I considered Brion a friend. We conversed many times on the phone and I stopped in to see him when ever I was out his way. He had been a long time customer & convert of Bed-It Tape, but we mostly talked quite a bit about books vs. web. He was always trying to wrap his head around this new "www" medium, and liked the MHT format we use for how to articles, so we talked a lot about the benefits and shortfalls of both formats.
His passing is very sad news to me. He was a wonderfully nice guy who liked to share what he knew, and there are too few of those types of people on this planet. He helped innumerable people better understand rigging, including myself.