Michi's objectives for 2026

First of all, when you read the “About” section for this Substack, I do say that I want to write more positive things. This can be difficult sometimes given the current situation that our country is in. I know that my last article may have been fairly negative, but it was a firmly held belief that I uphold. Having the bonnet off does allow me to speak freely. I was asked privately if I am no longer providing professional services (with the bonnet on) to stations in Florida and Texas. The answer is absolutely not. When the bonnet is on, I don’t see ideals on the extreme left or right (which I do with the bonnet off), but I do see what is directly in front of me, which is the first amendment. When the bonnet is on, I work with everyone, even with groups that I feel do not match my “bonnet off” ideals. Why? Because everyone has the right to free speech, even if I don’t agree with it. My goal with the bonnet on is to get as many different diverse voices, including those from the extreme left and extreme right a fair opportunity to make their voices heard. This means that I can comfortably work with groups ranging from socialists to militias, evangelical Christians to ahtiests.

Many years ago, I said “I made it a new year’s resolution to stop making new year’s resolutions”. I still live by that per se, but I do set some plans for each year. Let’s see what’s on the mind of the Michi for this year.

I went for about 52 years of my life without smoking. I started smoking during the 2020 crud (COVID). It was mainly due to stress and frustration. During that time, I was up to about the equivalent of a half a pack (10) a day (I smoked pipe tobacco with “roll your own” tubes). There is a possibility that I may be getting surgical procedures done this year (for those who really know me, this is something that was way overdue).1 In order to achieve this, I need to be nicotine free for about 3 months. My goal is to be completely off of nicotine within 3 months of any scheduled procedures. I am happy to say, that I have smoked my last cigarette at 9PM EST on Sunday, January 4, 2026. I needed to fast in order to get some bloodwork done on Monday morning so that meant that I had to stop smoking and not eat for about 12 hours. After this 12 hour fast and a long overdue Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese2, I did not have the urge to light up. I am not yet nicotine free. I am currently using Zyn pouches (I do about 3 a day) and I will eventually work off of those over time. At the time when I stopped smoking, I was at about 5 cigs a day. I have no desire to light up.

If I am able to get surgery, it is going to take me out of commission for several weeks and depending on the timing, it may foreclose on some of the other things I have planned for this year.

Right after I made some major life changes in 2006, I discovered modern resurgence flat track roller derby in Arizona. I went all-in on it. I was not athletic in any way and I was already in my late 30s at the time, so I decided to approach the sport in a way that I was already experienced and comfortable with, from a creative and journalistic manner. In the late 00s, I was a major force in the sport in Arizona (Phoenix was the second birthplace of the modern game with the first event held in November, 2003). At the time, I went to dozens of events in Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas, recorded a lot of video and wrote a lot of articles. I continued on the derby beat until around 2012 (even after I left Phoenix). I slowed down because I was very busy with the preparations for the 2013 LPFM filing window and also some frustration in the direction that the sport was going at the time.

In mid-2025, I had a very wonderful sports moment when I went to a Banana Ball game in DC. I was put into a position where I was interacting with other fans (similar to some of the stuff I did back in the 00s) and something inside of my triggered. I brought back the Michi-chan brand as Michi-chan Sports with the concept of not just covering modern roller derby but also other non-mainstream sports “that needed love too.” In late 2025, I did a couple of major projects including a massive research project to obtain the results data from games (bouts) that took place after I stopped coverage in 2012 to today. This was also a great history lesson for me. After that project was done, I had information on over 2,600 events and final scores for about 75% of them. This work product can be experienced at https://iwantmorederby.com/derbydata. During this period, I have also done a major data recovery project to preserve a lot of the old video that I shot during 2007~2010. A lot of this video was sitting on over 200 CD ROMs. Unfortunately, not all of the CDs survived over this 15+ year period, but I was able to recover a ton of video and many past news articles. In 2025, I released a 13-episode video series Michi-chan’s RAW Derby which featured full length games from the 2008~2009 period.

In 2026, I am going to release a second season of RAW Derby with another 13 episodes. For the events that I do not have full game/bout coverage for (as well as noncompetitive events), I have started a new series called Bits & Pieces. Between the new episodes of RAW Derby and Bits & Pieces, I am planning on releasing classic modern derby video content every Thursday night in 2026. I am also planning to attend a few local roller derby bouts in sort of an impromptu Michi-chan Derby Love Tour 2026. I do want to visit Arizona for derby, but that may not happen until at least 2027. For now, I will keep my virtual presence well known in the state. I also want to do some local travel to do pieces on other unusual sports. I have recently taken an interest in competitive cornhole. In 2025, I was interviewed on an Arizona-based roller derby podcast to discuss the history of the sport in Arizona. That interview went for almost 4 hours. I am scheduled to be back on that podcast in April, 2026.

I am also involved with a local short-track derby league out here as a volunteer in a consulting front-office role.

Michi-chan Sports YouTube channel

As I had previously stated, I will not be attending this year’s Grassroots Radio Conference due to the selection of Florida, a state that is actively discriminating against a specific demographic in public accommodations through legislation. I am also not attending NAB this year due to budget.

I do have tentative plans to attend the Avant Radio Fest in Jersey City, NJ in November. These plans may change based on surgery schedules and my spouse’s health condition. The Avant Fest appears to be a promising conference that focuses mainly on east coast community and internet broadcasters. I am not sure if I will have any role there beyond being an attendee. But any time I go to these conferences (even at NAB), I do get flagged down for questions and of course, I always welcome that.

Due to the current conditions at the FCC, the regulatory advocacy side of the house has slowed down significantly. I still provide professional services to support “anything FM”.

One of the organizations that I am involved with has a construction permit for a new LPFM station here in Riverton that expires in early 2027. Therefore, I need to get this station built sometime this year so we do not lose the permit. The construction of the station has priority to work around my possible schedule related to surgery. I am also working closely with another new LPFM station that was granted out here as well as keeping a close relationship with WHCP/WFHW.

At the end of 2025, I have eliminated the streams for J1 XTRA and J1 HD. This was done both because of budget priorities, but also to start the process of retiring hardware that is nearly 15 years old. The initial plan is to make programming changes to J1 HITS to be a “greatest hits” station encompassing some of the music lost with the shutdown of J1 XTRA and to migrate J1 HITS and J1 GOLD to our multi-station PlayoutONE Pro automation system. I do need to make some hardware changes to make PlayoutONE Pro work better here. HITS and GOLD are the two most popular streams for listeners in the US, Japan and around the world.

I have recently updated Michi-FM and the test bed for FM Riverton (the LPFM station) to work with Aiir Scheduler. Since Michi-FM runs on PlayoutONE Standard, this has given me an opportunity to test Aiir Scheduler with Standard and I have been providing Aiir with feedback on the experience.

In 2026, I do have plans to rebuild FCC.today to clean up the code and to address some changes that the FCC had made to the way they are sending information. I want to improve the user interface and to remove the parallel codebases for desktop and mobile. Likewise, I also plan to make changes to FCCdata.org in the same manner. This will also give me a way to better integrate our existing and potential future business relationships to help bring in some revenue without imposing any fees to end users of the websites.

Yes, it’s going to be a busy year. I am not sure how much I am going to be able to get done as the health of my spouse and myself have priority over everything. Let’s see what we will get done. The most important objective this year is to stay off the cigs, a bad habit I developed during the crud. Please be patient with me and thank you in advance for your support and concern. If you can help out, please let me know! Thank you for reading this. Let’s hope this year is a good one!