May 30 2007

Ira Staying In Astana

Category: Personal,WordPressChrisM @ 9:55 am

Wow, luckily, she had not started packing yet, as her work no longer need her back in Moscow for a 3rd week. It will be nice to have her all to myself for once 🙂

Before I forget, I meant to link to another plug in yesterday. For anyone who hasn’t noticed yet, if you look at the bottom of the right hand side bar, you will notice a random picture is now displayed. It takes photos that I have previously published, at random, and displays the post title, and Alt tag for the image. You can download it here.

This post is NOT sponsored, in fact the reverse is opposite – I made a $5 donation to the plugin author, as I had been looking for something like this for a while. I didn’t want to have to modify any theme files. Oh, and if you check the (American) author’s gallery, you’ll see he has been to Almaty (just after the time Ira and I got married in Astana!)

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May 29 2007

Irina IS Off To Moscow Again :(

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 3:05 am

Looks like I spoke to soon when I posted on Ira only having to spend two weeks away in Moscow.
We won’t know for definite until the end of Tuesday, but it looks like she is needed once more. I hope you has a safe journey, and that her bosses appreciate her efforts.

My toe is still quite swollen and the nail is now a consistent green. I won’t horror you all with another photo (apologies for the last one, I think I was quite fascinated by the toe’s reaction and its visual impact…) Anyway I’ve moved my Russian lesson from Tuesday to Thursday, as although I can actually walk on the side of my foot, putting on a shoe makes hobbling too painful.

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May 28 2007

Ira Is Back From Moscow…

Category: PicturesChrisM @ 1:58 am

She did indeed have to work Saturday, but was able to work from home on Sunday, which is great, and she does not need to go to Moscow again this week 🙂

Ira bought me a little pressy back from Moscow, which will look vaguely familiar to Seb back in England.

New Lighter - Open

New Lighter - Closed

Yep, its a shell/big bullet shaped lighter 🙂 Don’t think I’ll be taking that through an x-ray machine @ customs any time soon 🙂

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May 26 2007

Irina Is Back In A Few Hours

Category: Kazakhstan,PersonalChrisM @ 1:05 am

Ira was away this week again in Moscow, for work. They require her to go to the office tomorrow and possibly Sunday as well, which will mean that by this coming Friday she will have worked 19 of the last 21 days, with international travel on four of her nights ‘off’. Luckily, it looks like she won’t be required to go with her boss to Moscow again next week, fingers crossed. Also hoping they won’t need her in the office next weekend, as that would then equate to 21 out of 23 days away from home. 🙁

This is another example of why I want to make sure I earn enough money from my sponsored posts and other online incomes – the idea of being EXPECTED to work those sort of hours, with a vague promise of 1 extra day off, if things are not too busy, puts me off ever wanting to work in an office over here, even more than I disliked the prospect of doing so in an English office. (Kate’s team not withstanding, she was a boss who knew how to get the best out of her workers, and maintained a good office atmosphere. She has recently won a local election to become a Labour councillor, so huge congrats to her, as I couldn’t find any reference to this event elsewhere on this blog).

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May 25 2007

Count Zero

Category: BooksChrisM @ 12:31 am

Count Zero – William Gibson

Following on from Neuromancer, this book introduces the concept of deities coming into widely held belief systems via the internet/matrix system. This book, much like the film Pan, has three distinct story lines, that leave you wondering how they will eventually converge.
The idea of god(s) being manufactured for mass consumption, with ulterior motives certainly rang true, as did the idea of corporations delving into the seedier aspects of humanity to achieve their aims. The story eventually leads into a space, where one of the main characters has to work hard to ensure his survival, and the demise of evil plots to control goings on, back down on Earth.
Once again, fans of the Matrix series of films may well notice where its creators received a lot of inspiration from.

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May 24 2007

UK Searches For Kazakhstan

Category: KazakhstanChrisM @ 6:28 am

In case you care, here are this months top 100 searches involving Kazakhstan, for people searching from Britain.

kazakhstan
flight to kazakhstan
holidays to kazakhstan
kazakhstan hotel
kazakhstan map
kazakhstan adoption
in internship kazakhstan
helicopter kazakhstan services
kazakhstan embassy
kazakhstan flag
borat kazakhstan – impressively far down the list 🙂
almaty kazakhstan
car hire kazakhstan
travel kazakhstan
kazakhstan visa
weather in kazakhstan
kazakhstan airline
kazakhstan national anthem
kazakhstan jobs
education in kazakhstan system
kazakhstan woman
cheap call to kazakhstan
kazakhstan embassy london
cheap flight for kazakhstan
kazakhstan girl
lonely planet kazakhstan
where is kazakhstan
capital of kazakhstan
in kazakhstan search
kazakhstan fact
food in kazakhstan
football kazakhstan
anthem borat kazakhstan national
astana kazakhstan
jobs in kazakhstan
kazakhstan legislation
air kazakhstan
anthem borat kazakhstan
bird kazakhstan
kazakhstan airport
anthem borat kazakhstan lyric national
british embassy in kazakhstan
british embassy kazakhstan
kazakhstan currency
flower delivery kazakhstan
kazakhstan news
kazakhstan tourism
bank of kazakhstan
capital city of kazakhstan
kazakhstan history
time in kazakhstan
kazakhstan oil
kazakhstan property
kazakhstan tour
aksai kazakhstan
america benefit cultural glorious kazakhstan learnings make nation
chef in job kazakhstan
kazakhstan embassy in london
embassy of uk in kazakhstan
flower to kazakhstan
kazakhstan rocher yves
kazakhstan tv
almaty flight kazakhstan
atyrau in inspection job kazakhstan
china iran kazakhstan oil
kazakhstan culture
kazakhstan and economy
kazakhstan embassy uk
kazakhstan exchange rate
kazakhstan oil export
fitter kazakhstan mechanical
holidays in kazakhstan
in kazakhstan living
kazakhstan religion
flight to atyrau kazakhstan
national bank of kazakhstan
environmental kazakhstan law
holiday hotel kazakhstan state united
kazakhstan petropavlovsk
2 borat kazakhstan
anthem kazakhstan
coal kazakhstan mine
construction in kazakhstan
alliance bank kazakhstan
duty excise kazakhstan oil
environmental kazakhstan legislation
property for sale in kazakhstan
information on kazakhstan
kazakhstan lyric o
kazakhstan serbia
aktau kazakhstan
amazon kazakhstan
bane bo kazakhstan
call from kazakhstan uk
call to kazakhstan
card kazakhstan phone
country kazakhstan
country kazakhstan muslim
development in kazakhstan
tengiz kazakhstan

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May 14 2007

Chinese English Russian Translator

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 9:35 pm

Ira’s Dad has returned from China, and we went to see him and mum-in-law this evening. As well a nice silk duvet, Igor (Lorsha’s Dad) bought me a little electronic translator.
The model is REC-3510V. Just as soon as I figure out how to change the MENU language from Chinese to English, it will be even easier to use 🙂 It has pretty large vocab, and reads out the words if you tell it to. I’ve played around with it a little, but until I know what I’m actually clicking on, it is a bit hit and miss.

If anyone out there has one of these, and can tell me how to change the interface language, I’d be really grateful. There is a manual for it, but the English section is a little shorter than the rest, and the instructions tell you to click a button to use English instead. However, you need to already be in a certain sub-menu for this to work…

By the way, no this isn’t a really convoluted sponsored post, I really would like some help 🙂

[edit]
OK, update on the situation, I’ve now figured out how to do it. For the purposes of any search engines ever finding this, and therefore hopefully helping other owners out, this is
How to change the language on a REC-3510V from Chinese to English or Russian
(without having to be able to read Chinese 😉 )
Turn Power on, if not at the root menu, click the ‘Return’ key (bottom left on keyboard) until you are.
Select the bottom right icon with the cursors, and press Enter
Press Enter again, to select the 1st item
Scroll down to item 5 (bottom of this particular screen) and press Enter
Select the 3rd option and Enter for English menus, or the 2nd option and Enter for Russian menus.
Thats it all done 🙂

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May 14 2007

Ira’s Dad Is Back From China :)

Category: Personal,WeatherChrisM @ 2:54 am

He was away in China on another business trip, but we’ve just heard he has returned safe and sound. We’ll be meeting up with him tomorrow evening to say a quick ‘hi’, and so he can say good bye before Irina leaves for Moscow (see two below this post).
Hopefully, he will have grabbed us a silk duvet over in China, as such items have had glowing reports from him and Ira’s mum. They have the same issues we have, except the genders are reversed… He gets cold without a lot of layers, she doesn’t like being over heated. According to them, the silk duvet seems like a good compromise – everyone ends up the right temperature!

(btw, no this isn’t a bizarre sponsored post to further the global sales of Chinese silk duvets 🙂 )

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May 14 2007

Adieu To Ira

Category: PersonalChrisM @ 1:03 am

Irina is off to Moscow again for work. She will be gone from Monday night until Sunday morning. Which probably means there will be a mountain of washing up and general clutter until last thing Saturday, at which point I will be running around like a headless chicken, trying to make our flat a little more presentable.
Whilst I’m glad that her bosses think she is capable of helping out in their negotiations, I’ll be missing her like crazy, as will Karra and Muska.
In case she happens to read this before she goes, and I forget to say it in ‘real life’, have a safe journey, and I’ll give the kittens a hug from you before going to sleep 🙂

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May 14 2007

Went To Chelsea Again

Category: Eating Out,Friends,KazakhstanChrisM @ 12:31 am

On Saturday night. Unfortunately Walton and Assel had a previous engagement, but Ira and I still had a good time. I ventured beyond my normal potato skins for a started, and had a tomato soup. Over here in Kazakhstan, soup is not soup unless it looks like water, has a few real vegetables in it, and a fair dollop of meat. Unfortunately, my ideal soup is basically creamy flavoured water. Unless it is cream of tomato or cream of chicken, I’m not too interested basically. Anyway, previously, I’d always said no the the idea of having a $12 soup of tomatoes as a starter, but as we were celebrating my first month of income from web sites in a while, I decided to try it out. Combined with a chocolate milk shake and a Baileys.
Then I had something labelled as lasagne. It certainly had meat, tomato paste/sauce, pasta and cheese, but it wasn’t quite arranged the same way. Anyway, it was too big for me to finish, wasn’t what I was expecting, but could have been a lot worse. The fact that it was quite so filling meant I had to skip the anticipated apple pie and ice cream, so I drowned my ‘sorrows’ with a few more vodkas.
Anyway, we’ll hopefully continue our Saturday night out pattern with Walton & Assel next week.

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