Brad's Wish List

There's a lot of stuff I want to do! This is really just a brain dump of what I'm up to and ideas I'm interested in pursuing. I'm not expecting anyone to read this and think "oh, I can help with that!" for everything here. But if something here does resonate with you, or you have ideas or resources that could be helpful, please get in touch.

Continual Aspirations

I want to enable kids to thrive and be their best selves, both now and in the future.

I want to be constantly surrounded by creative, agentic, capable people.

At Least Kind of Happening

I want to teach kids how to write software & leverage technology to help people.

I want to write software that people find useful.

GatherPack is starting to be a thing! And I've got a few other more proprietary projects I've done for clients through Sledgehammer Infosystems out there in the wild, too.

I've got a couple other ideas that I'd like to push forward on, too. I've got a half-started flexible, modular ERP system idea targeted at small businesses & non-profits, a concept for sandboxed developer environment & associated infrastructure automation tooling that could be really useful for teaching programming, a model for facilitating the strategic planning process & tracking progress against goals for non-profits & other organizations that could be turned into a web application, and a few other ideas that would be neat - and potentially profitable - to pursue.

I want to write more (words, not code).

I want to mentor & coach more young people.

I want to mentor people that want to be better mentors.

I want to see more young people get access to high-quality, highly engaged mentors.

More or Less Attainable Future Goals

I want to do some non-profit consulting work.

I want to make books.

I want to make more art.

I want to start a chain of arcades where the kids build the machines & make their own games.

I want to start a tea shop.

Pipe Dreams & Other Slightly Unhinged Stuff

I want to start and live in a nerd monastery.

I want to build a huge facility to support the FIRST Robotics programs and other like-minded youth development efforts in my community.

This is fundamentally the same idea as the nerd monastery, but a little more tightly focused and maybe a hair less... cult-y.

I'm envisioning a space where kids can come together to learn, create, and collaborate. This facility would include a huge makerspace, full fields for FIRST & other similar programs, meeting rooms, rentable space for youth-run or youth-supporting businesses, flexible open areas for events and gatherings, and a small auditorium-type space for presentations and showcases. It would be a hub for innovation and creativity, where kids can get hands-on experience with technology and engineering, and where they can connect with mentors and peers who share their interests. It would also serve as a community center, hosting events and workshops for people of all ages interested in youth development, mentoring, and education.

I want to buy a mobile office van and travel rural Indiana to find, support, and connect the exceptional young people out there in the underserved fringes of the state.

I want to go to grad school.

I've had vague thoughts about going back to school for more than a decade now, but I've never really been able to pin down what I want to study or where I want to go. My interests are pretty broad and interdisciplinary, and I haven't found a program that really fits what I'm looking for. I would also have to pick a direction to focus on, which is... hard.

Right now the winner is something roughly at the intersection of developmental psychology and anthropology, linking Dabrowski's Theory of Positive Disintegration with van Gennep & Turner's work on rites of passage & life stage transitions, making the case for more intentional rites of passage & transition rituals in modern culture.

Or maybe I go for something more practical, like an MBA or MPA to support my non-profit work.

I want to grow my own tea.

I want to do a longitudinal research study, and art project, and journalistic body of work, where I follow of a handful kids around throughout middle & high school to document what's going on in their lives & in youth culture in general.