Seb bought his external hard drive over, so we could swap films non-commerical, freely given away videos. He also wanted to run a couple of tests on it, as there had recently been some data loss. Whether it was caused by proximity to some magnets, a hard knock to the disk, or just the drive’s age, he couldn’t tell, but Microsoft’s tool (chkdsk) had actually ended up doing more harm than good, so we decided to try out a few live CDs to test what could be recovered. As the drive is in an external USB enclosure, we had to find a PC that recognised such devices during the POST checks, to ensure the disk diagnosis software (DOS-based) could see the drive without Windows being involved. Unfortunately, the test will take around 170 hours to complete, but as you can effectively pause the software, and continue on from the same spot on a different machine, we thought we’d leave it running a while, before he takes it home, and attempts the test whilst connecting directly via a P-ATA lead, and hope that the USB interface is the main reason for the slowness right now.
Dec 12 2008
Data Recovery
Comments Off on Data Recovery
Dec 12 2008
Seb Sees Clydach
I went and picked up Seb from Cirencester on Tuesday, briefly meeting up with Con as well, who had to work sadly. Anyway, we’ve not managed to go out and see a great deal of the lovely countryside around here, but then again we rarely did that sort of thing back in Glos. anyway, so no change 🙂 We also managed to miss Con’s set online, but we’re hoping we can download it from the site. I’ll try and remember to post back here with the links when we find them. For our friends who haven’t met Seb, or visitors to this site who don’t know me, here is a quick pic grabbed from facebook (one of his other brothers was getting married that day).
Seb
I’ll try and find a more natural looking of him soon 🙂
Comments Off on Seb Sees Clydach
Dec 02 2008
Dr Natalya’s Birthday
Happy Birthday, hopefully Sasha and Sveta have been giving you a peaceful and relaxing day 🙂
Comments Off on Dr Natalya’s Birthday
Dec 01 2008
Con’s Birthday
Today is the day, back in the 80s, that top DJ, top mate and all round good bloke Con was born. Hope you’re having a good party, surrounded by good friends, and that we’ll get to see you soon.
(OK so this was another pre-written post I created a while back. Hoping to have seen him in the last couple of days,by the time this post is set to publish.)
Comments Off on Con’s Birthday
Nov 22 2008
Alex Is 21 Again?
Given that we were in the same year at school, it isn’t too hard to guess her age, but anyway, here’s hoping she is having a superb day…
Nov 17 2008
Happy Birthday Dad, Babushka & StarGazer
As you may have guessed from this post’s title, today is my Dad’s birthday. Everyone here in Kazakhstan hopes you have a great day…
The title should also give you a clue that Babushka (Ira’s grandma) and StarGazer also share their birthdays with my Dad. Happy Birthday all round then 🙂
Nov 13 2008
Sligo
I have mentioned this pub a couple of times here on the blog, but have yet to post photos or pass comment on the food.
Well, lets start at the beginning. It is located near the Intercontinental Hotel here in Astana, and is most definitely branded as an Irish pub (though it is probably a lot closer to an Irish-themed pub in Britain than the real thing. Not a real issue, just letting you know). The decor is pretty good considering there probably aren’t that many Irish experts in this locality. The staff were very courteous, and I’m told there is always at least on member on duty who speaks English. The first time I went there, they didn’t have much Irish music at all, and as we were returning in the evening, I burnt some Dubliners albums (the only Irish music, other than Enya, I could find on my hard drive) for them. The food was good – I think I had some sort of steak and boiled potatoes dish, whilst the others had various Irish dishes. The stew was a lot more than passable apparently. The dessert was just the right size, and again tasty.
Onto the photos…
First we have Ira and Assel (Walton’s other 0.5)
Ira And Assel Sligo Pub Astana
Here we have the aforementioned Walton and me (I’m the one on the right, posing beautifully for the camera.)
Walton And Me
Here we have Dr Ken (for any macho men out there, you’ll find beers are ALWAYS served with a straw over here – he didn’t actually specifically request one 😉 )
Dr Ken
And here we have DaveG, loving the camera lens as much as ever 🙂
DaveG
The next three are a shot of the back half of Sligo, the cheesecake I mentioned, and finally the band that were playing. Which makes me think all these photos must have been taken the last time we visited Slago. See KZBlog’s post (Live Music In Astana) for more info on the band.
Sligo Pub
Chocolate Cheesecake
Band Playing
Nov 11 2008
Miss Lily, Joe And Mustang Sally
As previously promise, here we have some slightly better quality photos of Miss Lily (which reminds me, I need to edit the previous posts, as there is only two L’s in her (stage?) name, not three). It looks as though Ira’s camera is introducing some noise to the pictures, so we’ll need to go over the settings currently in use. For now, I’ve just used a couple of plugins and some light airbrushing to cover the speckles.
Miss Lily Northwind Astana
Miss Lily Posing Northwind Astana
Miss Lily Joe Northwind Astana
Finally we have a video from the same night, with Miss Lily and Joe performing Mustang Sally…
Nov 10 2008
Dave’s Party
Just before he went off to Moscow and moved out of his flat, DaveG held a party round at his (partially as a flat cooling party (does that term exist?) and partially as a goodbye for us, as we may not cross paths again for a few months). I took a few snaps, and realised that some of our friends had never been posted here on this blog before.
So, without further ado, may I present (starting from top left, going clockwise in both cases) Assel, DaveG (mostly obscured), Dan, another Dan and Jo.
DaveG's Party #1
Here we have Dr Ken, Irina, Walton, Assel, DaveG, Dan, Jo, and the other Dan again. (TBH I’ve labelled them as Shymkent and Non-Shymkent Dan in my phonebook, but that will make even less sense to everyone reading this.)
DaveG's Party #2
Comments Off on Dave’s Party
Nov 10 2008
198 Hours To Go
Yes, just 11,800 minutes, (assuming I manage to publish this post within ten minutes of starting it, that is), until our plane is due to take off and fly the first leg of our trip back to Clydach. We are going via Kaliningrad because of KD Avia’s wonderful reputation for supreme meals, friendly staff and high efficiency they were close to 50% cheaper that the normal routes!
From there it is on to Gatwick, then John is scooping us up and driving us back to sunny Wales where we can relax, catch up with Mum and Lolik can meet her grandma for the first time 🙂
We’re hoping to go and see Dad and our friends in Gloucestershire sometime the next week, but no definite timetable just yet. As we will be away for six months, we have had to think a lot more about what to pack, and arrange for the kittens and flat to be looked after whilst we are away.
The fact that we will be returning with one extra person (unless the ultrasounds missed out on a twin 🙂 ), means that we need to try and leave space (and weight allowances) for all the related clothes, necessities and presents in the suitcases.
« Previous Page — Next Page »