Fleetmack.com - June 2004 News

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June 2004 News Archives

June 01 June 02 June 03 June 04 June 07 June 08 June 09 June 10 June 14 June 15 June 16 June 17 June 18 June 21 June 22 June 23 June 24 June 25 June 28 June 29 June 30

June 30, 2004

Burrito day is upon us and it sounds so delish today as I had no breakfast, holy shit. Just think, in a short 56 hours I'll be headin' back to Lake Okaboji for the first time since I've lived in Colorado, giddy up.

If you haven't checked the article about me in Wired Magazine, you can read it here. I was interviewed on the David Lawrence Show last night out of Hollywood I think, it's a nationally broadcasted show, you can download the MP3 of the hour I was on here. I was a bit nervous at first but then was ok I guess, it lasted about 30 minutes or so. No big deal really, but it's pretty cool to say I've been interviewed on live nationally syndicated radio!

Got a haircut last night and the little bitch wouldn't take my coupon because it was expired. I was pissed, I almost went Peter Griffen style on her from when the chicken gave him an expired coupon.

Pretty busy at work, I'll get with ya tomorrow or Friday, adios todos.

June 29, 2004

All health facts aside, I dare you to find a better breakfast than I had this morning, you won't find it (not even with a Chicken Fried Steak combo at IHOP). Cold leftover pizza and strawberry quik milk. Holy cow, incredible!

The song Gently (by Slipknot) was playing, and I was playing the kettle drums -- it was a very cool dream. Wish you could have been there to see it.

An article gets published online today about me. I'm not even sure if they're using my name but I think they will, we'll see. You can check it out at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/hoax.html

I had a lot to say, but I can't remember any of it. I watched part of Taxi Driver last night, it really got me wanting to make one of those arm-slide things for my Glock, but then I realized I'm not psycho and not about to try to assassinate George just to impress a girl, nope, I'm no De Niro in this case. We'll just stick to keeping the gun in its case, unloaded. I know Wendl wouldn't approve of that.

I got my Maxtor One-Touch 160GB External USB 2.0 hard drive yesterday. It will, within 2 days, have over 14,000 MP3's on it, a backup of all my pictures, my website, and every school document I have. If anyone wants to do a trade of their entire collection of MP3's or pictures with me AND you have a USB 2.0 (as opposed to USB 1) port - I'll be more than willing to do that. We can still swap MP3's and stick it to the RIAA. This is like a 160GB flash drive, it rules.

It's been like a month, I have to do this today.....

New pic of the day is up, have a good Tuesday, sorry I'm not very exciting today, I'm pretty out of it.

June 28, 2004

About two weeks ago, I was outside and something really strange happened. Out of nowhere, my head was suddenly getting moist. I couldn't figure it out, was there a hose spraying me or someone standing behind me with an Extreme Super Soaker 800? No, nobody in sight. Something else was eerily strange at the same time, where the sun usually is, there was this big black dark blob. After flashbacks from my days as an Iowan, I remembered that not all places are sunny every day and there are things called "clouds". Inside these said "clouds", there is a chemical reaction taking place where hydrogen and oxygen mix to create water which falls from the sky, we call this "rain". Having not seen this "rain" in the 3 years I've lived in Denver, I was scared. Would it cause me to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West? No, in fact - it makes a new color. Instead of everything being Golden, it turns out this "rain" allows things to live instead of die, so we actually have green grass and stuff, it's really quite strange. At first it seemed pretty cool, rain, what a great concept! This could eliminate the statewide fire bans and water restrictions in our desert wasteland! Well you know what, the novelty has worn off after a solid two weeks of this rain. STOP FUCKING RAINING ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend was fantabulous. (Did you know that's actually a real word?) Friday I again headed to Gov's Park after work, lovely, just lovely. No details for you.

Saturday I slept until about 2 or so then went to Old C's for some lunch, came home, rested, then went out with Rikelle. The Park Center Lounge officially sucks now, wow it was horrible, we left and went downtown to the Flying Dog where I discovered tragedy. The marvelously delicious beer known to the world as K9 Cruiser has been discontinued as a full-season beer and will only be brewed in the winter. Ouch. That's painful. So we left there immediately after that astounding discovery and headed to this new bar called the Laughing Bear...er....Giggling Grizzly or something like that. Never heard of it before, have you? ;o) Might have to make a habit out of going to that place.

Yesterday I headed up to Idaho Springs to Heidi and Wade's place up around 10,000 feet, had a few Keystones and grabbed a monsterous 150lb sandstone rock for my Mom, it's sitting in the back of Laetitia as we speak. Then came the best idea we've ever had which quickly turned into the (about to be said like Comic Book Guy) worst....idea...ever. Let's go to Washington Park and grill and play wiffle ball! Wow, it's cloudy, lightning, and 50 degrees out, should be nice. It absolutely poured rain on us for the entire time we were there. I don't mean sprinkling with occasional spurts. I don't mean steady rain. I mean flat out pouring rain. Golden was apparently flooded yesterday, but there we sat under a tree trying to light up a $9 grill to make hot dogs. Man we're idiots. After that I was just really demotivated, so I went home and called Crystal to check in on my #1 girl in the North Carolina/Virginia area who I haven't seen since 1998, made another call, then went to bed.

Hopefully looking forward to an excellent week, I just realized last night how fantastic this past week has been, everything from the no-phone during the week to meeting people to getting a raise at work, everything's zen, just like the song I'm still listening to that actually ended as I typed this sentence. Hell, my credit card even got stolen Friday night and I'm still a happy camper right now, rock star. Luckily I have all my credit card numbers memorized and remembered the number of 1-800-DISCOVER so cancelled it the second I noticed it was gone, becuase around 1am, someone tried to use it at a different bar and got declined. Man I rule.

I'm on vacation starting Friday afternoon this week, so likely no updates next week unless I'm really f**king bored. New MP3 and pic of the day are up, enjoy and have a horrible Monday, Garfields.

June 25, 2004

See ya Carlos, thanks for 6 1/2 fantastic seasons in KC!! Watch out for that little hill in Minute Maid's center field, good luck in Houston! :o)

Have I mentioned how absolutely fantastic this Slipknot cd is? Holy sheeyat. Ok, just to get me from talking about Slipknot agian, I'll put a picture of Chimaira up next to Carlos Beltran's picture. Yup - there's a nice picture of Mark Hunter for ya. In fact, screw Beltran. He left the Royals becuase we won't pay him $16 million a year, his picture is coming down. Here it is if you really want to see it.

Abercrombie & Fitch is pretty much the most supremely horrible store I've ever been in. They have music blasting at 100 decibles, all their shirts have huge "A&F"s on them, or describe some sport like "Abercrombie Kayaking" that you know they don't sponsor and doesn't exist. The people shopping in there are prisses and the employees, wow, don't get me started. Normally I'd care less, everyone can do what they want, but it turns out that the only jeans I've been happy with since about 1998 have been Abercrombies. They just rule (until they started this stupid pre-torn-up bullshit). So while in Flatirons Crossing last night, I decide to go get some jeans. The first thing I see is some late teens/very early 20's couple walking out, and the guy says "See, told ya they'd have the same stuff they had last week." I'm just thinking "wow, I can hardly bring myself to go in this store once a year, let alone every week to see if they have new stuff! Go back to Boulder." Anyways, let's move on. As I walk past rack after rack of way-too-small t-shirts and dress shirts proudbly displaying a gigantic "A&F" on the front, I find the jeans. There is one pair I like, but none in my size, only a size 31 and a bunch of 36s or something. I just want some nice 32x34's. I've been in the store all of 35 seconds and 3 people have asked me if I need help, so I can fully expect to be asked if I need help again in about 3 seconds. Sure enough, some preppy 19ish year old guy walks up and asks if I need help. "Do you have any more of these in the back?" The guy laughs at me and says "Seriously, those are like almost 3 seasons old." I just look at him and think exactly what Andy said later, "THEY'RE JEANS!!!!!" The guy was mocking me because I wanted 3 season-old jeans (meaning -- last fall)?! Luckily I wasn't wearing my Prom '96 shirt that I still have in my closet or surely the guy would have died from laughing at me too hard. I fucking hate the mall. I have no new jeans, just about 4 new shirts from Banana Republic, Guess, and J Crew that were on sale. Hopefully they aren't last seasons, because we all know that everyone who goes out is wearing ONLY stuff they've bought in the current season. I don't want to be the odd man out. Durrrrrrrrr....

Mr. Todd Bertuzzi has officially been charged with assault for his attack on Steve Moore in the Avs/Canucks game last March. Thank God, I'm still pretty pissed about that. Fuck Todd Bertuzzi and fuck the Vancouver Canucks. In other hockey news, any chance we can keep Peter next year?

Does anyone get Wired Magazine? I don't so I dont' know if it's published yet or not, but I know that I'm in either the most recent issue or next month's issue - the article about me by Jonathon Keats comes out online on June 29. They called me twice to interview me, let's see, I'll bet you $100 they spell my name with an "i" and not a "y". I don't even remember what I said in the interview as that was in February and I was kinda out of it at the time, so I probably sound like a dipshit. Haha, psych - I'll sound like the coolest thing since ice cube trays becuase that's just how I am and you all know it ;o)

Today at roughly 5pm, I shall turn my phone back on to check my messages, haven't had it on since Sunday around 8pm (with the exception of turning it on to put in a new phone number). I'm scared to listen to the messages. I already have my plans for this weekend unless stuff has changed. Tonight I will likely do nothing, unless people are going to Gov's I may go there for one or two happy hour rounds then go home, but that's it. I'm going to the gym after work. Tomorrow I'm either climbing with Carrie and friends, or sitting by the pool all day (after changing Laetitia's oil). Tomorrow night I'm going to a karaoke bar someplace with Rikelle and whoever else wants to go. Sunday I'm going up to Idaho Springs for awhile then getting a bunch of stuff done around the house. That's it. Then the phone gets turned off again next week, that was entirely too awesome not worrying about calling people back, that may just become a staple of my life, no phone or voice mail from Monday through Friday and everything is on MY terms. It's kinda selfish but I don't give a shit. How many calls will I miss?

I got a new work computer, it's a beast. 3GhZ and a gig of ram, you can use your imagination for the rest of it, this thing is a monster, but I'm still on my old one for today as I don't have my office 2003 product key yet (if anyone has one please email it to me!)

New Mp3 and pic of the day, but that's about it. Have a lovely weekend and don't call me. I hate the phone. I hate updating this website too so I'm going to stop for today. Goodbye.

June 24, 2004

sorry, probably not gonna happen today either. I'm actually listening to the exact same song again this morning, weird huh?

June 23, 2004

probably won't have time to update today

June 22, 2004

What's Up With Me: When? Friday, August 13, 7:00p.m.. Where? US Cellular Center, Cedar Rapids, IA. What? Slipknot concert with opening act: Slayer. Who's going? ME!!!!!! It's never too early to again see the best band of modern rock play live again.

Yesterday seemed to be a red-letter day for me. I ran 5 miles, so I'm only 13 away from my weekly goal. I lifted back and biceps, on pace for my weekly lifting goal. I got laundry done and cooked and grocery shopped, completing 1/3 of my to-do-list for the week. Why do I get so much done? One reason and one reason alone - I turned my phone off and will keep it off until Friday afternoon. I turned it off and have no intentions of turning it on or checking my voice mail until Friday. If you need to get ahold of me in case of an emergency, email is still the best way. And if it's more urgent than that - I'm sure you can find a way.

So this morning I got up at 5, did some laundry, made breakfast, cleaned my room, made a shake for a snack later today, made lunch, got dressed, went to the gym and lifted triceps, and now here I sit at work. I shall run 4 miles over lunch today and then lift chest and do dips after work, followed by more laundry and clothes shopping. Exciting huh?

The mail was extra kind to me yesterday. 1) I got my watch back. You may recall I broke my watch in more ways than not at the Slipknot concert in early-May. I sent it in as I discovered it has an 11 year warranty. They couldn't fix it so I got a brand-spankin' new one yesterday. Giddy up. 2) I got my new 0% balance-transfer credit card (until June 2005) in the mail yesterday - with a monsterour $6000 limit. I'm not going to get even close to that, but time to finally buy a new 200GB external hard drive, fix Laetitia's T-stat (today!), buy my 2005 ski pass, get some new clothes, and likely buy a new rug to slap under my coffee table. This will all be done by Sunday. That should ring me up a hefty bill, but I get a year with no interest and I have no debt, so what the hell right?

Sports:

Fleetmack.com News/Updates: I put up a few new pix yesterday. Today is the day of the last Wil$on photo in my picture-bank. Wil$on's camera broke, so it's up to you all to get me new pix. How about someone writes a new story? New MP3 of the day is up -- we'll continue with Running/Snowboarding music for the rest of this week - enjoy!

Forum Topic of the week: Shit I dunno, how about Favorite Toys as a kid.

June 21, 2004

What's Up With Me: The weekend has come and gone, and I can't wait for the weekend even though it's 4 days and 7 hours away already. Went out to Gov's Park and then Giggz on Friday night as it poured rain and cops hung out in riot gear for no reason. Saturday I slept 'till one, watched a lot of TV and Mystic River (Emmy Rossum is only 17?! Wow, what a stone-cold fox), ate food, and went back down to Giggz and Above the Dove. Sunday I got up around 11, went hiking with Carrie and Angie for about 3 hours or so? up by Boulder in the Flatirons Mts., came home, slept, watched golf a little, called Dad, and went back to bed. Pretty exciting huh?

I've got a lot to do this week if this damn rain will stop. Still haven't changed Laetitia's oil, need to get on that. Just lots of stuff to do, I'm very boring today. I'll have a few new pictures up later today. OH! I'm going to put my goal online, they say writing down goals is good. By the time I leave Golden Friday night, I want to have run 18 miles and done two rounds of lifting (that means shoulders, biceps, triceps, back, chest, legs each 2 times). That's a very hardcore week for me as that's about 2 1/2 solid hours of running and approximately 10 hours of lifting. Sheesh.

My phone's battery died yesterday, I forgot to recharge it, sorry. I'll put it on the charger tonight maybe.

Sports: Well, it took me 11 weeks, but my fantasy team is finally on track after whipping Timmy Schau 16-5 last week. Yes, I'll brag while I can. I even lost in stolen bases, which never happens. Let's just hope I can make fantasy baseball's all time greatest comeback from the cellar to the top.

Shawn Chacone is horrible.

Fleetmack.com News/Updates: Hmmm, MP3 week this week will be Running Music. You have NO idea how bad I want to post a slipknot song, but I'm not going to let myself. This week will all be MP3's that I listen to while running, and they're awesome songs to run to. New pictures will be up shortly, a few new reviews later this week, a new random thoughts later this week, and perhaps even a rant....we'll see.

Forum Topic of the week: I don't know if I like this idea anymore, or even the split-up news section for that matter. Blah humbugh.

June 18, 2004

What's Up With Me: Thank the Lord it's Friday. TTLIF. Hmmmmm.

I went over to the Tigges' place last night, wow that sounds strange. The Tigges'. Chris and Beth Tigges. Wow, weird. Even the priest had a hard time saying it though so I guess I can't bicker. Anywho, went over there and got some pots and pans, went to the mall and bought some new clothes and stuff, went to Old C's for a quick minute and played some NTN with BJ and Sarah, then called it a night. Pretty exciting huh? This weekend is looking pretty shitty due to the weather. It's been raining nonstop for a few days now, quite atypical.

Sully called me last night, apparently he's in Denver to see the "Dead" show or something, so hopefully I'll get to see him. No climbing on the agenda due to rain. No pool-sitting on the agenda due to rain. Maybe I'll just watch movies and read all weekend. Yeah, right.

Sports: The Denver Post reports that the Seahawks will be in the Super Bowl -- the Sporting News said the same thing. Also, the Avs resigned Steve Konowalchuk yesterday to a multi-year deal. That's pretty sweet, it helps me narrow down my Avs Jersey purchase selection. If he gets signed to a multi-year deal, I'll be buying a Matthew Barnaby jersey whenever the next season starts, otherwise it's a tossup between Steve Konowalchuk and Alex Tanguay. Yup, sure is.

Fleetmack.com News/Updates: It just doesn't feel like summer with weather in the 40's and 50's all week and rain everywhere, so the summer MP3 of the day is discontinued as of this second. Today's MP3 will be something not musical - some comedy for you. It's from KBPI - our denver hard rock radio station. Their morning show, The Locker Room, with Willie B, Stout, and D-Mak -- oh man, I listened to this from their new CD last night (it's radio-friendly), it's the first time in a long time my abs have hurt because I was laughing so hard. I mean I seriously almost pulled over while driving becuase I thought I was going to go blind from laughter. So that's posted. Other new stuff is up too, updates will be made to the music and reviews pages this weekend. And random thoughts VI is on it's way in a week or so.

Forum Topic of the week: Go here and post to a new topic, who knows, it could pick traffic up to the forums seeing how it's been at a stand still since day one. Some people haven't posted in 6 months, others stopped posting altogether, some post rarely, and some post all the time. Either way, this week's post I encourage you to post to is: Old School Nintendo -- go post your favorite games from the original Nintendo.

June 17, 2004

What's Up With Me: Word up. Went to the b-ball game last night, wow - lots of fans from Boston out here. I bet half of the 40,000 in the stadium were BoSox fans. Luckily we're going for the sweep tonight. Josh - bring your broom or I'll be disappointed, I'd like to see you on SportsCenter tonight. Andy and I headed to the GG for a quick minute after the game. I forgot it's "widespread wednesdays" down there so the place was loaded with hippies - and not good hippes - showerless hippies. Needless to say, we switched back up to broomfield to go to old c's - which is a desolate wasteland of about 4 bar goers anymore.

I haven't got much to say today. I need to hit the gym hard tonight, tomorrow headin' to Gov's right after work, and still considering climbing Bierstadt this weekend, we'll see. I'm tired, didn't get to bed until 1 last night, my own fault. Whatever. Adios.

Sports: Rox are lookin' to sweep the Sox tonight. I'm beating Schau 13-5 in fantasy baseball this week. Effective today - I FINALLY have everybody off the DL on my fantasy team, so it's time to start whipping everybody. I dropped Bartolo Colon today and picked up Ken Harvey to add some consistent hitting to my team. My pitching staff is now as follows:

SP A.J. Burnett (Fla)
Mark Prior (ChiC)
Josh Beckett (Fla)
Tom Glavine (NYM)
Mark Buehrle (CWX)
Zack Grienke (KC)
RP Octavio Dotel (Hou)
Danys Baez (TB)
Matt Herges (SF)

Beware.

Fleetmack.com News/Updates: Pic of the day is new, as is the MP3 of the day yet again on this lovely Slursday

June 16, 2004

What's Up With Me: Last night's agenda, well, I worked out, did some chest (almost back up to 3 sets of 10 @ 210...humph) and some running (3 miles in 23:40...again, humph). I headed home, cleaned my room and bathroom (WAY overdue), had myself a most delicious original-mack-recipe (made up from ideas gotten from the most recent Men's Fitness) smoothie (5 strawberries, 1 banana, 1 scoop whey protein, 1tsp flaxseed oil, 1/2 cup OJ, 1/2 cup ice water) - holy shit, that thing was delicious. Then I broiled up some salmon and a baked potato with more salsa than a Mexican restaurant piled on top. Yup, was pretty delicious. Headed out to watch the Lakers lose with Josh, Bob, and Nat at Old C's. I successfully drank water until I decided that I wanted a Newcastle about 10 minutes before I went home.

I think I blew one of the speakers on my TV, just my luck that happens the day I get the damn thing paid off. No biggie though, I usually have the sound down and play it through my Denon (AVR-2000) receiver anyways. Man, I bought that receiver used when I was 16 or 17 for like $400 and it still works so awesome, I love that damn thing.

Heading to the Rockies/Red Sox game tonight. It's looking like thunderstorms are in the forecast for the next ob-teen days, so likely no climbing this weekend. Likely no camping trip either as there's fire bans everywhere in this barren desert wasteland we like to call The Frontrange.

I found out Phil Vassar is coming to the Grizzly Rose on September 3rd, anyone want to go? That guy is really cool to see in concert, I haven't seen him since like 1999 with Kenny Chesney in Des Moines. Phil did the whole show on his Piano, he's a funny bastard too. I highly recommend one of his shows.

Sports: How about Bill Davidson?! He owns the Pistons and the Lightning - he won two championships in a friggin' week - unreal.

The highlight of my day today was turning on KBPI on my way to work, "Sports Shorts with the Locker Room's Stout" -- they didn't even start out by talking about the Pistons, it ruled. They started out with "The Rockies beat the Red Sox last night....yadda.....the Reds beat Texas. Something about Keith Primeau signing for the Flyers for 4 years....and lastly, the Pistons defeated the Lakers last night 100-86 to win the NBA championship.

That's pretty cool that Chauncey Billups won the MVP - he's from Denver. I never knew Duane works with his dad, that's pretty cool too.

Fleetmack.com News/Updates: Well, I'm changing the format of the news (durr...really?), I'll break it down in sections from now on. I realize some of you click away as soon as I start talking about hockey or Slipknot or something, so now you just have to read whatever sections of the news you want to read. There will be a "forum topic of the week" (see below) as well. New picture of the day is up today, as well as an 8th day in a row of updating the MP3 of the day with summer music...enjoy.

June 15, 2004

Payday! You know what that means? It means I officially have my TV paid off and paid off my Vegas plane ticket, hotel cost, and bar tabs. Today is the first day in roughly 4 years (mind you, that none of it has accumulated interest) that I have have no debt besides what I've charged in the last 30 days, however, in the past month I've bought a gun, paid for about 8 tanks of gas, and have expenses from my KC trip and Iowa trip, and have another Iowa trip and a rafting trip scheduled in the next 30 days, so I've taken it upon myself to get another 0% balance transfer credit card - with no interest until June of 2005 -- so I'm going to buy a monster 250GB external hard drive ($200), a Ken Hamlin (go here to ask Ken Hamlin a question and to see him knock Dante Stallworth into next month) Seahawks jersey ($75), replace the T-stat on Laetitia ($200), buy my 2004-2005 ski pass ($350), and get some new clothes ($250?). Yup - the best part of getting out of debt is immediately going back in debt :o) It's like a free shopping spree!

I'm so damn tired, still haven't gotten much sleep. I think tonight I'm going to the gym, eating, changing Laetitia's oil, then going to bed tonight. That's it. Hopefully that'll be by 8:30 or so, that'd rule. Andy and I are going to the Rockies/Red Sox game tomorrow night, we'll be sitting by Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer (Johnny Damon) near center field, I really just wanted to say "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer". This weekend will consist of Gov's Park on Friday, doing some hardcore pool-sitting-by on Saturday, then Sunday I'm strongly considering knocking off a couple more easy 14ers.....a relatively easy but longer hike of probably 8 hours -- Mt. Evans and Mt. Beirstadt. That'd be sweet to have 4 of them out of the way by July, then I have a 1-day 4 14er trip planned, I could shatter my goal of 10 this summer. Well, not necessarily "shatter", but "meet and possibly do more than..."

Todd Walker did awesome for me last night, hell, so did Mark Prior! Beat Roger Clemens, struck out his first 5 outs, then Walker gets me 2HR's, a triple, 4RBI's, and 3 or 4 runs. Way to go Cubbies! My fantasy team is on the comeback trail I'm tellin' ya. I dropped Pussy Ponson and I think Bartolo Colon is out the door, those guys just suck. And with A.J. Burnett and Prior finally off the DL - just give me Josh Beckett back from the DL and I'm in good shape. Beware for the greatest comeback in fantasy sports history.

New Wil$on picture is up today, all the KC pix have been posted, and the 2 week binge of a new daily summer MP3 every day continues today with....go look.

June 14, 2004

Back in Colorado, safe and sound. Had a great trip to KC this weekend, man I love that city, I'm thinking I've got 2 years in me yet, we'll see if I make it that long. I've got lots of pictures but am too lazy to put them up right now, I'll put them up tomorrow. Was cool seeing a game-ending play at the plate as the Royals beat the Mets. It rained hard. Now I'm back in lovely CO where everything is dead and brown and dry, but we have really big hills here that you can do anything in, they're fun. I'm going to hang low in Denver this weekend then the weekend after that I'll be camping, then it's already time to head to Lake Okaboji for a few days as I take a monsterous 9 day break from this world of employment. Okaboji, Alyfest, Wilsonfest, and Tone Capone's wedding -- the first week of July shall be a success.

Hmmmm, don't feel like updating today, I'm really tired.

June 10, 2004

Happy Birthday on Saturday Josh!!!!!!!

I finally took Slipknot off the Winamp player for the first time in 16 days, time for a change, I don't want to get sick of this CD 3 weeks after its release! So we're back to the Deftones, and Chimaira was in the car this morning, just thought I'd fill you in ;o)

I got a ton of shit done last night. Ran, lifted, cooked, did laundry, packed (sorta), and played with my gun for awhile. That thing is sweet, I can't wait to go shoot it. I'm buying a shoulder holster from Wendl, thing's pretty sweet. Check out this pic Wendl sent me of his gun collection, man, mine will never be that big. I may possibly own two at a time at some point in my life, but never that many!

I got my pix of me running in the Bolder Boulder from brightroom.com - of course they tried to code it so you can't save them, idiots don't realize the picture's source is stored in the javascript, so I got them free. Go check them out. I'm really pissed that I didn't notice the insanely gorgeous woman running in front of me until I saw her picture, damn.

So in T-Minus 9 hours, I'll be off to Kansas City for the weekend, giddy up. That town rocks. Lookin' forward to it, I'll post details of the trip when I get back. Until then, enjoy a picture of the day of me running behind some hottie and a final 2 MP3's of the week to complete "Summer Music Week" on fleetmack.com. Adios todos.

June 09, 2004

I've got to get that expert minesweeper time under 100 seconds or I'm going to die. I was pissed, I was at 69 seconds with 12 bombs left last night and I f**ked up royally, I should have had it, it was just a mental mistake. Damn me.

I am exhausted right now. After work last night I went and helped John with his yard 'till it started thunderstorming (it rained in Denver!! finally!), got a nice little rip of skin torn off my thumb from the pick-axe, it doesn't hurt -- I'm only mentioning this becuase it may strongly interfere with my weight lifting :o/ Then when I got home around 9:00, it was just too cool. I was sitting in my living room in the dark with all my windows open (the balcony and eves keep the rain out), thunder cracking every 10 seconds and rain pouring down, so I turned out all the lights and watched Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring on Starz or something. I've seen it about ten times, but last night was the coolest with the storm going on at the same time. So I didn't get to sleep until very late.

So tonight I need to do all my laundry, clean my room and car, and pack for KC, I leave tomorrow after work already. I really want to just rent Mystic River and watch it, but I can't afford that kind of time. I can't f**kin' wait for this trip, it's going to rule. Happy hour Friday afternoon, Plaza bars Friday night, Tailgating Saturday morning, Royals/Mets game Saturday afternoon, Westport Saturday night. Oh man - Hy-Vee breakfast, grilling -- KANSAS CITY!! It's my Vegas, I love that city. Do you know what I realized yesterday, this will be the first time EVER I've been to Kansas City when I haven't had a girlfriend or got sent there for work (when I worked for Hy-Vee's corporate office). Oh man, this is going to be no holds barred.

So I had a Slipknot thought on the way to work today. They (along with Stone Sour) always get nominated for Grammy's but never win, I think it's because they don't want 9 masked men walking on stage. I think what they should do is clean themselves up and wear no masks and tuxes to the Grammy's. Then, when Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses) takes the prize for Album of the Year - they stand up, put on their masks, and take stage. This would be extra cool because they'd look like the guys on Eyes Wide Shut with tuxes and masks, it'd be an homage to one of my favorite movies, and they'd win the Grammy. Man that'd rule.

I skipped breakfast this morning but made a smoothie, funny how much you miss a hot and healthy breakfast after being on a streak of making it for about a month.

The MP3 of the day will again be updated - 3 days in a row - with another summer music song...check it out...

New pic of the day is up too. I'll be working on the reviews and music sections, so don't pay much attention to them, it's a lot more work than you'd think. The reason I put the music page up is whenever I look for lyrics, every site has like 20 pop-ups and ads and shit, I just want a clean page of lyrics that people can read so they don't have to mess with all the ads and stuff. And the sound clips take a little while to produce, not much, but time I could spend reading or something better. Have a good one.

June 08, 2004

Congrats to the Tampa Bay Lightning for winning the cup last night. I was cheering against you, but at least it wasn't the Canucks, Wings, Devils, Flyers, Sharks, etc. etc. etc. If it can't be the Avs, I'd say the Lightning are in the top 5 teams I'd want to win the cup. Whatever. Fedotenko was a beast, that guy will be on my fantasy team next year. I think Iginla got snubbed for the Conn Smyth, but whatever, who am I to judge that, I really don't know jack shit about this sport....seriously. MP3 of the day is dedicated to Tampa today...

My eyes itch like crazy. I took my contacts out after I got to work so I'm sitting here blind as a bat right now, it's horrible.

Sprint has been acting like a piece of shit lately. My phone no longer rings, it just tells me when I have voice mail. I'm sick of checking my voice mail so I've had my phone off for about 15 hours now with no plans to turn it on for a few days. Contact me by email if you need to get ahold of me.

I really need to get with the program soon. I still haven't unpacked from my Iowa trip a week and a half ago yet, nor my hiking trip, Laetitia is just trashed on the inside and out, laundry is scattered everywhere and I don't know what's clean and what's dirty, and I leave in 2 days for yet another trip across 2 state lines. I really need to stop taking so many trips, oh wait, no I don't. I've got a camping trip in late June, a 10 day Okaboji/wedding/ankeny/ames/carroll trip coming up in early July, then the next weekend in July is the 4-wheeling/gun-shooting/sand-dune-snowboarding(hopefully)/river-rafting trip to south-central Colorado. I suppose after that I'll need to plan a trip or three for August, huh? :o) Likely that'll be Telluride and, if I get my ass in gear and can save SOME sort of $$, I REALLY want to make it out to Chicago to see family, friends, and the Cubs this summer. Then, of course, there's Sausagefest...where's that going to be this year anyways? Apple River in Wisconsin? No wonder I'm broke!

I'm going to go now. I put up the shitty and horrible and under hardcore construction reviews and music sections the other day, did anyone notice? There's not much there yet - it needs lots of work, I just felt like I had to show you I have been doing something with my little free time the last year! Have a good day.

June 07, 2004

That weekend just wiped me out...but it was adventureous and completely atypical of my weekends of average.

Saturday morning, well, let's just say that Bryan got a new toy. Here's a picture of it then here's a picture of me with my toy. Yes, I called it a toy - guns are toys. Oh wait, maybe not. It's a Glock 27 .40 calibur S/W with night sites. Bought it brand spanking new at a gun show over in unincorporated Denver (where taxes are low). This is the same gun that FBI agents carry, highly concealable. Next step is to get my concealed weapons permit so I can wear it under my shirt while hiking and camping legally. I also, of course, need to get a safety course taken before I carry it alone as I don't know too much about guns. I'm brining it to KC with me this weekend, hopefully Hornick and I can blow off a few rounds at a shooting range or something real quick. That thing just rocks. I got a hell of a deal on it and the lady who did my background check was hot, so was her two co-workers. I had to ask if they were related and she said, "Yeah, we're sisters and that's my daughter." Whoa - hot daughter. She says to me, "Make fun of my daughter, she was out until 6 last night and is really hungover." Her daughter was like 22 and just smoking hot. Black hair, the way all women's hair should be, and just, wow. So I start making fun of her and she starts talking about skinny-dipping the night before with her mom right there, the furthest thing from my mind was the gun I had just bought.

After that, I went to John's place and helped him install a sprinkler system in the front lawn, I've definately never done that before so that was something new. Think I may help out with that again tomorrow, and perhaps some sod-laying, we shall see shalln't we?

Yesterday up bright and early at 4 O'Clock to go hiking. Picked up Jacob around 5 and drove on up I70 near the Eisenhauer tunnel and headed south to Gray's and Torrey's peak. It turns out, Laetitia doesn't like 4WD roads and tends to get in the red, so I had to back down and park by the interstate and we just hitchhiked to the trailhead. I won't discuss the climb here, it'll be on the Gray's and Torrey's Climb Pictures page. It was a great climb and I got two more 14ers under my belt. But I was exhaused after that and came home and watched TV on the couch the rest of the night, quite relaxing. The pictures are pretty great though, go check them out!

Hopefully the Flames make my pre-playoff prediction come true tonight. You do realize that if they win the cup, they will have beaten the #1, #2, and #3 seeds in the west, and the #1 seed in the East. Basically that's the absolute hardest way to win the cup....not basically...it flat out IS the hardest way, and they have a second chance to do it tonight. WOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

That's all for today, it's supposed to be 408 degrees here today, hit record highs yesterday. I'm nursing sunburn all over and wicked socks tan lines from hiking yesterday. Have a good week. New Wil$on picture, MP3, picture of the day, and pictures in general are up. Adios.

June 04, 2004

Thanks Aly :o)

Friday again, rock on....exciting weekend ahead. I feel like not being at work today - I just want to sit by the pool all day...90's today...

It was INSANELY nice to come in after killing my old email account, opened the Outlook Express and there sat 9 emails - not 78 like usual. Man I hate spam, this rules being spam-free on all email accounts now.

Calgary 3, Tampa Bay 2 -- Need I remind you of something? Read the second post of that link, and note it's dated 2 months ago.

Seriously, one question....is there anything on earth funnier that a kid (right here from Colorado!) passing out during the national spelling bee? Holy shit, I thought I was going to explode from laughter. If Bill Simmons doesn't shatter his unintentional comedy scale from that, I don't think anything ever will. If anyone can find a picture of the kid with eyes like the martians on Mars Attacks! I'll be eternally greatful.

Tomorrow morning - change oil. Tomorrow late morning - go to gun show. Tomorrow late afternoon - go to Ethan's birthday party. Saturday night - I've been infomed the Nadas are at the Soiled Dove again, I'm not drinking this weekend but I might go. Sunday morning - climb two 14ers. Sunday afternoon - nap by the pool. Might even squeeze a few other things in there.

Kansas City is where I'll be exactly 7 days from this minute. Man I love that city. I'll live there someday.

New pix will be up within the hour (it's currently 8:46 MST). New other stuff later....

Have a good & safe weekend.

June 03, 2004

Thursday already. Today I am starting my 7 day by-the-book meal plan as published in the June/July issue of Men's Fitness. I went shopping last night, hit up GNC to get some whey protein and flaxseed oil, then hit up the grocery store. Wow, I was expecting my bill to be huge. I bought so many veggies and fruit (I will fail at this meal plan becuase I detest fruit), but the meat is where I thought It'd get expensive. Beef tenderloin, chicken, salmon, swordfish, pork loin, canadian bacon. This meal plan daily has about 2000 calories, 200 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, and about 30 grams of fat a day. Top that off with running and lifting hardcore for a week and I'm looking to slice 2-3lbs of fat and add about half that in muscle. Giddy up.

The weekend plans are looking pretty eventful. I was thinking of hitting Gov's Park on Friday, but I don't think I'm going to drink this weekend, I really want to stick to that above plan for a week and see what happens. Ethan's first birthday party is on Saturday, so I'll be attending that at some point. Sunday I'm strongly thinking about climbing Gray's and Torrey's peaks over by Georgetown. First weekend of June, why not knock off two 14ers already? Time to get all my summer goals underway.

After lifting, running, cooking, shopping, and laundry last night, I got to watch the second half of one of my favorite movies, Eyes Wide Shut. Man that movie creeps me out, not as much as it did the first time. I remember the first time I watched it, I was living with Wendl and The Brad, watching it in the basement alone, I was just hardcore creeped out. I couldn't stop thinking of how terrified Bill (Tom Cruise) must have been. Wow. Ok, I'll shut up now.

I had the coolest dream last night but I can't remember it for the life of me. Wait...it's coming back to me. At one point I remember stealing a station wagon and a mini van and we were trying to cover out tracks. The station wagon had a few thousand dollars in it, we (Klaver, myself, and someone else I can't remember) stole it from Swan Lake (in Carroll, Iowa) and drove it to some cabin that Schau owned. I remember some people living in a trailor house watching Pulp Fiction at like 4am and something about trying to recover some bicycles that were submerged deep under Swan Lake, but we were trying to be inconspicuous about it. I was in the water under a dock floating around while holding 2 bicycles and Keanu Reeves spotted me through the cracks of the dock and started shooting one of those guns from Mars Attacks at me. I'm guessing Keanu was in my dream because he's on those Stanley Cup commercials. I watched Mars Attacks last week and caught a glimpse of it 2 nights ago. I have no clue where Swan Lake, the bikes, the minivan and station wagon, or Pulp Fiction fit in though. Dreams are weird.

Ooooo! Dave's guns (www.daves-guns.com) has my Glock 27 on sale for $500 right now...hmmm. I think I'm going to hit up a gun show on Saturday morning to check out used Glocks as well.

I was going to put up an MP3 today (specifically, I was going to put up Slipknot - Everything Ends ) - but I've gotten a HUGE response over Vermilion Pt. 2, so I'm leaving that up through the weekend. My Slipknot - Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses) review is officially posted - read up, but don't read too deep into what I'm saying. Probably the best way to read it is to read the recap at the bottom first, then start from the top. Yeah I know, bass ackwards.

By the way, I decided last night that as much as I'm upset right now, I'm just going to change that by doing everything I love all the time, it'll at least keep my mind off things and who knows what'll happen in the meantime. Mountain climbing, camping, working out, running, traveling, etc. - that's going to take over my life for awhile, it let's me appreciate what I have as opposed to being upset over what I don't have. Hence, the quote of the day from Swingers. Have a great day - GO FLAMES!

June 02, 2004

First of all - I have a new email address starting today - do not use bryan@fleetmack.com anymore as I WILL NOT GET THE EMAIL!!! Go to the contact page for the info, also I sent out a mass email to a whopping 217 people this morning, hope you enjoyed it.

I wrote my review on the new Slipknot album last night but re-read it minutes ago and realized it is WAY too personal to post and filled with information I don't want read by strangers and some people I know, you'll take it the wrong way. I've never been one to care about that kind of stuff, but there's no way I'm posting it. I'll re-write it tonight and post a new one tomorrow. I'm also going to post my Reviews and Far-from-completed Music section tomorrow along with a new rant I think, we'll see we'll see.

I'm in a really pissy mood these last couple of days and I really don't feel like updating. Pictures from the weekend are posted, pictures from river rides of the late 1990's shall be posted in a few minutes - hope you enjoy!

June 01, 2004

I have a ton of stuff to say and I ton of stuff I want to say but decided after much deliberation to keep most of it to myself.....I have so many important things to say and I can find no way to put them in order of which is more important as they're all so grossly important, so yeah - these are my thoughts today...

Congrats to Chris and Beth! Great wedding and I couldn't be happier for the two of you!

Congrats to my brother, Brent, on getting his PhD this weekend!

Matt and Amanda - you have the most beautiful daughter on Earth. After holding her for awhile, the only word that can summarize my thoughts is this: Wow.

To all my friends from Saturday night (especially Kris and Hav) -- holy shit. I really don't think I could live this life without you. Thanks for picking up the billions of pieces of me that were in shambles the other night. It was as if everything I had avoided thinking about (and what I had been denying and hoping for the opposite of) for the past few months just slammed into me and woke me up to reality - it hit me like a ton of bricks and it was incredibly painful, but my own fault. The pieces of me are still pretty scattered out but I know eventually they will all fit back together again (time heals everything!), but it's all because of your help. I can't emphasize enough how much you all mean to me. Today's MP3 sums up my emotions perfectly. Perfectly.

Overly sensitive and emotional Bryan came out of hibernation this weekend (if you don't realize that from the last paragraph you're just not with it, are you?) You could say that on Sunday while driving back to Denver from Iowa - I was the most exhausted both physically and emotionally that I have ever been in my life. Talking to Ms. Crystal Mills for 2 1/2 hours on the phone was the perfect remedy to cheer me up. Wow I love that girl. At one point this weekend (I'm pretty delirious when it comes to specifics on this) I said something to the point of "You're looking at me at my all time low." I don't know who I said that to, but their response was something like, "If this is the worst you can be, you're not doing half bad." That made me smile.

I've got tons of pictures to post - both from the wedding and from Racoon River Rides that Anne and Sam hooked me up with! (thanks for those, guys! They are SWEET pictures!). I probably won't post pictures until tomorrow.

Let's talk Slipknot for a second - and I promise I won't go overboard :) That album is my mind right now, it thinks for me - it says what I feel. I've come to the conclusion that this album is not only better than any other Slipknot album or the Stone Sour album - but that it may just be the only album in the history of music to top Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon. I've never in my life been able to relate to an album so perfectly. It's as if this album was written by or about me during my drive back to Denver on Sunday. It's everything running through my mind put into musical format. I will have a review posted tomorrow - I strongly recommend you read it. Slipknot's new album speaks my emotions of the past 2 days like a hammer hits a nail - dead on. The cd made me cry on Sunday - I swear this to you. I didn't think you'd believe it, so I took a picture of me while I cried and sang to it. Pathetic? Maybe. True? Yes. Here's proof.

I did not meet my goal in the Bolder Boulder. I could list a billion excuses from the horrible weather to my physical and emotional exhaustion to being sick two weeks ago - but the bottom line is, I didn't meet my goal. My official time was ... go look it up yourself.... slower than last year. I was done with the first 2 miles in 14:40 - which is damn fast. The 3rd and 4th miles I tapered off and ran VERY slowly, but I finished the last 2.2 miles in roughly 16 minutes - which was about the same pace as the first 2 miles. The middle of the race slaughtered me. I'm still happy though, I ran a total of about 7.5 miles yesterday (I had to run to the starting line from my car as I was late - I climbed a 8 foot fence and got in the starting line about 20 seconds before they shot off the gun - the whole crowd cheered for Mr. Fleetmack, it was pretty funny - I felt famous - 50,000 runners all watching Bryan Mack climb a fence...the guy with the starting gun pats me on the back and says "Good night's sleep, huh?" - I got a pretty good kick out of that.) I'm glad the skydivers are ok. The wind was just treacherous and the skydivers were landing everywhere - from the upper deck of Folsom Field to a tree a block away. Apparently some of the skydivers and spectators had to get ambulanced to the hospital. I told you the conditions were bad :)

That's all for today, pictures later - and again, to all my friends - Thank you.