Hari's Corner

Humour, comics, tech, law, software, reviews, essays, articles and HOWTOs intermingled with random philosophy now and then

Settling down in a new house and other thoughts

Filed under: Bits and Bytes by Hari
Posted on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 at 11:35 IST (last updated: Thu, Oct 30, 2008 @ 07:30 IST)

I announced that we were moving house several months ago but it got delayed due to a variety of reasons, but we've finally shifted. The last week or so has been busy and we're still in the process of settling down. The physical adjustments have been easy enough but having lived in one place for nearly 7 years, one does tend to get attached to the comforts (and even discomforts) of familiar surroundings. I wonder how long it will take for us to accept the new house as 'home' though. It does happen over a period of time almost unnoticeably. My estimate is one month.

I think what we'll miss most is the presence of the owner of our previous house. A retired Superintendent of Police, he was a gem of a man - an extremely warm, friendly and helpful person, he was always a source of strength for us. We will miss him and his family a lot. He was a great neighbour because we got on well with him, he could smooth over many problems with his influence and his 'police' aura also gave us a kind of security.

However, I guess change is inevitable and in many ways the new house is a lot more comfortable than the old. We also got rid of loads of junk from the old house that had piled up over the years and that is always a good thing. We had several carton-loads of nothing but old papers (bills, receipts, old legal documents, outdated courseware, files, newspapers, magazines, tons of old, rotting books and similar assorted junk) which could all be safely disposed off!

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I know I started reviewing blogs over at Untwisted Vortex, but it's been difficult to remain motivated to do them, particularly because I find that I keep having to say the same things over and over again. Reviewing blogs of total strangers is always a challenge because one needs to invest time and effort in getting to know a bit about them first and that always takes time. Otherwise there's very little to say about their content. Theme and layout are easy enough to review, although there are too many crappy, pre-built themes around and I get depressed in trying to point out the flaws again and again.

Nevertheless I hope to finish the ones I've accepted and then decide whether it's something I want to do on a regular basis. If I decide to continue, I think I'm going to have to pick and choose which ones I am willing to do because, as I said, I don't have the patience or temperament to do fair, balanced reviews when I just cannot work up any interest in the subject of the review. RT is much more committed to his blog reviews though. I expect his military training and discipline early in life has helped him remain focussed on them.

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With the resources they have at hand, Government agencies and PSOs can swamp private organizations by any number you choose to quote, if only they had the will to do so. I had an interesting example of this because recently we had applied for a transfer of our telephone line and internet connection to the new house. We normally have two internet connections in our house as my brother needs a dedicated line for himself working out of home. One ISP we use is AirTel, a private telecom company and the other is the Government-owned telephones department, BSNL.

Surprisingly BSNL responded far more quickly (almost immediately) to the telephone and Internet connection transfer request. We got it working in our new house within a couple of days while AirTel is yet to respond. I think that the Public Sector has a definite edge over private organizations particularly in the telecom industry because they have the infrastructure, a much larger workforce and now the competition to keep them on their toes. Shows what Governments can do if they really want to do good for the people. If only all Government departments started responding like BSNL to serve the public, India could go quite far! I think the biggest impeding factor to efficiency is red-tape and corruption at the lower levels of staff in these organizations.

13 comment(s)

  1. Hi Hari,Let me release you from your agreement to review my blog. I am a total stranger to you and have only recently began to read your blog. I felt it was a little unfair to ask you to review and now I would like to withdraw my request.I can imagine if you have recently moved home, you have far greater priorities. Thanks for expressing how you felt.Joh (Joh Blogs)

    Comment by Joh (visitor) on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 @ 17:02 IST #
  2. Hi, Joh,Thanks for the comment. I agreed to review your blog and I will definitely review it. There's no going back on that and I think I should keep the commitment to doing it.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 @ 17:16 IST #
  3. Ah, moving. You'll probably notice my time will be limited online as my wife and I have started the process of looking at houses to buy. It's so much fun just thinking about how much money I'm going to spend and then the amount of money I'll be spending just to customize the house the way we want it.I guess it's worth it in the long run, but I will miss the full service apartments provide when something breaks, now it'll be up to me.

    Comment by drew (visitor) on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 @ 17:25 IST #
  4. We have a big household, Drew and we have a lot (a LOT) of stuff to move so moving doesn't appeal to me so much.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Thu, Sep 6, 2007 @ 20:52 IST #
  5. Heh, yeah. I think one reason we need a house now is we're running out of room for more toys for the kid. They're everywhere, bedrooms, hallway, living room and even the kitchen.. ;)I always hate moving too but that's why I'm trying to find a house so I can stay put for at least 5 years or longer.

    Comment by drew (visitor) on Fri, Sep 7, 2007 @ 20:32 IST #
  6. Oh, you'll need a new house just for the toys, believe me. I still have a lot of my own old toys and I cannot believe how much I accumulated over the years... :mrgreen:

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Fri, Sep 7, 2007 @ 20:35 IST #
  7. Yeah BSNL has many surprisingly good reviews from all over the place, and Airtel is not exactly the poster boy of all telecom services. But I hope that you find your new place 'home'-worthy soon!

    Comment by Sudipta Chatterjee (visitor) on Sun, Sep 9, 2007 @ 03:17 IST #
  8. Thanks Sudipta. Yes, but Airtel is actually pretty good when compared to other private telecom/internet service providers. TATA Indicom/VSNL is extremely poor and Iqara is worse. We stopped using TATA Indicom a long time ago and won't recommend them for anybody else.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Sun, Sep 9, 2007 @ 11:51 IST #
  9. Hari, I do hope you get acclimatised to your new environment soon.Surprising how many good reviews I've seen for BSNL. Too bad they don't provide in Delhi.

    Comment by Shashank Sharma (visitor) on Sun, Sep 9, 2007 @ 15:16 IST #
  10. Hey Hari thats nice.. where in Tnagar u r now?

    Comment by Logesh TamilSelvan (visitor) on Sun, Sep 9, 2007 @ 23:10 IST #
  11. Logesh: Search for global headquarters of Papa Hari Foundation on Google Map... You'll find Hari's house.

    Comment by Shrinidhi Hande (visitor) on Mon, Sep 10, 2007 @ 11:23 IST #
  12. Thanks Shashank. I'm still getting used to it.Logesh, I'll call you and let you know... or by e-mail.Shrinidhi, it's top secret even to Google maps! ;)

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Mon, Sep 10, 2007 @ 16:26 IST #
  13. [...] of ventilation in housing Posted by hari under General, Opinions at 10:59 am Ever since we moved into the new place, I've realized the importance of one thing I've been taking for granted for a [...]

    Comment by Hari’s Corner » The importance of ventilation in housing (visitor) on Sat, Sep 29, 2007 @ 11:05 IST #

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