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Tonight was much like any other night. I came home from work, ate my dinner, and spent some time thinking about all of the plans that I had for the future and all of the goals left to accomplish. Totally wrapped up in myself.

And as usual, I checked my e-mail. The first message that I read was titled: Brian Schreurs -hospital-

Tonight one of my closest friends and publisher Brian F. Schreurs died in a head on car crash.

Brian was by no means a typical guy. The man was a genius of the highest order.

Many people that you will meet in life are very talented in specific areas. Maybe they are unusually creative. Or maybe they're very skilled when it comes to finance, or whatever.

But Brian Schreurs was a true genius because he was exceptionally gifted in a variety of areas. Not only was he a professional editor for a large biometrics firm, handling extremely complicated and important work for the federal government, but he was also *currently* running three of his own companies at the same time. The oldest of them was a multifaceted publishing company called "Coltrane Productions."

But he was also the founder and president of "West Virginia Riders," which was a company that offered guided motorcycle tours through the mountains of West Virginia (my friend Josh and I enjoyed helping to guide tours with Brian over the summer).

In addition to tours, West Virginia Riders was also a motorcycle dealer, selling all sorts of bikes. Again, Brian did it *ALL* himself. He arranged the tours, he bought and sold the bikes, transported them from one location to another, repaired the bikes, and handled all of the paperwork related to his various businesses while working a full time job.

Take a look at the web sites representing some of his companies and keep in mind that *HE* created these sites essentially by himself and he supplied absolutely all of their content:

http://www.coltranet.com/
http://www.wvriders.com/
http://neptune.spacebears.com/

Throughout the sites he constantly refers to "we." Well "we" was actually HE. He did it all! It's hard to believe, but it's true.

How many of us could accomplish as much in an entire lifetime??

And he did it all by the age of 32.

He also recently wrote an article that was about our trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats which was purchased by a motorcycle magazine called "Friction Zone."
You can find the article at: http://www.friction-zone.com/west/previous.html

The very same article that I posted here about a week ago. Brian not only wrote it, but he took the photo of me on my Roadster that ended up on the front cover.

Within the article he refers to me, Joshua and himself as
"The Three Amigos"....and it was the truth...

And he was currently under contract from other motorcycle touring magazines to provide articles and photographs for their additions.

He was an excellent writer and as a result he was in high demand from a variety of publications.

It just doesn't make any sense when someone as brilliant, ambitious, talented and decent as Brian Frederick Schreurs dies at the age of 32. Especially when we were just e-mailing each other seven hours ago....

It's a God Damn tragedy. Like being kicked in the stomach over and over again.

I'll never have another friend like Brian F. Schreurs. Never.

Because he had achieved so much in his terribly short life, I didn't even mention that Brian was an *expert* automotive and motorcycle technician.

On his "Neptune" site you will find people from all over the world asking Brian for advice on everything from fixing classics to upgrading old and brand new high-tech race cars.

He literally wrote the book on how to get the most out of Mustang GT's. Check Coltranet.com and you'll see it there along with several other publications written and published by him.

He also took it upon himself to undertake an impressive scientific study comparing synthetic and mineral based motor oils (it's on "Neptune" as well).

Over the last year and a half Brian and I had been working intensly on my new travel memoir entitled "An American Mzungu in Kenya."

It's a book about my experiences in Africa and what it has been like for me in general being married into a Kenyan family.

We had just submitted the final draft to the printer last week and were accepting advanced orders through coltranet.com

We were very excited because Thursday night I had been interviewed by a television program about the book and we received our first order yesterday...

The process of writing and producing the book was exhausting at times, testing, but also strengthing our creative partnership and our friendship.

We both felt that we were truly on the verge of big things and big successes to come....

Brian leaves behind his wife Kara, brother Blake, parents Stephen and Susan, nephew and extended family.

Brian F. Schreurs:

http://www.cybernothing.org/thunk/archi ... reurs.html

Harry,
Sorry for your loss.
T.

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Thanks, bros. As you can see, Brian was a pretty amazing person.

I keep thinking about how much more he could have accomplished if he only had another year of life....

I used to poke fun and call him "the man with the golden brain." But it was true you know.

I'll do my best to keep his memory alive.

**To everyone of you reading this: when you are driving behind a slow and extremely annoying person on a two lane road, take a deep breath, let go of your ego, calm down and for God's sake DON'T do anything reckless or impulsive.

That is exactly what caused the death of my friend and an innocent driver last night.

This just wasn't supposed to happen....
.

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Harry - my condolences on the loss of your friend. Sounds like an incredible man. It's tough to lose anyone close to you, much less one so talented.