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The EDGE (think about GPRS v2.5 ) connection maxed out at 16kbit/sec (about three times slower than old fashioned dial up internet access on computers), consequently I unable to upload shots to twitpic until I returned to Astana.

Travelling From Petropavlovsk's Airport Into Town

Urban Area Of Petropavlovsk

Ira’s Dad decided it was time for us all to go and check in, though we wanted to wait for Anna to finish her breakfast first. Anna saw him walking away and ripped her bib off, which sort of made our decision for us!

Oh, I realise that this isn’t really an “Eating Out” sort of post, but it gives you a quick glimpse of the cafe located on the second floor of Astana airport.

A couple of clips of the room, the company and the main course…

Everyone was still very sober by then, not many beers drunk or shots of Cha Cha served. The restaurant has definitely switched suppliers when it comes to the Georgian spirit of Cha Cha. It didn’t feel like paint stripper going down your throat, if anything it was a little closer to brandy, but not overly so.

OK, onto the entertainment…

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The flashing consisted of SharpFin-ing (if it isn’t a verb, it should be) my Logik IR-100 internet radio, as well as my HTC TyTn II / Kaiser.

The internet radio has been unable to play BBC Radio on demand programs for more than a few minutes ever since April/May. Given that over here in Kazakhstan, the main reason I want the radio on is to catch up with UK based news programs and a little light comedy before falling asleep, the device was quickly losing any reason for using mains power up. I had wanted to apply a 3rd party update to the radio for a while, but whilst it was able to complete 95% of my requests without problem, I couldn’t justify risking bricking the thing. Not only is it no longer on sale back home, similar devices cost between two and five times as much, so had I cocked up and ended up with plastic box that did nothing, I’d have felt highly agrieved.
Now that the new linux components are installed and working OK, I can select different firmwares from Reciva (the company that runs the online access portal for it), play media files locally from a thumb drive, and even remotely administer it from my PC. There is only one (internal) USB socket on the motherboard, which is normally occupied by a caseless WiFi adaptor, however with a little brute force on a rear plastic grill, a USB hub that wasn’t used for anything important (only USB 1.1), and a few minutes re-checking procedures, Cygwin re-installation and telnetting, the radio has reprieved it’s binward journey. To get to this point, I did switch from Windows 7 to XP (problems with services blocking ports), at which point a different error appeared. Whilst fixing this DLL dependency problem, Anna decided to press the reset button the PC. When logging back in to XP, it appeared that the unscheduled reboot had caused a corrupt file. Luckily Vista saved the day (most likely the first and last time you’ll read that phrase without sarcasm on this blog.) Not only did the subterfuge of making the radio think my PC was a Reciva server, and so it could therefore accept my modifications, but it has proven the most stable and error free OS on my PC today. Obviously I didn’t actually boot into Ubuntu as I’m not comfy enough with it yet to try flashing other devices from it.
So, on to the second and slightly more fear-filled flashing incident today… my phone. As previously mentioned, the screen isn’t touchable in a few places due to a dodgy repair carried out by professionals back in Britain (need to contact them soon), and I was interested to find out what differences I could expect from the next phone we’re getting, which will have Windows Mobile 6.5, rather than 6.1. Given that I have a few backup phones that function perfectly well as phones, if not enterntainment/productivity enhnancing devices, I decided to take the plunge and see if I could hit two for two in terms of not killing lumps of plastic and silicon today. Skipping the usual routine of killing off processes in Windows to allow deeper access to the phone, I dumped the renamed ROM onto the microSD card, and told the phone to get on with it. No problems yet, though it is still very early days. The new interface is interesting, but I deliberately chose a light weight ROM with nearly all apps and bells and whistles removed. I’m slowly going through the process of reinstalling important apps (where simply re-creating shortcuts to the still present programs on the memory card won’t suffice), and I’ve not yet had to try and figure out how to text/call/live stream videos etc. in a rush, but I’m happy to know that the Touch Pro 2 from HTC will have this same OS version at it’s core, even if the interface will be bells and whistled to the hilt
Before I forget, welcome back home to Mum, John, Aunty Jean and Uncle Pete. Their well planned break took an early diversion, but more on that in the coming days.
Right, I’m off for now as I need to boot back into XP and re-sync contacts etc. from Outlook, so feel free to check out the rest of this page for a lot of photos and videos of Anna back when she was in Britain.

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The kitchen was refitted just under two years ago, you can park a car directly in front of the house on a small drive, with two sheds in the back garden. As you may have guessed, I’m not an estate agent, so to get a better idea, you should probably head directly to their site – click to discover more about the three bedroom detached house for sale in Gloucester.

Other things I should probably already have mentioned : Gas central heating, uPVC double glazing, and the shops really are very local.

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(I’m not receiving any sort of recompense for this post btw, but if you buy the house after seeing this blog post, please let her know I sent you, I’m hoping a bottle of vodka would await my return to the UK )

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Irina, Anna and I went for a walk through Astana park, to take a look at all the equipment before it was disassembled. The castle walls, yurts, stone carvings (painted expanded polystyrene) and Kazakh warrior statues were put up for Astana Day/the President’s birthday, and are being removed. There were quite a few workmen wandering around without shirts, and from all the heavy lifting, it looked like they did ab workouts all day long. Sorry for the women (and few men) reading this post, but I don’t think we actually see any/many of these workers on video.

I hadn’t realised how windy it would sound through the phone’s microphone at the entrance to the park, sorry.

Small break in recording as I needed to use the phone for other things…

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Khan Shatyr Astana (3), Inside Khan Shatyr (2), Khan Shatyr youtube (1), youtube khan shatyr (1)

So far we have

“…and the world’s a better place when you’re upside down…sweet about me” ,

“Australian Baby rearing therapy is questioned” ,

and the current favourite, “Despite vigorous shaking the jelly bean dispenser appeared to be empty”!

I’ve added “Father very carefully & securely holds his daughter upside down, as she really enjoys seeing the world from that perspective, and at no point was any shaking involved whatsoever” more as an explanation for concerned readers (one hand holding Anna by the shoulders), rather than a specific entry to the competition.

Ts&Cs
The bar of chocolate needs to be picked up in Wales by the winner.
No quick weight loss tips are included in the prize.
The judge’s decision is final.
If I get around to upgrading CeltPhotographic to WordPress 3.0 and the site goes down, you may need to resubmit your caption.
No idea when the closing date is

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The lady singer preparing for her show at Rivière.

Here we have her version of You’ll See by Madonna, as well as a quick glimpse of a hookah/hubbly bubbly/water pipe that we had (water melon and grape was the flavour tobacco we chose I think.)

This time she is singing “Sweet About Me”, and another quick shot of the hookah

This was a cover of the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

Penultimately we have Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop The Music”

And finally, she sang “Its A Wonderful Life” (Black I think? A group that has a colour as their name at least.)

The food was quite expensive, and there was apparently only a choice of two beers. However the cheeseburger (I know, I’m a classy guy ) was tasty, and the local Line Brew was relatively cheap and appeared to have alcohol in it The samsas that were supposed to be a starter didn’t arrive until after the main course, but were OK. The service was great (especially by local standards), though if your company has given you a discount card for La Rivière, be aware that there has apparently been a management change, so these cards are no longer accepted. The water pipe was nice (we didn’t splash out on the extra money required to have a pineapple used as the charcoal bowl), and when the charcoals had died out, they didn’t try and charge us for more, so we were able to finish off the tobacco. The big screen (well projector and screen) looks like it could be good for the next World Cup match we go out to watch, though we may need to reserve a table in advance. Overall, I’d recommend this place if your budget isn’t tight, or if you only plan to have a couple of drinks and want to chill out outdoors, with the possibility of live entertainment.

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