Dec 31 2008

Almost There

Category: Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal — ChrisM @ 8:17 pm

This is just a quick post to wish this site’s readers a very Happy New Year.

We currently have Marilyn & Peter over (Chris & Tim’s parents), as well as John’s son and daughter-in-law and their kids, with midnight fast approaching. To our American visitors, I hope you are warming up to the evening well, to my UK amigos, just under four hours to go. To my Kazakh readers, Snovum Goddum, hope you are already having a great 2009. (Over there, Western Xmas is barely noticed, Orthodox Xmas is observed, but New Year is the big deal.) Big HELLO to Walton, Assel, DavidG, ChrisK, The Dans & their respective familys, DrKen, lovely friendly Northern bloke I’ve temporarily forgotten the name of, Mel, the in-laws, Dana & Assen, Mira, Bayen & son and everyone else – thanks to all for your support over the last year/months (delete as applicable 🙂 ).
With Arriving to Britain, settling in, Christmas, New Year, and the baby due in February, it is possible that site will see a few less posts in the future, however the blog will remain here (assuming I remember to renew the hosting 🙂 ), and I’ll try to get back to regular posting ASAP.

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Dec 29 2008

Betwixt Xmas And New Year

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 10:33 pm

So here we are at that time of year where people often seem to need a few days recovering from the Christmas celebrations to prepare for New Year. Life has carried on as normal here we saw Dad a couple of times before Christmas – Nick was over here in Clydach with his girlfriend, and then returned to her Mother’s for Christmas Day itself. The first time, I believe, he hasn’t been with us. We had a great day despite his absence, with the usual leisurely pace being taken. Dessert was finished by evening though, so compared to years gone past, we did well. I hope to add a few more photos to the blog later, as John has been taking some shots of us in his studio. Other than that, yes I still owe you readers a Jimi wallet and phone holder review. (Short version is the Jimi is great, and the cradle mostly fine).

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Oct 06 2008

Strike A Pose

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 4:45 am

As avid readers may remember, my brother is shortly off to Australia with his lovely girlfriend (Happy Birthday again 🙂 ) and her mum. With impressive foresight, he has been asking people what they want for Christmas, so the two of them can try and sort out all the pressies now, rather than rushing around like headless chickens when they return to the UK, just a few days before Xmas itself. I would have been tempted to use the trip as an excuse, and wait for the New Year sales to pick up some bargains, but Nick has a more mature outlook already I guess 😉
Anyway, I’ve been struggling to find something I’d really like, and having asked for contributions to charity for my birthday earlier in the year, I have to admit my selfish side is rearing its head, and wanting to have something to unwrap this December.
Something I noticed over at buy.com was a pretty high quality webcam, which has a number of attention grabbing features. Primarily, the $30 rebate on an already competitive price obviously caught my attention, although the Carl Zeiss lens (as used on many top end Sony digital cameras) is pretty important for those of us hoping for a little more than the traditional grainy, blurred video provided by older webcams.

Logitech QuickCam Orbit Buy.com

I’m not sure whether the face tracking software included would be a useful addition, or simply a toy to play with, but the ability to pan and tilt the camera from your PC is a definite boon. Although not apparently a built in feature (yet?) I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to bodge up some code in conjunction with remote software, so you could scan around your room whilst in another house or even country! Anyway, I’ll need to check a few other details before considering the purchase (by proxy 🙂 ), but even if this webcam doesn’t end up on my wish list, there are enough other products at buy.com to keep day dreaming for a good long time to come…

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Jun 11 2008

Missing Posts

Category: Amsterdam,Eating Out,Friends,Personal — ChrisM @ 2:59 am

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.

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Jan 19 2008

Happy Birthday Gramps…

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 2:45 pm

Today is my Mum’s Dad’s (we call him Gramps) birthday, so this is just a short post to congratulate him on this special day, and to wish him as comfortable a time as possible as he recuperates following a hospital visit. Irina and I managed to see him when we visited Britain over New Year, and while I think of it, another big hello to everyone back in the UK, both those we did manage to see, and those who we unfortunately did not meet with. We also have another three birthdays coming up next week with friends both in Britain and also here in Kazakhstan, but more details on that later…

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Jan 03 2008

All Is Well

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 1:02 am

Please excuse the lack of posting… We arrived fine, had Christmas, mum and John got married, the in-laws went back to Kazakhstan, and we’ve just had New Year.
Tomorrow we head to Dads, and see some friends around Cheltenham, moving onto Matt & Ira G’s place, finally returning mum’s car to Clydach, then trapsing down to Heathrow.
Will try and post more info later, depending on internet connection availability and my soberness…

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Dec 19 2007

Why All The News Stories?

Category: In The Media,Personal — ChrisM @ 12:29 am

I have been bookmarking a few articles I found interesting recently, so please forgive my indulgence by skipping those that don’t interest you so much… as I’ll be in Britain soon, I want to try and post as many as I can before the time available for blogging is minimized (by travel, Christmas, Mum and John’s wedding, New Year, seeing Dad and some friends in Cheltenham etc.) Although I hope to make a few posts whilst in Britain, I’m not sure I’ll be as motivated TBH, and by the time I get back, I imagine a lot of these news stories will be too old to be of interest to most.
Thanks for your patience 🙂

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Dec 05 2007

Happy Birthday Mum

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 3:08 am

Yep, it is a popular week for birthdays. Today is Mum’s birthday, and she’ll be… … 31 again (?) LOL.
I’ve just spoken to her, as here in Kazakhstan, it is already the 5th December, so I wanted to get a quick congratulations in.
I hope she has a great day, with nothing too stressful going on. This will certainly be a packed month for her, with her birthday, her two sons, a daughter-in-law and Ira’s parents coming for Xmas, her wedding to John a few days later, and then Ira and I will be around for New Year as well. Really looking forward to catching up, and seeing everyone again.

Happy Birthday Mum Happy Birthday Carol Merriman
Happy Birthday Carol Kavanagh - May As Well Get Used To That Combination Now...
Happy Birthday Carol
Happy Birthday Mrs Merriman
Happy Birthday Mrs Kavanagh

Snomrazh Denya – or something that sounds like that anyway.

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Dec 03 2007

Barrels Of Fun

Category: Eating Out,Personal — ChrisM @ 10:04 am

To celebrate Dr Natalya’s birthday, we went to the ‘barrel’ restaurant yesterday. I have forgotten the official name of the place, but due to the use of huge barrels outside as dining areas (at least in the summer months), that barrel place is easier to remember 🙂
As well as Dr Natalya, her husband Sasha (when in doubt, if a guy is Russian, Sasha is normally a safe bet 😉 ), their daughter Sveta and Masha, we also had Balzhan and her son Ildar. We finally had a chance to pass on a couple of little presents for the kids (some toys and a British comic each) who seemed to enjoy them. Anyway, we had some salad (OK, I admit I just munched on the bread), a few plates of pork sashliq and I ordered some chips. Topped off with some ice cream, and a good time was had by all. Sadly Balzhan and Ildar can not make it this Christmas to Mum’s wedding, so it was good to see them again before New Year, which is a much bigger holiday/celebration over here, than Xmas.

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Nov 21 2007

UK Trip Details

Category: Friends,Personal — ChrisM @ 5:10 am

THIS POST IS TEMPORARILY ‘STUCK’ TO THE FRONT PAGE.
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO SEE MORE RECENT POSTS, THANKS…

Once again, this post is primarily for family and friends back in Britain. A few have asked when and where we will be this Christmas time, and rather than repeating ourselves umpteen times, I thought I would post it up here, and refer people to the blog instead. More visitors never hurt the Alexa rank either 😉

Leave Astana 22nd December : 07:25
Arrive Moscow : 08:00
Leave Moscow : 10:05
Arrive Heathrow : 11:15

At this point John is hopefully picking us up in the motor-home, and driving us back to Clydach
23rd December : Flying visit to, and tour of, Cheltenham, as Ira’s parents will be returning to Kazakhstan before New Year
25th December : Something major happened this day in history, anyone recall?
27th December : Mum and John get married. 🙂 🙂 🙂 (note to myself, remember to update Outlook Contacts to Carol Kavanagh!)
29th December : The in-laws return to Kazakhstan, so following flight times are just for them…

Leave Heathrow : TBC
Arrive Moscow : TBC
Leave Moscow : TBC
Arrive Astana : TBC

New Years : At Mum & John’s place
Post-New Year : Spend some time in Clydach, Cheltenham (catching up with friends sober enough to move), Evesham (to see Dad), and hopefully London (to finally catch a glimpse of EmmaF’s new home, as well as other friends living there)
12th January : We leave Britain to return to Kazakhstan, with the following flight times

Leave Heathrow 12th January : 12:25
Arrive Moscow : 19:30
Leave Moscow 13th January : 00:10
Arrive Astana : 06:25

All flights are quoted with local times

Oh, and once again, a random two word phrase to make searching for this post, once it has slipped off the front page, a little easier. Hmm we had pink badger last time I think, so today’s phrase will be red dove.

[edit] Well, turns out there is a film called Red Dove. Involving amnesia, communism and water polo. I’m half tempted to try and source a torrent for that, it seems like an interesting mix of plot devices!

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