OK, so I definitely need to clear some time in the next week or two, and try to catch up with a lot of posts (and photo editing) on this blog. Although my memory of my holiday last September may be a little hazy by now, I’m hoping the pictures will either refresh said memory, or paint a good enough picture to give you, the reader, enough of an idea. After that, we have our trip to Britain over Christmas and New Year, with Mum’s wedding in between. After that we have finally meeting up with Tom the pilot, contact being made with an American Jazz singer hopefully coming to Astana to play some sets locally. Finally, we have the birthday trip to Amsterdam (I may need to link to upcoming forum posts for the Coffeeshop specific info) and Britain again this April and May. I’m hoping that by posting this summary now, it will remind me what is missing, and force me into actually taking the time out to write a few words and crop a few piccies. To friends and family still waiting for those posts, thanks for your patience so far.
May 22 2008
Grote Broer Is Watching You!
This is definitely one of those cases where it is difficult to tell whether unfolding events are heading towards a better crime-free world, or simply Big Brother worming its way even further into our everyday, law-abiding lives… de Telegraaf (a Dutch newspaper) originally reported this issue, where the police will have access to live video feeds from security cameras in shops and some businesses. Check here for a little more detail. Basically, if an alarm is raised, police can easily tell whether a robbery is taking place, or perhaps a till operator has simply mistakenly nudged the button. However, the idea that such video feeds are now fed into a central system, means that should security services, and other government intelligence agencies can now follow our every day lives a lot more easily.
(Grote Broer? Dutch for Big Brother apparently.)
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May 14 2008
Posts Still To Come
OK, so I am still behind in updating this blog with recent events. As Irina pointed out, there is a large gap starting with the beginning of our journey to Amsterdam, all of the stay in Britain, returning to Kazakhstan, (finally) meeting Pilot Tom for a meal, and meeting up with Dave, Walton, Assel, and probably a few other things.
The holiday part will have to wait until I get round to sorting some of the pictures out, but I hope to have them for you soon…
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May 06 2008
Back In Kazakhstan
So, we arrived yesterday just after 11am, local time, having left Britain the morning before. We managed to squeeze in a 30 minute trip to Amsterdam on the way back, and the trip went well this time, without any silly bureaucrats trying to slow us down, unlike on the way out. I’ll try to post a little more in the coming days/weeks, I just wanted to confirm that all posts are now ‘live’ again 🙂
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Apr 28 2008
Left A Bit, Right A Bit
As I previously mentioned, most of the blog posts from 19th April – 5th May have been pre-written (with the timestamp suitable altered), as I’ll not have as much time to write these out. We should hopefully be in Britain (having spent six days in Amsterdam) by the time this post appears, and we’ll have already been on three planes (Astana>Frankfurt>Amsterdam>Cardiff). Fingers crossed, none of our landings will be the like the following two videos 🙂
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Apr 20 2008
Happy Birthday To Me
If all has gone to plan, today Ira and I are in Amsterdam, celebrating my 29th birthday. Or should that be 30th – the day you turn 1 year old, is surely your second birthday, 365 days (or thereabouts) after the day you were born…
Anyway, despite the meandering style of this post, I’m not writing this live from our apartment in smokeland Amsterdam – I wrote most of the next two weeks worth of posts whilst still back in Kazakhstan. I wanted to keep my readers coming back for more (if you stop posting for more than a few days, you are guaranteed to lose return visitors), and as most of my friends are too lazy to guest-post. ChrisD would be a prime example – 18 months later and still no sign of his post on holidaying in Astana. So, I finally got around to clearing out all the collections of bookmarks I’d made on topics that I wanted to blog about ‘one day’.
Anyway, I hope all who read this do so in good health, to my friends in Britain, I hope to see you soon (we’ll be near Swansea 25th – 29th April (approx.) then some time in Cheltenham and Evesham, before heading back to Swansea once more, as my cousin is getting married. 4th May we head back to Astana, so if I haven’t seen you by then, you’ll have to survive until Xmas again.) To friends elsewhere, I hope things are going well, and that our paths cross again sooner rather than later…
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Apr 19 2008
Almost Gone
We will be leaving for the airport in the next hour, and things appear to be sorted in time. Everything has been packed, I think I’ve replied to all outstanding e-mails, and this blog has two or three posts scheduled to be published each day we are away. We are in Amsterdam from 19th – 24th April, then on to Clydach until the 28th/29th April. From there, we go to Cheltenham and Evesham until 1st/2nd May, then back to Clydach for my cousin’s wedding, finally returning to Kazakhstan on the 5th May.
I hope everyone is OK, and that we’ll be seeing some of you soon 🙂
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Apr 15 2008
Posting Will Ease Off For A Few Days
I still have quite a few things I need to crack on with before Irina and I head off to Amsterdam for my birthday, and then on to Britain. In an attempt to keep my few loyal readers, well… loyal, I’ll be posting some mildly funny/entertaining videos over the next few days, as this doesn’t require much though on my part. Believe it or not, this blog, and related research takes up a fair amount of my working day!
Anyway I have already written two or three posts for each day I’m actually away (19th April – 5th May). By adjusting the timestamp, it should hopefully appear as though I’m still dutifully blogging away each day. I will try and check in here, as well as my e-mail, when possible, but if you have not left a comment here before, it is possible that approval of new comments may take two or three days.
If you have commented here before, unless you include my blacklisted words, your comments should appear immediately.
Anyway, enjoy the next few videos over the coming days, and my thanks to ChrisD’s facebook friends for originally bringing them to my attention 🙂
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Apr 14 2008
424320 Seconds To Go!
Well it is now just 118 hours until Irina and I leave for Amsterdam 🙂
I still have quite a lot to do work to do before we leave, not least is working out what to take with us for both the Netherlands and our subsequent trip to Britain. In terms of lightweight equipment, I am trying to minimize on the gadgets and accompanying power supplies etc., and also working out the minimum amount of clothes we can take, considering we’re not likely to be using a laundry in Holland. So what am I taking? Well my HTC TyTn II is definitely coming along, as it serves as my phone, a PDA (for gaming in between flights, internet browsing whenever I can find a WiFi signal) and it also has a built in GPS device, so there’ll be no excuse for getting lost whilst stumbling from one coffeeshop tourist destination to the next.
(Yes, I know 118 hours does not equal 424320 seconds, but by the time I wrote out this post, a few more minutes had past 🙂 )
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Apr 09 2008
Social Experiment Or Calamity In The Wings?
I recently came across Mod My Life, a site where you can suggest what a real person does, on the street, and watch the results with (almost) live streaming video. A bit like some sort of reality TV show, but without the ad breaks, and no premium rate calls to vote on which suggestion should be implemented. btw, this post isn’t sponsored, the site just really caught my attention. Head on over here to see what I’m talking about. Which reminds me, if you see a post of mine with a link like here, there, article or some other nondescript term, it is safe to assume I’m not getting paid to mention it 🙂
wow, just tried to find a blog category I could file this under. None to be found. Also re-discovered some I’ve not used in a long time. I think I need to tidy them up some time. Probably after the Amsterdam and UK trip. Wow #2 – I think I’ve probably managed to go a week or two without boring my readers with more reminders about my upcoming trip. Wonders will never cease…
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