There has not been much happening on this blog the past week; the main reason being that I have been working hard on converting my other sites to blogs. Also, we went out a few times to celebrate Ira’s birthday, and so I’ve not had as much time at the keyboard as usual. The process of changing hosts and manually importing old site pages into blog posts is quite intensive, but I’m hoping to earn some more money from my other 18 sites soon, so it will hopefully be worth it. Thanks to those that are still checking in to see what is new, your repeat visits are appreciated

With Christmas fast approaching (just a couple of months to go now!), we need to start thinking of what to get for my in-laws. Although Ira’s father likes watches, he already has a quite a selection, so I’m not sure if he would actually appreciate a D&G watch, for example. So with that sector discounted, we need to think what would either be useful, or at least make him smile. I’m hoping someone will suggest something, so feel free to leave a comment if you can think of something original that would make a great gift. (Something tells me that the Akismet plugin may end up working overtime on the post now ).

Although I’m obviously hyped up over going back to Amsterdam and Britain next Friday, my mind can not help dwelling on just how much I am going to miss some things over here in Kazakhstan

Obviously my wife, Ira, comes first. I will be away for just under a month, which will be the longest we have been apart, at least since we got married, possibly since we met. (I can’t remember the longest she ever returned to Kazakhstan without me before).

Our friends and family in this country. Although my communication with Ira’s family is still at a pretty basic level, I feel as though they have got to know me a little better at least. Not spending Saturday evenings with Walton and Asel will be strange, though I hope to make up for lost time (and steak, chips and vodka ) when I return.

Our kittens. As I work from home, Karra and Muska have someone in the flat with them nearly all day everyday, apart from Sunday’s when we visit the in laws. I recently mentioned just how much I’ve changed when it comes to cats - before moving to Kazakhstan, cats were something to look at from a distance - past a certain comfort zone, I always felt like they were liable to claw me without warning. Since we have our own cats, I have learned how to read them a little better, and when they mis-behave, I feel comfortable telling them off - not something I felt able to do with other people’s cats.

Taxis - or rather the fact that almost any ‘normal’ (read not rich) driver would consider stopping to pick up a pedestrian to earn a little extra cash. In Britain, walking everywhere is a lot cheaper than the taxis there, and other than long distance hitch hiking, your options are limited.

Irina - I know I’ve mentioned her already, but I’m not sure what life will be like without her being next to me…

I had a nagging feeling I had forgotten some of the videos I uploaded to YouTube a while back. I eventually got around to opening all the posts within the Video category on this blog, then checked which videos from my YouTube channel had been posted. So we have a batch of four here, taken from when AlexC was still here in Kazakhstan, and we had all gone round to Ira’s parents for a nice relaxing evening, some food, and a little drink. I am still impressed that Alex was able to hold her own reasonably well when it came to downing vodka, considering she hadn’t had a drink in some five years!

Here we have Babushka (Ira’s grandma), her Dad, Mum, Alex, Myself, some Wild Strawberries (really little fruit that make great jam), and of course Irina filming. In fact I think she handled all the camera work for these 4 shots…

Ira’s Dad is a little old school in some respects, and so was not happy with the prospect of her chopping some wood up for the samovar§. This despite the fact that if I had done it, we would have ended up with wood splinters, sticks that were too wide to fit in the tube, blood, tears, sweat, and possibly a three-fingered Chris. Compare this to the nature loving, camping, tree-surgery-considering Alex, who knows how to handle sharp tools, and you can see why I giggled (oooops, sorry make that let out a manly guffaw…. hmmm why does that sound so unbelievable?) at the idea that I was a better choice to chop wood. Ira’s Dad did it himself in the end.

The big barbecue thing is, well a barbecue, made by the guys ar Ira’s Dad’s work. He complained that most barbecues are made for shorter people, so they made one with extra long legs It looks like I had been demoted that day from my normal duties of burning things. hmmmm, fire, flames, burn, petrol……. sorry, where was I? Seriously, I normally manage to burn the wood well enough, as it is not too difficult task to ensure that wood is burnt well to provide the charcoal needed to cook the sashliq (skewered kebabs) later on.

Finally we have almost everyone at the table before dinner, with Babushka chilling in the reclining garden chair. Alex tries out a little Russian, and Ira tells a blatent lie - the cake can’t be have more than my 43rd!

§ - A tea urn with a difference - the heat is provided by burning wood within the tube that runs through the middle of the area that the water is boiled in. You can now buy electric versions, but there is no fun in that, IMHO.

OK, as you may have read from earlier posts, I have been experimenting trying to find the best way to encode videos to ensure high quality clips on YouTube. So far things have not gone well. I have ascertained that I do need de-interlace the raw DV video from my camcorder. I have tried different ways of resizing from 720×576 to 320×240, including clipping, adding letter box strips, changing the aspect ratio, all to no avail - the video quality is still far worse than previous videos I’ve uploaded. I have tried both DivX and Xvid codecs, with medium to high bit rates, but I always seem to end up with quality that would look bad coming from an old mobile phone.
For now, I shall continue posting the videos as they stand. If someone has an idea about how to achieve better results, let me know. Similarly, if someone would like to have a copy of these, let me know which interests you, and we’ll sort something out…

First we have a short clip of the lasers being tested during the 7th Act at the Astana Day concert. Why have I included it? Watch out for a video taken later in the night, that shows just how impressive the laser show was As a small techy point, although the square and X don’t appear contiguous, to the naked eye, they were solid…

Here we have The 8th act singing in Russian…

Lastly (at least for this post), we have Alex, Ira and Ira’s Mum after the 8th act…

Last weekend Ira’s Aunt Sveta and her grand daughter Sasha came over to celebrate Ira’s Mum’s birthday. On the Saturday morning, as we were all in the car sorting out flowers, presents and food, Ira’s Dad took us over to a monument his company built. When the sun is shining, it is truly spectacular. The whole structure is covered in gold leaf, and really does sparkle when clouds do not dominate the sky. Anyway, enough of the text, onto the photos…

Ira, Walton, Alex and I all originally saw this statue/monument object just prior to going to the horse event around Astana Day. I’m glad to say no one seems to have tried to chip off the gold since then
I meant to add this earlier, if you want to see an interesting, (in)famous roundabout, check out this Google Maps satellite photo of the Magic Roundabout in Swindon, UK. You end up going the wrong way around the central roundabout!

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As you may have noticed, I’ve not yet posted anything about our trip to the UK, and now we’re already back in Astana. Hope to post more details over next week or so. Summary of our return journey is that Nick, Dad & I went via Istanbul, Almaty, Astana, and Ira went Moscow, Astana.
In case I miss posting tomorrow, Happy New Year to everyone.

OK, as promised, here is some more info, from Mum & John’s perspective.

This is basically a cut’n'paste job from an e-mail they sent to family and friends (with permission I hasten to add ;>)

“”For those of you ancient enough to Radio 4 be familiar with Alistair Cooke’s “Letter from America” this is likely to seem a pale comparison. Certainly less erudite and not as well crafted - but hopefully it will inform and maybe even amuse, though the political comment will be markedly absent!

This is Carol’s second visit to this amazing country and my first. As we flew in at night the lack of any settlements for hundreds of miles prior to landing in Astana was perplexing. It was hard to comprehend such vast tracts of land without population. Then Astana appears on the Kazakh Steppes resembling a modern Emirate city. Disney could not have bettered it! When Carol was here last she arrived through the back door, via the old capital of Almaty, then a twenty three hour train journey across a hot and dusty terrain. She made the trip for her son (Chris) & daughter in law’s (Irina) marriage. Jokingly she had said as she left to Irina’s father that he was to have a new airport built on her return. He did - and a pretty impressive airport to boot! It is so refreshing to see architecture which is not afraid to be adventurous, particularly in the teeth of such extreme weather conditions. Thankfully on this trip it has been kind to Carol & me, between 21°C & 30°C. The temperature can famously vary between -30°C in the winter to +40°C during the short summer months.
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