July 17th, 2008 at 3:46 am » Comments (0)

As some readers will already know, a few years ago I visited Dubai with Ira and her parents. Whilst there, we did not avail ourselves of a car rental service, ...more »

July 16th, 2008 at 2:33 am » Comments (4)

I meant to update the situation since my PayPerPost And SocialSpark Down Again? post. It turns out the problem was at my end, as many other sites were also not ...more »

July 14th, 2008 at 1:40 am » Comments (0)

This time it is Ramon's birthday. We hope you are having fun playing with some rich lady's pipes. (He is a plumber, not a gigolo, I hasten to add ;) ...more »

July 13th, 2008 at 1:38 am » Comments (0)

Today is both Balzhan's and Javier Eppen's birthday, so a big congratulations to both of them. To newcomers to this blog, Balzhan is a friend here in Astana, whilst Javier ...more »

July 10th, 2008 at 11:49 pm » Comments (1)

Since I started earning money online, I've kept an accurate log - which jobs I took with which company, on which day, and how much I should be paid. I ...more »

July 10th, 2008 at 4:06 am » Comments (2)

Before I forget the details, I wanted to let anyone who was planning on visiting a local restaurant called Patio about our experience there. We had gone with Natalya to ...more »

July 10th, 2008 at 3:05 am » Comments (0)

Am the only person who would misinterpret the journalist's story, when reading that headline? Although the article itself has the word elected inserted between Bury and Mayor, the RSS feed ...more »

July 10th, 2008 at 2:56 am » Comments (0)

Whilst sorting a few issues with other sites, I have been keeping an eye on other blogs, wondering if anyone else was going to post about issues with Izea's PayPerPost ...more »

July 9th, 2008 at 7:58 pm » Comments (0)

A couple of days ago I noticed that our internet connection was seriously slow once more. Convinced our pseudo-ISP (that all data goes via, before hitting Megaline) had goofed again, ...more »

July 9th, 2008 at 7:51 pm » Comments (0)

Dana is back in the country for a while, and after briefly seeing her at the in laws yesterday, she and her son popped round to ours this evening. It ...more »

July 9th, 2008 at 6:00 pm » Comments (1)

See the original PayPerPost and SocialSpark Sites Down post back from June 26th for the last time I noticed a problem. It looks as though the server/data centre is down ...more »

July 4th, 2008 at 11:45 pm » Comments (0)

Natalya Kim arrived on the train this evening. We saw some photos of her baby. Except she isn't a baby anymore, she is a proper, fully formed little girl. Awwwwwwww. ...more »

July 4th, 2008 at 3:39 am » Comments (0)

Natalya (as in Ms. Kim, rather than the Dr. Natalya that gets mentioned more often on this site) should be arriving later today (Friday). We've not seen her in a ...more »

July 2nd, 2008 at 12:55 am » Comments (0)

Last night (well, a couple of hours ago) was the first night of celebrations. The reason? This city's (Astana) birthday as being the capital of Kazakhstan. Also, the president has ...more »

June 26th, 2008 at 3:48 am » Comments (20)

[EDIT 3] The site is now up, my thanks to Emily for the heads up. Luckily the opp I took last night and posted on was still available. The requested link ...more »

June 25th, 2008 at 2:22 pm » Comments (0)

You may remember I placed a link to the Kontraband site on this blog's link page a couple of years ago. If you're at work (and ideally have some headphones), ...more »

June 23rd, 2008 at 11:59 pm » Comments (1)

with a few weeks to spare. I happened to open up the blog and I was visitor number 50000 :) Two years, 1823 posts since this site was started, a lot ...more »

June 23rd, 2008 at 6:05 pm » Comments (1)

Over some of the weekend, for some reason, I was not able to access most websites. I could visit google.com, run searches and check in on Facebook etc. (hi Claire/Wednesday ...more »

June 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 am » Comments (2)

OK, so that definitely is not the official way of transcribing the Russian for 'Happy Birthday' into Latin characters, but it is close enough. As Irina's Dad (whose birthday it ...more »

June 21st, 2008 at 10:13 pm » Comments (4)

Just a quick post from the in-laws for now, but last night Ira and I went out to the Queen's Birthday Party, organised by the British (! (/sarcasm)) Embassy, then ...more »