Home Security

After vacillating for a long time whether to have home security or not, we have decided to go ahead and get it. I currently dont have any home landline. Most security monitoring systems rely on landline for monitoring. They could go over the internet with an adapter. They could go over a vonage line if we have one. Since Keerti & I talk to parents not that often, initially we thought its useless to get vonage. But after further thought, we decided to get it. Then we have to buy a handset. we decided to buy this:

Bluray Discs for home

Keerti wanted to buy some blu ray DVDs to entertain her father. Here are what we brought:

Avatar (Three-Disc Extended Collector's Edition + BD-Live) [Blu-ray]

Inception (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)



The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy (Theatrical Editions + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]


Of all these DVDs, so far the best is Inception. What a lovely movie it was!

Fruits of labor!

About two months ago on a relatively hot Sunday when KT was out shopping, I was pondering what would keep me engaged and be productive. Voila, the idea of making my own vegetable bed, which I've been thinking for a while sounded exciting to start with. Unfortunately I didnt have any tools to start the project. Off I go to Home Depot to secure the required material. Here are the items that I bought:

• Spade that looks similar to this one: Fiskars 9667 Garden Spade
• A Trowel like this: Fiskars 7073 Big Grip Trowel
• Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Garden Soil - 1 Cubic Foot - 2 of them
• Concrete bricks - 10 large ones and 6 small ones
• Tomato, Chilly and Cucumber plants 

Parag was also idling at his home. So I called him to join my small experiment. He joined me enthusiastically and had been quite a help in the process.

We scouted for a place and found the alley to the right of the house is the best place since both Tomatos and Chillies need a lot of light and damp soil. We marked the perimeter of our vegetable bed. We dug out the native soil thats almost like clay, instead of nice soil. Well thats San Diego for you, very infertile soil. Loosened up soil and sprinkled some water to help loosening up. Placed the bricks to hold the perimeter. Had to secure them in place and make sure they are aligned etc. I wont say the job is perfect, but it does meet the basic requirements for vegetable bed. Mixed the garden soil with the native soil, and let it air for sometime. The soil had to be as loose as possible for any plant to grow quickly.

Once we were happy with the quality of soil mix (lol, speaking like a pro here ;) ), we put the plants in, and watered them. Had to space out the plants to maximize the small vegetable bed.

About four weeks later, the Chilly plant bear its first fruit. I was so excited to see that pepper. KT didnt want to pluck it. I plucked it anyway and she had it in the refrigerator for almost 3 weeks without using it. LOL! After a week or so, the tomato plant bear its fruits too. But the plant was bending towards one side since it was not able to take the load from the fruits. So I had put in some wooden supports and tied the plant to it. Now it is holding up pretty good. Here is the progress after 2 months: I sure do hope this continues. In fact I am planning to get another vegetable bed now :)

vegetables

Hehe  I couldn't help but to plant some vegetables in my garden. I went to Home depot  and brought some tomato, chillies and cucumber plants. I also brought some Miracle grow garden soil and bricks to make a raised vegetable garden soil bed.  I also brought a spade and a mallet to make the bed. Used the spade and took out the infertile soil that is very characteristic of San Diego.  Filled the broke with the garden soil mixed with the native soil. created a bed about a foot high. Dug three holes to plant the trees. Planted the tree and filled the holes with the soil and watered them. Now I'm waiting for them to fruit so that I can write another blog.

Getting tired of collating your CDs? Use this!

My parents-in-law were here visiting us. I watched more movies while they are here than my entire 4 years and odd in San Diego. My FIL went to Kansas to visit his cousin and he saw this media storage cum player like PS3 except that it doesnt have any gaming option. He wanted to buy it. I found one like that on Amazon.
Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link Director Edition - 34429

The idea seems interesting. But I wonder how big the market is. May be it is very big and that I am one of the few people who dont watch movies a lot.

Patio Set for backyard

Now that we are properly settled in the new home, it is time to upgrade. We spend most of the time either in family room or out on the backyard patio. Unfortunately dont have any chairs to accommodate more than 4 people. So here we go. We gonna buy this patio set from WalMart, Better Homes Patio Set
I like the color and the price is just right. I sure do look forward to sitting on this set and sipping coffee, eating corn (hey I got a BBQ, remember? ;) )

First stint with planting :)

As a child I grew up in company quarters that my dad's company allocated for us. Every quarter had a huge place for garden. I remember as a child picking up a lot of vegetables every other day for our lunches and dinners. My mom planted a lot of vegetables. We had green beans, tomatoes, chilies, spinach, lemon, onions etc. We had plenty of fruits trees as well. So it was natural that when I bought my own home which had a backyard, I was curious to see myself doing a bit of gardening.
I wanted to first try out something small lest I spoil my garden as it stands. So I bought a pot, some potting soil (San Diego soil is really hard and almost nothing will grow there), and some chili seeds. I read the instructions on the seeds packet on how to germinate them. (germinate, hehe, havent used that word in a long time. probably last time I used it was in 10th standard.) It was a fun little project.
I filled the pot with soil, pressed it a bit and made it ready for seeding. Watered it a bit and sowed the seeds about 1 inch into the soil.
Ever since that day, I'd water the pot everyday. In about 2 weeks, the seeds germinated. They are about 2 inch tall now. Once they read 3-4 inches, I will take them out of the pot and put them in the 'fort' I am going to prepare as my next home project :)