8December2007
Posted by Brian under: Atlanta; Work.
Yesterday Val had her last day of work at Wells Fargo Financial Branch 346. After a little more than three years at Wells Fargo, Val worked in several different branches, and with more people than I can count on all my fingers and toes. I think three years there made her one of the most senior members of the entire district. Val is going to miss the people that she worked with, and I am going to miss the Christmas Party, the Branch Dinners, the Toasts, and getting Suited and Booted. If you ever need a high-interest loan, look to Wells Fargo first.
27November2007
Posted by Brian under: Webpage.
That’s right; after many, many months of nothing new on here, I’ve posted some new things. I’m working on getting the photo gallery to be more integrated with the theme of this site, and trying to stay more current on adding pictures. I’ve added photos from Val and my trip to Nashville, TN, and some photos from this past Thanksgiving. Oh yeah, and I updated my wishlist. Since Amazon.com now pretty much sells everything you could ever want, I’ve let them take over my wishlist. Go ahead and check it out!
26May2007
Posted by Brian under: My Thoughts.
Yesterday I received word that a Marine I know from Spartanburg died in Iraq. David Lindsey was only twenty years old. I remember working with my dad, David’s dad and David doing an irrigation project probably five or six years ago. David was always full of energy and didn’t seem to have a shy bone in his body. I know that he will be missed by everyone that knew him. Here is the link to the story on the Herald Journal, Spartanburg’s Newspaper. David was the adopted son of Mike and Nora Bishop. My thoughts and prayers go out to the entire Bishop family.
24April2007
Posted by Brian under: My Thoughts; School Thoughts; Virginia Tech.
To tell you the truth, I’m at a loss for words to express how I feel about what happened at Virginia Tech one week ago today. I’ve been running around at work, and haven’t even had time to sit down and figure out how I actually feel about everything. I’m planning to do that this week, but in the mean time, I thought I would post the thoughts of some others.
24April2007
Posted by Brian under: Guest Writer; Virginia Tech.
The following is an email from Andrew Norton:
Fellow Hokies and friends-
I am glad all those that we know are alive and well! I’ve been completely dazed these past two days while I’ve been talking with my co-workers that also went to Virginia Tech as they have searched and found most of their friends.
Unfortunately, one of my co-workers knew a girl that died in the shootings. He is struggling to find words to talk with the friend who was her cousin. One of my co-workers couldn’t stop shaking because he still doesn’t know.
I have been avoiding watching TV because I can’t look at pictures of our campus with S.W.A.T Team Members running up the steps of Burruss or blood on our beautiful Drillfield. I just can’t. I can’t see the words “Virginia Tech” and “Massacre” in the same sentence. I can’t watch the number 32. I can’t imagine that those students won’t experience Virginia Tech the way we have. I just can’t.
I had to ride my bike today after work to get all the anger out. “Why do
32 people have to die?”, “How could someone do that to my home!”. I purposely slowed traffic in my VT jersey just so people would stop and think. I didn’t know what else to do. I don’t know what else to do. I have to stay constantly busy at work just to avoid the shock.
I got home and sat to eat dinner. I turned on the TV and saw the end of Dateline. The first thing on the screen was a picture of the girl I mentioned above, Keema. They were talking to her father. He was proud.
He should have been. I can’t get her picture out of my head.
We all should be proud. As I was riding my bike, I thought about all the conversations I had with co-workers yesterday and today and I remembered one distinctly. The administrative assistant to the Vice President kept talking about how “impressed” she was by the students. She recounted how when asked, “Do you feel safe?” and goaded by reporters looking for the answer of “No” that every student replied to effect, “This is the safest place I can think of” Those are Hokies.
I’ve spent many hours of my student and post-student life trying to explain “What is a Hokie?” to those who did not attend. “I am” never seemed to answer the question. “Any supporter of Virginia Tech” as I was taught in orientation didn’t either. I settled on explaining that, “If you don’t know, you never could know” and let the question rest.
When I watch the campus unified; When I hear of the resolve of the students from co-workers; When I see how quickly we checked to find information on our friends; How tight the networks are on and off campus and among strangers. I realized: these are what Hokies are.
Finally, the country will understand what we all knew before. “I am”
makes sense to others now. “Any supporter of Virginia Tech” makes sense now.
It’s the only way I can comprehend what happened. I’d rather not think of the victims as dead but as “Hokies”. As in Landon’s cartoon from earlier, “We are all Hokies now”
Just felt I needed to write this. I thought only other Hokies would understand. Forgive the length of the email.
Andrew
24April2007
Posted by Brian under: Guest Writer; Virginia Tech.
The following is an email from Meredith Baker:
Andrew,
Thank you for writing your letter, I know that I am not alone in my grief but it is still good to actually hear the words from someone else who understands. Here at work we have all been effected by the events from Monday. One of the professors killed was a civil engineering professor. I had him for a semester as did other people in our office, many non-Hokies here knew him from recruiting and other civil engineering events at Tech.
He was one of the nicest teachers I had at Tech. I feel selfish for dreading finding out the remaining names of the people in Norris because I am scared I will know someone else.
I’m not sure how many of you know this but my older brother has recently gone back to school, he is studying English. I talked to him yesterday, thankfully he is safe and wasn’t on campus at the time. Also, he doesn’t think he had any classes with the shooter.
This morning I was late to work because I just didn’t want to face the day, knowing that as soon as I got in my car and turned on the radio that’s all I would hear about. Unfortunately I was right, you just can’t get away from it. I hate the word “massacre” being associated with Tech, it is an ugly, ugly word and I cringe every time I hear it.
The flip side to this is seeing the enormous display of pride, faith and optimism the students have for Virginia Tech, it made me cry happy tears. I am very proud of them for embracing that hokie spirit and joining together for healing. In an effort to show my support I decided to put my car flags up this morning, not sure when I’ll take them down, but I feel good just having them up.
I am looking forward to graduation. I know it will be different from times past, but I so badly want to be in Blacksburg. I want to sit on a bench, watch the drill field and pray for some peace. I make no apologies for this email, I know my writing is not the best but I needed to feel the Hokie love.
GO HOKIES,
Meredith
24April2007
Posted by Brian under: Guest Writer; Virginia Tech.
The following is an email from Landon Smith:
Angela and I were able to make it to the vigil last night, to represent the POD and although we are all now far and wide, I want everyone to know that your presence was felt on the drillfield last night.
Our first hand experience of the candlelight vigil follows…
April 17, 2007 Blacksburg, VA
8:00pm, Candlelight Vigil
Last night, with heavy hearts, a family and community came together to mourn. And what better place to come together than the drillfield, with Burrus as our backdrop; the centerpiece and the heart of the Virginia Tech campus. A place where wind is a hokie’s worst enemy… this day was no different. But, again… just as that fateful bolt of lightning hit Lee Corso’s car during football season when he bet against the Hokies. It was shown that God is too, a Hokie. On a blustery day 8:00pm rang out, the wind subsided, candles were lit, and the healing began. In a time of sadness and grief, words of wisdom and strength came from the student body president. In closing, he said “This ends the vigil, you may remain as long as you like with your hokie family.” Not one body moved, nor one candle flickered. A crowd of an estimated 20,000 plus was silent. Warm hearts and hugs comforted one another, tears of great sadness could be heard and laughter filled the air of great memories remembered. As a nation watched, all know now, what it truly means to be a Hokie.
As the vigil continued for 30 minutes a nation watched and mourned with us. And just as quickly as the wind subsided, one great wind blew through and extinguish the candles. Almost as a sign that all who were lost have now found peace and that the healing can now begin. As the crowd began to chant “Let’s GO… HOKIES.” It became evident those words spoken by Nikki Giovanni: “The Hokie Nation embraces our own with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are Hokies… We will prevail, We WILL Prevail. WE ARE VIRGINIA TECH.”
Although we are represented at sporting events as a fighting gobbler, a turkey… a hokie. It is only a symbol. And I thank Andrew for his email, because he is exactly right. Before, all who were not a Hokie, laughed and questioned its existance, it meaning, and who we were. As Andrew said, “If you don’t know, you never could know.” If a nation could not understand what a Hokie is today, I don’t believe they ever could.
Even the media are in amazement, as a campus, a community, and a family has gathered and supported each other with courage and strength. Each reporter trying to find that one individual, who will speak against their Alma mater. Yet, not one can be found. We are Hokies… We are a family. The same orange and maroon blood flows through each of us undoubtedly and without question we believe in each other, our hokie family, and our school.
I encourage everyone to use the resources that are available to let the healing begin. Send emails, place phone calls, www.vt.edu has links to counseling… do whatever you need to do. Your hokie family, the Pod and now a New Hokie Nation believe in you and will always be there for you.
We may be all over the country today, but all of our hearts will always reside in Blacksburg, VA.
Landon Smith
31March2007
Posted by Brian under: Atlanta; Fun and Games.
The good thing about the final four coming to Atlanta, is the abundance of things going on around town. As the city of Atlanta tries to show the visitors that Atlanta is a great place, Val and I were the beneficiaries of the cities generosity. We hopped on MARTA and went down to Centennial Olympic Park. We got there in time to see the band Live go on and play for about an hour. There were other people there to see them, but I wouldn’t really say that it was crowded. After Live it was about an hour until Ludacris came on. In that hour the park really filled up. It felt like half of Atlanta was there. I’ve never seen so many white guys from Ohio thinking that they are thugs just because they were listening to Ludacris. After that it was about 4:30 and time to head back to the house so that we could watch the game. Overall I’d say it was a pretty good day. No one accosted us on MARTA, the bums were strangely absent from around the park, and I found us a seat right away at the CNN center when we went to grab some food there. Now Ohio State won their game, and I’m that much closer to winning the basketball pool at work. $156 would be a good payday just for shear luck. Now it’s time to get back to watching the UCLA and Florida game.
26March2007
Posted by Brian under: My Thoughts; Productivity; Webpage.
I think this could be the longest that I’ve stuck with anything. I wrote last month about starting to use a new technique to manage my growing inbox and project load. I’m here to report back and say that after a full month of following the guidelines, my in box is completely empty, I have five items in my ‘action’ folder, fourteen items in my ‘hold’ folder and who knows how many items in my archive folder. Fortunately with Google desktop, it doesn’t matter how many items are in the archive, because I can search and find what I need in about 15 seconds on average. The reduction in folders along with doing a better job of writing things down has resulted in a cleaner more organized brain for Brian. I don’t think I’ve gotten any smarter, just freed up more room for other things. I don’t wake up thinking about things that I need to do, I know that I’ve got them all written down in my planning system to review when I get to work. The next idea from the GTD (Getting Things Done) realm that I want to tackle is having a list and knowing what I need to accomplish all items on the list so that I can get things done in the few minutes of downtime that occur frequently throughout the day. I am thinking about either organizing this with a) several different lists, one for phone, one for computer, one for talk to someone; or b) one list with keywords attached to each item so that I can sort by a keyword. I believe this will enable me to get that email written while I’m waiting for a conference call to start, or make that phone call in the five minutes before a meeting starts, or even get that post written to the webpage while I’m waiting for my carpool ride home. Turns out for all the good that a carpool is, there are a few days sprinkled in where I wish I would’ve driven myself.
25February2007
Posted by Brian under: My Thoughts; Productivity; Work.
The to-do lists at work and at home started to pile up with no end in sight. The stress levels were peaking at previously unseen levels. Dreams started to be less about beautiful places and beautiful woman (Val), and more about work (more like a nightmare). I decided it was time for a change. Time to take back control of my life by having more control over my day to day schedule. I’ve got most of the basis to do this with classes that I’ve taken through my work. Thanks to Franklin Covey I’ve got a good method for taking a few minutes at the beginning of the week, and a few more each morning to schedule out my day, and keep up with all of the tasks that I needed to complete. I went through the training almost three years ago, but back then there weren’t that many tasks that I had to complete. I could keep up with all of them in my head, and it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. So the first task in getting organized was to re-implement the daily planner. I opted for the electronic version due to the fact that I spend a fair amount of time on my computer, and most of my tasks come down through email. I’ve been using the planner again now for only two weeks, but it seems to be helping. Less forgetting items, and less time thinking “now what was it I needed to do?”, and more time actually getting things done. Second and Third on the list of things to do was read the book “Lifehacker - 88 tech tricks to turbocharge your day”, and “Getting Things Done”. Lifehacker is done, and several of the tips are implemented. The most major change has been reducing my 23 different email folders and sub folders down to just four. Now I am left with only the Inbox, Action, Archive and Hold folders. The premise is to do something with everything that comes into the inbox, and keep it cleared out. If it takes less than a minute to do, then just do it. If it takes more than a minute, move it to the Action folder. If you need to keep it around for a short time, or wait for someone else to do it, then it goes in the Hold folder. And everything ends up in the Archive folder. How do you find something a month later then? Using the advanced search features built into most modern email clients, or using the Google Desktop. The only hitch that I can see to going to this method is Subject lines to emails need to get more specific. No more subject lines like this: , , . Other than that I think the system could just work. I guess you will just have to check back here and see.
24February2007
Posted by Brian under: Atlanta; Home Ownership; the Ball & Chain.
So I lost my wife yesterday. I mean, we both got ready for bed, jumped in, and then I couldn’t find her. Turns out that a King size bed is a BIG bed for just two people. Especially after we were used to a full sized bed. I laid down in the bed, streched my arms out as far as I could, and I still couldn’t reach Val. I had to call her cell phone to locate her. Turns out that she wasn’t lost, just on the other side of the bed. Yesterday the furniture place delivered almost all of the furniture that my parents had bought for us. They were only lacking the mirror to go above the dresser, and the bed frame. They brought out the rest of the furniture and a metal frame for us to use while we are waiting for the other stuff to come in. The furniture looked small in the pictures, but once we had it all arranged in our room, it takes up just about all of the wall space that we have. I will upload some pictures once the frame and mirror comes in. Now that we have the new furniture, and just finished more painting, I don’t want to leave our house for at least ten years. We will see how long Val will let that last.
18February2007
Posted by Brian under: Atlanta.
but they have free pancakes at IHOP this Tuesday, February 20th. Don’t believe me? Think this must be some kind of hoax? Check out this link. I know this is a pretty weak post after a few months away from this thing, but it’s all that I could come up with for now. Sure there are lots of other things going on, but who wants to hear about painting rooms, buying furniture, going to work or any other boring adult stuff? I’ll work on coming up with some good stories, and get back to you on that. In the mean time, spend the time you would spend reading this website working on your taxes. The longer you delay, the longer the government gets to keep your money!
2December2006
Posted by Erik under: Guest Writer; Wedding.
The following is a story written by Erik Wiker. That’s right, brianpainter.com has guest writers. Contact the staff if you are interesting in writing a story for brianpainter.com.
Brother of the Bride
by: Erik Wiker 11/10/06
Boom! Dodge to the left, right, jump, shoot, and grapple! I was playing video games with my cousins. We were all ready to go to the wedding. My tux started to get tight. My smooth, black dress shoes were hurting my feet. I was not even thinking that my sister was about to be married and this was one of the most important days in her life.
“Erik, we are about to go!” came my dad’s loud booming voice.
“OK!” I yell back and I strode swiftly up my soft basement stairs. Next thing I know is I am in the car squinting to see through the sunlight. As the church came into view it somehow looked different than it does every Sunday evening when I go to mass. It was brighter maybe even reflecting the sun. The flowers were in full bloom and it seemed like a perfect day for a wedding. Then I remembered I have a job to do. I am the usher, so I have to walk the ladies down the aisle and seat them on a particular side of the church.
Then before I knew what’s happening I see the bridesmaids and groomsmen walking down the red carpeted isle. Then finally, I see my sister. She is smiling and looking straight at Brian, her fiancé. My dad looks a little sad and my mom has tears in her eyes. Just like that, it was over. The rest was a blur, the lighting of the unity candle, the readings, exchanging of rings and so on. The next thing I knew Brian and Valerie were walking together towards the back of the church and it was all over. Months of planning and it is all over in less than an hour.
Then the long part came. The portraits dragged on for an hour then all the bridesmaids and groomsmen went in a limousine with the bride and groom and drove off. I had a chance to go with them, but I decided to go back to my home with my sister, mom, dad, and cousins. We had a little time to relax before the reception and the wedding party went off to have fun driving around in the limo.
Then I went back to my house and played various games with my cousins and then in another hour we were at the reception. It was pretty cool to have the reception right next to the river. I got to be introduced with the bridal party. We ate a great dinner. We could get just about whatever we wanted. I managed to explore the country club with my 12 year old cousin. He was shorter and a little younger then me. My other cousin is 16, but he still likes to do stuff with us. I think we ran around a few miles between courses.
Many people danced. There was a variety of music. The groomsmen seemed to be having the best time. I bet it reminded them of college. The time flew by and every minute seemed like a second. The more time that went by, the more I did not want my sister to go. I was beginning to realize that she did not just belong to us anymore. Valerie and Brian cut the cake, tossed the bouquet and the garter, and by the time we were ready to leave, it was around 12:30AM.
When I got home, my cousin and I played some more games before we went to sleep. This is when I really started thinking about what had happened that day. I thought, as I tried to fall asleep, what a day it had been and question what was going to happen next. I felt bad that I wouldn’t see my sister; however I do have a brother now. I felt as if a part of my life would never be the same. As I lay there silently, the more I thought about the day the more tired I became until I fell into a deep sleep.
25November2006
Posted by Brian under: Atlanta; My Thoughts.
I decided that after twenty-five Thanksgivings of not going shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, it was time to expand my horizons and venture out to the stores on black Friday. Kristen needed to get a new computer so a plan was hatched to head to Best Buy early, early on Friday morning and get one of the Laptops that were on sale. Since we were going to be there anyways, we ended up wanting to get another computer and a digital camera for other people. We came back from Thanksgiving dinner at my Aunt and Uncles in Peachtree City about 11pm. We considered just driving by the Best Buy to see if anyone was in line, and to possibly get in the very front of the line. But in the end we decided that it was rediculious ridiculous that anyone would be there at 11pm, and we would stick to our original plan of getting up at 2:30am and heading over there. After a couple hours of sleep we dragged out of bed and headed over to Best Buy, lured by the thoughts of all the money we were going to save. As we crested the hill in front of Best Buy, our hearts sank. There were about two hundred and fifty people in line infront of us. How could this many people have beat us to the line? We got in line anyways, and hoped that there would be a laptop, desktop, or digital camera left by the time that they got to us. After an hour and a half in line, they started handing out the tickets for the items that were the best bargin. Another fifteen minutes and we realized that we were not only not getting a laptop, but we were not getting a desktop or a digital camera. About the only thing that we could’ve gotten was a 50 inch plasma TV. We stayed in line anyways, and went in to see if there was anything at all that we could get on sale at Best Buy. We came out with an Ice Age DVD. Not even Ice Age 2, just the first one. It was only 5:30am, so we decided to head over to the mall that was close by and do a little shopping there. We walked around, did some shopping, and I actually did get one or two Christmas gifts. By 7:30am we were headed back to the house ready for bed. A few more hours of sleep, and then it was time to get up and head over to another mall. By this time I was walking around in a daze. I felt like I had pulled an all-nighter, then went to class the next day. My hair was greasey greasy, I’m pretty sure that I smelled, and I didn’t save the thousands of dollars that the Thanksgiving day ads had promised. Maybe it was just an off year, but I think that I’ll leave the black Friday shopping to someone else next year.