but got distracted.
If you check out this post at the News from the Caravan blog, you will find a quite useful entry on Citizen of Kazakhstan are not Kazakhs.
I’ve not found it put so well before, so thought others might find it useful…
Nov 20 2006
Meant To Link To This A While Back
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Nov 20 2006
Finally Properly Snowing
The snow is now settling, and the temperature has dropped.
Not sure if we’ll yet meet the prediction I passed on earlier last month, but at least it now looks like proper Winter weather.
As I work from home, my views are not necessarily the same as those of people who have to walk/skid to work… I imagine more accidents are on the way.
Will post some piccies later, heading to bed now…
OK, here are a couple of night time piccies from when it started snowing, I’ll upload some day light ones when I get round to taking them…
First you see what happens if you leave everything on automatic, and forget to turn the flash off…
Second we have the flash off, with the shutter speed slowed a little to try and grab some more light without the flash, hence the moving cars in the back ground
Nov 19 2006
Road Rage Strikes
As we were getting ready this morning to go to the in-laws (continuation of Babushka’s birthday & arrival of Aunt,nieces etc.), I heard a loud sound outside. Still don’t know exactly what it was, but I saw an expensive looking car parked diagonally in the slow lane, blocking a Kamaz (big truck, tipper truck in this case). The car driver got out, shouted at the lorry driver, opened his door, and started hitting the lorry driver. Hard. A lot. After 30 seconds of venting his anger at the bloke, he hopped out of the lorry’s cab, got in his own car and drove off.
OK, so what, you may ask…
1) Lorry drivers aren’t normally known for being 7 stone weaklings, and so don’t usually attract a lot of physical confrontation from ‘mere’ car drivers
2) If you had a nice car, would you really risk a lorry driver ramming your pride and joy by beating him up?
Anyway, rest of the day went well, and our relatives are coming over to the flat tomorrow.
Oh, and I also wasted a fair amount of time last night, posting links to my Bikini & Bikini Waxing article site, on various blogs and forums, by mis-typing the url – www.www.bikinitips.com doesn’t lead anywhere, obviously, whereas www.bikinitips.com does.
Serves me right for posting whilst overly tired.
Speaking of which, good night…
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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
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Nov 15 2006
Borat Gets A Beating
Many thanks to a poster at PPRuNe (Professional Pilots Rumour Network) who spotted the following Sun story – Borat spanked by angry Yank. What I found more amazing was that Hugh Laurie was Sasha’s knight in shining armour!
Nov 13 2006
Another Car Crash Outside Our Flat
It happened a few hours ago now. I heard a squeal of tyres and a loud bang. Looked out the window, and it looks like someone’s nice new powerful car either slammed into a flatbed or a cement mixer.
I’m just really glad our block of flats doesn’t face directly on to the road itself…
The photos aren’t too clear, as I didn’t want to attract attention by turning the flash on, so had to decrease the shutter speed quite a lot. I’ll get a mini-tripod sometime…
Nov 12 2006
Had Some Friends Over Last Night
Irina cooked a really nice roast, our friends bought some vodka, and we consumed it all.
Actually I think there is some cake left in the fridge, will go and check just as soon as my stomach returns to normal.
Full respect to Tom, who had to go to work first thing this morning, I woke up early, stood up too quickly and went back to bed again soon after ;>
Anyway click the thumbnails below to see slightly larger versions…
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…
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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…
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Oct 31 2006
November Astana Weather Report
This is completely unofficial, I must stress (my wife heard from a friend, who heard from a friend, who heard from a meteorologist that…), but rumour has it that due to an approaching low pressure anomaly in Astana, we might see temperatures dip to minus 30 Celsius this November. For American readers, I believe that is minus 22 Fahrenheit!
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