Stress, Worry, Anxiety, Oh My!

Yes I know....  I am a worrier.  I worry about everything, and stress about every single thing that goes on in my life.  It's not healthy, and I dread to think what it's doing to my heart and blood pressure, but hey ho...  What can I do.  I've tried all sorts of medication (even herbal ones), but ultimately my nerves always get the better of me.

With only one week left until the end of term and the start of the school summer holiday, this time of year is usually quite stress free, but I've had something on my mind now for the past few months...  something big that (truth be told) has been giving me a few headaches, and sleepness nights, and now it is nearly upon me - the dreaded network merge between Evesham High School and Simon de Montfort Middle School.  I think it's public knowledge now, but both schools are merging during the six week summer holiday to become an entirely new school called....  "The De Montfort School".  and my job is simple - join both school networks together so that they are both on one network. 

Sounds simple enough, and in all fairness it is.  We are in a fortunate position where both schools are next door to each other and we already have a fibre cable/gigabit connection linking both sites, so the infrastructure is all ready in place.  Once we configure a few network switches, we should be able to get SDM's servers and computers on to the High School's domain.  The problem is, my constant worrying that something may go wrong at the start of September, or if I've missed something in my project plans.  Unfortunately some of the work also needs to be completed by external contractors, so I'm worrying whether or not they can do their parts on time too.   It's really messing my head up, and on many occasions I've been asking myself whether this is really what I should be doing for a living.  It's not that I can't do the job - I can...  It's the constant worrying.  I suppose it comes with being a Manager, but I lack the ability to switch off after work too which doesn't help, and on many evenings I find myself using remote access to do some extra work on the servers from the comfort of my living room.  I even admit, I don't spend nearly as much time with my family as I should.

So, what is the point of this post I hear you ask?  Well, I've written down my feelings before in a notebook and it helped, so I figured why not write about them here on my blog.  It's not like I have many visitors to the blog, so I doubt anyone I know will read it anyway.  Even if they do, there's nothing new here - everyone who knows me knows I'm a worrier.

Maybe I might get a visitor who managed to control their stress and who can perhaps give me some hints/tips.

Just don't tell someone who suffers from stress and anxiety to not worry.  If they could, they would!

Change, my dear. And it seems not a moment too soon.

 

Well it's been some time, but I've decided now is as good a time as any to give the "mother page" a brand new facelift.  Don't expect anything too flash as I don't really update the website that often.  I really should as I have many more photographs and music to add to it.

 

Oh well... maybe one day I will - when life becomes less stressy, which by my calculations will be in about another 10059 days, 5 hours and 50 odd minutes, (assuming our crap government doesn't decide to 'up' the retirement age any more).

 

Anyway, if you fancy having a gander, feel free to head over to www.stu-wilson.com

 

101 things that are better to do than watching football - Number 1

It's the time again when the poxy World Cup dominates every form of media available and people like me (who can not stand foodball) find it increasingly hard to avoid seeing any reference to the bore-fest that is the World Cup.  Whether it's turning on the TV or radio, going on to the internet, walking past a poster on the streets, we will all be reminded every single day that it's that time when a bunch of grown men pretend to be children in a playground, kicking a silly ball around.

So, for the first time ever I have a produced a video which I want you to share.  Get your friends to share it.  Get your family to share it.  Get your work colleagues to share it.  Hey, if your pet has a Facebook page, get them to share it too!

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152162997448097&l=7267241332003267292

 

Yes....  Watching a kettle boil is more interesting to watch that the World Cup.

 

I imagine this whole 'sharing video' malarkey will end up failing miserably with only a few shares, but hey....  Why not!

 

Now sit back and enjoy the boiling.  (By the way, it was a lovely cup of tea).

Songs that remind me of my childhood Number 26 - The Sign (Ace of Base)

Oh my, it's been just over a year since my last "Song that reminds me of my childhood".   To make up for it, here's one that some may argue was not a song from my childhood at all.  Here's "The Sign" from Ace of Base.

I've always said that my childhood pretty much ended the day I walked out of my secondary school on Friday, June the 25th 1993 but I'm going to stretch it a little here because this song came out in October of that same year, and will forever be imprinted in my memory due to the constant air time it had on the local radio station (Essex FM) when I was doing my work experience at the Echo newspaper during my brief time at Basildon College in 1994. 

Now for me, the 90's wasn't really a great decade.  Sure, it had a few good things going for it, but for me music wasn't one of them.  During the early 90s, my interest in music was pretty much non-existent apart from listening to Erasure, Jean Michel Jarre and Mike Oldfield.  I suppose this song, and The Beloved's Sweet Harmony are the two songs that really define my musical tastes from those early years of a decade that to me will always be fondly remembered by me for playing my Amiga 500, getting my head around playing Magic (some card game) with my friend Dan, ogling over Terry Farrell (Jadzia Dax in Star Trek Deep Space Nine) and watching Noel's House Party on a Saturday evening.

Anyway, on a separate note - I do really hope to update my blog with more posts over the next couple of weeks.  Work has been considerably busy and stressful and has pretty much taken over my life.  I'm literally living and breathing servers, and computers to the point where I'm even losing sleep!  Yes I know it's not healthy, but what can I do....  It pays the bills!!!   The good news is that this time of year is usually a quiet time for us in the IT department at EHS (most of the students are either on study leave for their exams, or have left), so hopefully things will calm down for me so that I can get myself sorted again in time for the mass of work we'll be doing to the school network over the summer holiday. 

Onwards and upwards, and don't forget you can check out my other "Songs that remind me of my childhood" by clicking here.

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 23 : Buggy Boy (Commodore 64)

It's been too long since my last "Game that reminds me of my childhood".  So, let me begin by saying my next game is......

BUGGY BOY!

The Commodore 64 had some stand-out driving games, but one of my fondest racing gaming memories is from Elite System’s conversion of the arcade hit Buggy Boy by Taito. The game was a near perfect replica of the original arcade (minus the big fancy buggy graphics), and featured 5 courses containing all sorts of obstacles. The aim of the game was to complete each course before the timer reached zero. You could gain extra time by passing under “Time” gates, and increase your score by collecting different coloured flags, and going under various score gates. If you collect the coloured flags in a particular order (as shown at the top of the screen), you could also gain additional bonus points.

Buggy Boys 5 tracks

Along each route were numerous obstacles – some could help you in your goal to reach the end of the track, or ultimately cause you to crash, losing valuable time.

Logs - These made you jump and were quite useful for jumping over obstacles.  However, they could also cause you to crash if you timed the jump badly.

Stones – Running over these caused your buggy to drive on only two wheels. You had to be careful when hitting these because if your buggy ran over a log, it would crash!

Brick walls and Boulders, fences and trees - These were obstacles to miss at all times.

The game also featured water (avoid at all times), banked roads, narrow crossings over water, and tunnels.

I feel sorry for the current generation of youngsters – Show them a game like this, and they’ll just turn away and go back to their Playstations and Xboxes…. I could spend hours playing this. Graphics were simple but very good and colourful for the time the game came out (1987).  Sound was minimal as was the music, but overall the game was and still is fun to play.

The cover art

The tape

Stuart's Panoramic World 13 - Hampton Ferry, Evesham 2014

Here's another 360° panorama (the first for 2014!) taken today, on the 14th April 2014.  It was taken at one of the most picturesque places in Evesham - Hampton Ferry.

 

Use your mouse (or cursor keys) to look.  Your mouse wheel allows you to zoom in and out.

Location : Evesham, Hampton Ferry Date : 14th April 2014 Camera : Canon EOS 600d Download/Enlarge : Click here to enlarge