Apr 07 2007
I lost some videos whilst attempting to fix this week’s blog problems, so have these instead…
First we have the kittens just a little while after they were born, last year. They’re snoozing/feeding, and one has a little difficulty in finding a decent posture…
One of them playing in their box, before they started to venture a little further..
Oh, go on then, have another one…
Next we have the same mum – Dasha, but with her kittens from 2003
Mar 12 2007
Not certain, but I’m assuming this is taken from Malcom in the Middle. (It is definitely the actress who plays the mum character anyway)…
Oh yes, and pictures and videos of Ira & I snow mobiling to follow soon.
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Feb 23 2007
That means, if you were to use the power supply to its maximum output, you’d be using as much electricity as sixteen standard (60w) light bulbs.
Obviously, even with a powerful PC (quad core CPU, quad SLI grafx, fast memory, all OCed, a few hard drives and DVD burners, lights/cathodes and enough fans to keep it all cool) you’ll not actually quite need that much power… yet.
Better to have capacity to spare than to suffer your PC crashing, or in a worst case scenario, have a cheap PSU die and send a nasty spike to kill your m/board…
Anyway, for a proper review of the Tagan 1100 Watt Power Supply, check out here, also includes a little info on the upcoming 2Kw PSUs!
I’ve been updating the pages on all my article sites this evening, so whilst waiting for them to finish uploading, I had some spare time to write these last three posts, in case anyone thinks they are a little off the norm.
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Dec 16 2006
We’ve been getting ready for our return to the UK, and we’re pretty much done now…
A huge thank you to our family and friends in Britain, who have kept me sane whilst I’m out here, and also to the family and new friends we have made out here in Kazakhstan.
We took Karra (our kitten) over to the in-laws, so she can stay with her mum and sister while we are away. Karra behaved a lot better in her carry bag this time, with only a few mystified miaows in the taxi 🙂
In 30 hours time Ira and I should have arrived in Cheltenham, where I’m staying with Dad & Nick for the first week, and then onto Swansea (well Clydach to be precise) on the Saturday/Sunday (23rd/24th December) with Nick & Ira to see Mum.
Really looking forward to catching up with family and friends; most of our evenings are planned out already in Cheltenham, so hoping we can just kick back and relax during our time in Clydach.
Irina has been allowed some unpaid leave from work, but only received the permission quite recently, by which time, the flights I’m booked on were full, so she is returning to Kz one day earlier, and going via Moscow, whereas I’ll be dropping into Istanbul on the way there and back.
By the time New Year hits us, Nick, Dad, me & Irina should all be in Astana and I’m hoping they’ll enjoy seeing Astana (it will be Nick’s first winter over here, and Dad’s first time ever.)
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Dec 07 2006
And I’ve been very bad at posting recently. Apologies to anyone still reading this 😉
Irina has just returned from Moscow, Karra is fine and still biting us randomly.
Mum had her birthday on the 5th, but her presents and card didn’t arrive until yesterday, and one still hasn’t made it 🙁
I hope to see Tom and Walton before I leave for my Christmas break, and Tom#2 (‘pilot Tom’) has been in contact to confirm he is fine, but wasn’t able to meet up with us recently due to his work commitments.
It is quite late now, so heading to bed.
Oh and Dad & Nick have received their visas, so it looks like everything is good to go for their visit over here for New Year 🙂
Hope all who read this do so in good health…
Nov 25 2006
I had a lie in this morning, as I was up quite late again working last night (well this morning)
Irina took the opportunity to blitz the clothes shops with her mum.
Anyway, here are a couple of snapshots…
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Nov 10 2006
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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Oct 16 2006
We took our kitten home, from the in laws, today. Not yet named her, the proposals are Pippa, Socks and a word I’ve forgotten already (Karra?) that means black in Kazakh. Anyone else think of anything? It needs to be easily pronounced by Russian and English tongues, be feminine, and be shortened easily…
The last one was suggested by KZBlog owner’s wife; we met up at the Chelsea (an ‘English’ ‘pub’) again Saturday night. Had a good time, ate a little, drank a little more, and talked a lot, their prices are definitely higher than the average bar, but the selection of food is good for wimpy westerners like me, and I tend to feel a little freer talking about life over here than I would normally…
FINALLY the PC Hardware was all fitted. For the last 5 months, I’ve been waiting (we’ll get the stock next week, next week, next week, oh we had it, but sold it to someone else etc. etc.) for a Graphics Card upgrade (nVidia 7600GT>7900GT) and a replacement 320 Gig Seagate SATA hard drive; for the last week and a half, Ucon (the PC shop in question) has PROMISED to visit our flat and deliver them (to make up for the delays) . Each day, they didn’t turn up, and each day they didn’t bother to call and let us know they couldn’t make it. Sadly, this isn’t exactly unheard of, in respect of customer service levels, here in Kazakhstan. We gave up in the end, and went back to the original plan, so we took the PC to the shop and dropped the printer off to be repaired. They laughed at the amount of programs I have running (what’s the point in a well specced machine if you don’t fully utilize it’s resources), and the lights I had fitted. Had being the operative word, they took it all out, fitted the hardware, then put it all in a bag for me. Also caught the shop assistant trying to copy some of my games. 1) Don’t do it without asking, it is rude 2) Don’t be stupid, simply copying the directory the game is installed into onto their machine will not likely result in a working application, and oh yeah 3) Copyright theft is bad hmmm. Well offered to copy my installation DVDs (only for Public Domain games, obviously…), and they could have it when we came to pick up the repaired printer. Hoping that is enough motivation to see the printer back soon…
I now have just over 850 Gigabytes of storage space, so shan’t be running out anytime soon. Especially not downloading via dial up access to the internet. Irina’s mum had ADSL installed in the last week, so I’m hoping we’ll either get that or WiMax sorted soon….
Continue reading “Pretty Good Weekend”
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Oct 13 2006
I’ve been working for 3 hours, and the final shock…. I’ve already had a full nights sleep!!!
Looks like there is hope for me eventually going to bed the same time as most people around me, and getting up before midday :>
It will, however, mean that I’m not online with Messenger when my friends in the UK are, other than weekends…
Irina’s Mum now has ADSL, at a whopping 128Kbit ! We’re still waiting for WiMax to progress out of it’s testing phase, or if that fails, for our phone line to be transferred out of the clutches of our flat’s maintenance/telecommunications over-charging company, so we can get ADSL as well.
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Sep 22 2006
You need to be so careful buying milk here in Kazakhstan. If you put it in tea/coffee, or cooking food, it might not be so apparent, but for any drinkers of milk, or breakfast cereal lovers, the milk takes a while to get used to.
I might just be hypersensitive to the smells/tastes (I worked in a dairy for a while), but a lot of milk tastes like it has gone off, the minute you open the carton/bag. (Who the hell thought a bag was a sensible container for milk!) As an example, I went shopping yesterday, and thought I’d try a couple different brands of milk, as the only ‘good’ source of milk was out of stock, again. I got a bag of normal milk, and a carton of UHT (long life), thinking it would be a safe bet. I don’t like the taste of UHT so much, but I thought of the two, at least one would be usable.
So, I got home, and thought about making a milk shake, and tested the ‘normal’ milk. Euuuuuurgh! It tasted like it had been left open in the sun for a few days. Oh well, no loss, threw it down the loo, and went to the UHT – best before date had 4 months to go, and it stated it could be stored at 0 – 30 degrees centigrade, prior to opening. It was worse, far worse – the milk had completely separated into a watery liquid, and some clotted fat floating around.
So, the moral of the story is, ummmm, well not sure – either don’t ever work in a dairy prior to visiting Kazakhstan, or maybe it is try to hold your nose whilst drinking milk over here, or maybe just give it up for a while :>
=-=–=
UPDATE: Irina bought some more milk from a different shop on the way home, same brand, same type, and it tastes fine. Corn flakes, milk shakes and Angel Delights (mum bought some over for us) are now back on the menu :> :>
