I am not publicly posting the solution that worked just yet, as I need to check any security implications from the action I took.
The short version is that I can now access the admin section of this blog.
Whilst I’m wittering on about things 98% of my readers couldn’t give a flying funk about, this site may experience limited downtime in the next week, as I’m intending to change my hosting company. Matt Garrett has very kindly been paying for my hosting, but it is time for me to take responsibility for my site’s costs. Short version is if the site is down, or appears screwed up, wait an hour, try again. If it still doesn’t work, wait a day, and unless I’ve fallen asleep at the keyboard, things should be fixed again.
Jan 15 2008
Problem Sorted
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Dec 19 2007
Pet Sitter Found
As you know, Ira and I will be travelling to Britain this Saturday, and as her parents are coming as well, we can’t very well ask them to come and feed the kittens whilst we are away. A solution has been found in the shape of Mira, Ira’s colleague from work. She will come and spend some time in our flat§, seeing what independent life is like whilst not at work very much, and obviously making sure the kittens are fed, watered, and that the litter tray doesn’t over flow 🙂
Anyway, I dug out her picture from a couple of months back
Or at least I am hope that’s the right picture, I very helpfully forgot to include any useful information in the folder name, other than the date. In case you are interested, the object in her right hand is a little laser toy I picked up on my last trip home, mainly to entertain or distract the kittens when we need them to behave well.
Anyway, huge thanks to her for making sure we can sleep well, knowing that Muska and Karra are going to be looked after 🙂
§ – I am trying to force myself to use the UK English word, rather than ‘apartment’, as I already find myself sometimes unable to recall which nation’s vocab I am using…
Dec 11 2007
Alex Has A New Place…
Although it does not yet have a land line, and therefore no internet yet, her and Mat seem very happy in their new place. Head on over to her blog (www.DryadMusings.com) to see how things are going on, where you can also catch up with her reports on starting work. If anyone happens to work for Orange’s customer (dis)service department in Britain, do you think you could stick to your promises, and sort out your backlog of requests for SIM unlocking codes…
On a different note, I’ll need to wait until I have seen the results, but I should be able to post details on a few schemes to generate a little extra income soon, if you own a blog or other type of site. They won’t pay for a month or so, but if they come through, I’ll be posting links.
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Dec 10 2007
It’s News To Them…
My thanks to David (I really need to confirm if he is a David or a Dave at some point), who is a nice man from Australia who has a Russian wife. He is moving to Astana, and has so far made it to Almaty, with his Astana arrival due this week. Hopefully more on him to come in the future, but for now, check out a site he passed on to me – The Daily Mash, which seems to take current news, and create a spoof story from it. The quality seems to be of a consistently higher level than the similarly themed The Onion site. Anyway, check out this “London Bomb ‘Not Scary Enough’, Brown Tells Mi5” article as an example.
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Dec 10 2007
Irina’s work have blocked their employees from accessing Facebook, so if any friends of ours feel they are being ignored by her, please don’t be offended; by the time she has finished work and got home, there is not always a lot of enthusiasm for anything that requires human<>keyboard interaction.
I, on the other hand, have a very understanding boss, who can see the need for occasional non-profit based activities to balance out my day 😉 (For new readers, I should probably point out that I am my boss, and as such tend not to discipline my self a great deal…)
Anyway, here is a little Facebook badge I have created, not much going on with it right now, but a nice little summary, and you can flip through some of the photos I’ve uploaded to my profile, or just click straight through to the profile itself, should you prefer.
Thinking about it, my profile’s security settings may allow you to only see a limited version, so if you want to see it all, send me a Facebook poke, with a note explaining you found me via my blog, and I’ll gladly oblige.
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Nov 28 2007
Alex Remembers Her Blog :)
Our friend Alex (see the many posts here and her actual blog) has finally got around to writing a few posts on her new exciting life in Australia. She has moved over there to be with Mat, and it looks as though they will now not be sharing a flat with two other blokes, as the couple’s employers have rented them a vehicle, so they can commute instead of moving. Given the amount of time the two spent apart prior to their joyful reunion, this is probably for the best 😉
Anyway, if you have not done so yet, visit her blog, consider subscribing to her RSS feed, or at least give the site a quick Ctrl+D 🙂
Oh, and I can’t remember if I mentioned it already, but congrats to Alex on achieving a Google Page Rank of 2!
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Nov 26 2007
A Month Of Random Contacts…
During the last month or so, I have been contacted by a number of people, all related to Kazakhstan strangely enough. First we had someone who has built a plane and called it Berkut (which is also the name of a vodka over here), an English guy moving to Astana who wanted some more information about satellite TV and supermarkets, an Australian guy who is moving here in December, with his Russian wife, and finally an Indian (apologies if incorrect, his surname sounds Hindu to me) architect, living in New York who designed the local Cinema City complex (he wanted some photos of it, as his current ones weren’t too good).
I’m hopefully passing the vodka on to an American friend, so the plane builder can celebrate the flight with a suitably named drink, we’re looking forward to meeting some new faces here in Astana at some point, and the architect has been put in touch with Tom, who has better camera skills than me, so should have some better shots than those captured last night at Tiflis.
Anyway, they all made contact through finding this blog, so a big thanks to the search engines out there who are spidering away 🙂
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Nov 21 2007
UK Trip Details
THIS POST IS TEMPORARILY ‘STUCK’ TO THE FRONT PAGE.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE MORE RECENT POSTS, THANKS…
Once again, this post is primarily for family and friends back in Britain. A few have asked when and where we will be this Christmas time, and rather than repeating ourselves umpteen times, I thought I would post it up here, and refer people to the blog instead. More visitors never hurt the Alexa rank either 😉
Leave Astana 22nd December : 07:25
Arrive Moscow : 08:00
Leave Moscow : 10:05
Arrive Heathrow : 11:15
At this point John is hopefully picking us up in the motor-home, and driving us back to Clydach
23rd December : Flying visit to, and tour of, Cheltenham, as Ira’s parents will be returning to Kazakhstan before New Year
25th December : Something major happened this day in history, anyone recall?
27th December : Mum and John get married. 🙂 🙂 🙂 (note to myself, remember to update Outlook Contacts to Carol Kavanagh!)
29th December : The in-laws return to Kazakhstan, so following flight times are just for them…
Leave Heathrow : TBC
Arrive Moscow : TBC
Leave Moscow : TBC
Arrive Astana : TBC
New Years : At Mum & John’s place
Post-New Year : Spend some time in Clydach, Cheltenham (catching up with friends sober enough to move), Evesham (to see Dad), and hopefully London (to finally catch a glimpse of EmmaF’s new home, as well as other friends living there)
12th January : We leave Britain to return to Kazakhstan, with the following flight times
Leave Heathrow 12th January : 12:25
Arrive Moscow : 19:30
Leave Moscow 13th January : 00:10
Arrive Astana : 06:25
All flights are quoted with local times
Oh, and once again, a random two word phrase to make searching for this post, once it has slipped off the front page, a little easier. Hmm we had pink badger last time I think, so today’s phrase will be red dove.
[edit] Well, turns out there is a film called Red Dove. Involving amnesia, communism and water polo. I’m half tempted to try and source a torrent for that, it seems like an interesting mix of plot devices!
Nov 19 2007
Alex Confirmed As Safe & Sound In Oz :)
The title pretty much says it all. Although I had seen her on Facebook since her plane had landed, I managed to catch her on Messenger earlier this morning. All appears to be going well, and she intends to add a post to her Dryad Musings blog soon. There was one in the middle of composition, but her net connection died, and I didn’t manage to give her the following piece of advice before it occurred…
For anyone who finds that there internet connections dies after hitting save or publish on their blog, and so they think they have lost the post…
1) Wait until you have got a successful connection to the internet again – DON’T do ANYTHING in the browser window/tab that was being used for your post composition
2) Hit the back button in your browser
3) Hit the forward button in your browser, and when you get a warning re. POST data, click OK
4) Ta Da, data should be magically saved.
Of course you could just regularly save drafts as you write the message 🙂
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Nov 19 2007
Not Long Until Return To The UK…
Just under 5 weeks now until Ira, myself, and both in-laws will be travelling to Britain for Christmas and Mum & John’s wedding. This will be the first time Ira’s mum has been there, and now they have their visas sorted, it is just the matter of Xmas pressies to sort that is left out standing. Although the in-laws are returning to Kazakhstan for the New Year, Ira and I are spending that with Mum, and then 10 or so days more in Britain, so we can see my Dad, and our friends in Cheltenham etc. So for the few (‘real’ world) friends that do bother to read these posts, let me know when you’ll be around via e-mail or IM, or pretend you will be away if you want to avoid us 😛
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