Bruner Blog

Long before I started blogging, after I taught myself the rudiments of HTML and set up the Bruner.net homepage (not much changed over the years), I set up the Bruner Family Network, devoted (such as it is) to the genealogy of the Bruner family name. Granted, I know virtually nothing of genealogy, my own family’s or otherwise, but I have written up what my dad has told me of our family history plus a bit of research on Ancestry.com, back when such searches were free.

(I learned, among other things, that great-great granddad George Washington Bruner changed the spelling from two ns to one, and that the earliest ancestor that I can track my own Bruner lineage back to is Johann Daniel Brunner, born in 1754 in Pennsylvania, pre-Revolutionary War. Fought in it, I suppose. We don’t know where his parents came from.)

Anyway, the Bruner Family Network was kind of a set-it-and-forget-it project. A year or so ago, I figured out the guestbook feature, where one or two folks a week leave an entry, having found the site mostly through a search engine. I read all the entries, but I don’t even regularly reply, as I have no information for them about who might know more info about their great-great-grandmother, and what else am I going to say, “Hi, isn’t Bruner a great name?”

Today’s guestbook entry, however, is worth noting. It’s from Rick Bruner, a web marketing expert based in New York City. Not me, the other one. In fact, this Brooklyn-based Rick Bruner says he lives right down the street from another Rick Bruner. Apparently, this city is lousy with us. Who knew? (I threw away my white pages, as it was just taking up space and I always use the Net anyway. If anyone has one, I’d be curious to see how many Rick Bruners are listed in NYC. For “Rick Bruner” exactly, SuperPages has only me, at two addresses (old and new). Including Richards and Rs, there are only a few more of us statewide.)

This other 20-something Brooklyn-based Rick Bruner (of Ricksville.com) is a web design expert. Which is in fact quite fortuitous, as I have been looking for a competent designer for varoius client projects. Designers are generally so flakey I’ve had several bad experiences, but who can you trust if not another Rick Bruner?

In fact, I’m already hoping our would-be partnership goes so well that we could eventually set up our own agency, The Rick Bruner Agency (or something, we’d work on the branding). Ideally, we’d hire only other Rick Bruners. If necessary, we might even consider cloning.

UPDATE:

Rick Bruner replies:

I think my wife would freak out seeing an office full of Rick Bruners.

Nice to hear from you, although I guess I should tell you my birth name was Richard. Oh well. I went by Ricky as a child Not Rick E.
And later the Y was dropped and the name Rick just fit so well….

There is a Bar on 20th street called “No Idea” and they have name night where if you have the name assigned that evening you drink free. We could convince them to have a Rick Bruner night. Who knows with your site and popularity, we could drum up all the Rick Bruners in the world. I’m sure for free beer they would do it. And any Rick Bruner not into free beer, well he should change his name to Todd or something else….

Anyway nice to know there are others out there somewhat like me. (even if it’s only in name.)

Take care

Rick Bruner

I too am Richard and was Ricky through high school. How freaky is that? (Not very freaky, I suppose.)

I was joking with Elizabeth that at the Rick Bruner Agency, we could go around referring to ourselves in the first person plural all the time, like “Rick Bruners will get back to you on that” or in the ambiguous third person, e.g., “Rick Bruner doesn’t like that idea.”

I think I’m going to have to become friends with this guy. I don’t even care if he’s a jerk, the potential for the goof is too funny. We could hang around together in bars just waiting for the opportunity to be asked to introduce ourselves, then with deadpans we’d pull out our respective business cards and then, when challenged, our drivers licenses. Would be a total chick magnet, I’m sure, were we not both married.

If there are any other Rick Bruners reading this, please drop a note. Two words: free beer.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 27th, 2002 at 10:40 am and is filed under aa-home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.