Barking Mad Singers would have been another choice for this post’s title. Lou Reed (depending on your age and influences, “Walk On The Wild Side” or “Perfect Day” would probably be the best answers should you be asking “who?”) and his wife plan to give a concert in Sydney. Nothing too unusual, until you know that the performance is written for dogs to listen to! As we are nowhere near April the 1st, and this is a BBC News article, I’m going to assume that it isn’t a joke. As the tunes (?) will be tailored for canine ears, a lot won’t be audible to human ears, but if AlexC could borrow her next door neighbour’s dog, I’d be interested to hear about any reaction (good or bad) that it gives.
Jun 03 2009
Lost And Found
I had thought that the cracked screen on my main phone would mean at least the loss of access to the data on there, as well as the more obvious inconvenience of losing the use of the phone for audio communications, internet access on the move, the GPS and the camera for tweets etc.
The main reason for my thinking this was that I was unable to enter the PIN when turning the phone on, and didn’t want to stab at the screen randomly, in case I ended up locking myself out completely. See below for a shot of how my phone normally looks, and then how it now looks. See the ‘Should Have Dug‘ post for info on how the screen was smashed.
How It Should Look
What It Actually Looks Like
However, I finally remembered I had a keyboard built into the phone 
Using this method of input, I was able to get the phone to the point where I could happily remote in and use a window on the PC as the phone’s visual output. I’ve also backed up and synced all the updated contacts and calendar events, so should I not be able to replace the screen sometime, I’ve not lost all the data. Apart from a few open files, all the data from the phone’s memory is also now residing on one of the hard drives here.
So… that is one lost and found (phone data), onto the next – Anna’s photos. Whilst waiting for some downloads last night, I searched through Ira’s laptop and found quite a few photos from our camera that I had not also backed up on my hard drives. This means that over the coming weeks there will be fresh photos of Anna for family and friends back in Britain (and Israel, Australia, America, over here in Kazakhstan), and Germany can see how Anna has been growing since the last batch of photos.
Finally, I need to check why the Xbox posts are not appearing in a timely manner, and when they do arrive, sometimes out of order. For now, I’m just manually adjusting the time stamps accordingly.
xbox not picking up posts
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Apr 20 2009
Happy Birthday Irina !?!
Yep, today is Irina’s birthday. Not my wife Irina, but our friend’s daughter. So huge congratulations (pazdravlyayoo, as I still can’t use Cyrillic characters on this blog). I hope your day brings lots of hugs, kisses, presents and cards, and that you start and finish the day with a big smile.
Later on today Alex, Mat (her fiancé that we’ve not yet met) and Seb are all hopefully coming over. Alex and Mat have taken a holiday from Australia to visit their homeland (Britain), see Anna for the first time, and also get together for a meal for my own birthday. I need to check if the outdoor furniture is in the backyard, as we are hoping to have a barbecue if the weather is good enough 🙂 Failing that, cheeseburger and chips from the oven, along with a few shots of nice Welsh vodka should still do the trick. I’m even allowing myself to hope that City Link will actually deliver a few parcels.
[edit]
City Link delivered this morning. Begrudging thanks to them for getting their act sorted in time.
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Apr 12 2009
First Night Away
I returned from Cirencester today, having been at a party. My first evening and night without Anna’s noises in the background, nappies to change, and hugs to bed had was quite a strange experience. I couldn’t wait for her to wake up from her snooze when I got through the door.
ChrisD’s visit at the beginning of the week was all too brief, however it had been a long time since we had seen each other, so it was good to catch up, and synchronise video downloads etc. He finally has a driving license, and borrowed his Dad’s mini to drive down. I’m hoping we took a few shots, as it certainly stands out well!
Con is leaving for Thailand and Australia in nine days, so the party was partially to give a good send off; most of the night was a good experience, and it wasn’t until some guests refused to leave that things got aggravating. The cellar was used for the DJs & MCs to perform, whilst the kitchen, as ever it seems, had a solid core of people in it mostly. Once I’d grabbed some sleep, I set off for Clydach whilst there was still some light left in the day, and was pleasently surprised to find really light traffic on the roads. Which meant driving, at no more than 70mph obviously, was a breeze.
Anyway, enough of this catch up post for now, I’m off to find some more pictures to post of Anna…
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Apr 09 2009
Where Is Anna?
Or more precisely, I’m guessing some relatives are wondering where the new Anna photos are. With Mum & John away in Spain still, doctor’s appointments for Anna, Pip and Con coming last weekend, ChrisD hopefully coming tomorrow, and a party in Cirencester this Saturday night, it is entirely possible you’ll need to wait until Sunday for updated photos, sorry.
In the mean time, Con is still raising money for the hungry and homeless his trip to Australia. See previous posts linking to his massive vinyl collection sell off, DJ decks auction etc. He is now clearing out his a lot of his carpentry toolbox, so should you need a jigsaw (4340FCT Top handle Jigsaw), a router (of the wood variety, not networking 🙂 (BOSCH POF1200AE)), a circular saw (Ryobi WS6613), or a Planer (Makita 1902), head on over to the e-bay auction page here. Ta.
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Apr 08 2009
Hydro’s Last Set on KM!
Hydrophonic’s (Con’s) last set (before he emigrates to Australia) on Kunnin Mindz can be found here.
Ooops, just found this is my drafts folder. It was supposed to have been published the night he played the set. Sorry.
[edit]
removed link as the server no longer hosts that file. Perhaps it wasn’t for public use? Can’t see it in the archives over at KM yet.
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Apr 03 2009
Pip & Con Come To Visit
Moving on to the 3rd April (only two more posts to go before I’ve exhausted the supply of photos on my hard drive (I still need to check Irina’s camera’s memory card for more recent shots)), and Pip & Con came over to visit. With Con soon heading off to Thailand (by the time this post actually appears on the blog, he should have finally made his flight onwards to Australia, fingers crossed), Pip kindly volunteered to drive him over to Wales to see Anna before he went. She hadn’t seen Anna either, so it wasn’t an entirely selfless act. From what I remember, and the Facebook photos suggest, we got through a fair amount of vodka, once Anna was safely asleep, and they managed to set off the next day for England with only a few hours missing from their work shift 🙂
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- Pip Anna Clydach
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- Con Anna Clydach
Mar 11 2009
Con’s Vinyl
There are still a lot of bargains over at Hydrophonic’s Vinyl for Sale page. You can find it here (link removed as all items sold/removed from page). 483 currently show as unsold. He (Con of ConJoinery.com) is saving up for his trip to Australia, and is a damn fine friend, so if you are into your tunes, check out what he has on offer…
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Feb 10 2009
10th February T +1 ?
Irina is still doing fine, but no signs of a quick drive to the hospital have yet been observed. Not a great deal to write now, just wanted to keep people updated, as some have been asking what the situation is now. AlexC is now coming over to Britain from Australia for three weeks, which is brilliant, as she’ll be able to meet our baby, we’ll be able to meet Mat for the first time ever, and we’ll see her for the first time since she came to Astana back in 2007(?).
As you may have noticed, I’ve been experimenting with different ways to update this blog, facebook, twitter and so on simultaneously, from a mobile device. This has led to a few v.short posts, sometimes without explanation. If something makes no sense whatsoever, it is probably a tweet @ someone that didn’t work out again 🙂
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Oct 28 2008
Nick et al Off To Australia
This Wednesday my brother, Nick, is going to Australia with his girlfriend, Roz, and her mum, another Chris. They will be back by Christmas, but not before Irina and I return to Swansea this mid-November (more on that later).
As I was going through the almost year-old photos on my phone (I really need to sort and post them more often than that), I found this one of Nick and Roz, just after Christmas last year at Mum’s.
Nick And Roz At Xmas 2007
I hope their trip over goes smoothly, that they have a great time there, and will come back with lots of stories and photos to show us all 🙂
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