In just three weeks time I will be in Amsterdam. Given the time difference, I should have hopefully just hopped off a train at Centraal Station, dumped my bags in a locker (to be picked up when Alex and ChrisD have arrived a few hours later), and found a nice coffee shop to… have a coffee in (?).
Four days of rest and relaxation there, and then onto Cheltenham and Evesham, to meet up with Dad & Jan and some friends from my old home town. From there, the plan is to get to Clydach, to stay at Mum & John’s, and finally meet up with Gwen, their little puppy.
Finally, the reason for my trip being timed for this period, will be to go down to Falmouth and see my brother, Nick, for his 22nd birthday. All in all, it looks to be a packed three weeks, and I am really looking forward to going back to Britain, and of course Amsterdam.
Aug 31 2007
21 Days To Go
Jul 23 2007
Floods – All OK, Family Wise
Well, I’ve now heard back from all the family, and everyone is OK.
Dad’s house is OK, but the town itself (Evesham) was quite badly hit, and his car got pretty badly flooded, he is waiting to hear how long it will take to repair the damage done – I’m assuming the electrics were worst hit.
Nick (my brother) lives on a hill, so as he so succinctly put it, if he gets flooded, the whole town is pretty buggered.
Mum and John, who were down visiting my bro at the time I spoke to him, were very lucky with the timing of their journey – they had already left all the roads that were isolated by the rains – so luckily no unplanned overnight stays in their car 
The photo above does look slightly staged, though it still me made smile.
May 07 2007
Windows XP On A PDA!!!
When I first read the description accompanying a link to the Register’s story, I though it was just another case of a lazy journalist (unlike my highly efficient journalist brother, Nick; more on that to come later…) not bothering to do any research before posting.
It initially sounded as though there was another remote connection application being launched, with some vague claims for industry firsts.
However, if you check the article in question, you’ll discover that this is quite different. Apparently, there will be real remote desktops available (for a fee of course), accessible through either a Java applet or ActiveX control, on a web page. This means that ANY technology capable of interacting with a web site, through the aforementioned methods, should be able to ‘use’ a Windows XP machine. The ramifications of this are quite wide spread, for example people can work on their documents where ever they happen to be at the time, if they can get an internet connection there.
Although I still regularly use various VNC clients, I can see this sort of technology becoming more popular in the future, as the uses of it are realised by people in different sectors.
This post is NOT sponsored, once more I found the information interesting, and hope some of you may do so also…
Apr 12 2007
Smart Arse Exam Answers
Full credit goes to Nick (my brother) for finding, and passing on, the following pictures. (Thanks to Mum for passing it on to us)
They all appear to have been written by someone who either doesn’t know the answers, or possibly couldn’t care.
Click the link below to see the pictures.
Continue reading “Smart Arse Exam Answers”
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Dec 07 2006
10 Days Until Flying Back To The UK
And I’ve been very bad at posting recently. Apologies to anyone still reading this 
Irina has just returned from Moscow, Karra is fine and still biting us randomly.
Mum had her birthday on the 5th, but her presents and card didn’t arrive until yesterday, and one still hasn’t made it 
I hope to see Tom and Walton before I leave for my Christmas break, and Tom#2 (‘pilot Tom’) has been in contact to confirm he is fine, but wasn’t able to meet up with us recently due to his work commitments.
It is quite late now, so heading to bed.
Oh and Dad & Nick have received their visas, so it looks like everything is good to go for their visit over here for New Year
Hope all who read this do so in good health…
Nov 17 2006
This Post Isn’t Useful
for the vast majority of my occasional readers.
It is mainly here so I don’t need to go digging the paperwork out each time I need to check flight info.
These are the flight times for when I return to the UK – sadly without Ira (her work won’t give her any time off until she has been there 6-12 months )
Airline : Turkish Airlines
Date of flight to UK : 17 December
Leave Astana 03:30 – Flight 1355
Arrive Istanbul 05:40
Leave Istanbul 08:30 – Flight 1979
Arrive Heathrow 10:30
Date of flight returning to KZ : 30 December
Leave Heathrow 07:55 – Flight 1982
Arrive Istanbul 13:40
Leave Istanbul 16:35 – Flight 1354
Arrive Astana 01:45 (31st December)
Airport Codes
Astana – TSE
Istanbul – IST
Heathrow – LHR
Times that show ??:?? need to be updated – the ticket only mentions departure times, not arrival…
Nick (my brother) and Dad will be coming with me on the return journey, and staying in KZ until 9th January :> :] :}
[edit] All times updated
Nov 10 2006
Hear Ye, Hear Ye – Friday Morning, and All is Well
I woke up this morning, looked out the window, and it was snowing
There were a few flakes a couple of weeks ago, but this was proper fluffy snow.
Dad is off to Paris this weekend with Jan, and hopes to be buying a house in Evesham soon.
Mum and John have hopefully sold the house in St Thomas, and are settling in nicely at Clydach. In case you missed the posts on it, and ignore the links in the sidebar on the right, you can visit John’s site here. Please be aware some of his images are not for minors.
Really looking forward to visiting family and friends this Christmas in the UK, and to Nick (my brother) and Dad coming back with us to celebrate New Year here in Astana.
If you don’t get this post’s title, I’m guessing you’ve never heard a town crier…
Nov 09 2006
Things Are Improving Again
Got a new motherboard for Losha’s PC, installed it (whoever designed his PC case needs to be taken outside and slapped silly though), it is working fine, just finishing a few stress tests to make sure I’m not called out to fix it again :>
Losha is hopefully coming with us to the UK this Christmas, which I’m looking forward to.
Nick (my brother) and my Dad are hopefully coming to Kazakhstan with us, when we return from the UK. (Approx dates in UK 18-30 December, split 50/50 between Cheltenham and Swansea).
I’ve almost surpassed the $100 mark with my AdSense account.
[edit]
Looks like Losha won’t be coming now, never mind, maybe next time we go to the UK…
Nov 07 2006
Been A Bit Lax At Posting Recently
Apologies. I’ve been a little distracted re-building a PC for a friend. I had everything just right, all working, and secure (he had stability & security issues that couldn’t be sorted out without a re-install of XP). The final update was to bring the BIOS up to date – it had had a few revisions in 14 months. Unfortunately, for the first time ever, I appear to have killed the BIOS whilst flashing it. The board is supposed to have a 2nd BIOS that gets used if the first is fried, but it hasn’t come into play, no amount of keypresses or floppy disks with binary images & flashing programs have helped. As I did the damage, I’m using up the last of my birthday money to replace the motherboard. Except, of course, that particular model isn’t stocked any more, so I’m trying to find a suitable upgrade for him.
On a more positive note, my brother and dad are hopefully coming over to visit us, around New Year time, and Losha, may be coming with us to the UK for Xmas
Oct 25 2006
Birthday Presents for Nick And Customer Relations
Just heard from my brother that he has received his belated birthday presents. Nothing too unusual there? Except I foolishly put the wrong delivery address for him. When the gifts were found not be to have arrived three days after his birthday, I chased them up and discovered my mistake. They decided, in this case, to re-send the goods to the correct address, which I thought was outstanding customer service. Their address is www.thepresentfinder.co.uk – Secure Online Shopping . www.IWantOneOfThose.com also did the same thing by resending the presents without re-charging me.
However, www.dontforgetyourcard.com basically took the Kazakh attitude of tough luck, we’re not interested. Whilst this approach makes short term fiscal sense to a company, in the long run, assuming you don’t have a monopoly in the market, keeping customers loyal is the key to success. Happy customers recommend your business to their friends. Disgruntled customers will say nothing, or worse, warn their colleagues off the company involved.
