DeerMagnet

[bartmanS4]

Why he would leave instructions to clear all history of his existence, is left to speculation..

This is what I find really strange. The posts were edited in February, he died in May. Could be completely unrelated or...

[Ldub]

Premeditated suicide, or WPT remain the two most obvious options IMO.

[VX KAT]

That's def him, cuz I recall he worked at a Wal-Mart distribution center.

Ya know I noticed he'd deleted a ton of posts several MONTHS ago, I'm absolutely sure it's been months. I thought it was kind of weird, but I know in the last year or so before his VX blew up, he was a little pissy about giving up some of his data.

If you recall he wouldn't share his big mega data base of something, and vt_maverick asked him repeatedly for it, IIRC even offered to convert it to a usable format or something like that.

It was about that time that he started the thread "biggest data thread ever" or something like that. That thread popped up on the home page just a few days ago, so somebody bumped it, was that you Scott?

I'd have to search it down, but maybe mav can jump in and plug the gaps in my recollection on what the data was that he got kind of touchy about sharing.

Regardless....sad to hear this news.

[Scott Harness]

Rip

[VX KAT]

Just realized all the edits were made in February 2013 (not 2014), so that was before he passed away. Still don't know why he would have deleted so much info, but that explains my recollection of it being many months ago.

[Ldub]

It was about that time that he started the thread "biggest data thread ever" or something like that. That thread popped up on the home page just a few days ago, so somebody bumped it, was that you Scott? (

My last reply gave it tha bumpy-bump...

[VX KAT]

My last reply gave it tha bumpy-bump...

Well YEAH! .....if I'd actually opened that thread and read the last few posts I'da been all edumacated on that! DUH! .........

[nocturnalVX]

RIP man...

[Y33TREKker]

Sad news. RIP Deermagnet.

[vt_maverick]

I thought it was kind of weird, but I know in the last year or so before his VX blew up, he was a little pissy about giving up some of his data.
...
If you recall he wouldn't share his big mega data base of something, and vt_maverick asked him repeatedly for it, IIRC even offered to convert it to a usable format or something like that.
...
I'd have to search it down, but maybe mav can jump in and plug the gaps in my recollection on what the data was that he got kind of touchy about sharing.

Well I suppose he may haunt me for this, but here's the story. Mark liked to swoop into troubleshooting threads every now and again and drop some amazing official Isuzu document that somehow only he had. On other occasions he would write posts that simply alluded to something he had in his stash, then refuse to provide it when asked. So at some point I got really irritated at his flaunting and started publicly pushing him to make his stash available to the community at large. In particular he had a CD that contained a program where you could query an Isuzu master VX production database by VIN and see the original exterior and interior colors, date of production (not in-service data but when your VX actually rolled of the assembly line), etc. It would have been absolutely invaluable for establishing how many VX's remain in production, which would have been useful if/when our trucks reach collector status. As an example I spent hundreds of hours compiling an ultimately incomplete list of Foxfire VINs from AutoTrader, eBay, CL, etc., when his CD could have provided a fully comprehensive list in seconds. This is assuming the data on the CD could have been extracted into a list format, but since Mark refused to post the CD contents to his cloud drive or take it to a local data management company (I researched and provided him a list) we'll likely never have access to that data ever again. He did finally provide most/all of the other information to the community, but it took a lot of harassment.

I hope Mark rests in peace but I also hope everyone here will remember his story as a cautionary tale of the consequences of hoarding any VX info you may have. If all you have are hard copies, get them scanned and posted. And even if you only have parts it would be a good idea to make sure a loved one knows of this site and can post them if something happens to you. These recommendations may sound cold but frankly if we don't follow them we may be relegated to "barn finds" as the only path to new info/parts.

RIP Mark.

[VXorado]

He did finally provide most/all of the other information to the community, but it took a lot of harassment.

It's too bad he chose to later remove all of the information that we were "gifted" by his database. Now no one will be able to look back at some of his past posts... all worthless threads that just say "edit."

Oh well, at least he died doing what the obituary said he loved. I'll always remember his stock Vehicross that was pushing 300K miles before suffering engine failure. Might still be the highest mileage VX out there and I wonder what happened to it?

RIP.