Who am I?

Hunting vampires in the Rhodope Mountains. June 2007

I am Mark Connor and I live in the St. Louis metropolitan area with my wife Marta. We met during our doctoral studies at Florida State University, where I had arrived after deciding that four year as a high school band director was enough.

What do I do?

I am trained as a composer, which means that for much of the year I spend some time each day locked in a struggle with a piano, entering scores on a computer or banging my head against a wall.

I am currently employed as an adjunct professor at Maryville University in St. Louis. Prior to my arrival here, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Western Carolina but left because Marta accepted a faculty position in the St. Louis area and damn the career, I'd rather be with her!

What is this blog about?

Pretty much whatever pops into my head, though I do try to make the focus about music and teaching. I also ocassionally write about my passion for football, both the kind we call soccer and the New York Giants of the NFL. This is probably the main reason why I don't post much on the weekends.

You might also see me post something political and this generally occurs when I'm irritated by something in the news, which actually seems to happen quite often these days..

What's the story with the Bulgaria posts?

For one month a year, usually in May-June, Marta and I travel to spend time with her family in the Black Sea city of Burgas. Burgas is the fourth largest city in the country and also one of the busiest ports. It is not a particularly tourist-friendly place, but it does become quite lively in the summer as it serves as the home base for other, more desirable, destinations.

Because of our time there, and the fact that it is different, I like to write about it.

What about the photographs?

I try to only use my own pictures on this site, and as of July 2007 will caption all of my pictures just for the sake of tidiness. If it is uncaptioned, then it is not mine, but I generally try to find public domain images unless it is a really special occasion. I use a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ3 for all of the photographs.

What about this website?

This website is laid out entirely in valid CSS and XHTML. The design is based on the WordPress theme Green Zone by the folks at Askgraphics. From their basic design I have added a few personal touches as well as imported the fiels so that they would work with the excellent (and free) host BlogSome.

The four images of Bulgaria in the header rotation (click refresh a few times to see what I mean) are:

1. A few chimneys from the mountain village of Shiroka Luka in the Rhodope Mountains.
2. A busy road somewhere near the town of Yambol.
3. A reflection off of a building in Marta's home city of Burgas.

Legal Disclaimer

This entire site, and the works contained within, are Copyright 2006-2007 by Mark Connor.

The website design, including all of the HTML, SMARTY, and CSS code is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike (by-sa) license.

The content of the posts, any photographs, or any original music is released under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) license.