Chris Byrne's personal page

Hi, my name is Chris Byrne, but you probably knew that or else you wouldn't be here. You may have known me as Chris Dinsmore, in fact I knew myself as that for a little over twenty years, but I started out as a Byrne, and I'm a Byrne again for the past few years. It's a long story, but the gist of it is, my parents were divorced when I was two, and I used my mothers maiden name 'til I was 21.

I was born to an Irish father and American mother, but I mostly grew up in the Boston area, starting off in Southie, living all over the south shore but mostly going to school in Milton.

I started working at thirteen, first cleaning offices, then restoring and refinishing furniture in my uncles shop. Ever since then I've always loved working with wood, especially antiques, and musical instruments. I'd always been into computers, so when friends started asking me to fix theirs I naturally decided to turn it into a business, and I founded my first business while still in high school.

I was involved in several accelerated learning programs in school and already had some college credit by the time I was 16, and to be quite honest I'd had enough of high school, so I took my placement exams, aced my equivalency exam and was accepted into Embry Riddle, a small private engineering college in central Arizona.

On my 17th birthday I took two major steps. First, after four years of lessons and waiting I got my private pilots license. Second, and much more important to my life I joined the US Air Force reserves (actually I was 16 when I first went in to the office, but they make you wait 'til you're 17 before it counts). I entered as an enlisted man, went in through the SMP program.

I was planning on a career as a commissioned officer in the Air Force until Clinton was re-elected. Soon after his second inauguration he issued an executive order "more equitably re-distributing career paths and training allocations between the races and sexes". Basically what that meant was my career path was being removed from me, and given to a black, Hispanic, or Asian woman. Actually it turns out it was a very nice black girl who I knew quite well, and who washed out six weeks into the program, to no-ones surprise, including herself. At this point the AF gave me a few options. I could go to Japan, Korea, Germany, El Segundo CA, Alice Springs Australia, Minot North Dakota, or I could be "commissioned into the inactive reserve to serve the remainder of your term of service measuring eight years or until such time as the needs of the service require it". Guess which I did?

So Clinton had just "restructured" the air force, and my primary career path was closed. Not only that but my secondary career path, aerospace engineering was also highly dependant on that same Air Force. Besides which I didn't really want to spend my career designing door hinges. Anyway, the entire time I was in college, I had kept my computer business going, and I helped set up and run a local ISP (along with a few other side jobs when business was slow, which it often was). I had decided to get a double major in Computer Science because I liked the course, and because I had to take most of the classes for my primary degree anyway. Combine those with the fact that this was the early '90s and BINGO!, I decided to head full force into the computer business.

In '96-'97 I started doing serious consulting work for the biggies, the federal and state govt's, banks, insurance companies etc... I switched back and forth between IT consulting, and physical security work (audits, testing, electronic security, process and procedure etc.., and some principal protection). I took a few permanent jobs but primarily did contract work for the next few years. I also started writing for a couple of web sites and magazines. Thanks to the wonders of the "Internet Bubble" I was a paper millionaire at 19. Thanks to the joys of dishonest partners and customers that don't pay I was also homeless that same year.

Also in '97 I met my future wife Drea. We met online, she moved in with me after six weeks sight unseen, and we were together for four years (married for two of them)

Over the next few years I rode the startup rollercoaster a few times, moving around the country, traveling around the world on assignments, and going from rich to poor and back again. In 2000, I went back to the silicon valley for another computer industry startup job. My stock was worth something like 12.5 million but they laid me off one week before I would have received the first installment. Turns out I was just the first of many to go, and over the next year the company laid off some 80% of it's staff, then sold themselves to another company, screwing all the little guys, while giving their execs a nice fat paycheck in the process. Nice guys eh.

While we're on the subject, here's a link to my take on life and work in and around the San Francisco Bay Area during the boom.

So anyway, I was pretty burned out on life and work in the valley, and I decided to screw around for a few months and do some contracting when BAM!!! someone offers me my dream job in Ireland.

By this time I was dreading the prospect of another 24/7/52 industry job and I desperately needed a change. Also by this time my marriage had completely fallen apart (it was civilly annulled later that year) and so in early 2001 I relocated to Ireland and co-founded an infosec startup

We were doing quite well until 9/11 but after that the market in Ireland went down the drain completely. Nobody was spending any money at all, and my partners pulled out of the business leaving us with no operating capital (and using up what little money I had left after the tech crash), and so in December 2001 the company was dissolved and what was left was folded back into one of the partners companies

Since then I've been doing freelance work, sometimes doing well, sometimes not. I did some great work with MTI in Europe, and the U.S. and was with Dell for a while. Unfortunately by late 2002 the market hadn't really recovered in Ireland.

Then everything was kind of put on hold when I found out my mother was seriously sick again. She's been fighting cancer since I was seven, And has come close to death a few times (once they told her she had at most a few weeks left), but she had always recovered. Well it looked like maybe she wouldn't this time, so I decided to head back to the states for a while to be with my family (my brother lived near my mother in Scottsdale, AZ)

Thankfully my mother did partially recover, though she has permanent damage to her spine, and is in chronic pain. Her illness caused the breakup of her second marriage and she's now going through a nasty divorce.

The first couple of months I was back I didn't work, or even try to. Really, I just wanted to be with my family and what not. Then in September of 2003 I signed on with a Tempe based consulting company called Calence for a long term contract. I then spent the next ten months averaging 60+ hours a week, and not having a weekend off.  I’m updating this about twelve hours after Calence and I parted ways. I’ll probably stay independent again for a while, I’m more than a bit burned with the grind of the last nine months.

Even more fun, soon after I got back I went down to the Social Security Administration to get a new card, and a few days later got a letter telling me to report to my nearest armed forces recruiter or enlistment processing center. So I go down there and find out that I had been issues a recall order in 2002 (just before my reserve contract expired) and that I had been recalled to extended active duty.  Of course I hadn't responded to the order because I was in Ireland at the time and didn't receive it. Anyway they want to see me every six weeks until I make weight at which point I will be processed etc... We'll see what happens there.

As far as the physical stuff goes, I'm a 6'2" (188cm) tall white male. I've got short wavy red-brown hair (it's really red, but its so dark it looks brown. You can see how red it is in my beard though), and blue eyes.  I weigh about 295lbs (21st or 132kg ), still more muscle than fat, but it aint easy. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find suits in 54 long or shirts in 20/39 ;-). For the past few years my weight has fluctuated between 315 and 365 but over the past few months I've lost something like 60lbs. I'm hoping to get down to 265 or so, which is the weight I played football at in  high school. Maybe it's a bit immature but I often have people try and guess my weight. I've never had one get it right yet since I look like I weigh about 250.

I played football and power lifted in high school, but I went to a university with no athletics, so those stopped (and the belly started). But when I went to Ireland I was recruited by, and played for three seasons with the Dublin Rebels of the IAFL (a semi-pro league affiliated with the European Football league. About the same level as Arena League). We were the Shamrock Bowl champions and Charleroi trophy winners (respectively; the all Ireland, and Euro leagues, version of the Superbowl).

I'm a fanatical reader of books, a role player (tabletop and live action), and a member of the society for creative anachronisms. I play paintball when ever I can, and I play guitar and sing (classic rock, blues, and soul). Of course I'm into computers and gaming, though more for the cool, fun, stressing the hardware to the max aspects, and of course the stress relief. I still write, both poetry and prose, plus the occasional tech article which may or may not get published. I'm also a private pilot, and fly whenever I can afford it, or have the time, neither of which has occurred since 1998.

To your right you'll see a few reasonably current pics of me (from 1999 - 2003). My looks really don't change (I've looked almost exactly the same since I was 13) the only difference being weight and hair (or lack thereof) on the top, and/or front of the skull. As of today I pretty much look like the picture at the bottom minus the facial hair.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your stroll through my life.