Are you looking for a Car?

Recently my roomie n'I was in the market looking for an used car. It was an interesting experience ,thought at times taxing, over all it was actually fun and enjoyable. I got to learn a lot of things I did not know about cars.

The search criterion were simple and strait forward,

a. The car has got to have a good re-sale value (for us to be able to sell it back)
b. Clear Title.
c. Decent running condition for it's age.
d. Preferably less than a 100K miles.
e. As cheap as possible

With the above in mind we set out to look for the cars. We searched some of the local listings on the popular classifieds web pages made calls and set times to go see the cars.

Here starts the fun part,

Our first outing, if you will...

It was a Red honda civic cost about $2500,don't if it was manual or automatic trany. Don't know the millage, don't know the year, the call was made and we were out to see this car, it had snowed heavily the previous day and was still very cold outside. This place was about a 30Mile drive we went there and realized that we did not even have a proper address, we drove by his house for like 3 times before we realized that was the house we were looking for. Actually we realized that only after seeing a guy cleaing his red Honda civic coup.

We approach him introduce ourselves and ask a couple of questions about the car etc. My roomie was like in a deep shock or state of disappointment right form the moment he saw the small civic and it's condition. Anyways we test drive the car and found it gives out a lot of vibration and excused ourselves from there.

Call it the first experience or a lesson, to not look for very cheap cars.

After that we saw quite a few cars but did not like any one of them until finally we came up to this guys house where we saw a Infinity.

We felt like our search has come to an end, we were almost in love with this cars looks. We even likes the small ride we had in this car. So we fixed up a price and wanted to get it to a mechanic for a pre-purchase inspection.

There start our troubles again the owner of this car was in love with his plates and he had removed them for this car and had got the same number transfered to his new car. So with out plates we can not drive this car to a Mechanic. AAA or the dealership guys wouldn't even toe a car with out plates.

Since we couldn't get anyone to at-least go to the car and inspect it we had to drop that car. Luckly we got a camry soon after and my roomie was convinced that this was the car with our names on it. We happily took it to a mechanic who happily inspected it and happily told us that this car was probably not at all maintained in the past 8000 miles or so. Even the oil was not changed. And gave us a big list of what needs attentions and categorized the repairs as

a. required to pass state inspection.
b. required for the car immediately.
c. Need to get attention with in a couple of months.
d. Good to get it done.

And told us it would cost around 2k + to get things in a and b done.

:( not very happy out come after all and my roomie was devastated, well almost.

Then there came a Turkish Angle, in fact he literally came done himself to show us the car. (as opposed we going and seeing the car) and we finally bought the car from him after all the checks.

At this time I would be very tempted to say that all is well that ends well but unfortunately I know too much to call this a end. 3 weeks from the date of sale, the car starts to give out a rattling noise and at almost the same time the engine check light come up....

(more about what happens next...to be continued)

Should I care!

As usual, I am late again for my next blog but to me the important thing is that I am writing again. Boy! I love to write as much as I hate to talk ;)... In a way that sentence gives an introduction to the what I am planning to write about today.

I am sure any one reading this bolg already knows and agrees that it is important to have friends in life. Make new friends on hold on to the old ones. That said, how does one make friends in life and for life... What is it that makes a person call another person his/her friend? It is faith? Is it Trust? or is it the comfort that comes from knowing that no matter what, I can depend on this person.

What ever it is, the more important question here is, how does one establish this faith or trust or belief or comfort? I guess the obvious answer is my talking with each other people establish these bond between them. So does that mean that a dumb person can not have any friends?

or was it too dumb a question to ask!!

Anyways I want to say here is that talking to each other is not the only way one can establish these bonds! yes talking is important and if you can talk it probably makes these things happen much faster! If a person doesn't talk a lot or can not talk at all that doesn't mean to say that he/she can not have friends. There are many other forms of communication other than talking.

Sometimes actions speak louder than words!

Personally I feel trusting people is the most difficult thing to do. But when you do decide to trust some one, you will change your thoughts about the person's actions even though he/she doesn't say or explain them in words. Once you start trusting a person your will believe in them and you will try to justify for them and these actions I believe seal the bond of friendship!!

So, SHOULD I CARE what my actions are speaking or how other people are interpreting them. May be or may be not. As I said above, if they trust you then they would want to believe you and they will try to look for a reason to do so and not the other way round.

Come lets be friends!!

you only die once, until them have fun!! :)

How clean is clean enough!!

Honestly I have no clue what clean is all about. I like my mess and I am all confused when some one cleans it up for me. .... Well how many times have you come across such statements?
made by your own roommates, brothers and sisters, may sometimes you yourself would have made such a comment. But do you/they still stick by it or did you/they catch the clean bug!!

Me too was once such a guy! And now I swear my legions to Mr. Clean. ;)

But the question here is how clean is clean enough? I really don't know. What is clean for me amy or may not be clean for a Mr X next to me.

Ok I am too bummed to finish this now...

I will clean up this mess some other time.

Life is A-(MAZE)ing!!

Wow!! Took me so long to figure this one. Read it as you like. You got to agree with me one way or the other. Life is such a big MAZE. Alway choices to make and Decisions to take. Should I wake up now or sleep a little more. Show I wash my hair or just gel it. Should wear this shirt or that. Should I go to office or take a day off. Should I ride or take a bus. Should I get back to college or not!!

And the life goes on...entering more and more MAZEs as we go along. So, I say, Life is A-(MAZE)ing!! Ain't it?

Time just flys

Wow! I just realized how long it has been since I last posted anything on this Blog!! It just feels like yesterday when I was cribbing about the private buses and it's already more than half an year since.

It feels good to be able to blog again.

There's a lot going on in life right now and time is a premium. I was watching the new movie from Nikhil Advani, yes you guess it right, Salaam E Ishq - A Tribute to Love, it is such a drag. If you just watch the last 15 minutes or so that is more than enough to catch what is movie is all about.

Any ways I know time is premium and I am wasting it watching trash like you know which! But then again, I am blogging too.

There you go, I said it. And then again I am saying bye for now and I will keep you posted!!

-singning off,
Krak!!

Travel in Private buses!

When I talk about travel in private Buses a lot of people have a lot to say about this. Some good and some bad experiences to share. I rarely travel private but on my recent trip to Hyd I had no option but to travel Private.

On the morning on the travel:

I go ticket hunting, Hyderabad to Bangalore, travel on a sunday evening, all the RTC buses (Both APS and KS) were totally booked and ofcourse the trains are booked a week in advance. Anyways I was looking for a private travels to get just one ticket for myself, on the first shop they had a sleeper to offer for Rs 750/- but the bus was at 6:45 PM and I had work until 8:00PM that evening. So I moved ahead asking other private operators. After about 10Mins and 15 different travels, One operator had a 9:15PM ticket, so I took the ticket and asked him where the Bus would start? And when would it leave Hyd? And finally when does it reach Blr?

The guy says, "Sir the bus will come right here infront of my office sharp at 9:15PM it will leave around 9:30PM and will reach Blr by around 6:00AM"

I was very happy that I could reach Blr early in the morning thus avoiding the traffic and associated delays.

In the evening:

I arrive at the travel office sharp 9:15PM, the bus is yet to come, 9:20 the bus is yet to come, 9:30 the Bus is yet to come, so I approch the counter clerk and ask him about the bus, then he says, "Sir the Bangalore bus will not come here at all, it will start from paradise. You take the chenni bus from here and board the Bangalore bus at paradise"

The Chennai bus had arrived around 9:25PM and was just leaving as I ran and boarded that bus.

We reach paradise and board the bangalore bus, I ask the driver what time would it leave from there, he says, "Sir I am ready to leave right now, the officer has to come a clear this stop's passenger list and then we are off to XYZ road stop"

Now nobody told me about this Paridise stop in the morning and now this new XYZ stop??

So I asked him where else will the bus go and when does it finally reave HYD?

He gave me a list a 3 other stops in the city and finally told me that the bus would leave the city around 11:00PM and reach bangalore aroung 8:30AM.


Well the driver kept his timings and we did reach Majestic around 8:30AM the following Morning.

So, that was my rescent experience with this a private travel bus.

Forgotten Treasures

Five and a half years after finishing college I was cleaning up some boxes at my digs last week and I found a lot of BE text books and some note books from my 6th 7th and 8th Sem courses.(I had no clue why I had saved those books all these years.)

Anyways I was going through those books and I found some many notes that I had scribbled on the margins.
- Some of them were quotes from the lecturers, the ones they had used while passing Gyan to us about non subject matters.
- Some were my own personal observation about vaiorus people in my class, lecturers included.
- I also found some Ideas that I had scribbled for the final year project. One Idea that glared at me was, I had planned to build a Hardware based MP3 player with a detachable memory card. (had I persued that Idea more serously then....)

Any ways, all these notes made a very interesting reading bringing back lots of pleasent and some not so pleasent memories(like when my first crush had said that it casued her pain to spend time with me because I looked so much like her X boy friend)

And I knew why I was saving those books all these years.
Those the Forgotten Treasures that I discovered once again!