28th November 2007 - A Day in my Life

Today was overal a productive day as well as a dry day. Started of the day around 9 am or so, when my wife left for office, Hari came by around 9:30 am, had not even had a bath by then, because I was busy checking mail!

We called the broker, who had found the office space for us to check when he will be around for us to pay his brokerage amount, he said he was already there, so we left immediately after checking if all the required documents for the telephone connection application was ready.

We left in Hari's car, went to the BSNL Office in Yerwada, where Hari was busy correcting, then authenticating his corrections with his signature (The stupid beauracracy, I swear) while I waited around for him to complete.

We left from there to the new office on Dhole Patil Road, picked up the key from him, saw that the termite had been cleared, he promised that he would paint it and get the tube lights fixed, gave him a cheque for Rs 7000 and left for the BSNL office in Camp.

When we reached there, the helpful lady sitting at the application form collection checked the documents and told us, we needed to stamp the application with our company seal (which we did not have obviously) and to meet one Mr. Pote in the next office for verification that BSNL can indeed give us a land line conneciton (How Stupid!) Murphy's Law, nor did we have a seal to stamp the application nor was Mr. Pote available for us to ask the question (he was on leave today), so, we left that place thinking to ourselves, that we will get the rubber stamp ready so that we can get it done tomorrow bright and early.

Sonu and I had given Keerat's guitar a few days back for repair to Music Mart on East Street (where we incidentally purchased it from), so went there first, to pick it and then we moved to where the car was parked to put all them in and leave in search for that elusive vendor who made rubber stamps in one hour.

It turned out to be a good exercice as we moved from East Street to MG Road (Hari had found that there were two vendors who dealt with rubber stamps at Clover Center near Aurora Towers). We talked to a guy first, who directed us to another place on MG Road, but since we knew there were two such guys in the building, we went in search of the other. We found an old man, who wanted the MOON for pricing , so we now went in search of the guy to whom we were originally redirected to.

Just to confirm, this is not a comedy blog or a hilarious blog, but my day to day happenning.

It goes without saying that the guy who gave us the card, had put a map for dunces like me and Hari at the back of the visiting card, but since we were (and are) real dunces, we never saw the backside of the card, so we trudged down MG Road, going down the basement of every building that had one, which incidentally are loaded with one guy standable space shops, and each one of them redirected us to another, who was not the person or shop we were looking for.

By this time, we had reached the Keymaker shop that Sonu and I had gone previously and from where we buy new locks, Fazal and Co. Since, we had taken posession of the keys from the broker, we thought it would be a good idea to triplicate them, one for me, one for Hari and one to be kept at home. while this was getting done, I asked the man there to guide us to a rubber stamp which he promptly did.

So, we left there and trudged along looking for this shop, which was in a small gully, but after a reference and subsequent directions we indeed found the shop that the locksmith had directed us to, with minimal fuss, I must add. The lady there was on the phone chatting away in Marathi, while Hari and I patiently waited for her to finish. She then told us she does rubber stamps, but she will not be able to give us before tomorrow evening, we asked her to recheck, she called a number, and reaffirmed her view.

Hari and I gave each other a dejected look, Hari requested that I contact Daddyji (my Father-in-law) and ask him for directions, but I was not going to admit to him that neither did I remember his mobile number off my head , nor was it stored in my mobile. So, I told him we will check near our house, and we did the long walk back to East Street, and felt the hunger pangs since that street is loaded with eateries.

I had heard of this Gujarati Joint called Mayur, which server thali meals, and Hari and I walked in, and walked out. No Jokes, that was the speed of their service that we sat, had the food served, paid the bill and came out. Phenomenal food, I should say and exemplary service, I could not find one thing wrong with their food, ambience or service. Defintely, on my list of MUST recommends.

A long walk, a full meal, and a slow trudge to the car, and we were driving back to our house to continue our work. I asked Hari to stop at a stationery shop near Fortelaza in Kalyani Nagar to check for rubber stamps, and VOILA, that guy does do it, and affordable rates, and WILL deliver it by 10am tomorrow, exactly what we were looking for. So, one satisfactory work done, paid him an advance of Rs. 200 and Hari felt that he wanted to have coffee at Cafe Coffee Day and Gold Ad Labs.

Off we went, parked the car in the basement, ordered our Cafe Lattes, sat down, and discussed our strategy of the next few days, the deliverables, when my wife called to say she had reached home. Told her we will reach in 10 mts, paid the bill of Rs 80 and reached home.

Sat down with my son to do his Mathematics, since he has his assessments tomorrow and he is still at it. got some paper work done today, of filing my xerox copies, looking at the blogs, writing this and getting documents signed by my wife for some WIAA work tomorrow.

Now sitting with my son, while he does his Ratio Proportions, then check his answers, put him to sleep and then start my work on the strategy that Hari and I discussed on. My wife came in to say, that she was tired, and today she did not want to do the 20 round walk that we do at the park inside the colony. told her, no issues, asked her to crash.

Thats more or less for today, Frank, our customer is on chat, he has some issues, need to solve them and then get to work.

A Beginning!

I have been wanting to do this for quite a while, but I just got around to starting only today. Remember those good old days of Windows 3.1 when we had a calendar where we could maintain our daily musings and activities in it, more like notes on a daily basis. For quite some time now, I have been tinkering with the idea of using the Microsoft Outlook Calendar for it, or alternatively to use Microsoft One Note 2007.

Today, I decided that I will start with Blog, and in case, I feel One Note was better I will move to it eventually.

Another One!

I created my first blog quite some time back http://kartik-blog.blogspot.com/ , and with the exception of a couple of posts left it to hang. My wife and I managed to post a few on it, was never opened up to public and remains that way and will continue to remain that way for the time being :)

A close friend of mine had been after me for almost a year to open a blog, which obviously fell on deaf ears then. I was introspecting the other day (something which I NEVER do, by the way) and was going through the list of all my back burners and thought it was about time, I clear them one by one, and I created the blog that my friend wanted (http://breezeboyz.blogspot.com/) . Irony, was, only one of my friends has accepted the invite so far and it was not the person who requested it!

When I created the first blog, my wife had mentioned to quite a few of the near and dear ones to have a look at it, but like I mentioned, I never got down to inviting them. So, I created this one, somewhere where daily musings can be expressed, ideas shared and views contradicted. As of this moment, only my wife is an invitee, will get down to inviting the rest as there is more interaction in this blog.

Seems like a long enough introduction to a blog, so will end it right here.