Ahh. So I've decided to to something useful with myself. I've decided I want to start doing stuff for charity. Cancer Research to be exact. Theres a few people I've known who have suffered from cancer, my grandad, my partners grandad, 2 people I work with and so on.
I've always wanted to help out in some way, but I've not known how, so ive decided I want to start doing something.
Dartmoor Dartmoor is a massive national park a few miles from where I live. Its basically a pre-historic area which in the past used to be volcanic. Where the magma has been pushed up, it creates big tors. (See picture below) Its home to Okehampton army range, which hosts the Ten Tors. Ten Tors is an army course which allows teams from around the county to trek over 10 of these tors. In the past people have got lost and seriously injured themselves on this trek.
What Im Doing I will be attempting this trek on my own. I will be starting from the south side of the park, and walking to the north side. Its approx 50-60 miles depending on my route. I will be aiming to complete it in 2-3 days.
Dangers The park has over 400 miles of footpaths, 160 tors with the highest tor, high willhays (just over 2000 feet). Dartmoor is a range of open wilderness, deep valleys, high rocky tors, bogs and forests.
Getting lost Many people have got lost on dartmoor, with one recently making it into the papers. One of the most dangerous things that can happen on dartmoor is the fog. Because its generally quite high up, the clouds can cover it easily. The clouds are so incredibly thick sometimes visibility is reduced to no more than 5 meters (I've been caught out by this before : ).
Bogs The next most dangerous thing is the bogs and mires. This happens when it rains. The soil soaks up the rain and causes massive bogs which look like normal grass, but when you step in them, you sink. If you're lucky, you'll step on some type of rock, but if your unlucky, it'll easily swollow you up.
Day 1 - Training So now I've decided what to do, who to do it for, and when. Now comes the training. I've split the training into multiple sections:
Walking Training
Navigation Training
First Aid Training
Endurance Training
I've already done ten tors. I understand what needs to be done and how to do it. I've already gone through Navigation and first aid training. The most important step now is walking.
I start training on the weekend (Sunday 12th July) and will be walking from plymouth to sheeps tor (roughly 8 miles). I aim to do this walk once a fortnight in as many different weather types as possible.
More Information Im in the process of creating a webpage giving details about everything I plan on doing, from routes, to progress. When I actually start the trek, The website will provide live updates on my whereabouts, and also mini-blogs about what has happened so far. Ill keep you updated about the status of the website!
Donations If you want to donate money, I've set up a webpage which sends donations directly to cancer research upon completetion of the event. Every penny matters so It doesnt matter if you donate anything from 1p to £10. I appriciate everything. My target is a minimum of £500. http://www.justgiving.com/dartmoor_trek <-- Donations page
Thanks everyone Ill keep you as updated as possible.
So today i finally became one step closer to my dream job. I decided to start working towards an Open degree with honors. I reserved a place on the first course, "Data, Computing and Information" with the open university. Hopefully will be starting in September.
I have 2 other course in level one to make up 90 points, then I move onto level 2 stuff... Client/Server side of application development and Java programming.
The course costs £380 (donations happily accepted ), hopefully I can get some financial support from them.
The overall degree is going to cost £5600 or something, and take 6 years to get and has a total of 17 different course ranging from £210 to £630.
My dream job is a web applications developer, Database developer and website designer. I do quite alot of it already, and I'm considering starting up my own site design / development business. I've spoke to my bank and Im writing up a business plan.
Unfortunatly, I dont have much business experience, however, I will be going to visit my dad for a few days next week. He owned quite a big business and hopefully he will be able to help with the advice
So yea, Im pretty happy at the moment.
Life Goals:
Start working towards open degree
Attempt to get my business going and earn money
Work as a web developer / web designer / database developer / IT security analyst. Its all good
Well, i saw everyone else doing it, and thought I'd give it a go.
I no beginner to CSS but it was a little tricky. I spent a good day playing around with different styles, and finally came up with one i liked.
I did originally go with a candy green, then a nice orange, but realised neither went very well with the UG logo at the top so i had to change it to blue, to fit in.
I first changed the color of the links, then decided to keep going and see what else I could change, eventually, I saved the profile image backgrounds, played around with them in photoshop then uploaded them to photobucket.
I couldnt get the styles to work using the "about me" section because for some reason it keep putting white spaces between my statements, so I just write my stylesheet in notepad, uploaded it to my server, and put a CSS include in my about section : Much easier
I think its pretty cool. The only thing i wish, is that it would work on the rest of my profile pages and that I could change the color of the UG logo banner at the top so I could have my green / orange / red / (pink? : ) themes
Well, it was my mates 20th on saturday and we all went paintballing.
Possibly the greatest game in the world. We've decided to go again next month.
Anyway, there was 200 people at paintball center split into 8 teams, all competiting against each other in 10 different game types. I was in blue team with my mates.
Im 3rd from the left. We came 1st overall. We each got 1st place certificates and 200 free paintballs next time we go.
It was awesome, I got hit 5 times, one skimmed between my legs and hit the side of my thigh, one hit my coller bone just below my chin, one hit my neck, another hit my helmet and the last one got me in the back.
I unfortunatly got burnt by a paint grenade as well, but it was fun to watch.
My mate got hit in the neck pretty bad. Pretty savage.
End of the day, it was pretty awesome.
Definatly doing that again.
No, im not talking about what you're thinking. I was bushing my teeth, and i looked up in the mirror and saw a glistening. Its a hair as white as gandalfs beard.
I quickly pulled that bad boy out only to find another one. And another... and another.
Hey guys, I used to have a phone contact for my fiance through vodafone. It was a 18 month contract which I ended 16 months into it. I phoned vodafone up, paid £120.83 to end my contract from then. Which they did, so on and so forth.
Well, its been 4 months, shes been on pay as you go for the last few months and everythings been going fine.
Then.... I get a letter from vodafone. It reads:
"Notice of default Despite previous reminders, the above remains unpaid and your account has been cancelled. Unless we receive payment within the next 7 days we will: - Register your account as a bad debt with a credit reference agency. This will be a matter of public record and a point of reference for future companies providing credit - Refer your account to a collection agency who may take legal proceedings to recover the outstanding debt including interest and legal costs. "
Now, apparently I owe them £12.43. And this is the first letter I've had off them, 4 FUCKING MONTHS SINCE I CANCELLED MY ACCOUNT.
I phoned vodafone up, and they basically told me, if I dont pay the £12.43 today, a debt collection agency will.
I paid up.
But I then went to a few lawyers and asked what I could do about it. Im waiting to hear back from them, wish me luck.
Ive just been doing some work on my laptop, and I decided "Lets stick on some music". So I downloaded limewire and tried to connect.
Alas. Vista doesnt allow it.
So I go to youtube, type in my song, and EVERY FUCKING VIDEO I GO TO DOWNLOADS AT 1 FUCKING KILOBYTE A SECOND.
so i get that annoying fucking jutter every few seconds while im trying to listen to the song.
Any its not just that one video. Its every fucking video I go on.
Youtube sucks. End of story.
Vista. Vista is the biggest pile of crap Ive every laid my hands on. It crashes every 10 seconds. It takes 20 fucking minutes to shut down, and when i think I can go bed, it automati-fucking-ally restarts itself.
I get constant permission errors. "Vista needs your permission to do read this file." "Vista needs your permission to install this program" "vista needs your permission to edit your fucking permissions"
It crashes when i start it up. When i load the internet. When i go onto my FTP account. When I open filezilla.
The only thing it does fucking right is play that shitty mahjon tiles game. Yea, great peice of work.
I hate my web hosting company. "We guarentee 99.5% uptime". My fucking ass does it. My website has been down for around 2 days in the last week. Everytime I email support it takes a day for them to reply.
I decided to phone them instead. They put me on hold, for 30 god dammed mother fucking minutes and then decide to stick me on the phone to someone whos accent is so fucking broad I need a translater just to get the jist of what their trying to tell me.
House keys. I got locked out my house today because I've lost my keys.
Normally this wouldnt be a problem, when my girlfriend leaves the house, she hides the keys somewhere. However this time, she took them to work with her. So i was stuck outside on the doorstep for 1 and a half fucking hours, in 9 degree temperature in shorts and a hoody.
Mailing lists. I hate 'em. Ive been getting spam email for the last 2 weeks from a certain website. 2 emails a day. Infact, it got to the point where I emailed the bloke in charge.
This is what i wrote:
"would you take my fucking email off your mailing list. Ive clicked on the "REMOVE FROM MAILING LIST" button at the bottom of the fucking email and Im still getting what seems to be like 2 emails every fucking day.
Quit spamming my fucking email. "
Outcome for today?
1) I feel like a cunt.
2) Ive learned fuck is my favourite word.
3) Take anger classes.
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Logz's blogs, last updated : July 11, 2008
: ). 
), hopefully I can get some financial support from them.
and has a total of 17 different course ranging from £210 to £630.
and that I could change the color of the UG logo banner at the top so I could have my green / orange / red / (pink? 
