pertains to sunrise)

A new event: The [REDACTED]

Revisiting a Zamboni on Lake Superior

█████ █████ ███ ████ ███████████ ███████████ █████ ███████ ██████████████ ███ █████ See the work in progress at www. [REDACTED] .com

Not the sunrise book, but a sunrise book:

Let’s make some stuff.