Welcome

Hello one and all, and welcome to my blog. I feel like, before writing about anything of substance or great worth, I should begin by explaining my reasoning for starting a blog in the first place. The first inspiration for starting this was probably my dear friend Noam Daniel Packer, or as he is commonly known among the various circles of people in which he runs, Noam, Daniel, or Packer. He himself began a blog about a year ago, and I remember thinking a couple of things when he served notice that he had done this:

(1) Hmm...that is an interesting idea
(2) Maybe this is how I will finally begin to understand what goes on inside the head of Noam Daniel Packer, something that has puzzled me just about every day since the first time I met him
(3) That kid has got some great chest hair...

Aside from the inspiration that Packer's blog gave me, I find myself in a peculiar situation in my own life: I am graduating from college in two and half weeks, am basically done with all of the school work I need to do before then, and I am bored. And thinking. A lot. About a lot of different things.

I have always been a person who's been better at expressing himself in words than in speech, so I think that the blog might be the perfect outlet for me to try and tell the world--or at least myself--what is going on inside my head.

Earlier today, I was sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair in Pod 1B at the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, PA, not quite listening to the Overdose Prevention Training session in which I was participating as a volunteer, instead looking out at the twenty or so inmates that sat in front of me. The entire time, I couldn't help myself from thinking, "these guys must be really damn bored." And so, aside from deciding that I will try to spend as little time in jail as I possibly can over the next however many years of my life, I thought to myself, "Mark, you should start a blog." And here we are.