About

Updated 04/02/2007

Madly disillusioned and out of touch with reallity, I’m commonly known as Mark Turner, but am secretly an alien by the name of Mork, wearing a human skin observing you all….no, really. I really can’t remember where the nick Mork came along, some point at University, but it really stuck as my Character Name on a number of Multi-User-Dungeon games I got into around that time…culiminating in one I wrote with a colleague at Warwick University, of the name Insomnia MUD. The MUD is still running, scarily enough, though few people really seem to play it anymore - seems to be mostly used as an elaborate chat room - but I digress - the name has kinda stuck - a lot of my friends still call me without even thinking, and whilst it seems kinda silly at my age, well, it’s an identify in so many virtual/online communities in which I participate - it’d be hard to drop.

So, who am I? I’m 33 years old (as of today, February 4th 2007), happily married to Janet for the past 8 years, with 3 young boys, David, 5, James 3, and Paul aged 1.

I currently work for T-Systems in London, who are a subsidiary of Deutche Telekom. As an oursourcer for IT Services, my current job title is Open Systems Manager, and I have 4 teams of UNIX & Windows Administrators working for me, mostly running systems and services for our sister Company, T-Mobile.

I live with my family in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, where we’ve been now for the best part of 10 years, and don’t look likely to move anytime soon -it’s a really beautiful Village, north of Cambridge in the Fens, and it has everything we need, and away from all the hustle and bustle of the Town/City. I do a fairly heft commute by car to work, pretty much because we love where we live and would hate to move. I guess one day, I’d ideally want to work back in Cambridge or thereabouts.

My main hobbies/interests outside of work, are Gaming - huge Xbox/360 fan, so check out my Gamertag score, and feel free to add my to your friends list - the Gamertag, is of course, Mork. Aside from that, as you hopefully have seen from this site, I’m a sometime Musician - I’m a guitar player, I have a small collection of instruments, and a nice loud Marshall rig with a DSP and some miscellanous floor pedals - my main instrument is a Vintage Gibson Les Paul copy - its not the real thing, but for the price, it’s a superb instrument and very, very beautiful in my opinion. I have a nice home studio setup going using my Apple Mac, GarageBand, Logic 7 and a Korg DSP, and produce a number of songs which you can download or listen to from the “My Music” page above.

I have a more modern Strat copy, and a Cort X1 for the real thrashy stuff. I also have a Fender Semi-accoustic, and old Squire copy, and a Tanglewood Bass. I mostly play Rock, Hard Rock Prog-rock, Metal, and I’m not too bad - not the best guitarist in the world by a long way, but I can hold my own, and I think my talent is more in putting songs together, rather than long drawn out flash solos - I still like to thrash out after a hard weeks work, and really make the walls shake - cant’ beat that for taking out your frustration with corporate IT. When I was younger I played in a lot of bands, and did some gigging, but these days, it’s purely for pleasure.

I’m seriously into my rock music, but I love all kind of stuff aside -from Classical, to pop, with a particular penchant for Musical Theatre - My favourite band is probably a hard choice between old school metal ala Maiden, and new-style mega-prog-rock ala Dream Theater - but I like pretty much all the big names in that Genre, with particular penchants for Bon Jovi, Meatloaf, Metallica and The Cult amongst others. I’m also a fan of much lighter bans such as The Cure on the Goth Side, and some more mainstream pop like Simply Red. If it’s got guitars in it, I probably like it.

What else can I say. I am a devout atheist, so If that offends you, please let me know, so I can appreciate that fact I support Ipswich Town in the English Championship (the division under the premiership, why it just can’t be called Division Two i have no idea) - which is a painful enterprise at the best of times, but you stick with it. One day they might win something again, you never know.

I’m currently still a part-time student, mixing my work, music and family inbetween studying for an MBA with the Open University, which I started in 2001. All being well, I’ll finish my MBA in early 2008 and be much happier for that fact!