Remembering Icey

[ConorRoyston]

Hey there guys.
It's been a while.

I've been all over the last year and a bit, and I actually had in mind to keep updated on this site but life sometime just trails away.

I did however, want to share the two posts I made, 1) A Christmas post I made for 2017 and 2) the one year mark I posted on my facebook of my mums passing.

I guess now I'm mostly posting just for my own sake to get things off my mind (it's been a up and down year by far).


Firstly the 2017 Christmas post, (I never made one for 2018).


*** So it's officially now Christmas Day.
Most people would be putting cheerful messages and statues about how the year has been great.
Unfortunately, I cannot join in on that. It's been the worst year of my life. Well atleast the latter half.
As most of you know in September my mum passed away.
Following that with swapping my dads name onto bills, house and other things, we have been on the verge of losing the house we live in. Fortunately I have savings to pay for it if worst comes to worst. (Thank you for the people that've offered to open doors if that should happen though <3)
Through this all, I've not taken time off from work because apart from it getting much busier - it's been a great distraction so I don't focus on the lows and everyone there has been fantastic in helping me through the last few months.
Then when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I also split from the woman I love, hoped and relied on, last week.

However, through all of this. I'm going to keep moving as I know it'll get better in the end.
If I just sit and dwell on all the lows there's no way I'll find my way out to improve and get better.

I want to say thank you to all the people that've messaged me, - friends, family and random people expressing their thoughts, comments and help over any of the above issues.
I want to thank especially my friends for helping me and putting up with me the last few months. I honestly couldn't do it without you all.

On a brighter note, for much for a cliché and cheesy saying, it's only a week till next year. I know it WILL be better than this one.

For everyone,
No matter what you're going through, you'll get through it, stick with the people you have closest to you.

Merry Christmas, I hope people get what they have been after and I hope you all have a good New Year! ***


This next one is the 1 year post, I uploaded on my facebook page of September last year now (still feels weird we're in 2019 now)


***My mom died one year ago today.
Somehow I’ve made it 365 days without hearing her voice, or see her smiling, or her green eyed face.
Grief is a black hole, endless and vast. Sucking you dry of any emotional reserve you might think you have.
In the past year I have never felt the feeling of a missing piece of my life so vividly. The feeling of something that was so impactful that's just now forever gone.

There's been times I've had to plaster a smile to my face to cover my feelings. It's all good having friends there to talk to, but they'll never fully understand the depth of the pain and grief until it happens to them.

At first it’s your only waking thought, “she’s gone,” but as time moves on it's maybe your third or fourth thought of the day. Right after “Oh, I’ll have to tell mum about this” And then as the months move on it goes from dreading the 5th of the month to not even realizing it’s passed until it’s too late.
As 2018 kept creeping on toward September I couldn’t help but feel anxious. What was next? Does a year later mean it was time for me to move on with my life? And yes, for some people a year signifies the need to begin anew, I can only think this anniversary means I have to permanently leave my mother behind however, if this date came so quickly how fast will “my mother died three years ago... five years ago... 10 years... 20...” come around?

In my head, this passing time seems to make her matter less.
I know that people at large will see it as less and less of a loss as time goes on.
Especially people my age whom have yet to lose someone important enough for them to realize what utter shit “Time heals all wounds” is. I’m afraid that in their head they will think “she died last year,” when I am still stuck someplace between denial and anger and grief.

I remember exactly when I found out.
I was woken up, being told that my phone was ringing at 2:03am in Derby.
Before my aunt spoke I was already braced for the words "your mum has passed". I spent the next hour in a slight daze. I was giggling and joking about random conversations to just take my mind off it but it just stood out.
It didn't matter who it was I next to, or who my friends were or who I was. It was an instant invisible kick down. I was not ready for the next few months that followed this.

Even though I have a wonderful father who has gone above and beyond his paternal role to try and fill the hole, despite his own incalculable grief, when you’re 23/24 you still have so much learning and growing to do. She was supposed to be a part of that.

September 5th, 2018, marks the a year of firsts, from Christmas as only a three, to having to make certain life decisions without the support or guidance.. It’s bittersweet. On one hand I know I’ve made it through some of the really tough days so I can always do it again. But after a year, all I can really think is “Okay, that’s enough it’s time to wake up now from this terrible terrible dream.

I thought I'd never actually tell you any of this though, because “Yeah, I’m doing alright, hanging in there, taking it one day at a time” is what you really want to hear.

Mum, I think about you every day and I will continue to do so.

I love you. ***



So since I posted the original eulogy post, a lot happened.
As you'll read, I split from my extremely long term GF which completely threw me into massive depression until near May of 2018.

A good thing that happened however was I was moved around and got slightly promoted at work although I'm now back in a rut currently as I'm not progressing to where I would like, nor is there anything of the same amount I earn to just slide into but at least I still have a job!

In October I actually was the happiest I had been the whole year!

Firstly I started dating a girl I had known for over 4/5 years. In a way I knew this girl more than my last ex even in some ways. This turned my mental life around so much, aswell as hers (bad things had happened in her past). Although just last week we split - to where I never got a exact reason and have had no reply from in nearly a week. So I've started to just sink into emptiness feeling again, but trying to keep as positive as I can!

The completely top end bit of October however, was the fact that I got to perform LIVE guitar on stage with my favourite international band.

Here's two videos with the first one being a promotional video uploaded ONTO the actual bands social media - The band is called Three Days Grace.
(if anyone has any questions about it I'll happily answer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXpNTyM5QWo

Second link is recorded from someone in the crowd - warning, slightly iffy audio and loud intro!


So it's 2019 now, and although it started off extremely bad.. I guess I'll see where the year goes! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2kVR-AorPA

[pilvikki]

time flies indeed, like it or not...



i actually wrote a long post, then thought i'd look up a video your mother had sent me a few years ago. you were playing on a stage and the quality was shite, but she was ever so awed by your talent! couldn't find it and then lost this page, too. meh.

how she would have loved seeing you on That stage!

i've meant to write to you several times, but it's always been like, what do i say now? "you don't know me and now it's come to light that i don't know you either, so erm... um... shall we start from the beginning....?" i've had a bit of a bouncy year as well, last summer was the pits of hell to get through, one of my worst. and more than once i lamented about not having your mother to give me hints as she had for years, and as i have nobody else to turn to in certain matters. well, like you, had to muddle through it regardless. but it sucks!

doesn't seem fair, does it, some people throw their lives away in one way or another, others want to stick around, get denied.

well, pop by whenever you feel like it, it's not like my life is crammed with anything important.

take care!

[yogi]

Thank you for sharing the posts and videos Connor. We all have fond memories of your mom and in a way you are her legacy. It's comforting to know she is still with us, or at least some of her genetic code.

Like Vikki points out, we've heard about you but don't know much detail. That can all change at your discretion, of course. The days of bulletin board web sites ended about a decade ago. I'm just too set in my ways to take this one down. The way things are going with social networks these days, perhaps there will be a resurgence of interest here. I doubt it, but a webmaster can dream, can't he? In any case, we are what our members are. Thus you would be contributing to the identity of Brainformation every time you post a comment. Because the activity here is so low, we don't get a lot of wildly interesting discussions going anymore, but those of us who remain have a diverse range of interests. You know, your views on Remaining or Brexiting might prove enlightening for example. Then again, you probably have other interests you pursue in between your stage appearances,.

Just one last comment about BFChat, this website. Icey, was the champion when it came to chat. She certainly could hold her own on most deep dives into current events, but simple chit chat was her forté - thus the name of this forum.

[Kellemora]

I wish I had met Icey sooner than I did. I really enjoyed her wisdom and profound insight into many things.
She is sorely missed by all of us here at BF!

[ConorRoyston]

i actually wrote a long post, then thought i'd look up a video your mother had sent me a few years ago. you were playing on a stage and the quality was shite, but she was ever so awed by your talent! couldn't find it and then lost this page, too. meh.

how she would have loved seeing you on That stage!

i've meant to write to you several times, but it's always been like, what do i say now? "you don't know me and now it's come to light that i don't know you either, so erm... um... shall we start from the beginning....?" i've had a bit of a bouncy year as well, last summer was the pits of hell to get through, one of my worst. and more than once i lamented about not having your mother to give me hints as she had for years, and as i have nobody else to turn to in certain matters. well, like you, had to muddle through it regardless. but it sucks!

Hey there Vikki! There's only two recordings of me ever playing, but both of them I never actually got to see.
They were recorded on such old video recorders that I always got told when I was younger that would take too long to develop but I guess my mum gave it one of our family friends and got it done.
If you ever do find that link/video/site I'd love to see it! :)

I'd love to type to you if you'd like! I may not be as talkative or variated as my mum, (I think we all know she could talk about anything and everything... forever...and ever...and ...ever...)
Just PM me and I'll send you my email!

Thank you for sharing the posts and videos Connor. We all have fond memories of your mom and in a way you are her legacy. It's comforting to know she is still with us, or at least some of her genetic code.

Like Vikki points out, we've heard about you but don't know much detail. That can all change at your discretion, of course. The days of bulletin board web sites ended about a decade ago. I'm just too set in my ways to take this one down. The way things are going with social networks these days, perhaps there will be a resurgence of interest here. I doubt it, but a webmaster can dream, can't he? In any case, we are what our members are. Thus you would be contributing to the identity of Brainformation every time you post a comment. Because the activity here is so low, we don't get a lot of wildly interesting discussions going anymore, but those of us who remain have a diverse range of interests. You know, your views on Remaining or Brexiting might prove enlightening for example. Then again, you probably have other interests you pursue in between your stage appearances,.

Just one last comment about BFChat, this website. Icey, was the champion when it came to chat. She certainly could hold her own on most deep dives into current events, but simple chit chat was her forté - thus the name of this forum.

Thank you for the compliments Yogi! Could I ask what my mum did reveal of me/our family? She spoke a tiny bit about you all, but as none of us used the site apart from her I don't think we asked for details. I guess I just saw this as my mums "get away" kinda thing?

I remember growing up and using a MASSIVE load of bulletin board sites mostly to help with cheat codes for games, but it's through them I started to develop my way on the internet and find out about all the different kinds of pages. I guess I grew up in the end peak of them :)!

Haha again, yup my mum could chat. I remember every other day growing up, my mum would chat with someone for instance when she would pick us up from school and I'd roll my eyes and think .."here we go again..."

I'll be more than happy to check through a few posts or even answer any questions people may have :)! I'm quite an open person if something is asked to me I'll jump on it!

I wish I had met Icey sooner than I did. I really enjoyed her wisdom and profound insight into many things.
She is sorely missed by all of us here at BF!

<3 thank you!


- Only just noticed the overall total views this whole thread has had since Yogi started it back in 2017! Nearly 4.7K views :O!

[pilvikki]

hi!

just emailed you.

[yogi]

The long and the short of it is that Icey did not say much about her private life and family, including you Connor. I"m not sure I even knew your name until you signed on board one day. Whenever something that could involve her family came up (with me at least), it generally was concerning computers and network security. She mentioned that she would have you look into a matter if we could not resolve the problem online. There was also some "tech guy" that Icey relied on to set things up properly. He was not as readily available as you from what I recall but he was indeed an expert. Given all the concerns she had about protecting her Internet activity and the lack of details about her family life, I got the impression that perhaps this lady was very upper class, wealthy, and had a lot to protect. Some of that impression was due to another innuendo wherein I had the distinct impression she was coming here without the blessings of her family. Thus there was some mystery about your mom, and that in itself made her an interesting person. The personal e-mails we exchanged were a little more detailed, but much of that was about current events, technical issues, or her own health concerns. It was obvious that Icey loved her family dearly in spite of the fact that she didn't brag about them much in public. What she did reveal was very endearing.

This website had an Internet presence for well over a decade now. I'm still learning how it works. LOL I've often speculated about the individual thread view numbers. The active posts seem to have unusually high numbers. We do come up in search engine results when the topic is appropriate, but this thread, for example, isn't the kind of thing I'd expect to be first page on Google. Yet the views suggest otherwise. I know that a lot of it is due to web crawlers and bot nets, but even so, why single out one thread over the others? Personally, I think your mom is manipulating the numbers.

[ConorRoyston]

Haha that's interesting to hear Yogi! :)

Yeah I was always the PC diagnostics person in the house. I've built some of my own and am on them a lot so I know the most inside the house.
Ahh yes, this expert. Family friend who actually used to work in network security, actually, come to think of it I think he still does, just not travelling the world doing it anymore.

My mum's mum was bought up extremely well off however something horrible happened and were basically robbed of all their money just after my mum and her brothers/sisters were born. She also grew up with a "higher class" sense which I guess was just her own personality but that slowed down when she met my dad and such.
It's wonderful to hear about her feelings of love towards us however :)

I agree... just must be making all those accounts up there and spamming this site still haha :P The internet is a weird place :)!

[yogi]

I was very fond of your mom, and I don't know who to be tactful and say it diplomatically, but, Icey was very inept when it came to dealing with anything on her computer. She told me several times that she was terrified when she had to use one. Something simple as copy-and-paste challenged her inner strength, so it seemed. The only thing Icey feared more than computers was anything to do with math. She would at least make an attempt to improve her technical skills, but would run away quickly when it involved math formulas. However, after many long detailed explanations, I think your mom actually built up some confidence in her abilities. We got to talking about Tor browsers at one time and I got her to actually download it and test it out. My only mistake was telling her about how it's used on the Dark Web. We didn't talk about it after that.

[ConorRoyston]

Only just read this.

Haha yeah I think, my mum asking how to copy and paste was a multiple weekly event she asked me to help her with :P

Maths I definitely draw the right straw with as I was the maths person in the house, yet there's no genes of good maths skills in our family.. tis weird.

My mum also bought up tor a LOT. She always had it installed, though I don't think she used it much.. haha.

Thank you for the small memories of her :d

[imhotep the 2nd]

Hey guys. Long time no speak on here....it's been a long time since I last logged on this site, so apologies for taking so long. I live such a busy lifestyle these days I just don't seem to have time to do everything.
Anyway, better late than never eh. All I can say Conor, I had been online friends with your mum for quite some time, not sure how long, but I'd say at least a good few years, and I always loved receiving emails and amazing special occasion e-cards from her. Especially the Christmas ones. Like you I sorely miss her dearly, but I'm sure she wouldn't like us to have sad faces. She'd want us to think of all the happy memories we have of her. Believe me or not I still have loads of emails I have of hers which haven't been deleted. I loved her temperament and I got on so well with her online and I always replied to her emails. She was almost like a second mum to me giving me helpful advice on personal matters and had a great sense of humour.

I know most ins and out of computer technology too, but when it come to very advanced stuff then I draw the line at that. I'm no pro as it happens. Lol

I'll have to back chat and look at the posts and videos that were made before. Icey mentioned you a few times in her emails too Conor and I think in one email she said that she was very proud of you and the rest of her family.
It's getting a bit late now so I have to go now, but I will return to read the previous posts soon. Thank you Conor.

[ConorRoyston]

If you do find any emails regarding me Imhotep, I'd love to see them <3 :D!

[imhotep the 2nd]

Ok Conor, I will try and sort it out ASAP. Sincere apologies for slow reply btw
I think it would be best if I emailed you personally. I think I still have your private em address, so watch out for one of my emails soon.

[ConorRoyston]

Hey there guys!
Just a small update, as I never got round to it the other week.

The 5th of this month marked the two years since my mum passed.
Things have calmed down a bit with feelings; I don't think about her everyday now. Days finally just kinda became a routine that much whilst having so much to think about these days that it's probably good in some sense haha.
I'd like to say a quick thank you to the few people that have emailed me a few times over the last few months, it's been lovely reading some of the stories you guys had with/about her! :D


On a bad note, and change of topic, the other night I was browsing promotion jobs in retail to become a dep/manager (been looking for a while, just nothing has come up near) and finally a job did about 10/12 miles from me with good pay and more.
To apply you have to upload your CV, all the promotion work (that I've spent the last 1.5 years doing and updating) and then you go for the assessment (it's a weird system)... well I plugged in my external harddrive and it was showing blank...., tried every USB slot, nothing. I then tried my little USB backups of certain things like my CV and promotion work... that had apparently self formatted?!?!?! I've literally lost every bit of data I've had that wasn't on my main PC over the last 14+ years.
Not just my CV and promotional work stuff, but photos, videos, music I had written and recorded, pictures of my mum and hundreds of other things.

A little more on the harddrive, It's a toshiba 1TB drive. I've had it 2/3 years, but only used it 5/6 times in total (always unplug it straight away, never dropped it nor has it had any problems before either) When I check in file explorer, 50% of the time it shows it's connected as drive;F but I can't open it as it just freezes file explorer, yet if I unplug it, FE goes back to normal. I tried searching through in in disk management but the same thing happened. As a last resort I tried even using a recovery program to search my whole pc and external, but even that freezes until I unplug it :/.
I only used it a month ago, funnily enough to back up my PC ... sigh :/

Even writing thing It's deathly guttering. We had a family friend come and pick it up, (he's even more of a pc wizz than me) but he had the same expression I did when I explained everything that I did and saw, nevertheless he said he's try his best to check though it and see if he can find or recover anything with his tools.


Fun times eh! :/ Looks like if I can't get any of it back, I have a LOT of work to do :/

[yogi]

Your mom was a joy to have as an active member of our group. We had some marvelous discussions that have gone unmatched. I think of her from time to time and wonder what she might say about an interesting article I run across. It's hard to believe two years have gone by since her passing.

I'm also sympathetic for your loss of all that digital history. As you must know the smart thing to do is to make backups often. Keep them off line when you do. When backups are destroyed as well as the main system, then it's time to seriously consider taking up drinking. I know it's not humorous for you to lose all that work, but it may not be lost entirely. Recovery depends on how the drive was reformatted. Many times it's just a matter of the file structure and indexes being modified. But, if the actual data was overwritten, then it may be gone forever. Hopefully your friend will be able to recover it for you. There are services that specialize in such things, but they are very costly and time consuming. Only one recommendation to you comes to mind at the moment. When you start to rebuild, or should you actually recover the originals, keep doing the backups to a removable memory device. But also store a copy in some cloud storage that is independent of the hardware on your desktop. A lot of people are concerned about the security issues relating to cloud storage, but you now have a good example of why it may be a good idea after all.

[ConorRoyston]

I actually have dropbox (though not cloud) but rarely used it for files.
I think after Christmas when I've sorted stuff out more, I'm just going to buy multiple harddrives so I can do as you say, back up the back ups, then back up those. :(! I may still have some of the old pictures and stuff on my old laptop and PC but Cv and work stuff is definitely the forefront of my concerns currently :3!
Thank you for your comments Yogi!

[yogi]

Solid state hard drives are cost effective and can easily be used with your USB port. I do all my system images to such a device, but routine storage can be done that way as well. Places such as Dropbox have limits to what you can put there. In my experience with them they are exceptionally slow to upload and download. Microsoft, Apple, and Google give you free cloud storage just for having accounts with them. There are others too. Also, there are programs that will do the backups for you automatically so that there would be little for you to do other than set things up the first time. Good luck, and I hope your friend has some good news for you.

[ConorRoyston]

Just a little update!
I sent my drive off, through a company that resides in my hometown Nottingham (small world) and within 2 days, had sent me some screenshots of data they had managed to start to recover (100% my stuff).

After confirming I'd love them to try for as much as they could, a day later I got an email saying they had repaired/restored/rebuilt some of the dead sectors on my drive, recovered around 250GB + of data (about what was on it) and put it onto another harddrive.

I've since had it a few days and although lots of the file names have been reset to something random, aswell as a lot of folders scattered around, it would SEEM all my data has been recovered! (touch wood)

I need to spend some time.... okay a LOT of time going through every file and sorting through, following also buying a handful of new drives to do as you say, keep more back ups Yogi, but I'm so happy!

Regarding my job that I was applying to when I found my problem, I created a quick CV and sent it off just so I got a application in, but I haven't heard anything yet.

I'm off most of this week though so may still do..

Hope everyone is doing well!

- Conor.

[yogi]

I'm glad you found somebody who could recover your data. 250GB is a LOT to lose. From what I understand the recovery itself isn't that difficult. Unless your hard drive goes through some magnetic storm and gets neutralized, most of the data remains on the disk forever. OK, a long time if not forever. The problem is in sorting out the directories and indexes that point to the data. Apparently there are ways around that problem too given that you got your data back within a few days time.

Hopefully you will at least get an interview out of your application for a new job.