Raise money for B-eat

Read this:

“Hello! My name is Lucy Taylor and I have suffered from anorexia for nearly 5 years now. I have been in and out of hospitals, and seen several psychiatrists, psychologists and other therapists, none of which have helped.

Since finding Twitter (and all the great people that it reaches) I have decided to grab the bull by the horns and just go for it, and get better!!

I am now on a weight gain menu plan, and although it will be slow, I have decided to aim for a starting weight of 7 stone by December 2010 (right now I am 6 stone/38kg and am 5ft 11inches tall which gives me a BMI of 11.6 ). My next weigh in is on the 17th March so stay tuned. I can't believe I'm about to write this but I can't wait! Haha!

All I'm asking for is £1 for every 1lb 1 gain, or more if you can! Lets B-eat it by helping me beat it!

If you want to wait until I have revealed what my weight gain is (which will be every month) then you don't have to sponsor me now, but can wait to see how much I have gained and then sponsor. It is entirely up to you! SO, if you want to sponsor me, that would be amazing and would raise much needed money for the Eating Disorder charity B-eat! Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

P.S My profile picture is my motivational picture - that is how I look when I am well, and it is what I am aiming for :-D The reason I have posted a picture of myself looking healthy, rather than how I look now, is because 1) its give me motivation to see myself look healthy and happy 2) I dont want it to be triggering for other eating disorder sufferers, and 3) frankly, it is not a very pretty sight!! LOL.Thank you, thank you, thank you for taking the time to read this!

Love Lucy xxx xxx”

Lucy (@littlemunchkin) is a very good friend of a lot of people, not just me. She’s funny, kind and, just in 140 characters on Twitter, can make your day through one simple sentence despite all she’s been through above.
She’s on a mission now to get through everything and, with the help of everyone she can reach out to, she can do it as well as raise lots of money for a really good charity.

Instead of me babbling on about it, get in touch with her through Twitter (@littlemunchkin) or, better still, donate some money to B-eat through her page on JustGiving.com.

Go for it, Lucy.
You’re an amazing person and you give a lot of love through Twitter and Digital Spy. Let’s pay you back by raising lots of money and giving you a boost to get you better.

All the very best :-)

Hating Technology

Today hasn’t exactly been the Monday I’d been hoping for towards the end of last week.

After a slow but marginally successful half term, I left the network in a reasonable state and was quietly confident that when everyone returned this morning they would be impressed, pleased and possibly complimentary at the improvements that had been made.

Unfortunately, the compliments and praise would have to wait because there would be no way they could experience the improvements as the entire network was down… again… for the millionth time!

I had suspected something was amiss when I went to check my work email from home on Saturday morning and noticed that nothing was happening. No web page, no email, no nothing – even the school website was down. Considering our recent problems, I was surprised I hadn’t thought the worst straight away. However, I was aware the local authority had a few problems with our website during half term week and so assumed it was something to do with that – I couldn’t really have been more wrong.

Walking into work this morning, I didn’t know what to expect. I still assumed (or hoped) a simple Internet problem easily solved. Why I had even come up with these ridiculous assumptions, I don’t know. I usually think the worst and then at least when it’s not that bad, I can feel better. Unfortunately, today was that bad.

Walking Into Red

It’s always a good sign when I open the server room door to be greeted with a sea of green lights blinking at me from the servers. I breathe a sigh of relief knowing everything is ok and I can continue  with my job. They’ll take care of themselves.
It’s a different story on days such as today when, instead of green, the servers look like they’ve just turned into Satan’s Servers, staring at me through blood red eyes. It wasn’t a pretty sight and I knew I’d have something hefty to deal with.

Red lights indicate just one thing on server hard drives – corruption. And a total of 8 red lights means that something is very, very wrong. Without even thinking, I called our maintenance company and logged a problem then settled down in front of the angry machines to check logs and work out what went wrong this time (I still don’t know).

… and now it’s Tuesday

… and I’m not looking forward to walking into work again.

Servers are supposed to be reliable and something you can, more or less, leave to it while you get on with the rest of the day. When they don’t get on with what they’re supposed to be doing and become unreliable then you lose trust in them.
Walking into work after a complete failure is always a worry, especially when there are still things that still aren’t working properly which means I can’t check on the condition of the servers until I open the dreaded server room door and see which colour I’m going to be flooded with. My hope is green; my fear is red. I also won’t be impressed with orange.

We shall see.

Brief Break

14:37 and I have just under an hour left before I'm headed home after another day's productive work.
With the help of our maintenance company, we've managed to sort out the joining of our two networks in school. This now means all resources will be available from all computers in school (well, once I've sorted that bit out).
I've even thought ahead at teachers' reactions when they a see a new thing and it doesn't work as they expected. I've created a program to display various messages talking them through every stage of a particular application. I think I have all bases covered so that panic won't ensue.

Tonight will be the second night my girlfriend has been away. Last night wasn't too bad because it was just like she had a late shift in work. This morning was a bit rubbish, though, when I woke up and she wasn't there. Still, she's home again tomorrow. Really looking forward it.
To entertain me tonight, I have The Brits on at 8 and then Shameless straight after if I can stay awake.

That'll do for now.

Short, Sharp Blog Post

06:41 on a Thursday morning and I’m starting a new blog post. This is guaranteed to be completely uninteresting and contain much waffle…

So, it’s Thursday.
Only two more days to get through before the school is on Half Term. I refer to it as “the school” as opposed to “we” because “we” are not on Half Term. Not all of us. I have a busy five days ahead of me next week so time without teachers and children will be very beneficial, if not nice and quiet.

Unfortunately, because of work “stuff”, I can’t have my little girl stay through the week but I’m a good Dad and will certainly make up for it. We’ll have her for a weekend sometime after when I’m totally free and will take her up to my parents when they’re all there themselves. As usual, I’ll be off to Liverpool on Sunday to spend the day with her. It’s “cinema week” this week so she has a choice of film to go and see – Percy Jackson; AstroBoy; The Princess and the Frog. Entirely her choice, of course, but I wouldn’t mind seeing AstroBoy. I can’t see me doing this for much longer being as she’s growing up fast. Kiddy movies will become a thing of the past.

06:49 – Time to shower and get this show on’t road.
Short, sharp blog posts may well be the way forward.

Enjoy your Thursday.

Social Icons - Lately

Today could be the start of knowing someone potentially famous.

A friend of mine (@DaveCostello83) has this band (@Social_Icons) who have been working themselves silly to make a name for themselves and, despite not seeing them live… yet (sorry, Dave), I can guaranteed that their self-penned track list is nothing short of amazing.

And it shows how hard they’ve worked because today sees the release of their debut single on iTunes and Amazon – Lately. Priced at under £1, it’s well worth grabbing and having a listen. “Lately” is a fantastic track (one of my favourites, I’m happy to say) and shows off the talent that’s in the band.

If you want to buy the track and make these guys big, click on the links below. They also have MySpace and Twitter pages if you want to get in touch and, of course, nothing is better than a live gig so, if you’re ever in the North West, make sure you look them up.

“Lately” on iTunes

“Lately” on Amazon (MP3)

Social Icons on MySpace

Social Icons on Twitter