"I was going to get my teeth whitened, but then I thought, fuck that, I'll just get a tan instead." --Mitch Hedberg

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September 2007 News Archives

September 04    September06    September 10    September 13    September 14    September 17    September 19    September 20    September 26    September 28

What I am listening to as I type this:  Bone Thugs~N~Harmony - Land of the Heartless

September 28, 2007

Hey look, I didn't take this week off! I did my NFL picks and power rankings!

Busy as shit at work lately, yeah, very busy at work.  Been falling behind at school, it's just been way too easy to watch these Rockies games lately on their 11 game winning streak en route to the playoffs!  They just need to win out through this weekend and the magic will happen (Unlike it did for Hermoine here).

So tonight I'm going to stay home and polish off a TON of homework that I have remaining, tomorrow Keith and I are going to the drag races then meeting up with Andy and Colby (I assume) before the Rockies game.  Sunday ... well ... if all goes well the Seahawks may actually be getting the commercial breaks during the Rockies/D-Backs game.  GO ROCKIES!!

I have full plans to implement my homemade AWESOME catchphrase of "Kris Kross Will Make Ya -- HAWPE HAWPE!!!!"   I love that, I was drunk when I came up with it but it's so fun to now send text messages to people saying "Kris Kross will make outfielders ..."   Then wait for the token response of "HAWPE HAWPE!!!"  In case you have no idea what I mean, the Rockies have a player named Brad Hawpe (Hop) ... Kris Kross had this video ... yeah, if you don't get it now you have issues.  I'm going to make a sign for the game on Saturday so look for me on Sportscenter!  Maybe I'll even wear my clothes backwards, after all, I'm going with Keith and he probably will by accident anyways!

What I am listening to as I type this:  Ganksta NIP - Trance

September 26, 2007

So yeah, I guess it's Wednesday already.  I didn't put up my NFL stuff last week, was just a tad bit too busy.  But ended up having a good weekend.  Went down to Adrian's place Saturday night and chilled out for his graduation party, watched football on Sunday, did some homework here & there ... yeah, it was a good one.

Rockies are on fire right now, watched that game last night and we put $$ down for playoff tickets should they make it, we'll be sitting in left field for Game 3 and the rockpile for Game 4 ... come on Rockies!! Let's make the playoffs a reality!! We control our own destiny now, which couldn't be a cooler thing.  (I've always cheered for the Rockies except when they play the Royals, how can't you cheer for the Rockies?  They're fun to watch and their fans, even though they are the same ones, don't act like uneducated, over-reacting, over-confident, loudmouthed buffoons the way they do for the "IN COM PLETE" suck-o's)

I'm a little pissed off at my Regis professor right now ... on my last assignment we had 40 SQL scripts to write.  I got 2 wrong as for some reason (brain fart) I used retail-cost instead of simply retail when calculating sales.  All of the syntax was right and all of my logic was right except I used the wrong dollar amount.  I can accept this as it was incorrect logic.  But come on, even if I got 38/40 right (and those 2 I still think I proved my point of knowing what I was doing!) that's a 95% ... so why is that an A- and not an A??  Please explain this to me before I blow a gasket.  Unless someone can convince me otherwise (meaning, YOU!), this is the email he's getting:

I understand that I used the wrong number, and while realizing the little impact it'd have on my overall grade, I'd like to respectfully debate my grade on this assignment. I still used the correct syntax for everything, I just simply used the incorrect number (I can accept this, but after reviewing it I have no idea what I was thinking! :) ). Regardless, even if that question is wrong that means I received 19/20 correct, which is a 95%. I would argue that a 95% when my one incorrect answer was still using the correct overall thought process of the SQL syntax is deserving of a solid A as opposed to the A-.
Bryan

Upcoming weekend:  Friday night = homework.  Saturday day = Keith and I are going to the drag races   Saturday night = I won Rockies tickets in section 114  .... awesomeness will prevail.  Sunday the Seahawks get to beat the 49ers and move to 3-1 on the year, with the only 1 being a errant communication between Matt & Shaun that resulted in a fumble, I can live with that.

And finally ... we have a new winner (to replace Vick) in the "I absolutely cannot believe anyone cares about this" news!!  Congrats again to the media for blowing something so ridiculously insignificant out of proportion.  Make him pay for the duck, maybe give him a disorderly conduct or public intoxication ticket, end of story.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Phil Vassar - Six Pack Summer

September 20, 2007

Last night I completed all my lab work.  When you do SQL coding every day at work, then you do it every night for school, it's a bit weird.  I actually dreamed about computer code last night ... every thought in my mind is now dealing with the different types of inner & outer joins, concatenation, embedded character manipulation functions, groupings, numerical & mathematical data manipulation ... it's getting a bit old.  If someone asks what my name is, I don't just think "Bryan Mack", I think SELECT firstname||' '||lastname AS name FROM entity; or SELECT CONCAT(firstname, ' ', lastname) AS "My whole name" FROM entity;   It's getting a bit ridiculous.  Such is life.  So yeah, I did all my lab work last night, tonight I'm going to construct another ERD for a mini-project I'm doing, and then I should be able to take the weekend off from school.

Tomorrow night I'm just going to go to the gym for awhile then try to go on a 7 or 8 mile run.  Saturday Jameson and I are going to do a bit of work to my car stereo, then I'm 95% sure I'm heading down to the Springs to hit up Adrian's graduation party.  Who has a graduation party in September, anyways?!  Sunday, well I don't know, I suppose I might watch football.  (Picks and such will be up tomorrow)

Now as promised, I am going to talk about plants ... this may get a bit lengthier than I want it to and I haven't a bunch of time ... but Phil just got done singing (see above) and Stone Sour just came on, so I shall type this to some wonderful Zzyzx Rd.

When Mr. Sexton was diagnosed with terminal cancer a few years ago, his family sent out a request that people send notes of encouragement to him.  I ended up writing a bit of an essay on how he affected my life and sent it to him. It's now posted on this site of mine somewhere.  When his family told me how he enjoyed it, it really got me to thinking ... why do we wait for people to die in order to show appreciation to them?  I learned when Ryan died that I would no longer take my friends for granted like I did in the past. But what does this mean?  It's easy to show your appreciation to somebody when he or she is alive.  This got me thinking further ...

When somebody passes away, it is customary to send flowers or a plant to either the church, funeral home, or directly to the family of he who died.  In most cases of my friends, I wouldn't say I'm particularly close with their parents and/or family.  Sure I am for a few here and there, but not most of them.  When my friends die, hopefully not for 50 years or so here, I don't want their families to know I appreciate them ... I wanted my friend to know that!  What good does it do to send a plant to him after he dies?  That's kinda stupid ... well, not really, but it's not what I want to do.

While sitting around the other day I got to thinking about this, why not send random flowers and/or plants to people all the time while they're around to enjoy them?  Starting in January 2008, I am going to randomly send a plant to one friend a month, whenever my "middle of the month" paycheck comes in.  This will be a decent plant, one that I hope to live for quite some time.  When the plant arrives, this friend of mine will think, "What the hell did he send me a plant for?!"  I will laugh.  But the friend will then proceed to take care of the plant and have it for years to come.  These plants may be come to be known as the "Mack Plants".  People will be envious of each others' Mack Plants and all will want one.  Maybe people will compare their Mack Plants.  I think this idea rules, and I've taken a couple of months to mull it over to see if it turned out to be a dumb idea in my mind, it did not.

By the way, I have to admit that, while I do want to do this to show appreciation ... I also think it's a fucking hilarious idea and I might just be doing it to be a smartass.  I'll likely be only sending plants, but I think it'd be funny if one of my random guy friends got flowers delivered to his work from another guy.  Preferably pink ones.  Yeah, this idea rules.  This will be completely random, I'm going to set up a database to keep it that way ... this database will contain the names of all people I wish to send plants to. Once a month I will have the database email me a name and then archive the name .. so yeah, you can't force your name to get your plant any faster!!

What I am listening to as I type this:  Vanilla Ice - Play That Funky Music

September 19, 2007

--A Player hitting for the Cycle
--An unassisted triple play
--An inside-the-park home run
--The only 1-0 game in Coors Field history
--A walkoff base hit

These are all things I've been lucky enough to see in person at major league baseball games.  But last night, seeing Todd Helton hit a walk-off home run while the Rockies compete for a wild card spot, well, that took the cake.  That was the coolest thing I've ever seen live at a MLB game.

This leads me to another thought ... what are the coolest moments in sports history for me?  As Towns would say, "What's your top 5?"  Well, my list is a bit strange as it counts some things I saw live, and some things I didn't see live.  Obviously, being there makes something trivial quite cool.

5) ISU beating Iowa for the first time in 15 years in Iowa City in 1998 (I was in Iowa City, but couldn't get a ticket to the game)
4) ISU winning their Sweet 16 game against UCLA in 2000 (wasn't there)
3) Seahawks beating Carolina in the NFC Championship in 05/06 (wasn't there, turned down a ticket, dumbest decision of my life)
2) Helton's walk-off home run (was there)
1) Av's beating the Stars in OT in the 2006 playoffs after scoring the tying goal with 30 seconds left in regulation (was there)

Notable runners-up:  *ISU/Iowa football game, 2007, Last-second field goal for the win 
*Kuemper/Harlan high school football game, 1999, KHS wins for the first time ever  
*Kuemper/Washington(?) state tournament basketball game, 1991(?), my brother was a rockstar on that team and we were down by like 20 points at halftime, came back to win
*Randy Johnson kills a bird with his pitch .... that was just cooler than hell!

By the way, on a random note, I think PETA is the dumbest thing in the world.  Really, I mean that, the DUMBEST thing in the world ... meaning there is nothing worse than it.  Not The Cranberries, not the NBA, not Robin Williams, not Hawkeye football, not dogs, not Boulder, not G.W. Bush ... nope .... none of those are as stupid as PETA.  PETA just blows me away at how dumb they are day after day after day.  Just thought I'd randomly toss that out there.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about my new idea involving plants and people.  Smith loved my idea, I hope you will too.

Oh, ok, one more random thought.  I love her.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Alan Jackson - The Sounds

September 17, 2007

Happy birthday to my mother!!!

Good weekend, and somehow, a productive one!  I stayed home on Friday and did homework: finished up my bibliography and my Traditional vs. ANSI 10g SQL lab work.  Saturday was up dark and early (as the sun wasn't up yet) and went to pick up Matt and Muggs ... down to the Sports Column for the traditional Cyclones/Hawkeyes game.  I think we were in line about 1.5 hours before the place opened, the line actually wasn't very long this year, maybe 100-150 people by the time the bar opened.  Regardless, it shouldn't surprise you when I say that the Cyclones won the game.  After all, we've won 70% of the games since I've been old enough to vote.  Keep this up for another 10 years and those Hawkeyes will finally shut the fuck up about that 20ish year stretch where we sucked.  I guess it's sad enough a majority of the fans still have to stretch back to the last millenium to find a winning record to argue against us with!

After the game we went and met up with Jameson over at Brandt's place for awhile, then Brian and I went to the Florida State/Colorado game up in boulder.  Wow, what a clusterfuck that was ... they didn't even check our tickets at the gate, I thought we were going to get trampled, and I'd bet there were several thousand people who didn't get seats after they got in the stadium.  Every time we turned around someone was getting arrested or in a fight (saw 2 chick fights!).  On top of that, CU sucked until the last 10 minutes of the game, but by that point it was midnight (the game didn't start until 8:30 mountain time!! that's a 10:30pm start for those in Florida!) and I was just exhaused.

Yesterday Keith came over to watch football with Andy and I.  The Seahawks lost, but honestly, I was on such a high from Iowa State winning that I really didn't even care.  I really think the Super Bowl 2 years ago crushed my ability to be upset by a game as trivial as a Week 2 loss to Arizona.  I can take losses when it's our fault (aka, Alexander/Hasselbeck turn it over in their own territory with 2 minutes left on the potential game-winning drive).  Just so the refs don't blow the game for us like they did back in ... ok wait, I've really gotta stop bitching about that.  But I think it does make a fine point that even in other games with bad calls, I'll blame the team ... but not in that Super Bowl... we just got hosed.  But really, there's only 2 games where I feel bad officiating cost us the game ... and it's likely the two most important games I've ever cheered for, and it's the two games in which the fanbase was stacked against us:

ISU/Michigan State Elite 8 basketball game, March 2000:  Elite 8 game on the HOME COURT of Michigan State with BIG 10 refs .... ISU up by 5, with the ball, with 30 seconds left, 2 controversial calls, we lose, Michigan State ends up winning the championship.  Yeah, I'm bitter ... we could have won the NCAA championship when I was in college, and I was friends with one of the 2 MVP's of the team (Fizer).

Super Bowl 40:  I don't know how to spell 40 in Roman Numerals.

Anyways ... that'll be the last of that.  I put up all the pictures since July last night, enjoy.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Goldy - Town Put Goldy On Top

September 14, 2007

Well, I did my marketing research focus group last night for State Farm, didn't get home until 9er, and didn't do homework as I was tired ... that means tonight, Friday night, I go home and do homework all night long.  I don't want to, but it's really not a choice at this point if I want to watch the Cyclones game tomorrow morning, so that will be that.

I did very badly with my NFL picks last week, I went 8-8 with a whopping 82 point score ... that is atrocious in Week 1.  Also, my power rankings were God-awful, not sure what I was doing there, but they're completely different this week.  Regardless, Adrian's weekly wrapup, my NFL power rankings, and my Week 2 picks can be found on the NFL page.

I am too busy for this shit today, have lots to say, so let me just write a preview of what's to come on this site in the next week:
--Pictures ... tons of them ... including:  Fabi & I in South Dakota, Kansas City Trip, Camping/Hiking Trip, Tampa Trip, Opening Day NFL, ISU/Iowa Football game watch ....
--Writing about SATHRM by Andy and I (with hopeful testimonials by Anne and Alicia!)
--Official rant/proposal of why pit bulls should be illegal to make/domesticate
--My thoughts and soon-to-be implemented plant-sending campaign

Yes, much to come my friends, much to come.  Oh, in case you're too lazy to go to the links, here's my Week 2 NFL Picks:

What I am listening to as I type this:  Geto Boys - Hold It Down

September 13, 2007

Last night was an adventurous evening of going home and doing homework until I fell asleep.  Tonight I am in a focus group on car insurance, then I am going to go home and do homework until I fall asleep.  Tomorrow night, I plan on getting off work then going home and doing homework until I fall asleep.  I may work the gym into there somewhere.  Yikes.  I will say, however, that they are hammering from-clause JOIN's down my throat as opposed to traditional joins usable (and backwards compatible) in older versions, such as Oracle 8i.  I guess really all I have left to do this week is finish my annotated bibliography, but that's just a pain.  Don't think for a second I didn't rant and rave about that in my class review last session, and don't think for a second I won't do the exact same thing once this class is over.

Iowa/ISU on Saturday ... the only college football game of the year that I care about.  At this point, I think ISU would be lucky to beat Colorado School of Mines.

I may never post pictures on this site again at this pace, I really just don't like doing that any more ... don't really care to take pictures as much as I used to, either.

Seahawks head down to Arizona this weekend, where they will become 2-0, look forward to it -- I am.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Geto Boys - First Light of the Day

September 10, 2007

I am back from Tampa ... yes, I was in Tampa, Florida for the weekend.  While this trip has been planned for quite awhile, it was not discussed here as my presence, among several others, was part of a surprise for Smith's 30th birthday party.  I flew out on Friday and came back Sunday.  Although I've been to Florida 5 or 7 times, I had never been to Tampa - I must say that I was impressed.  I love it there.  It was great seeing Smith, Sam, Jay, Moose, and a few new friends as well.  We partied across the street from Andy's place on Friday, Saturday we lounged and went to the beach, then to a bar in St. Pete's (I think), Sunday I woke up way too early, drove to the airport, flew home, and watched football.  Anyways, wonderful trip, I will have pictures later ... I'm about 2 months behind in the pictures department on this site.

I have yet to review my NFL picks from week 1, but I assure you they were atrocious.  My fantasy team(s) are all looking downright terrible as well.  Way to go Steven Jackson & Brandon Jacobs as my 1-2 punch on offense.  Humph.

Seahawks won and their defense dominated.  Lofa had 8 tackles and 2 forced fumbles.  Julian had 6 tackles and 2 sacks.  Patrick Kearney and Deon Grant are magnificent additions to this team.  Although I was 95% mentally asleep from exhaustion throughout yesterday, I assure you I was excited for NFL season to kick off on the inside, although my body was too tired to show it.  Tampa will do that to a guy!

No more trips/vacations for me until I go back to Switzerland.  I say that like it's so far away ... 2 months, but I'm broke as a joke right now and have a plane ticket & hefty phone bill (already?!) to pay for ... better start saving money!

This morning it was in my best of interests to go to the gym before work, and I switched it up.  No more same-old 3 sets of 10 for me ... I've upgrade to 5 sets of 12 reps with lighter weight.  It was hard.  I'm going to try to lift 4 times a week, run 15 miles a week, and attend 2 "classes" a week.  The gym is offering classes for free over noon hour ... kickboxing, yoga, ballistics.  I did a "Body Sculpting" class last week and it was pretty good, then did a ballistics (Swiss Ball) class, it pretty much wore me out to the point where I wanted to nap for 3 half-days.  Felt good ...

School is fantastic, never though I'd say that.  I'm truly happy to be learning this stuff ... I'm basically in grade 17 right now ... and this is the first time I've ever enjoyed school at all.  At least that didn't take very long.

So yes, perhaps if I just kick ass at the gym, kick ass in school, work some non-required overtime to get ahead at work, and finally put some pictures of the 12 events I haven't yet posted ... along with figuring out some improvements I want to make for both this site and the Team Blonde site with regards to spam issues ... well, if I can keep busy with that and football on the weekends, perhaps this ridiculous amount of "missing Fabienne" pain will start to subside, but I highly doubt that.  59 days until I see her again.

Fabi forwarded me a derivative of my famed and over-discussed Bill Gates email message in German over the weekend.  This made me chuckle something fierce.

And lastly, I had a moment last night, a moment that made me finally feel like I'm not alone in this world.  This moment couldn't have made me smile much larger.  We all know that my favorite sports writer is, by far, Bill Simmons - aka, the Sports Guy.  I haven't read his personal thoughts on the whole Vick/Dog thing, but when he posted this ... it made me feel as though he was my best friend in the world.  Thank God somebody besides me isn't a fucking moron:

As for the Rams, I'm abstaining from writing a Rams paragraph in protest of the fact Michael Vick is getting blacklisted from the NFL, while Leonard Little continues to suit up every weekend. I don't know what's happened to this country, but I'm three years away from moving to Canada.

Thank You Bill Simmons!! THANK YOU for re-iterating my exact thoughts!!!!! (we won't even discuss the fact that he, along with me, thinks the Seahawks are the 2nd best team in the NFL this year)

What I am listening to as I type this:  Dr. Dre & Sam Sneed - U Better Recognize

September 6, 2007

Busy day in the news today, I'm out for the weekend after tonight for something I'm not at liberty to discuss until Monday.

Andy got the carpet laid in the basement last night, so we moved my TV and such down there, should have that and the DVR all hooked up hopefully tonight, which will be slick like Rick.

Last night we went to the Old Chicago on Union & Alameda ... wow.  Call it a weekly thing, because they have "Beat The Leader" just like they did up in Broomfield.  "Beat the Leader" is an NFL pick'em thing where you get a free appetizer if you beat the average of the managers' scores.  Needless to say, I filled out my picks.  They also have a $4 happy-hour hamburger/fries (restaurant style).  Yeah, I approve.

I am the #1 seed in my fantasy baseball league.  I won the league last year, so looking for back-to-back.  Also going to shoot for back-to-back in fantasy football (trophy league) this year.

So NFL season is underway tonight, I likely won't watch the whole thing as I have to finish up some homework and prepare for my trip.  Regardless, I have completed the power rankings and my Week 1 NFL picks on the NFL page.  I don't have time to write an extensive review of the season, I will do it next week ... but to kick a few things off before the season starts, let me give you my official picks for the 2007 season:

Division Champs:
NFC West:  Seattle Seahawks
NFC East:    Dallas Cowboys
NFC North:  Chicago Bears!*
NFC South:  New Orleans Saints*
Wild Cards:  Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers

AFC East:  New England Patriots!*
AFC North: Baltimore Ravens
AFC South:  Indianapolis Colts*
AFC West:  San Diego Chargers
Wild Cards: Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals
* bye week
! home field advantage

Seahawks over Eagles
49ers over Cowboys
Jaguars over Ravens
Chargers over Bengals

Seahawks over Bears
49ers over Saints
Patriots over Jaguars
Chargers over Colts

NFC Championship
Seahawks over 49ers

AFC Championship
Patriots over Chargers

SUPER BOWL
Patriots over Seahawk

What I am listening to as I type this:  Mike & The Mechanics - The Living Years

September 4, 2007

That was quite the weekend.  Friday we had the grand opening of the new Rec Center here at Mines, along with the Celebration of Mines, so it was a quasi work day.  Friday night I took off with Marc and Adam (new friends from 14ers.com) for the mountains for a weekend of camping/hiking.  We got down to the trailhead of Redcloud and Sunshine peaks around midnight and camped.  Started hiking around 5am on Saturday morning, didn't make a summit on this day but that was due to being safe.  The way I summed it up to myself was this, "Have you ever done something you didn't want to do because you wanted to do it?"  That's what my decision was like to turn around and not summit these mountains.  I've summitted 23 14ers, I've done class 4 climbing, I've done 10 hour solo hikes ... I still am convinced those were all safe for me to do.  The route we attempted to take up Redcloud simply wasn't safe and I didn't care to join the others in reaching the summit, and I'm not at all disappointed with my decision.  There are much more important things for me to do in this life than get to the top of a mountain, I'm not going to risk my life to knock a peak off of my 14er list, that's just dumb.

Saturday afternoon we went over to Lake City and got something to eat, then headed up to the Matterhorn trailhead and set up camp.  Called it an early night, read my school stuff, and just relaxed.  I didn't join the hike on Sunday, but Adam climbed up Wetterhorn (my favorite 14er).  I was a bit nerve-racked from the previous day's climb, and I twisted my good ankle pretty good while goofing around the day before, so I figured it'd just be best to stay at camp.  We drove back to Denver Sunday afternoon and got back to the pad in Littleton around 6:30 or so.  Yesterday I hit up all the ski sales (REI's Labor Day sale, SNIAGRAB, and Ski-Rex), didn't buy anything but was very tempted to buy a new board!  I also determined that I will be buying some polarized goggles in the very near future.  Yesterday got me insanely excited for snowboard season to get here, can't wait to strap that thing on my feet again and go flying down them mountains ... damn ... how awesome it'll be to get up there agian.

After an unexpected nap yesterday afternoon, I turned on the TV to find Lord of the Flies on.  This is a movie I've always wanted to watch but never did for whatever reason.  I hated it.  I think I'd love the book, but I thought the movie was just awful.  Possibly the worst ending to a movie ever.  I mean, I want to know what happens -- what happened to the kids after they got back to reality and were deemed to be killers and thievs?  What did the rest of their lives consist of?  Jail?  Terror?  Did they go back to normal?  What the hell was the "monster" guy doing in the cave?!  Given that I didn't see the first half-hour of the movie, but wow, I was thoroughly disappointed.  Maybe I should read the book to see if it's any better.

School rules; I can finally say that I'm thrilled to be back in school, I am learning the things I intended on learning upon entering this program and it's great.

64 days until I go to Switzerland ... wish I was there now.

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