About Me | Mammoth's Cave

Well, this part is all about me. It is very long, and doesn't really have any order to it. Well, just read on then! So, um, HI! I'm Dan MacMartin. I figure the best way to start is to explain where the whole "Mammoth" thing came from.

I have no clue! It's as much of a mystery for me as it is for you. I just happened to stumble onto it one day. So that's that.

Back to me. You know my name now. I was born in February 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I grew up amidst the political termoil that Quebec brought on itself beginning in the late sixties. The details of my early life aren't so important (and i can't remember anything).

In August of 1994, my family moved from our home of 16 years in Beaconsfield, PQ to our new home. As if moving wasn't a big enough step, but we even changed countries. We settled into the Northern Virginia area, a very nice area of the United States. I lived the generic American life; got my license at 16, drove to school, hung out with friends. I wasn't really the one to break the mold.

One thing that I did enjoy through my adolescence is competitive swimming. I was driven into this sport in the fall of 1991 when my sister all of the sudden became a faster swimmer than I. This driving force was also my goal: to beat her at her own game, the 100 Back! I started out slowly, having to miss the first five weeks because I sliced open my hand on a Scout trip. I switched to my sister's swim club in the fall of 1992, hoping to improve. Another year passed and still I trailed. My time would come.

Winter of 1994, we were at a swim meet in which the events were being swum in reverse (Guys before Girls, oldest to youngest). This meant that I would be swimming all of my races ahead of my sister, Erin. I was signed up for the 100 back, and behold, I beat her time by almost a second. My goal had been reached. I was done. She then proceeded thiry minutes later to smash her time and drop several seconds, but I had my glory.

As for the rest of my swimming career, I was swimming to stay in shape, and to meet some of the best people I will ever meet. Sliding towards the summer before my senior year in high school, my interest in swimming, both as a competitive sport and as a means to stay in shape, started dying. I was losing interest. My one goal that year was to qualify for the big meet in December. I did, in one race, which was enough for me. I didn't care that I was seeded last place, or that I finished third from last. My goal was fulfilled. At that point, I had decided that this was going to me my last stab at swimming with a purpose.

I started into the spring of 1997 and my training habits began sliding away. A year before then I would be making 6 practices a week. I would be lucky to have made 4. My coach knew that I wouldn't be continuing on with swimming after High School graduation, so he let me do my own thing.

I remember it so well. May 23rd, 1997 was the day when I said my goodbyes to my team mates, some of which i had spent most of my life with for 3 years. The decision to leave wasn't final at the time. I was risking losing my acceptance to Virginia Tech if I wasn't able to pull my grades up. I think I was the only senior in my school to pull a 3.5 in the last quarter of senior year.

After graduation, I ventured up to Montreal for a week to visit my old home. It was then when I realized how bad everything was up there. No one cared up there anymore. The anger between linguistic and ethnic groups fueled an evil aura that seemed to lurk around everywhere and everyone.

I returned home, and I began working as a life guard. It ended up that the 23rd of May was indeed my last day of training with my team. I don't regret leaving the team, or the sport, but I did have many great years.

And onto a different chapter in my life. College. It isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seriously. I mean, you live, eat, sleep, study and drink. That's all there is to it. Money becomes a non issue, because you never have any (or when you do it seems to disappear all too quickly). It is in a way a simplified version of life. But it brings as much frustration as it does fun. I scraped through freshman year, not acheiving the grades I am capable of. I came into this year hoping to see the light and become an "above average" student. This did not happen. I try and understand why, but I can't. This semester was worse than the rest. But in any case, school can kiss my ass right now.

My friend Sam has these little terms she gives me. I won't mention them, but they all point to the fact that I did have several girlfriends during high school. And I did. Most of my relationships never lasted more than two months (I broke the record once with 5 months). I mean, I had some good times, and some bad times, but the interesting thing is that the longest time I was without a girlfriend through high school was 2 months (Sept 96-Nov 96). I know Sam will hit me as soon as she reads this, but of all the people I have been with, I can say there are only two that have really affected my life in a major way. I'll leave their names out of this, so they won't have to come kick my ass.

The first one was my girlfriend while I was still living in Canada. It sucked that I had to move after only 2 months together, but I guess that's life. We pretty much hung out for the whole summer, and it ruled! We tried to make it work after I moved, but that slowly fizzled away.

And the second was during senior year of high school. I had been eyeing this girl for a while (oh, say sophomore year). I never really acted on that before because, well, she had a boyfriend. In any case, that started in March sometime (I know it was the wednesday before spring break, and I wish I could remember the damn date!). It was awesome. I don't know what it was. I guess the big heart break of it all was that we broke up (ok, she dumped me) a week after senior prom. That hit pretty hard, and consequently ruined the last few weeks of my senior year. But hey, summer was just around the corner. Now here's the hella-tragedy of it all. She blamed it on some personal issues, which I had to believe because of her past, only to find out in NOVEMBER (seven months later) that she had gone back to her old boyfriend. Oh how I wanted to kill him. It took me WAY too long to get over that whole relationship. I mean, I figure it was in October that I finally moved away from it, and then in November I found out about everything. Grrrr.

I feel like I'm leaving out details, but oh well, fuck you! Those are my details! There is one person that I have left out, and this is on purpose because she is probably the best friend I have ever had (although at times you would think we are mortal enemies). This being my friend Sam. Some people think that the two of us should be married, some think that the fact that we're friends makes no sense. She is still one of the coolest people I know. I met her during sophomore year. She had moved to the area from New York City, and I had just moved in from Montreal. Of all places we could have met, it was during band. Yes, I'm sure you saw by the pictures that I am just a tad musically inclined, but let me finish this first. If i were to try and think of one thing that stands out in the past 5 years that I've known her... well there isn't. There have been so good and bad memories, and it makes our friendship stronger. Don't ask me if that makes sense. Like I said before, just her and I being friends, most of the time that doesn't even make sense. I feel like I'm cutting her short here, but she doesn't need a huge section on here. She is one of the closest friends I have ever had, and I won't ever let go of that.

Ahhh... Musically inclined i said... Well, in band I played Trombone. Since the dawn of my time, I have been into Piano. This was the basis of all the musical knowledge I have. The first leap into how music works was definitely at the whim of my piano teacher Dave Don back up in Pierrefonds, PQ. Over the Christmas of 1991, I got my first electric guitar. This became the new musical instrument in my life. Soon enough, Piano and Trombone yeilded to the guitar, and it became my main focus. I remember I was in a band (sort of, it never really was a band) with my friends Chris, Pat and Mike up in Montreal. At that point, the only person with any talent on their instrument was Pat, our drummer. Chris had only bought his guitar 2 months before we started (I was only 5 months on the guitar at this point). We were all lazy asses, so nothing came of it. Soon enough I moved away, and just jammed on my own.

Once I got into swimming in the states, I became friends with my friend Carl, who had been playing drums for a while. We started hanging out, having little jam sessions every now and then. About half way through senior year, my friend Aven asked me if I would help him put a band together for the senior talent show. I said sure, and called Carl up immediately. We threw together a 4 song line up in under 3 weeks, and needless to say our performance reflected that. But oh well. And then we all went off to College, so it's kind of a "for fun" thing (it always was... once again we were a lazy ass band).

The final large part of my life, which has only been since I was 16, is computers. Yes, I probably spend too much time in front of one, but oh well. It started out with me just writing up my CS programs in high school. Then I started in on web desiging. That was when I made my first personal page, and still now it looks decent. As time moved on, I tried to find more and more creative ways to express myself on the web, but then I fell into this pit of making web pages for other people. This whole site i'm putting together is me fighting back and making something for myself for a change.

Another swing in my computer interests is gaming. I got into Starcraft this past summer, and it's addictive. And starting in September 98, I began playing Quake2 LMCTF. A fun little Q2 mod, and was instantly in a clan (knowing people HELP in todays world). Our clan rose from 52nd place to 18th place in only five matches. The clan then fell apart, and I moved over to another clan, which have definitely made me feel at home.

I guess that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed this, and I hope you enjoy "my" site.

Dan MacMartin - Thursday, December 10, 1998