Mark profile picture

Mark

mcarpo

About Me

..I'm a native San Diegan (not born here, but moved when I was 2...close enough, as far as I'm concerned) who moved back at the end of 2005. After nearly 10 years of living in San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Pensacola, Virginia Beach, Ridgecrest and Brunswick, it's good to be home.Got my bachelor's in two-and-a-half years, then a master's in another year, then realized I wasn't ready to start working. So I stayed in grad school, until I decided to see the world and join the Navy. An ironic choice for military service, considering my two duty stations ended up being in the middle of the desert (with no ocean anywhere nearby) and a P-3 squadron in Maine (which deployed to a USAF base). In all, I did four years in the Navy, zero percent of which was spent on a ship.Got out, wrote and produced TV news for a year (after a bunch of random internships that started in 1992), and now work for a technology company in Carlsbad. Married to a super-hot lady named Dee. One son...a four-legged lab mix named Otis.

My Interests

Music (playing and listening), watching wrestling (guess I never completely grew up), running, politics, TV news (both style and substance), Chargers, Padres, USC football. Don't drink, smoke, or gamble, but for some reason love Las Vegas anyway.

I'd like to meet:

David Blaine, if for no other reason than to see him do a trick in person. I'm not all into magic or anything, but the guy is a trip...in a good way.

Music:

311, blink-182, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, Jack Johnson, The Lashes, The Lemonheads, The Living End, The Muffs, Nirvana, Pennywise, Phantom Planet, The Rentals, Silverchair, Stone Temple Pilots, The Strokes. San Diego bands, mid-'90s (fluf, inch, Rocket From The Crypt, Lucy's Fur Coat, Buck-O-Nine). Unwritten Law, before they tried to be important. And the Beatles. Seen McCartney three times, but I'm more of a John Lennon guy. Happy to have seen a bunch of now-defunct bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine in concert, plus legends like Pink Floyd, James Brown, Prince (twice...the first time was when he was that symbol or whatever) and Tony Bennett. Been to one Coachella festival, two Lollapaloozas, three Street Scenes, and three Warped Tours.

Movies:

Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Best In Show, Election. Too many '80s movies to mention, but the '90s was my favorite movie decade for sure.

Television:

WWE Monday Night Raw, The Ultimate Fighter, Married With Children, The Simpsons, Frasier, Family Ties, The Golden Girls (don't try to say Blanche wasn't a hottie). Dee and I are couch potatoes and have made a nightly ritual of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy (or, if the questions are too hard, we'll switch to Judge Judy).

Books:

For a former doctoral candidate, my tastes are pretty underwhelming. WWE autobiographies, Into Thin Air, The Perfect Storm. I've only gotten through about half of Barrel Fever so far, but it's probably the funniest book I've ever read. In terms of magazines, I'm a Blender fan. I used to read Playboy (for the articles), but stopped when they started trying to rip off Maxim's writing style. They used to be fairly intellectual and thought-provoking; now they've become something they're not. I love Maxim...and you can't out-Maxim Maxim. So don't try.

Heroes:

In general, people who are courageous, and who have genuine integrity.

My Blog

Sick of It

Here's a news flash  it sucks to be sick. Feeling tired and run down, not being able to sleep through the night, constant congestion, headaches, body aches, a sore throat  I've dealt with them all f...
Posted by Mark on Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:51:00 PST

A Home Field Disadvantage

A few years back, when I was sweltering through my second summer in Ridgecrest, I had the opportunity to select what my next duty station would be. I could have chosen from opportunities in my ho...
Posted by Mark on Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:18:00 PST

A Four-Star Hotel...and Its One-Star Guest

As I type this on the evening of October 28, things are starting to get back to normal for those of us in Southern California. I was thankfully not in an evacuated area, though I am related to people ...
Posted by Mark on Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:17:00 PST

Who Wants to Be Even More of a Millionaire?

Back in 2001, I appeared on the low-grade and campy (yet lovably innocent) game show "Supermarket Sweep." My fake smile and over-the-top cheerfulness were about as realistic as the products in the sho...
Posted by Mark on Sun, 22 Jul 2007 10:55:00 PST

Oprah Winfrey, Ph.D.

From the time I started classes at USC to the day I decided to walk away from my doctoral program, I spent a total of about six years working on a Ph.D. Many, many hours were spent at the library, in ...
Posted by Mark on Mon, 14 May 2007 09:36:00 PST

Gunning for Ratings

Can you name the Virginia Tech shooter? If you've been watching TV news this week, you probably can. We've seen everything about him, from the tapes he sent to NBC to the reactions of classmates, of f...
Posted by Mark on Sat, 21 Apr 2007 06:13:00 PST

Singing the (Service Dress) Blues

So another season of American Idol is off and running. Though I hate the audition shows, since they're pretty much just an outlet for "outrageous" people to get on TV under the ridiculously false pret...
Posted by Mark on Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:40:00 PST

One More Round

Despite what Benjamin Franklin said, there are actually three things certain in life -- death, taxes, and Sylvester Stallone making another Rocky movie. But for every badass that Rocky takes out, ther...
Posted by Mark on Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:52:00 PST

Happy Election Day!

Happy election day! I'm still registered in my mom's neighborhood, even though I'm now living about 35 miles away. I've moved so many times since I turned 18, that's been maybe the one constant in my ...
Posted by Mark on Wed, 08 Nov 2006 08:25:00 PST

Day One

Finally decided to start a myspace page. Given how many stories you see on the news about how incriminating this thing can be, don't know if this is a good idea or not. But hey, everybody else is doin...
Posted by Mark on Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:04:00 PST