...And it's only Monday!

Hey kids...still around. Things have been a little crazy lately. I'll fill you in on some of those details later. But right now...I thought I'd give you a quick summary of my day just to remind you that my life is still incredibly random! haha

So yeah...my day in a nutshell...


bloody stairs, dime bags of crack, talks of a promotion, super-glued penises, squealing golf cart tires, orthopedic shoes, myspace stalker/future roommate, The Hills, and Donovan Marcelle doing Tina Turner on Showtime at the Apollo


I'll have to fill you in on more specifics later...but it's waaay too late here. Oh, and the sad part? All in all, this really wasn't all that random of a day for me. Always something colorful...always something exciting! haha

Welcome to my life...

So I was hungry just now and went to the pantry to find nothing I really wanted to snack on. I had half a bag of chocolate chips in there leftover from...well who knows. Anyway, having no food I thought briefly "Oh, I'll just make some cookies...that could be tasty (in like 2 hours when I finally finished...and knowing me...they probably won't be all that tasty)."

So, I start reading the back of the bag to see what all I need to make cookies. Turns out, I didn't have about half of the ingredients, so I scrapped that idea.

Now I'm sitting on the sofa snacking on...half a bag of chocolate chips! haha

Stereotypes are fun......

.....especially when the complete opposite happens.

So I'm in Atlanta last week, rolling through Buckhead, up Peachtree. Weather was nice, windows were down.

I pull up at a traffic light next to this black guy in a convertible. I was rather annoyed because the music coming from his car was so loud I had to turn up my radio just to hear what I was listening to in my car.

Yep, he was blaring Michael Buble so loudly that it interfered with the rap music I was playing in my car.

I laughed at the irony.

Best friends...EVER!! (Only Mark!)

Oh geez...ready for another Only Mark story? This one's an instant classic for ya!

Yesterday evening I was getting ready to go meet a friend of mine down at the park for a run. It was about an hour before I had to meet him, so I planned to run some errands and was getting my stuff together. Then it came time to find my keys. I looked in all the usual places - the table by the door, kitchen counter, dining room table, dresser, even in the lock of my door in case I had left them hanging in the deadbolt - but they were no where to be found!

So I stopped myself for a moment and thought, when was the last time you saw your keys? I then realized that I hadn't actually left the house to drive anywhere since coming home from the horse race on Saturday (sad, I know, but I was resting/cleaning), so it's entirely possible they were where ever I left them after that. Then I suddenly remembered that they had been in the back seat of my friend's car, coming home from the horse race on Saturday. I rode back from the race with someone else and used the spare house key that another friend had to get back into my house, since we beat the friend with my keys home. Uh oh!

First I call the friend who may or may not have the keys, but get no answer so I send her a text that says

"Ahh! Possible crisis. Please call me ASAP!"

So then I call the friend I'm supposed to meet at the park and tell him that I'm just going to have to run around the neighborhood unless he wants to come pick me up. He offers to pick me up, so the run is back on. Meanwhile, the friend with the keys calls back and I tell her what's up. The conversation goes something like this:

Friend: Hey, what's up?
Me: I'm going to ask you a question and I REALLY hope the answer is no.
Friend:...okay?
Me: Are my keys in your backseat?
Friend: Oh...I hope that answer is no. Hold on, I'm pulling into my apartment complex now, I'll check.
Me: Okay. I think they were in the cup holder in the armrest in your back seat. I'm not 100% sure if I took them out of there or not.
Friend: Well, let's see...the arm rest is folded up and...yes, your keys are in it.

Yeah, apparently someone in the back seat had folded up the arm rest with my keys still in it, thus causing no one to notice them on Saturday. Why is this a big deal? I mean, why can't I just pop over to the friend's house to pick up the keys? Well...this particular friend is the one who lives in Greenville that I went to visit at the end of February. For all you non-South Carolinians out there, Greenville is about 100 miles from me. This is no quick trip across town. Now I'm stuck in my house, while the only set of keys to my car is 100 miles away. Outstanding!

Ordinarily I would have just told the friend to overnight the keys to me and I would have stayed holed up in the house for another day...but, I had a job interview scheduled this morning. And with Columbia having no real public transit, I thought showing up to a job interview in a cab would be a bit...well, ghetto, haha. I was racking my brain trying to think of anyone I knew who might be free to take me to the interview or had an extra car I could borrow, but was coming up empty. Thankfully, my friend is the best ever! This how the rest of the conversation went:

Friend: Okay, well do you have anywhere important you need to be tonight?
Me: No. I mean, I'm about to go running, but someone's picking me up for that. The problem is I have that interview at 11:00 tomorrow morning.
Friend: Alright, well I have a massage scheduled at 6:00, but I can hit the road after that.
Me: (purely being polite) Oh, well you don't have to drive all the way down here, I'm sure I can work something out.
Friend: No, no, no! I can come down tonight and give them to you. I've done stuff like this before. I understand!
Me: Seriously? You are the best friend ever. When you get here, I'm buying you dinner or something. Are you sure you don't mind?
Friend: Yeah, no, it's cool. Is it okay if I go to my massage first and then come down after that?
Me: Haha, yeah, I think that's okay.

See, I love it. Completely unprompted, without even hinting, my friend volunteers to spend her entire evening driving a total of 200 miles just to bring me my keys (well, and my CD case which was also left in her back seat, but she was going to mail that anyway, despite my protest).

But that's not the end...

My running friend shows up to take me to the park and asks about the status of my keys. I tell him that Greenville Friend is driving down that evening to drop them off and, without missing a beat, he says "Oh, she doesn't have to drive all the way down. After we run I'll take you up there and we can meet her halfway." Seriously?! I have the best friends in the whole world! What I love best about this is that, if I were ever to receive a call from a friend saying I had their keys or they needed my help or whatever, I would immediately be on the road no matter what time of day or night, no questions asked. So the fact that I have friends who are willing to do the same for me is so amazing and comforting!

But yeah...definitely an Only Mark instant classic. Not only did I leave my only car key in someone else's car, not only did those keys end up 100 miles away leaving me stranded in my house, but it took me 2 days to realize this, haha! Who Else But Mark?!

Seriously...Only Mark!!

I come from a clumsy family...it's no secret. There was, for instance, the time my aunt (who is a well-educated high school principal, no less) super-glued her finger to her forehead...no lie. There are countless other stories I can't remember right now, but it's clear that I too have inherited that gene.

Yesterday I tore up my thumb a bit, basically ripping my cuticle off. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a terribly impressive injury and I doubt I'll be significantly handicapped by it, but what makes it so uniquely Mark is how it happened.

We had beautiful weather here yesterday and, for once, I actually had a completely free afternoon, so I decided it'd be a great opportunity to get out and try to rake up some leaves in my backyard. I know what you're thinking...

"Mark, did you seriously injure yourself raking leaves? I mean what's so dangerous about that...wow, you are clumsy!"

But oh no, I only wish it were something as great as that...maybe a horrible incident with the prongs of the rake or a rogue stick jumping out of the leaf pile into my skin. Nope.

While raking, I decided it was also a good opportunity to try to tear down part of the ugly chain-link fence in my backyard. The fence was half falling down anyway, and will eventually get replaced with a real fence, so I figured, why keep making myself look at the eyesore. I hear you now...

"Ahh, so while taking apart the fence you cut yourself on the metal? The wrench slipped or something? That's not so bad...we've all done something like that."

Oh hardly!

Trying to remove some of the fence posts, I was having great difficulty. Not only are these things buried with cement poured around them, but a couple of them were placed right next to a large old oak tree (hence the reason I had to rake) and it seems the roots have grown all around these posts. So, I decided it was time for me to go buy that pick axe I've been meaning to get and just chop up the roots some. Thus, I headed down to the Home Depot. This is where the injury occurred.

"Wow, Mark...you got injured at Home Depot? What did you do, cut yourself on a saw blade? have a light fixture come crashing out of the ceiling at you? have one of those cans of paint in the mixing machine come flying out at you at 60 miles per hour? I mean...that is kinda clumsy, hahaha!"

Oh silly blog readers...you've learned nothing, have you.

No, my injury happened in the parking lot...before I even got into the store. How? By running into the car next to me...while walking. Yep! I was looking at something on my car while walking into the store and turned around only to find that I was a split second away from running into the truck next to me. Well, not so much the truck, as the large stack of particle board he had hanging 3 or 4 feet out of the bed of his truck. My natural reaction was to throw my hands up to protect my chest from the impact, but, in so doing, I just managed to run my thumb along the rough edge of the board and still smacked into it. So graceful!!

I got in the store and stopped at the front desk to ask for a band-aid. When I first walked in, it wasn't bleeding yet, but by the time the lady found a band-aid behind the counter it was. Rather profusely at that. Apparently when you rip off a cuticle the blood starts flowing rather well. I asked her for a tissue or something to mop up the blood and she found one of those little anti-septic 'wet naps'. After a short minute or so, that thing was pretty much saturated and she ran off to go find some more. She brought me out 2 or 3 more which also quickly turned red. haha I suggested we just go ahead and throw the band-aid on there in an effort to stop the bleeding and call it a day. Of course, once she saw how much I was bleeding she asked "Gosh, what happened?" To which I had to sheepishly look at her and admit "I walked into the car next to me in the parking lot." Actually...in an effort to save face I started to explain about the particle board hanging out of the bed, etc, but decided that didn't really help my case much, so I just hung my head low and mopped up the blood.

People get hurt everyday...but only I would do it in such a unique way...ugh!!

Rejected!

I wanted to add one more quick post before heading to bed...

Remember this post about my lack of fingerprints? Well, I finally got a notice in the mail from the state yesterday telling me that my finger print card had been rejected due to "ridge characteristics being not distinct or smudged." So now it seems it's official that my fingerprints are crap! haha I guess I'm gonna have to go get them printed again, but I don't know that we can expect different results. I mean, we tried at least 3 times the first go-round and I haven't exactly grown new fingers since then! I've left a voicemail for the person at the state to see if there was another way this could be done, instead of just submitting more bad fingerprints, but I doubt it.

Oh yeah...also in the mail yesterday I got a postcard saying there was a recall on my car, haha. I called the dealership today to learn that it was a false alarm (as though there's much left on my car that's original anyway) and apparently just some marketing push Nissan used to get people to try to schedule a service or something. He did ask how the car's doing (he and I are on a first name basis, remember?). I told him that the check engine light is still coming on and off constantly and that there's a loose wire in radio again, as the subwoofer keeps coming and going (reaaalllly annoying when you're listening to something like this and your bass goes out! Not cool!). I told him I just haven't had the time (or the patience, honestly) to take it up there again, but hopefully I'll make it soon. What fun!

Ugh...I was totally cruised...Jim McGreevey Style!

A couple weeks ago I decided to run down to Charleston to visit a friend. I haven't blogged about it yet and probably won't get around to it beyond this, so I'll give a brief run down now. Don't worry...I'll tell the part about getting cruised too...I know that's all you people care about anyway, freaks! :) You can just skip down there now if you want...it won't hurt my feelings, hahaha!

The weekend was a good time and a much needed escape for both me and my friend. It was kinda a last minute trip, so I didn't get in until really late on Friday night. Didn't do much then other than go to the friend's house, hang out for a bit and go to bed.

Saturday we slept in a bit, ran across town for some lunch and minor stalking. haha! Seriously, this is how random I am...especially when I get with this friend. We walk out of the restaurant and on the way to the car she says "Oh, while we're over here let's go do a little stalking," to which I replied very non-chalantly "Ok, sounds good." hahahaha This friend lived across the hall from me freshman year of college and we used to do all kinds of random crap like that...until she moved back to Charleston last May...grrr!! Anyway, I'd hardly call what we did stalking anyway...I'm a much more sophisticated stalker than that. We actually just rode by where her ex-bf worked to see if his new car was out there. After that, we rolled back into downtown and walked up and down King Street and did a bit of shopping. She took me down by the Market and we walked by her favorite wine bar. Fortunately for us, as we walked by I happened to notice that they opened at 4:00 and it was now 4:15...perfect time to start drinking!!!

We went in, grabbed a glass of wine, did some people watching (these girls came in and sat next to us that had all kinds of piercings...it was gross) and relaxed a bit. Later that night, we picked up a couple of her friends (sooo fun!!) and headed over to someone else's house who was having a wine party. We made an appearance there, had some wine, I had a sword fight in the living room with one of the friends (apparently the swords were decorative, but we used them as weapons) and rolled out. We headed back across town to a little bar on the beach to hear some 80's cover band that they all loved. I had about 3 more margaritas during this time and we had a really good time. The place didn't have a big crowd, but it was about 26 degrees that night, so I guess everyone was hibernating. I was screaming out Bon Jovi lyrics all night and lost my voice for a few days after that, but it was all good.

Slept in again Sunday morning, got some lunch, then drove across town to the BMW dealership to look at cars/possibly test drive them. Yeah...I've got her to become nearly as obsessed with them as I am and we'll both likely be purchasing them for our next cars. She'll probably be looking in the next 6 months or so, so we were justified in test driving, haha. Unfortunately, the dealership was closed on Sundays (I HATE it when dealerships close on Sundays). I just went home after that. It was a good weekend.

Okay...onto the CRUISING
Yeah, so I'm driving into Charleston on Friday, and, like I said, it was late at night. I get to the Charleston area at about 1:30 am and really had to go to the bathroom. My friend lives on the opposite side of town so I knew I had at least half an hour left to go and didn't know how many gas stations would still be open at that time of night, so I just pulled into a rest area right outside of town. When I pulled in, there was just one other car there and that belonged to a guy who was waiting outside for his girlfriend. I went into the rest area, did my business and walked back to the car.

As I'm walking back, this truck pulls up and parks in the spot right next to mine. I thought it was a little odd, but just figured he wanted to be closer to the sidewalk or something so I just ignored it. Got back into my car and cranked it up to get the heat running again and started looking around for the directions to my friends house. When I was looking around, I glanced out my passenger window and realized this guy was still sitting in his truck...staring at me...with his window down (it was 24 degrees at the time!)!! What's worse, when I glanced over there, he gave me one of those head nods to say "Sup?" or something. I just kinda gave him a funny look and went back to reading my directions. Mind you...I have pretty dark tinted windows on my car, so he had to be staring hard core to even realize I had looked in that direction. As I'm reading my directions, I'm very much aware that he is STILL sitting in his car...clearly not trying to get out and use the bathroom! When I'm done with my directions (it's been about a minute or two by now) the other couple backs out of their parking space down the row and I decide it's time to go (I'm not gonna be left alone with this guy!). I put the car in reverse look behind me out the passenger side again to back up. And again, he's still staring, still has the window down and gives me another head nod! Seriously buddy? What!? I just back out and start to drive off. Of course, I'm watching him in the rear view mirror as I leave to see what his next move is. Sure enough, he just puts the truck in reverse and leaves the rest area! Yeah...he was definitely just there trying to get all Jim McGreevey on me!

Okay, seriously now, people! Is this somehow okay in some people's minds? I mean of all the gay guys I know...I don't think any of them are the type of people who would go to a rest area looking for sex!? (Granted, I've never met Larry Craig or Bob Allen, but still.) I know I'd certainly never go there looking for a woman...and even if I accidentally found one there...I don't think I'd want to keep one that was willing to have rest area sex. To all my friendly gay readers (and maybe even the unfriendly gay readers, if you're out there), please let me know...is this acceptable in the gay underworld that I don't know about? haha I mean...of all the ways men have tried to pick me up...this is among the skeeziest. Granted...this guy did appear to be under 30 (although fat) and he didn't appear to be homeless...so it's definitely not the skeeziest pick-up I've ever had attempted on me(hahaha...someone remind me to blog about "Man-Fun Guy" and "Homeless Man" sometime...funny stories!) but still! I'm just glad he didn't pull up 3 minutes earlier when I was still standing at the urinal! There definitely would have been some of this action, haha!!

Cruised at a rest area outside of Charleston at 1:30 am...haha...Who else, but me?! Oh Lord!

10(ish) Random Facts about Mark

I've seen other bloggers do lists of this nature and I always find them fun. Sorta lets you know random information about the people you're reading about that might not regularly come up in blog posts or conversation. I'm saying 10 things b/c that sounds like a good goal, but I really have no idea how many I'll end up with, so don't hold me to that. It just depends on how random I really want to get. Enjoy!

1. I was a junior in high school before I ever saw it snowing and a senior before I saw it stuck to the ground. (To be fair, I know I did at least see it on the ground once when I was like two, but I don't remember that at all, so I don't count it).
2. Pretty much every night before bed I turn on the music channels my cable company gives me (yeah...I'm the one guy who uses those). I pretty much always turn it to the "Singers & Standards" channel and listen to the old Sinatra songs, Billie Holiday, Ella, Louie Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Bobby Darrin, Vic Damone and others, as well as people covering their songs later--except when they play Johnny Mathis songs on here...I ALWAYS change it immediately. I can't stand him. Otherwise, the station helps me relax and unwind before bed.
3. I have rather varied music tastes, depending on the mood. In addition to the aforementioned standards, I like everything from early 90's love ballads (actually...I secretly LOVE these) to old school hip hop to the latest rap and even some country (especially from the 80's & 90's). Oh and I love old soul stuff too...like Aretha and Ray Charles, etc. Pretty much the only thing I can never get into is rock music (metal, emo, soft rock, pop rock, whatever...it just doesn't do it for me).
4. I really enjoy eating, but do not like cooking. There's probably only about 4 different dishes I make that don't start out in the freezer...and even those 4 don't require more than a few steps to prepare.
5. I'm not particularly a pet person, but I'll probably end up getting a small to mid-sized dog before too terribly long just to have some company. Especially if I don't get a girlfriend soon! :(
6. I have rather random sleep patterns. Some nights I can sleep like 3 hours and other nights I can be in bed for 14+ hours and I usually wake up feeling the same. Also, when I sleep I go straight into a very deep heavy sleep meaning I almost never remember dreams, I don't move AT ALL when I sleep, and have a very difficult time coming out of a sleep. When I was younger this used to drive my parents crazy...I even slept straight through a tornado that spun off a tropical storm which knocked a huge oak tree down less than 10 feet from my bedroom window. I woke up having no idea it even rained. It's possible that I have a form of narcolepsy which causes this, but it remains undiagnosed as I've not bothered to get a sleep test done.
7. I have a new mattress ordered. Maybe this will help alleviate #6 and let me sleep a little better.
8. I used to be a rather picky eater. Up until about 2 years ago I had a strict rule against eating anything that smelled bad. This included seafood and anything from the continent of Asia. I've expanded my horizons and actually quite enjoy fish now and will eat a bit of well prepared, high quality Chinese food (aka - no Chinese buffets!). Much other Asian cuisine is still off limits. I also don't like very spicy things.
   
9. I'm a car nut. When I was a kid, the only toys I ever wanted to play with were little Hot Wheels & Matchbox cars. I literally had hundreds of them and knew each and every one. Every time I'd get a dollar for something I'd save it until we went to Wal-Mart and I'd pick out a new car. They cost 73 cents plus 4 cents tax. I have no idea what I ever did with the remaining 23 cents. To this day, I am still obsessed with cars and love driving. When it's a bit warmer, I wash my car at least once a week (I've been slacking a bit lately) and the inside is always immaculate. I usually drive a minimum of 20,000 miles a year just around town and on random road trips. My favorite cars are BMW's and my next car will be one. You don't even want to hear my dream pimped out BMW...that's just stupid! :)
10. I was in the Boy Scouts from 1st grade until 12th (although I really didn't do anything with them for most of high school). I became an Eagle Scout when I was 18. I also was in the band for 6 years but quit before my senior year b/c it wasn't very fun to me...and I thought most of the people in it were weird and it was not the best for my social standing. I was student body Vice President my senior year instead.
11. I'm one of those people who, when he finds something he likes at a restaurant, will continue to order the same thing every time without ever wanting to try other dishes. For example...Crusted Chicken Romano at the Cheesecake Factory! MMMMMMMM
12. Although the Cheesecake factory is my favorite restaurant, I've never lived in a city for more than 2 months that actually had one. I've eaten at them in at least 7 or 8 different locations and the current one is more than 85 miles from my house. I've driven up there before just for dinner and then come straight home.
13. When I was a kid my family had a pop-up camper that we would go camping in all the time. On one of these trips when I was about 3 years old I woke my parents up in the middle of the night bawling because my sister kept stealing the sheets and kicking me in her sleep. I never had to share a bed with her on a family vacation since then.
14. On another camping trip when I was around the same age, I was sitting on a sea wall fishing into Tampa Bay. I cast my pole and fell head first into the bay (it was only about a 2 foot high wall and about 1-2 feet of water, don't worry). Before resurfacing to find my sister laughing at me (knowing her, she probably pushed me), I somehow managed to grab two small fish in my hands. That is my first memory (and my first fish!) I was the only one who caught anything on that trip.

Well, I think 14 is enough information for now. This was kinda fun though. Remind me and I'll do it again sometime. Or, someone could just send me one of those random questionnaires and I'll repost it on the blog. But let me catch up on all my current posts first! :)

Marketing Crisis

Here's a fun OnlyMark Post for you...

So about 11:45 tonight my cell phone starts ringing. Not just any ring, however, it's the ring (don't ask) I have set for when my boss calls. "Why is my phone making that noise at this hour of the night?" I think to myself. "Guess I'd better answer this one instead of screening like normal."

I answer the phone and my boss is on the other end and says "Mark...I'm calling you with a marketing emergency!" Silly old me didn't really know there could be such thing as a marketing emergency, but I oblige her and let her talk.

Backstory time - At work, we're kinda in the process of revamping our marketing strategy and are basically trying to hone in on a certain group of female consumers. To meet this end, we signed a contract to do either 6 mos. or 1 year's (I don't remember which) worth of ads in a local magazine geared toward women. We spent a lot of time working with the ad rep and designer to get just the right ad, as this basically kicks off our whole new campaign. The primary purpose of this ad is to advertise our new website and lead the ladies to our site, thereby building a relationship with them and ultimately turning them into clients. Sounds simple enough, right? Basic marketing theory. Except when the magazine publishes the WRONG web address!

Yes, that's right, despite seemingly 700 proofs sent to us (many of which happening when I was in Orlando...as though I wasn't busy enough with the convention) somehow the ad that went to print included the wrong web address. It's not completely wrong, like they printed www.milk.com for an orange juice company or something, they just left a word out of our address (i.e. whoelsebut.com instead of whoelsebutmark.com). Unfortunately, a certain adage about horseshoes and hand grenades is ringing true.

Anyway, the random part of the story is that, after my boss tells me this, my first reaction is to not believe her. I don't know why, I just need to see it for myself. So it's midnight, 26 degrees outside (which is like one of the coldest of the year in SC) and Mark hops in his car to drive downtown in search of a woman's magazine. Does it get more random than that? haha!

Of course, when I do find a newspaper stand that has this magazine, I grab it, check the ad and, sure enough, the boss was right! Now I'm currently on a hunt to purchase the misprinted web address so we can link it to our real address. That has opened up a whole new can of worms b/c none of the domain registering places I've talked to seem to be able to find this domain, but I won't get into that. At least they have 24 hour customer service and their customer service people actually do speak English, unlike certain other companies!

Despite the randomness of this tale, I do take a bit of solace in two things. #1 - the approval of the final proof came from my boss, not me, so if the error was on our end, I can't be blamed! (of course, regardless I'm sure my boss will blame the ad rep for the magazine, but oh well...I'm sure I'll manage to get us a month or two free out of it!) #2 - At least my car battery didn't die or something as I was sitting on abandoned Main Street at midnight when it was 26 degrees, haha. I was sure something like that would happen to make it an ordeal, like usual. Oh yeah...my car battery has been dying lately. It's only 2.5 years old which is way to early to be dying, but, of course it is! Arrrgh! Oh, and the check engine light is back on again. This is the 3rd time it's come on since they supposedly repaired the last problem. I guess it's time to take it in again!

Alright...I'm outta here, just thought I'd share that with ya!

My life is so random!

I really had nothing planned for tonight and had actually planned to skip out of work a little earlier than I have lately, go home, put on something comfortable and veg out on the couch all night. But, this afternoon my cell phone started beeping that it had a low battery. The battery life had gotten really short lately...like after about an hour or hour and a half of talk time it was telling me it was dead...and the phone is only 6 or 7 months old! The low battery beeping was really getting on my nerves so I decided I had to go by the Verizon store after work to get it taken care of. Unfortunately, the Verizon store is across the street from the mall, which is exactly where I did not want to be on a Friday afternoon 3 days before Christmas. I ended up getting a new battery out of them and went ahead and upgraded my plan since I've been running out of minutes lately.

On my way home, I decided I needed to stop by the neighbor's house to pick up a dish I left there after the Christmas dinner. I was going to call first, but thought I'd just pop on in if someone's car was outside. Her car was there so I get out and knock on the door. She hollered something, but I couldn't hear so I just kinda hung out on the porch for a minute. After a minute or two, I see through the window sticking her head around the corner in a towel. haha! She invites me in and then goes to get dressed. She tells me that she was actually taking a bath and waiting for Hot Crazy Girl to come over. We pour ourselves some wine as we catch up a bit and she tells me she's kinda frustrated with HCG, as she had been waiting for her for about an hour and a half by now...told ya she's kinda flakey! Anyway, the neighbor tells me that she and HCG are going to pick up a guy she went to high school with who's now a chef down in Charleston and he was going to make dinner for them. She then invited me to tag along! Considering I had been excited about going home making some spaghetti (that's about as much cooking as I do), I definitely wasn't going to pass up the chance to have a chef make me dinner!

Since I hadn't yet been home from work yet, I ran around the corner to drop off some stuff and then went back to the neighbor's after a couple minutes. HCG arrived and we headed off to get the chef. We picked him up and went to the grocery store and followed him around as he bought whatever it is he needed. The three of us split the bill (figured it wouldn't be right to make the chef pay for it and cook!) and we went back to the neighbor's where we began the cooking. And of course by "we began the cooking" I mean me, the neighbor and HCG made ourselves some cocktails and went into the living room while the chef was in the kitchen cooking. The neighbor did go in to keep him company after a while, but since me and HCG didn't know him we just stayed in the living room chatting. He ended up making us shrimp and grits. It was actually really funny b/c since he's a chef, it was actually garnished and presented in a way you'd expect to see at a restaurant, but not necessarily on your dinner table. I'm not really a big grits fan, but it was a good meal. The grits didn't seem to have much flavor, but then again, grits rarely do...you mainly just taste cheese or butter or whatever you put in them anyway. It sure was a lot better than I could have/would have ever done! We stayed chatting and hanging out until 11 or 11:30.

Just so random...a quick, unannounced stop at a friend's turns into cocktails and a personal chef! I guess that's an Only Mark story if ever there was one! I have a fun life! lol

Hittin' the Highway

Oh goodness, faithful readers, do I ever have a great "Only Mark" story for you! Definitely one of those situations that probably only I could get into. I'm not sharing details yet, but it should be a good one.

Since I'm only teasing you with that story, I'll give you another fun "Only Mark" story that happened recently.

So a couple weeks ago, my bosses (they're a married couple) and I decided we needed to head to Atlanta for a seminar with our parent company over there. The seminar was from about 7-9 in the evening and Atlanta is about a 3 or 4 hour drive, I knew it'd be a long night. We left the office at about 4:30 or so and hit the road. My boss decided we'd take his car, so off we go. We get about 2 hours up the road or so and decide to go through a drive through for something to eat. After we get our food, my boss announces that he can't eat and drive, so I volunteer to take over at the wheel. This is when it gets interesting...

As I start backing out of the parking space, I notice the bright lights are on in the car. It was just starting to get dark, so I just wanted to turn them down to the regular lights. Seeing me look around for the way to do that, my boss chimes in with "Oh, don't bother trying to turn the lights down, that's all we've got!" Apparently they were having some sort of electrical issues which caused the low beams to not work, just the high beams. We were already running a little bit behind, but, of course, not longer after we get back on the road, we hit a major traffic back up on the interstate. We never did figure out what was going on, but basically, we lost nearly half an hour sitting in stop and go traffic. When we finally get back to the open road, I really have to move that SUV to avoid missing the entire seminar. Fortunately I have torrid history of driving at very high speeds, so I was quite comfortable with this. So here I am, flying down the highway in a big ol' truck at 80+ mph with nothing but my high beams on. Yeah...I think much of the state of Georgia was pissed at me for tailgating them with my bright lights on that night...oh well.

We go to the seminar...it was a good one, worth the drive, and then it was time to head home. My boss was actually quite tired, and I don't think he likes driving at night that much (especially with only the brights), so I hopped into the driver's seat again. With the bright lights a-blazin', we roll back up I-85. Running low on gas and getting hungry, we pull over near Commerce, Georgia. It's nearly midnight at this time, which was actually nice because there was a lot less traffic to offend with my headlights. As I'm pulling out of the gas station, I see rain drops begin to fall on the windshield. When my bosses see me start fiddling around to turn on the windshield wipers, they just start laughing. Apparently, as part of the aforementioned electrical problems, the windshield wipers also were not functional. Yeah, and my hopes that the rain was just a passing sprinkle were dashed as well.

I hit the interstate and proceed to start driving through very heavy rain that was probably one of the hardest rains we've had in months (well, maybe since the last time I drove back from Atlanta when the air was broken in my car so all the windows fogged up and I could hardly see). It was certainly an interesting time, my one boss was sleeping in the back seat and his wife was sitting patiently next to me listening to me ramble on about one thing or another for pretty much the whole drive home. I'm not sure why I was so chatty at that hour, perhaps I was still excited from the seminar, perhaps I was just a bit tired and was trying to keep myself awake, or perhaps I was just trying to distract her (or me) from the fact that on more than one occasion I was having quite a bit of difficulty seeing the road. At any rate, we finally returned home at about 2:30 in the morning or so.

But, yeah, I was driving down the interstate, in someone else's car, at 1:00 in the morning with only bright lights and no windshield wipers in the pouring down rain...and do it all as calmly as ever, as though there was nothing wrong at all. Who else but Mark? haha

I guess all that time spent driving through torrential downpours in Florida finally paid off. Good times!