Brian February 2nd, 2006
I don’t think I have ever been “tagged,” but now, thanks to J. Sarge, J.C., Adam, Alton, and James, I have been.
So here goes …
Four jobs I’ve had
1. Wastewater treatment plant operator
2. Auto detail technician (car wash boy)
3. Coal truck lubricationist (grease monkey)
4. Coal mining lackey
Four movies I can watch over and over
1. October Sky
2. The Graduate
3. The Godfather
4. The Patriot
Four places I’ve lived
1. Clintwood, Virginia
2. Ada, Ohio
3. Emory, Virginia
4. Abingdon, Virginia
Four T.V. shows I love
1. Earl
2. Scrubs
3. Nip Tuck
4. Ed
Four places I’ve vacationed
1. Pensacola Beach, Florida
2. San Juan Capistrano, California
3. Boulder, Colorado
4. Las Vegas, Nevada
Four of my favorite dishes
1. Two Cheeseburgers Value Meal (McDonalds)
2. Spicy Chicken Combo (Hardees)
3. Chicken Parmesan (Subway)
4. Louisiana Cajun Chicken (Mosbys)
Four sites I visit daily
1. Bloglines
2. Lexis
3. Jayski’s
4. Google (everybody goes there once a day, right?)
Four places I would rather be right now
1. Richmond
2. Back at Emory & Henry
3. MGM Grand
4. BMS
Four bloggers I am tagging
1. Scott
2. Justin Fleenor
3. Richard Hubbard
4. Colin Biddle
Brian January 19th, 2006
I was not going to mention my birthday here this year, but after I got such a great cake I had to share a photo of it.
Click the picture for the larger view.
Last year, I rolled out a new blog theme for my birthday. This year I decided to just stick with the current one.
Brian December 24th, 2005
Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a safe Holiday.
Brian November 24th, 2005
“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Brian September 5th, 2005
I have not posted anything on the tragedy that was Katrina. Every where I look people are pulling together and doing what they can for our friends down south.
Even here in Clintwood, my small town, residents are filling a large box truck/trailer with donated items to deliver to the hurricane victims.
If you are in the Clintwood area and want to donate some items to be delivered, please bring them by Modern Hardware. The truck is parked around back and is available for loading 24/7. The truck will be leaving Wednesday morning.
Brian July 14th, 2005
I am far from a regular or frequent poster to this blog, but I have been able to even less lately. As most of you know, I am getting ready to take a life changing test - the bar exam.
So, I decided to just take the next few days off from blogging (not that I have been burning it up the last few weeks or anything).
Usual ranting about the Jerry Kilgore v. Tim Kaine match will resume around July 28, 2005. Check back then for the highlights of my trip to Roanoke and adventures with the VBBE.
Brian July 4th, 2005
Hope everyone is having a great 4th of July. We are going downtown tonight and watch some fireworks. I went last year and left with a neck cramp. This year, I am going to find a better angle.
Click here for the text of the Declaration of Independence Continue Reading »
Brian June 24th, 2005
One year ago today, I had just finished up my daily reading of the 20 - 30 blogs I read at that time. I had been thinking a lot about starting my own blog just to document things that were happening in my life. There was not a specific goal or purpose that I had in mind for the blog. Rather, I just wanted someway to be able to look back and reflect on past events.
Then in a moment of free time, my first blog was born and lived on blogger.com. I never really expected anyone to read it which is evidenced by the sketchy posts I made in the beginning. As time went on, I found a few other blogs I wanted to link to and they linked back to mine. Next thing I knew, people were reading.
Now a few designs later, my own domain, and a whole more traffic, I am still blogging away. Obviously a theme ultimately developed involving politics, Southwest Virginia, current events, and discussion of my personal life.
I had thought about trying to list everyone who had inspired me in blogging and contributed to my success. In the end, I decided that would be way too long of a list. Instead, you all know who you are and I am very appreciative of all your help. I could not have done it without everyone’s help.
Also, I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has visited, commented, and linked to my blog. I take each as a compliment whether it was meant that way or not. Hopefully you all will keep coming back for another year.
Brian May 8th, 2005
Throughout life, we take a lot of things and people for granted. I know far too many times, I have failed to give my mother the appreciation she deserved. She has always been there for me and continues to be. I am always thankful, even if I don’t always say it.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom … and Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers.
Brian May 5th, 2005
Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
Chasque aquí para visión esta página en español
Hispanos con Kaine!
Brian April 26th, 2005
I recently received some news that I was not anxious to share, but realized everyone is going to find out sooner or later.
As those two or three people who used to read my blog will know, I recently took the bar exam in Virginia.
Life was never better. I was on top of the world. The stars were all lining up and I had the best job I could ever hope for. Making more money than I ever imagined (counter balanced with student loans, of course) and doing a job I loved to do.
Then the bar results were released.
Here are all the people with last names that start with the letter “p” who passed the exam. Note the absence of any “Patton.”
Thus, I officially start the process all over again. Studying for hours per day and worrying for hours each night.
I am sure I was not the first and will not be the last, but it still sucks.
Brian April 22nd, 2005
Happy Earth Day to everyone.
Brian March 27th, 2005
Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!
“He died for all . . . and rose again.” 2 Corinthians 5:15
Brian January 13th, 2005
For the last few weeks I have been looking at various photo galleries to figure out which one will work best for me. I have had it with Flickr and its upload limits. It seemed like every time I wanted to upload a photo I had already exceeded my monthly limit.
After trying two or three different ones, I ended up going with Coppermine. I really like Gallery, but was having trouble getting it setup, so I just went with Coppermine.
The bad part about finally having my own gallery now is that I no longer have an excuse for not scanning the 35mm photos I have accumulated over the past few years. Thus, I guess in my spare time, I will be scanning a few hundred photos and uploading them. For this reason, I do not have many pictures in there yet, but they are forthcoming.
Here is the new photo gallery, check it out and let me know if have any suggestions or comments.
Brian January 3rd, 2005
Oh yeah, I do. It just does not really feel like it lately. All I have time to do is study and then study some more. About the only website I am visiting anymore is the BarBri one. Hopefully it will all be worth it in February.
I am taking a night off to watch the Virginia Tech game. Its half-time now and not looking too good for Tech (9-0). However I am not losing hope because anything can happen.
Update: The final score ended up being 13 - 16, Auburn winning. Tech really made a good comeback to get it that close. However, if they had caught one pass that hit a guy in the endzone or made the one field goal that missed by a few inches, it might have been a different outcome.
Brian January 1st, 2005
Since I am a poor-starving [ex-]student, I am not really able to contribute financially to any of the many Tsunami relief funds as I would like to.
However, I would like to highlight one such relief fund/challenge. Tas over at Loaded Mouth is organizing a challenge to blog authors and readers to donate $5,000.00 to a charity supporting the Tsunami victims. If your wanting to do something to help, its worth checking out. Even if your like me and not in a postition to contribute, perhaps you can help spread this challenge via your own blog.
Click here for details –> The Blogger’s Tsunami Challenge
Brian December 30th, 2004
To see the previous discussion about Dell Notebooks, click here.
Its now official, I take back everything bad I have ever said about Dell. When I arrived back here in Ohio yesterday, the new one was sitting here waiting on me. The new one has twice as much hard drive and memory as the old one. It works great and I am really happy with Dell.
Brian December 18th, 2004
I thought I would share my latest Dell story. As everyone knows, their customer service has been outsourced and generally not as good as it once was. I bought my first Dell notebook, an Inspiron 8200, in the summer of 2002. It worked well that academic year, but died by the summer of 2003. I am not sure what it was, but something internal. After several calls and failed attempts to repair it via phone, they had me send it in for service. Normally I would resist this, but by that point, I was open to anything.
About two weeks later it returned and was in the same condition (dead) as when I sent it. I ended up calling the sales number instead of the support number. The sales agent within 10 minutes had me set up with a system exchange. In a few days, I received my second Dell notebook, an Inspiron 8500, for free.
This second one has served me well for over a year now and actually still does. However, it has developed one fault. The battery life has gone from about four hours when I first got the notebook to now around 30 minutes.
So, since I am out of school and have some spare time, I decided to call them and determine if my warranty would cover a replacement. Not surprisingly, they said it was not covered. However, then the representative must have been feeling the Christmas spirit and said “there is one option.” He said “I could do a system exchange to get you a new battery.” My head just about hit the floor. Could it be true, a third free notebook? Obviously I accepted this gracious offer. So, now I am looking forward to receiving my new notebook and will update with any [inevitable] snags. It looks like Dell may actually be interested in happy customers. All I really expected was a new battery; maybe I should go buy some lottery tickets.
Brian December 13th, 2004
After playing around with Linspire for almost a week, I have decided it was not working out. I was never able to make it work with my existing Windows network, despite the claim on the website that its Windows-friendly.
I may have just had a bad install, but hardly anything was working properly. I liked a lot of its features (the ones that did work), but just did not want to invest any more time on it right now. I had Googled "linspire windows networking" and similar terms about 20 times. It seemed like none of the Forums were really addressing my issue. They gave the steps on how to do it, but mine would never respond properly. Thus, leading me to believe I had a bad install. If it had been working right, it looks like it should have taken about 10 seconds to add it to my network/workgroup.
Maybe after the holidays I will give it another shot. In the mean time, I am installing Windows XP on this machine so I want be tempted to keep trying to get it working.
