I was able to stop by the Fathers & Family expo this weekend to support ThinkBigTopeka. I met up with Brendan Jenson this afternoon with one of our Topeka loves Google signs. We had an outline of our sign for kids to color on, we’re also taking names to add to our email list. We’re pretty certain that Google is going to give Topeka a site visit, we have several big things lined up for when we get that call. We’re also actively trying to clean up the parks and other green places in Topeka by supporting events like Takeover/Makeover. I more or less just chit-chatted with Brendan the whole time, I had to pack up and head over to Washburn University to pick up Leo and Alissa at a volleyball game. My wife’s sister coaches for Seminole State volleyball. Speaking of Washburn, I guess the great Dick Vital is coming to WU. Should be a good time, I’ll have Leo so I won’t really have time to make it, but if you’re in the Topeka area, I would suggest checking it out.

Here are some pics from the Fathers & Family show. (click for more detail)

One of Brendan answering some questions. (Click the picture & you can see one of the signs a kid was working on)

This is the lady that was next to us, Tya Issitt, she was displaying Scentsy, it smelled pretty good.

ThinkBigTopeka (TBT) is still going strong, we’ve totally revamped the website. We’re in the process of implementing a policy to filter out some of the groups/organizations and suggestions coming through to us. We’re not interested in making money through TBT, we’re also not interested in any type of political gain. We only want to improve Topeka and make the best place possible for our children with or without Google.

What did you do this weekend, hope it was a good one.

If you haven’t been following us, we started ThinkbigTopeka in February and it’s really been a huge success! We have over 16,000 members in our facebook group and close to 1,000 in our facebook page. We started off as a group to lure Google to come to Topeka, but we’re not stopping there. We’re going to be a public forum for positive discussing in Topeka. Something we had started TransformTopeka for but things got out of hand. We’re hoping for better results with ThinkBigTopeka.

I think we’re off to a good start, check out google.com for results.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb80NjqTZNg

Thanks again for everyone support, we couldn’t have done this without your support Topeka!

Check out google’s official blog for more info.

We want the Google Experiment in Topeka

I’ve been helping with a cause here in Topeka Kansas. We’re trying to get Google to lay their fiber network all throughout our city. Google has announced that they are going to lay 1Gbps fiber line in some test cities. This will be 1 Gigabit of download directly to your home; you can use Google as your IPS of stick with who you have now in your area. If you have a second, I would greatly appreciate it if you would nominate Topeka Kansas. We have a website up and a Facebook group of 6500 members as of this posting. We only started this a week ago, the support has been outstanding. You can submit videos; I’ll include a few for you to check out.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVBxdrC1KIE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZR6DRqSzY4

This is the nomination form for google, pass the words to your friends and help us help Topeka.

We’ve also had some outstanding media coverage, and we have a flash mob planned for this week. It’s going to be an exciting month if we get it or not. Google is taking nominations until March 26th.

Brandon Sheley

Hello everyone, I’ve put together this site to show some links of my other sites and what I’m all about. I live in Topeka Kansas with my wife Alissa Sheley and son Leo Sheley. I work from home running Sheley Enterprises, which I started in June of 07. I enjoy disc golf, ping pong and soon to be little league. I’ve taken 2 years in PC repair and networking, but have taught myself everything to do with online marketing and how to manage a large memberbase. It doesn’t hurt that my wife works in social media at the best advertising agency in Topeka..lol

Sheley Enterprises

I’ll go into a little detail of what Sheley Enterprises entails. I’ve been offering vBulletin Services since before I started Sheley Enterprises, it had gotten to a point that I had to make a company to stay organized with the work I was doing. Here is a short list of some of my past vBulletin clients, as well as a few Testimonials. I’ve also done a number of jobs (generally local) that weren’t “vBulletin” sites, rather blogs or static pages. I like to pride myself on the fact that I’ve never had an unhappy client. In fact, I don’t ask for anything upfront, just to make sure the client is happy with their work. This is a bit risky on my part, but it hasn’t backfired yet. (knocks on wood) In most cases, I like to talk with the clients on the phone, this works best because some clients don’t really know what their forums are capable of and ten minutes on the phone can really clear things up.
Here are a few other sites with information on what I’ve done.
Brandon Sheley on LinkeIn
BrandonSheley on Twitter
Sheley Enterprises (Official Business site)
Brandon Sheley (Official Blog)
Brandon Sheley on Facebook
As well as a variety of forums, I’ll list off just a few
loco.m on vBulletin.com
loco.m on vBulletin.org
Brandon Sheley on vBSEO.com
Brandon Sheley on vBulletinSetup (Moderator)
Brandon Sheley at The Admin Zone (Moderator)
Brandon Sheley on V7N Marketing Forums (Moderator)
Brandon Sheley on AdminFusion (Moderator)
Brandon Sheley on AdminAddict (Moderator)
Brandon Sheley on vBHackers (Moderator) [Retired]
Brandon Sheley on Bloggeries (tech admin)
loco.m on Digital Point

Thanks for checking our BrandonSheley.Org, hope to see you around the forums or blogs, and don’t be afraid to Contact me with any questions.

We are working on a Transform Topeka Forum to allow futher discussions that we just don’t have time to cover on the blog. We welcome everyone’s opinions on the forum, but we will not allow flaming or trolling. We are a friendly bunch and want to extend that to the forum.

We are working on a button to put with our Linkden and Facebook bannere as well as a few “Link to us” buttons if you want to share our resources with your friends and family.

We encourage your participation in the forums, and we’ll hopefully meet up with a few of you next month at Gage Park.

Why do you live in Topeka Kansas? is it the schools, the great jobs, or the excellent community? The reason I moved here was to follow a girl, who I married shortly after! She was going to Washburn University so I knew it would be at least 2 or 3 years before we were moving, until she finished school…

I moved to Emporia Kansas when I was in the 6th grade. I finished high school and continued to live in Emporia a few years after graduation but the job market just wasn’t cutting it for me.. I had pretty much worked at every job in the town that I had any interest in, it was time to move on.

That’s where Topeka comes into my life… I was able to find a decent cooking job ($7/hr) within weeks of coming to Topeka. I did the cooking thing for a year and had made it up to 10 dollars an hour, which I thought was outstanding. I started looking around for better jobs, I was able to search the classified section online at cjonline and for free! At the time, the Emporia paper was a paid deal for the full online content.

So i won’t go further into my job resume, but I did find a better job and was at it for 4 years before I gave it up for bigger and better things. The point is this… One thing that has definitely kept me in Topeka is the job market.

Going back to a comparison of Emporia and Topkea, strangely enough it takes longer to get around Emporia then it does Topeka.. I really like how the roads are laid out in Topeka. You have 2 lane roads that you can drive 35-40 mph in just the right areas.. at least the ones I drive.

Lets see.. another thing I like about Topeka are the parks, it’s nice having Shunga park so close with long bike trails and a 2 nice disc gold courses, with Shawnee lake as well.

I’ll try to wrap this up, I need to go to bed.

A few more things I like about Topeka are.

The houses, like the Potwin area.. you’ll see some very cool old houses driving around there.

The Art.. I like the first Friday and the number of galleries that are open to the public.

Washburn.. I’ve gone to a few plays at WU, and it’s just a nice campus to walk around.. I’ve never gone to school at WU, but Lis has and I’ve walked around inside a few of the buildings.

The Expo center.. even tho it doesn’t seem like it gets used but it could be a real money maker if the right gig’s were scheduled.

TPAC- same as the Expo center.. it’s cool but doesn’t seem like it gets used much.

I’m sure I could spout off a few more, but I still need to post a few things that really need improvement for Topeka to be a 5 star city.

I sort of went into a few of these above, but the Expo center and TPAC seems like they could really be profitable, but doesn’t seem like they get used.. Maybe the media doesn’t broadcast it like they should! Or they don’t even know about the events?? Someone needs to get on top of this!! seriously..

I think some of the roads are pretty bad, pot holes and patches all over the place.. it’s nothing I would leave over, but especially up on Wanamaker, they need to just shut down a whole lane and refinish them.. they suck!

I don’t like how, apparently in some areas of town, their tax $goes to the county and not the city.. what’s up with this? I understand how town’s grow and all, but we should annex all of lake Sherwood, and I think up north there is some populated land that should be annexed as well.. They all come to town for their shoping but go home and pay the taxes to the county.. It should be going to the city like the rest of us

Not so much a “I don’t like” as ” I think this needs improvement” the downtown area.. We should take note from Lawrence and try and mimic their downtown Mass street atmosphere. Oh, and maybe have stores stay open past 5pm!!! that is just ridiculous,, the only thing open after that is a bar or two..

I don’t like the image the stupid Phelps try to imply on Topeka. It’s just a group of ignorant people that are on there way out of town and by the sounds, at least a few behind bars. I don’t really care what happens to them, I just get sick of seeing them, and it being a first impression to the town. Topeka is so much more, maybe we just need to advertise more or just do a general “rebranding” of the town..

I can’t think of anything else I don’t like about the town.. If I think of something pro/con for this post, I’ll come in and edit the post.

Hope you all enjoyed this post, what do you like about Topeka?

About Jim Cates.

Jim Cates has been a Topeka resident for more than 30 years, moving here from his hometown of Liberty, Mo.
Cates worked as an insurance consultant for the National Credit Union Association for 25 years. It was during that period he became involved in politics. His career in radio began in 1997 and last May, he joined The Topeka Capital-Journal to kick off online radio in Topeka.

And here are his radio shows up to the point of the post.

• July 3, 2008 Guest: Larry Wilson, Shawnee County treasurer
• July 2, 2008 Guest: KS Turnpike Authority Mike Johnston
• July 1, 2008 Guest: Congresswoman Nancy Boyda
• June 30, 2008 Senate District 18 GOP Debate
• June 27, 2008 Weekly News Roundtable
• June 26, 2008 Guest: Jerry Berger and Chad Taylor, candidates for Shawnee County district attorney
• June 25, 2008 Guest: Mike Hayden, secretary of the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks
• June 24, 2008 Guest: Kevin Haskin, Capital-Journal sports columnist
• June 23, 2008 Guest: Jack Woelfel, Topeka city councilman
• June 20, 2008 : Weekly News Roundtable
• June 19, 2008 : Guest: Mayor Bill Bunten
• June 18, 2008 : Guest: Bob Beatty, Washburn political science professor
• June 17, 2008 : Guest: Ron Thornburgh, Kansas secretary of state
• June 16, 2008 : Show debut; Guests: William Beteta and Henry Luke, Heartland Visioning

I’ll try to check back on this post and update the archives, or you can bookmark the cjonline link here .

Last night we had everyone over at our house to brainstorm on how we wanted to approach the issues. I made sure everyone was signed up for the blog, and all had privileges to post on the blog. I posted some of the visioning meeting dates, I’m not sure if anyone else has posted yet. We will be adding an “about us” page with short Bio’s of everyone involved.
Check out the site,, TransformTopeka.com
We are very young in our mission, but I think we will do very well.