He’s eight-years-old and suffers from quadriplegic cerebral palsy. Confined to a wheelchair his entire life, Dean cannot move his legs or right arm. However in 2007 after his parents managed to raise £15,000 his life would change forever when he travelled to the Therapies4kids clinic in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

After an intensive month of physiotherapy, Dean’s left arm was released and he can now use it to communicate through a keyboard on his wheelchair – similar to that of Stephen Hawking.

His parents believe a second month long stint at Therapies4kids will be of amazing benefit to Dean and have launched a new bid to raise £15,000.

I’m hoping that my cousin and I can help them along as much as possible. Please kindly sponsor our 170ft bungee jump. It takes place on the 21st February 2010 at Braehead, Glasgow.

Visit www.giveforward.org/mrgiggles to sponsor us and www.mr-giggles.com for more information on Dean.

And before I forget, Dean’s nicknamed Mr Giggles because – despite his condition – he hardly stops laughing.

Rich

I am deeply honoured and humbled.

http://www.allmediascotland.com/press_news/24036/YouTube-Accolade-for-Scottish-Newspaper-Interview-with-Susan-Boyle

http://digitalministry.com/UK/articles/885/DIGITAL+PEOPLE+RICHARD+MOONEY/1

“Bad news” said the Captain over the Flyglobespan intercom.  Sounds like he’s from Birmingham.

“The flight’s going to be grounded in Belfast here tonight folks. There’s a spring in the front wheel that’s loose and we won’t be able to get a new one until morning time.”

The flight was already delayed four hours. Now it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to fly until the very next morning. Great.

I befriended a pesnioner from East Kilbride. His name was John and he is around 70. Great old man. He is visiting family over here and has kids all over the world.

After two hellish hours in Belfast and a rush for some free food from a local sandwich bar Aviance staff – Flyglobespan’s Irish counterpart – put me, John and 16 others up in the Templeton Hotel, near Temple Kilpatrick, just 20 miles outside Belfast.

We were treated to a prepaid for meal. I ordered Goujons. Kinda tasty. Apparatenly the rooms cost 85 pounds a night….kinda pricey for one of Britian’s most in-trouble airlines. But kind of them nontheless. I hear others were punted to a crappy Comfort in….

Anyway at 8am yesterday morning we were on our way again. The flight was fine, around 9 hours. Watched some Wolverine…still amazed at it’s vast amount of characters for his origin story. It was kinda overkill on Fox’s part I think.

So we land and I need to get my car….but not before a wee trip to US customs. It was all fun, fun, fun.

“What’s this ornage substance?” asks the latino copper.

“Irn-Bru” I say. He looks confused.

“Iron what?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Bru, it’s a Scottish soft drink.”

Someone approaches him from behind, glances at me, then he tells me that they’re gonna search me and my bags.

Ten minutes later I’m in a room not to dissimilar from the one where Batman interrogates Joker in The Dark Knight.

I get asked a series of standard questions, like why I’m really here, what do I do asa reporter/journalists, will I be doing any business, do I plan to stay or visit other countries? Yadda, yadda, yadda.  And they were really interested in this Irn-Bru….like really.

 ”What does it taste like?”

My intial reaction is Irn-Bru idiot, but I remember where I am, so I try to relate…

“Orangey, kinda Mountaine Dew.”

“Really?” he aks.

“Yeah, it’s made in Glasgow.”

“Can I have some?”

The cheek!

“No,” I say. “It’s actually for a family member from back home, plus it will be a bit off.”

“Okay Mr. Mooney.”

He smiles and lets me go.

Ten minutes later I think I’m getting  shafted out of 400 bucks for insurance and a young driver’s supplement at the rent a car place. I kick up a fuss with the service clerk. She speaks in Spanish to the security gaurd and he shows me to my car in dock C 10.

I thought, screw it, let’s get in the car, grab a bite then head for St Petersburg. Flyglobespan owe me some kind of a refun anyway….(story for a later time)

I get to the c10. My jaw hits the floor.  A Dodge Avenger was sitting, waiting for me. Wow. I drive a 1.3 Honda jazz. This thing has a v8!

Where I’m staying is also is great. The drive from Sanford to St Petes was great. I have a tonne of  photos. And there’s much more to the story but Im running out of time here…

Siobhan got her Irn-Bru, took me for some Japanese food at a place called Tokyo Bay and the lost her sandal in the water….

It is great to see her again.

Now I gotta dash.

Hope everyone is well.

Rich

Joined the site a few months back and totally recommend it for everyone involved in new media.

For those few interested, you can follow me on twitter here.

Description: “An insight into the mind of a young man suffering depression, documenting his suicide attempts and how he survived them.”

Head on over to Lulu.com to check it out.

While there has been a thousand blogs (Google says over 26,000) on how downright wrong this is, I could not sit back and not let my voice be heard here.

The North Korean sentencing of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sad day for journalists everywhere and is a stark, brutal reminder that a free media still doesn’t exist in some parts of the world.

I watch Ling a lot on Current.com and she is always providing an in-depth, thoughtful, insight into world matters in her Vanguard Journalism reports.

Too me, journalists like her are thee definition of the job – never compromising, always balanced, consistently fresh, politically unafraid and thoroughly thought provoking.

Please sign the petition for their freedom and show your support.

The Historic Lanarkshire series received some high praise from top video journalist, Angela Grant, earlier this year when I asked her to do a critque of the web series. I do know that my voice work needs a lot of training and I am looking towards bettering this aspect for my next project.

Baring in mind I’ve only really had a few days worth of camera training, so I’ve been very much left to my own creative devices in terms of the video content.

Currently under construction

Hey guys,

So I finally decided to give wordpress a shot and am currently getting my head round it as I’ve never attempted to use it before.

Most of the pages work right now. And I’m currently working away at getting my articles and videos on here. Have a look at my about page for more info.

R