Fleetmack.com - About Me

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"DROP TABLE quotes;" --Matthew Renze

First off, a little bit about this website. Fleetmack.com has been owned by me (Bryan Mack, the handsome guy in the above picture) since August 2000. Initially, fleemack served as a place for me to store things online for the first few years. The notion to develop it into a full-blown website came to me upon my move to Colorado, and the official launch date was January 8, 2002. It has seen many ups, downs, and changes. In October 2002 I received a link on a world-famous website and received over 250,000 unique visitors in one week. That has obviously tapered off and fleetmack.com now attracts roughly 1200 daily readers, and around 15,000 unique monthly visitors. My site is basically a full-blown tale of my life. I try to share things with you, both physically and emotionally, on a daily basis. Pictures, dreams, documents, stories, thoughts, ideas, amusing things, and many other portions of my mind are posted daily for all to enjoy. I don't think many people appreciate what I do any more since the popularity of MySpace and other similar sites have come about, so in January of 2007, on the site's unofficial 5-year anniversary, I re-launched the site with many dynamic code scripts, and plentiful new pages and scripts would be released shortly thereafter. With the ease of clicking here or there on other blogger or MySpace-type pages, I think the entire concept of coding and being a webmaster has become an unappreciated concept, I hope to show the world that running sites like this takes time, effort, and intelligence. If you'd like to know what others think of my site or me personally, visit my guestbook or my old feedback page.

You may ask where you've heard my name before, or why you might know me? Well, I've been interviewed on the Discovery Channel, done an XM Radio interview, and I've been featured in a nationally published hi-tech magazine. You can download and view those appearances here:

Wired Magazine Article (pirated from here)
David Lawrence show Interview (pirated from here)
Discovery Channel Special - The Things We Love To Hate (they haven't yet sent me my copy, but this aired in October 2006)

Now that you know the background of this website, I'll share a little bit about myself ...

I came into this world on January 7, 1979 in Carroll, Iowa where I was raised until the ripe age of 18. Carroll is a very Catholic town so I went to school in the Kuemper Catholic School System all the way through high school, which I fortunately, yet very easily finished. This link is a story of how this affected my life.

I attended Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa for the next 4 years. (Fall of '97 through May of '01) While at this party, I somehow managed to get a MIS degree with a 2.72 GPA. I definitely could have tried a lot harder in college, I kind of just rode the waves and got out ASAP. I did my fair share of partying and lived the typical college life in a shitty house. I drank quite a bit, went to about 60% of my classes, and am only 3 credits away from a Marketing degree as well, but I was sick of school and wanted out.

After graduation (Spring 2001) I lived in Des Moines for about 3 months when I decided to pack my bags, jobless, to get to where I wanted to go. I moved to Westminster, Colorado in the summer of 2001. While seeking employment, I waited tables at Old Chicago for about 6 months. This was great because it hooked me up in the Denver social scene and allowed me to make a lot of new friends before entering the real world. As of October 2008, I live in downtown Denver, about a block from the Fillmore Auditorium and the Ogden Theatre. I work in Golden, CO at The Colorado School of Mines' Office of Institutional Advancement as the Assistant Director of Advancement Services, and have been here since February 2002. My job includes Database Administration/Programming/Developing, Network Administration, and Computer Support - along with a number of other things (including teaching a 1 credit class and being an undergraduate advisor). I'm currently in Graduate school at Regis University in Denver, Colorado. I will graduate in 2009 with a MSCIT (Masters of Science - Computer Information Technology) with an emphasis in Database Technologies and an Oracle DBA Certificate. I maintain a 4.0 GPA in grad school and am currently 67% done with the program; funny how your GPA can flourish when you finally enjoy the topic. I love my job, love my life, love Colorado, and at the bottom of this page ... you can see what else I love.

SO THAT'S MY LIFE STORY, NOW MAYBE I'LL SHARE SOME INTERESTING THINGS WITH YOU. INTERESTING TO ME THEY ARE, TO YOU - NOT LIKELY.

We will start with my family. I am the son of Dan and Linda Mack. I never really realized it until I moved to Denver, but not many people stay married too long in these days. My parents have been very happily married for over 30 years and that is very respectful in my opinion. Dad is a Physical Therapist at St. Anthony's Hospital in Carroll. Mom teaches business subjects at Carroll High School. They have strongly supported me my whole life, and with their new love for foreign cars, I am starting to think they actually know what they're talking about :)

My brother, Brent, is 5 years older than I. Brent followed in Dad's footsteps and graduated from the Osteopathic School of Medicine in Des Moines last May. He now practices Physical Therapy at ATI in a Chicago suburb. Brent is by far the most thoughtful of the 3 of us kids and has a golden lab named Aurium (you can see her in the below picture of Cori).

Cori is my sister, she is upwards of 4 years older than I. Brent and I definitely have our moments and are intelligent people, but Cori utilizes her brain much more efficiently than either of us. She murdered us in GPA's and graduated from college in 3 1/2 years. She then went on to St. Ambrose University in Davenport. Cori also followed Dad's footsteps and now also practices Physical Therapy in a Chicago suburb. She can run farther than me, and can raise a ton of money for leukemia research while doing so. Cori and I have the exact same sense of humor ... if there's a lame joke out there, trust me - we both know it.

I'm very blessed with many wonderful friends, if you'd like to know who they are, several are featured on my MySpace page.

What are Bryan's Stats? Here ya go

Height: 5' 11 1/2"
Weight: 173
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Education: Bachelor's degree in Management and Information Systems from Iowa State University - Spring 2001
Continuing Education: Enrolled at Regis University working towards Computer Science Master's degree
Sign: Capricorn
Religion: Christian ... if I said Catholic I'd be a hypocrite
Musical preference: Thrash Metal
Car: 1995 Honda Accord LX .... Malchite Green .... Name: Laetitia
Dream girl: Laetitia Casta
Marital Status: Maybe dating one or two people, but nothing serious right now
Family: See above
Interests: See below
Talents: I don't know, check out my resume

Political Issues I Feel Strongly About
Political affiliation: Independent

Pro-Choice
Against Capital Punishment
Against gun control
Could care less about paying more taxes, I get a lot for my tax money
Against any war unless it's in retaliation to an actual attack on our people
For Stem Cell Research
Vehemently Against Illegal immigration
Strongly for allowing ALL foreign people to legally come work here
Against NAFTA (for the above reason, why just Mexico and Canada?!)

Want to know what drives me?

I love women; I love beer; I love the Seattle Seahawks; I love snowboarding and will go any time down any run with anybody who wants to join me; I love reading everything from The Holy Bible to Socrates and Plato; I love Slipknot; I love Pink Floyd; I REALLY love my friends; I work hard at work but try to work as few hours as possible; I'm not as big of a hockey fan as I was before the strike; I love chips & salsa and could eat them for every meal; I love women ; There are 3 sides to every story, his, hers, and the truth; I will live in Switzerland at some point in my life, and I don't care what my job is while I'm there; I love driving; I love jalapeno peppers; I wish Kurt Cobain was still alive; I wish Robin Williams was never born; I love women; I love the Kansas City Royals; I am fascinated by how long my nose hairs can grow and adore pulling them out; I detest using the word "hate"; That being said, it is beyond easy for me to say I fucking hate dogs; I am allergic to everything; I love Colorado and moved here for the mountains & weather; I love changing my oil; I'm faster than you think; My standards for everything - whether it's a girlfriend, car, or new snowboard - are well above sky high; I've maxed out my Roth IRA since 2002 (tax year); I love traveling and will visit at least 1 new country, every year, for the rest of my life; I will ride my snowboard on all 7 continents; Lake Okoboji on the 4th of July is the most fun time & place on Earth; I had LASIK done in April of 2005 and it was the best money I've ever spent as I now have 20/10 vision; I love traveling; Love at first sight is a myth, but attraction at first sight is absolutely necessary; TV is overrated and a waste of time (unless said TV viewing involves a show named Arrested Development); I would give anything to have had 4 terms with Bill Clinton in presidency; I am proud to have voted for Al Gore and John Kerry; I am even more proud to have spent countless hours trying to convince everyone else to do the same; I love attempting to cook new things and am usually somewhat successful; I wish I would win Powerball; I never proof-read anything; I miss Cy's Roost and Hunky Dory's in Ames, Iowa; I miss my friend Ryan, who died in a car crash at age 20 on April 30, 1998; I think about Ryan every day and can cry on command thinking about him; If I could pick any job I'd be a professional hockey player; I suck at hockey; I sometimes wish time could have frozen somewhere around July 1995 or February 2001, but I live for the future; Climbing mountains is the most thrilling and rewarding activity I've done in my lifetime and I'd love to take you up with me; Ask me to do anything for you within my capability and it shall be done; I miss my friends in Iowa but have no urge to live there again; I want to retire at age 55; [any word] Helper is a delicious meal; I ask God to let me arrive safely at my destination each time I get behind the wheel of my car; I love women; I have no respect for you whatsoever if you fear change or act too conservatively; I believe every one of my ex-girlfriends has taught me something important and played a role in making me who I am today; I've always felt like I'm on the right track in life, but something major is missing; I wish my close friends' tastes changed in line with mine since high school; I hate closing doors; I love being self-sufficient and will likely refuse your help; Rap has sucked since about 1998; I think Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) and Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) are the best guitar players in the world; I will listen to any song if it has church bells in it; If I love something and you begin to love it too, I will begin to dislike it just to pose controversy; I don't want you to repay a debt to me; I will never feel like I repaid a debt to you; I strongly believe that actions speak much louder than words and live each day by that theory; I love to sing; I thank God every night before I go to bed; I broke my guitar in 2004 and haven't played it since (here's a video of how bad I was at guitar); I still love women; I am the biggest Slipknot fan you will ever meet; I try to show off way too much; I believe pinky-swears are the most sincere thing in the world; I will lay down in front of a train for you, no questions asked, if you are my true friend; I am very blessed in many ways; I will run a marathon at some point in my life in under 4 hours; and to close all this off, I will probably scare you with my favorite lyrics in the world, spoken by a fellow Iowan, Corey Taylor, who went on to become the lead singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour.....I just love these lyrics....