One of the biggest drawbacks to running several sites has to be the constant need to upgrade to the latest version of the scripts you have installed. It just seems you get everything up-to-date with all the new security fixes or whatever and bam! you have to do it all again days later. *sigh*

I have upgraded all the scripts at MCO, including Wordpress and Coppermine, and changed a few things around. I’ve been nominated for a couple of awards from a Dark Angel website which is kinda fun and flattering but I doubt I’ll win because there are more popular sites on the list. It’s nice to be nominated though.

I decided not to add my stories here because I don’t think anyone would read them anyway so I added the link to my profile at ff.net. I’ve also added my LJ link since I don’t keep all my posts private any more. You are welcome to add me if you want but I don’t friend ppl back straight away unless I know them.

So much for my plan to take photographs for my family tree site, it has been raining non-stop since last Friday and it is completely miserable. Real headache weather as I call it. Instead, I’ve been stuck in front of my laptop when I vowed I wouldn’t be and have been watching re-runs of Angel and embarrassing things like Mutant X - a really poor show but damn, Victor Webster is lustworthy.

I’ve also been watching Charmed which is kinda worrying because I hate that show.

What’s that smell? Yep, a smoke free environment! As of today, smoking is banned in Scotland in bars, restaurants, offices and other public places. As I left the town centre this afternoon, I had a little chuckle to myself as I noticed smokers huddling outside a pub in the rain. Should I feel sorry for them? Hell, no! Why should I have to endure the stink of smoke in my clothes and in my hair?

I thought about joining something like Blog Explosion to get more traffic but I got cold feet when I had a look at the other blogs over there. Everyone else seems to have so many clever things to say and I got a sudden inferiority complex. Well, it isn’t sudden since I’ve had it all my life. I decided I was better off hiding in my comfortable little corner of the web.

Now that I’ve got this domain looking all smart, I’m getting bored with the layouts on my other sites. I changed rainy-daze.net to one of Jelena’s free designs and I upgraded my family tree site which was not fun since I had to edit a bunch of coding in the PHP script I use. I’m not sure what to do with MCO and JGN - curse my lack of skills.

WOO HOO! I’m officially on holiday until 3 April and I’m ecstatic. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and I’m not going to think about anything related to work at all this week. I hinted in my last post that something was upsetting me, well, we had a meeting on Monday where my boss announced they were creating a new post in the dept. The job is mainly PA related, taking minutes in meetings, booking travel and accommodation, etc, and the idea is to draw up a four way rota so we would all have the chance to do this for three months of the year. So, what’s so bad about that, I hear you ask? Well, PAs are actually paid a helluva lot more money than we are at our current grade and so far, everyone I’ve discussed this option with has told me that this type of job should not be done by someone our grade. Basically, they are taking the piss even offering it to us.

There have also been a few petty other issues that have really annoyed the hell of me this week and upset a few people I work closely with - so I’m not inclined to bend over backwards to help them out.

So, the plans for next week: finally take the time to get used to my camera and take those pics I want for my family tree website. I’m also going to do some work on that site and a few others that have been neglected lately. I’ve no intention of staying in front of the computer the whole time. I get paid next week and all that lovely overtime money should be in my bank account by Friday and I feel a shopping spree coming on! I’m not a big fan of shopping but I deffo need some new clothes and I’ve put it off long enough.

I’m also definitely going to start writing that story that has been buzzing around in my head the past few weeks. Promise!

So, what do you think? I totally love it! A huge thanks to Jelena for all her hard work and if you need a new layout - go visit her! I’ll add a proper plug when I get a chance. Right now, I had barely enough time to load the layout and I still need to fix the odd page.

I’m going to add some more content eventually but I’m not sure what. I do write stories but I’m not really sure if it is worth the while adding them here or not since they are fandom related. I’m trying to think of some other stuff but my mind is a blank, I’m so tired and I’m really stressed about something that is going on at work.

I saw a preview of the new layout Jelena is making for me and it is absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to install it! I also gave my LJ a major overhaul yesterday and it practically took me all day to work out how to install and edit the customised design. It didn’t help that I was dead tired. I’ve been working 6 days out of 7 the last few weeks and it’s starting to catch up with me. I’m actually off next week and I’m so looking forward to just doing my family research stuff and chilling out. I’m going to take loads of pictures of places around here and load them into a gallery to contrast them with the old pictures I have of the town. A lot of those places no longer exist though which is kinda sad.

On Monday it is the tenth anniversary of the Dunblane shootings and I’ve been thinking about it a lot which isn’t surprising since it has been on the television and in the papers recently. In some ways, we seem to focus our attention on the sixteen children who died that day and tend to forget many other children were physically and emotionally injured. The town is so small that most people know each other and it is evident that the pain is still there. Evident in little ways: like the man who refuses to celebrate his birthday because it falls on that day or the local florist who never puts up Happy Mothers Day signs in her shop window because she knows how painful that particular day has become.

Then there is the most telling sign of all: no one ever mentions HIS name.

The children who survived are now sixteen years of age and looking towards their future, but are they ever going to be free of that day? It’s hard to listen when one young boy explains how he is alive today because the body of his best friend fell on top of him and shielded him from harm. Even the emergency personnel were deeply affected by what they witnessed that day and many can’t speak of it without choking up with emotion.

It’s hard to describe how deeply affected our nation was by the tragedy and it is definitely one of those “where were you when” moments. I remember that day vividly. I was in my bedroom and was brushing my hair when the news broke on the radio and when I heard it was a shooting incident in a school, I immediately thought it was some school in America. When they said Dunblane, I just froze and started shivering. You just don’t expect to hear about that sort of thing happening in Scotland.

The news reports that day were painful viewing and I remember a very pregnant woman crying in the arms of another, saying the name Victoria over and over again. It turns out it was the mother of Victoria Clydesdale. I’m not sure if she even knew her daughter was dead at that point but I was so angry at the media, I just felt they were intruding on that poor woman’s grief. Over the next few days, the reporters asked the same stupid questions over and over again, “How do you feel about what’s happened?” That has to be one of the dumbest questions ever and to this day, I cringe whenever I hear it being asked. The legacy of Dunblane means that primary schools all over the country now lock their doors after the kids are settled in their classrooms.

Ten years on, we still don’t know why.

In memory of sixteen innocents: Victoria Clydesdale, Melissa Currie, Emma Crozier, Charlotte Dunn, Mhairi McBeth, Abigail McLennan, Emily Mortan, Sophie North, Joanna Ross, Hanna Scott, Megan Turner, Kevin Hasell, Ross Irvin, David Kerr, John Petrie, Brett McKinnon.

And Gwen Mayor, the teacher who sacrificed her life to save them.