Technologist · Computer Scientist & Software Engineer · Project Manager
Musician · Maker · Community Advocate
I build practical systems where technology, creative work, and real-world problem solving meet.
“Keep the neurons firing!”
🚀 Currently building: ComfyUI Setup Manager
A standalone control center for installing, launching, updating, repairing, inspecting, exporting, importing, and sharing ComfyUI installations, models, and workflows.
ComfyUI Setup Manager combines a compact Textual TUI with a complete automation-friendly CLI. It manages multiple ComfyUI installations without forcing every setup to duplicate huge model and workflow libraries.
- Install, launch, update, repair, inspect, roll back, and remove ComfyUI setups.
- Share models and workflows safely across multiple installations.
- Export and import portable YAML-based setup profiles and workflow packs.
- Manage custom nodes, models, LoRAs, workflows, Agent Skills, and MCP definitions.
- Use every important feature through either the TUI or text, JSON, and YAML CLI output.
- Validate dependencies and custom-node startup before declaring an installation healthy.
Python · Textual · ComfyUI · YAML · CLI/TUI · Linux · WSL2 · Windows
I am a Chattanooga-area technologist, project manager, musician, digital creator, woodworker, outdoorsman, and community advocate. Online, I work as Badgids. My path has never fit neatly into one lane: I move between structured systems and creative chaos, especially where the rules are still being written.
Across open-source AI, emerging industries, community organizing, music, digital media, and physical craft, I tend to serve as a builder, organizer, communicator, and translator between worlds. I am more interested in how a system behaves in real use than in polished hype around it.
- 🧠 Technology & AI: Python, automation, local inference, LLM experimentation, ComfyUI, open-source model engineering, agent tooling, and practical software.
- 🧭 Project leadership: Organizing cross-functional work in uncertain, fast-changing environments and translating goals, constraints, and execution.
- 🎵 Music & media: Writing, producing, and releasing original music as Dead Man's Mandolin, alongside years of YouTube experimentation and documentation.
- 🪵 Craftsmanship: Building tangible work through RockCreek ShopWorks, with a focus on woodworking and respect for the material.
- ⚖️ Community advocacy: Public communication and organizing around bail reform, pretrial justice, incarceration, equity, and community accountability.
- 🏕️ Outdoors: An Eagle Scout and lifelong camper, hiker, bushcrafter, and curious student of history, archaeology, and the natural world.
My technical work emphasizes practical experimentation: build it, run it locally, find where it breaks, and make it useful. That has included automation and bots, real-time Whisper transcription, local generative-AI workflows, autonomous CAD experiments with CadQuery and CQparts, and open-source model work on Hugging Face.
I develop and merge GGUF models such as Gonzo-Chat-7B-GGUF, built for local inference with tools including llama.cpp, Ollama, and LM Studio. I also work with ComfyUI, Flux GGUF, PuLID, local CUDA systems, and agent-compatible engineering skills.
Before my work at Snapdragon Hemp, I created the Hamilton County Community Bail Fund in partnership with CALEB—Chattanoogans in Action for Love, Equality and Benevolence. During this period, I also served as a Director of CALEB through a highly active era of bail-reform and pretrial-justice organizing.
I was interviewed about bail funds and pretrial detention in at least five local newspaper articles, including coverage by the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Cleveland Daily Banner. I also co-hosted a local talk-radio program covering bail reform, criminal justice policy, community accountability, and equity.
After my bail-fund and CALEB work, I served as a Project Manager at Snapdragon Hemp during the hemp and CBD industry's early expansion. I coordinated work across business goals, operational realities, and a rapidly changing regulatory environment around the Farm Bill era. The job demanded comfort with uncertainty—the kind of environment where I do some of my best work.
Music is not a side note in my life; it is another way I design systems, pacing, structure, atmosphere, and meaning. As Dead Man's Mandolin, I write and produce original work that pulls together roots instrumentation, gothic atmosphere, indie-rock energy, and heavier influences.
My YouTube channel began with prolific bushcraft, camping, gear, and DIY experimentation and grew to include technology, commentary, creative work, and ongoing project documentation. I use video as a public workshop and an archive of ideas in motion.
The discipline and outdoor foundation I developed as an Eagle Scout still shapes how I work. Through RockCreek ShopWorks, I bring that mindset into woodworking—turning raw material into useful, carefully made pieces while staying connected to traditional building, the outdoors, and hands-on problem solving.
| Project | What it explores |
|---|---|
| ComfyUI Setup Manager | Portable, repairable, multi-install ComfyUI management through a full TUI and CLI. |
| Gonzo-Chat-7B-GGUF | A merged 7B conversational model optimized for local GGUF inference. |
| Gonzo-Code-7B-GGUF | A locally runnable merged model focused on coding and agent-oriented work. |
| OpenKlyde | An open-source Discord bot project; collaboration and help are welcome. |
| Transcription App | Real-time transcription experiments powered by OpenAI Whisper. |
I am especially interested in collaborating on machine learning, applied AI, local inference, automation, agent systems, and open-source tools. Ask me about computer science, programming, ML/AI, ComfyUI, or turning an ambitious idea into a working system.
| Era | Focus |
|---|---|
| Foundation | Earned the rank of Eagle Scout; built a lifelong foundation in leadership, outdoor skills, service, and environmental appreciation. |
| Early digital creation | Became a prolific YouTube bushcraft creator, documenting outdoor skills, gear, experiments, and DIY problem solving. |
| Community leadership | Created the Hamilton County Community Bail Fund in partnership with CALEB; served as a CALEB director, public spokesperson, newspaper interviewee, and local talk-radio co-host. |
| Emerging-industry leadership | After the bail-fund and CALEB work, served as Project Manager at Snapdragon Hemp during the Farm Bill transition and Tennessee hemp industry's rapid growth. |
| 2023–2024 | Published Gonzo Chat and Gonzo Code models on Hugging Face and developed Python, bot, transcription, and local-inference projects. |
| 2026 | Expanded advanced local ComfyUI workflows and autonomous engineering work using CadQuery, CQparts, Agent Skills, and AI-assisted assembly interpretation. |
| Now | Building ComfyUI Setup Manager while continuing open-source AI work, music, YouTube creation, woodworking, and outdoor exploration. |
