Mark My Words

7 Things You Don’t Know, And Probably Don’t Care, About Me

At 1500 hours this afternoon I became the next “victim” of that seven random facts about me game. As it’s the first time I’ve been tagged in one of these, and that I found out some pretty cool new things about my tagger, I thought it was only fair to join in. You know, for the kids. Plus everybody likes an excuse to talk about themselves, right?

It was IAmKat who tagged me and you can read about her here. When she contacted me on Twitter to tell me I’d been tagged I was thrilled, obviously, as she’s one of the very few people I know on Twitter from the UK! So, here goes:

1. I used to play a lot of football and although I never made it as a professional I had trials with Blackburn Rovers, Bradford City, Leeds United and Manchester United. My dad was a professional footballer, he played for Darlington and Hull City.
2. I’ve been running my own “consultancy” business since 2006 at the tender age of 20. I started freelancing off the back of working at a global pharmaceutical company who are now my main client. They found out I could use computers and could talk to people about how to use them more effectively. People skills aren’t generally associated with technologists. The rest as they say is history.
3. I never wanted to go to University. Off the back of getting 6 “A*” grade and 3 “A” grades at General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) level, and 4 (4 AS, 3 A2) “A” grades at Advanced Level I’d had enough of education. Safe to say I ended up at University a year later, got a First Class Honours and made the Faculty of Engineering Dean’s List. So… yeah.
4. I am a metaller! Though I don’t paint my nails black or wear guy-liner and manscara. My favourite band is German industrial metallers Rammstein who I’ve been to see 3 times (so far). They were the first band I saw live way back in 2002 and were supported by Raging Speedhorn and American Head Charge. I’ve also been to see alexisonfire, Apocalyptica, Biffy Clyro, Judas Priest, Kiss, Slayer, Slipknot, and The Wildhearts to name just a few.
5. I am currently single, and have had two “proper” girlfriends. I dated both for around two years each, though not at the same time. Strangely both relationships ended in the same way! I don’t talk to either of them today.
6. My name is derived from old Latin “Mart-kos” meaning “consecrated to the god Mars” (thanks Wikipedia). I was born in March, which comes from ancient Rome where it was named Martius after Mars, the Roman god of war. I was born in 1986, signified in the Chinese zodiac as the year of the Fire Tiger. To break the chain of this manly semiotics I am also a Pisces. On name-related facts, my surname is also in the dictionary. And no, I will not sell you my aircraft.
7. My first holiday abroad was to Italy in 2005 and my second was to Orlando, Florida in 2007. I had to wear lots of suncream as my fair skin (which is, I suspect, from my Scottish ancestry) couldn’t take much of the heat!

So there you have it, 7 things about me. Now I get to tag 7 people myself (well, went for a seemingly random 11 in case anyone’d been asked already):

1. CiscoGIII
2. jlojlo
3. girlygeekdom
4. PhilBaumann
5. goldenskye
6. Berci
   
7. cerro
8. timbuckteeth
   
9. josiefraser
10. wardbunny
11. hpduong

Rules as copied from IAmKat’s blog:

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.