Anna And Irina Smiling Together
This was shot on the 22nd of January, and is just a nice picture of Irina and Anna smiling together on an armchair. You can see the mini Christmas tree still up in the background, though I don’t think it survived until Ira’s birthday. Excuse the low quality around the armchair fabric – the original has a lot more noise, for some reason our camera, even with a decent amount of lighting available, doesn’t like the fabric/colour of our living room furniture!
Shot five days after the previous clip (making it the 20th of January), here we have Anna engrossed in one of her favourite past times. The top and bottom drawers of the computer desk seem to get the most attention, so they have already been cleared of anything sharp/bad tasting/flammable. Sometimes she takes out one item at a time, plays with it a little, then dumps it on the floor before moving on to the next thing. Other times everything is taken out at the same time, then just often left on the floor. On rare occasions, Anna will even put things into the drawers!
The post title says it all really – after complaining earlier that I hadn’t managed to catch Anna actually grooving away to her songs, I found this video from the 15th of January, where Irina did manage to do so.
If I do ever decide to modify our Xbox 360 (so we can play backups of legally purchased games of course!), how difficult will it be to write firewall rules in the router so that internal network traffic (such as media sharing) but ensure that it doesn’t contact Microsoft at all. (They recently banned the hardware IDs of a lot of consoles that had been modified).
Does the arrival of Apple’s iPad really spell the end for netbooks, or will it fall into the pit of forgotten gizmos like the Newton?
Can I really fit all we need (data wise) in Britain onto a 16Gb thumb drive (and therefore not have to worry about customs hinting at a bribe being needed again), or will I end up giving up and just taking both portable hard drives again? In case you’re interested, yes customs officials in Kazakhstan don’t care if you are carrying 1Tb of data on hard drives, memory cards or thumb drives with you. Have that same data on a DVD or CD though, and you’re supposed to get them pre-checked (and pay the fees) a few days before your flight.
Answers on a postcard to…
We hadn’t seen Masha in quite a long time, so on the 15th of January she popped around for a brief visit, to catch up on all the news, see Anna and tell us about her life.
She had to pop off again quite quickly, but I managed to recover an old photo from her camera’s memory card that disappeared more than a year ago, and it was good to see that she seemed to be doing well. Hopefully next time Anna will get a chance to meet Masha’s son again.
We need to replace two of the big light fittings in our flat. For some reason, both of the LED powered ones we had installed when the apartment was built have failed on us. Not just with the LEDs not lighting up any more, but one of them actually creates a funny smell when turned on for a few minutes. Which reminds me, I need to make sure our friend knows which switches are safe to use whilst she is living here. We also need to look into getting a replacement tap (faucet for any American-English speaking readers) for the kitchen, as it no longer rotates without dragging the whole under sink fixtures with it. Whether we’ll go the whole hog and see if Kohler faucets are imported into Kazakhstan or not, I’m not certain, but I do remember that decent taps are quite pricey over here, so this may end up getting added to a “really must do soon-ish” list.
OK, so after double checking the YouTube uploads, I can now add recording Anna actually dancing rather than just watching the television to the list of things to record. Walking around should now be easier to capture at least, as she doesn’t require us to be ready to catch her at a moments notice. Normally 
Shot on the same day as the previous photos (14th January), these clips are of Anna dancing watching her favourite DVD. We’ve already ripped the audio from the DVD, should she seem in need of listening to her favourite tunes, without the added visual stimulation that may delay bed times etc.
We really wish the company that built our block of flats had decided to install a lift when they were drawing up their plans. Whether it is law, or simply convention over here in Kazakhstan, I’m not sure, but until a building has something like five floors, stairs are often the only method of getting up and down.
Elderly relatives, people with rheumatoid arthritis, or even us with Anna, a pushchair and/or car seat and a weeks worth of shopping can all find it difficult to get to the top (fourth) floor. For people still (relatively ) fit like Irina and me, the walking up the stairs just tends to count as a little (much needed) exercise, and I’m pretty sure that once Anna doesn’t need a sleigh or pushchair to go for walks, things will seem a lot easier.
Anna’s favourite thing to watch on telly right now has to be the Wheels On The Bus DVD that Mum bought for her back in Britain. Whether it is the bright colours, dancing adults or simple repetitive songs, I’m not sure, but Anna definitely perks up whenever we stick it on. I’ve already made an ISO of the disc, to take to Britain on a thumb drive (customs can give you hassle for optical media if they notice it), so we can burn a copy of it over there for her. The 14th of January saw her boogying away once more, so we took a photo and videos (see a post or two in advance of this one).
The Wheels On The Bus Make You Dance!
In just over a week we will all be heading back to Britain, to visit friends and family that haven’t seen Anna in almost nine months! We are breaking our journey to the UK by staying overnight in Istanbul, in the hope that this will allow Anna to get some proper rest and fingers crossed she will feel less grumpy on the last leg of the flight.
We still need to do all the obvious things like packing, sorting out things for the kind friend who is flat and cat sitting for us, but also things like checking the average temperatures in Istanbul for this time of year. Leaving Kazakhstan is easy – thick fur winter coat, hat, scarf, gloves and winter boots. Britain is normally relatively easy to pack for – t-shirts backed up with jumpers or shirts. However we don’t yet know what to expect in Turkey. I’ll not be running out to buy some skechers shape ups, but will be looking forward to wearing my comfy old trainers that are actually as wide as my feet. The winter boots were the best fit we could find over here, and stability on ice trumps slight discomfort from squashed feet! Anyway, I’m off to check a few sources for those temperatures, and check what clothing we need to set aside for the day and night in Turkey.
The 11th of January saw Anna taking her first few tottering steps between Irina and I, without a hand to hold on to, or reverting to crawling. I think she may have been doing this a few days already to be honest, but this was the first time we had thought to get the camera out. As I write this, she is now very confident walking around the room, without any encouragement, but back when the pictures were taken, Irina and I needed to be a few metres apart, with lots of encouragement for trying to walk solo. This meant I had to try and use the little gorillapod (tripod) JohnK kindly gave us, in conjunction with the shutter delay function on the camera. Unfortunately, this mostly ended up with shots of the living room instead of Anna. In the end I snapped a few shots with one hand, but obviously Anna’s well being came first, so the framing isn’t exactly perfect…
Anna Walking Handsfree!
Finally someone has hacked the playstation 3, though I’m not certain whether it is the original model, or one of the newer, redesigned versions that George Hotz had his success with. The newer (slimmer) versions have some of the hardware missing I believe, that stops Linux being installed (useful for people looking at obtaining cheap parallel processing units) or it could be the firmware has modifications. Anyway, with the hack in place, home brewed software (and of course backed up/pirated games) can be run. Whether the hack will need to be modified the next time Sony pushes out updates remains to be seen, but as this is a Xbox household, I’ll not be losing any sleep over it.
Today is Irina’s birthday, and I just wanted to write a quick note wishing her to have the best of days. Since we first met, we have got to know each other better, and yet you still want to be with me! Seriously, from Anna and me, we hope your day is filled with joy, that you like your card (Anna’s first attempt at assisted writing ), and that the coming year brings you happiness and health.
The joy you bring into the lives of people you know is unbounded, and I just hope that some of the good feeling you create is reflected back towards you.
Forgot to include these videos in the earlier post, sorry. Not forgot exactly, just stuck in the need for separate posts for videos and pictures that involve Anna. As the pictures and videos don’t include her, they won’t be automatically imported to her site. In case you missed the earlier post, this ice rink has been set up in a car park next to the big entertainment/Aquarium centre (Duman) not too far from our flat. There is a large tower in the middle which seems to play a music video channel, and since the schools are now back in session, the rink is quite empty normally. If I had my own skates, was able to use both legs whilst trying to move forward on the ice, and didn’t have to consider how to look after Anna following the inevitable sprained ankle, I might have popped down
