New addition to the family..

No it isn't what you are thinking :-D. I thought I'll drag it out a bit, but in the time that I have to write the post, I cannot afford to drag stuff these days :-\. Still, you know I'll try my best :-D.

The story goes like this. I have been hearing about how good the kids programs are in the libraries here. So about a month ago, after getting all the details from the library, I headed to the nearest branch with Snugli for toddler story-time. She really loved it and had the time of her life (more about Snugli and story-time in my next post :-D). They have a preschooler story time on another day, so I thought I would take her to the library to both the hours (which meant twice a week). But there was an unanticipated problem.

We had only one vehicle. In bigger cities you have good public transportation, but thats not the case in our small town. There is only one bus route thats near to us (about 10 min walk) and it goes nowhere near the library. At first we thought we could manage with the SUV we have. But we were wrong :-p. The timing of this story-time sessions are such that its in the middle of nowhere for us, namely at 10:30 AM, so Sri can neither drop us when he is going nor pick us up when he's back home for lunch. We tried a couple of things; me dropping him to office in the morning going to library with Snugli, coming back home and then go pick Sri again. Didn't work; Also Sri going to office in the morning, coming back at around 10AM to pick us up. We dropping him off at his office, heading to library and then later picking him up when we drive back home. He again going to office and coming back for lunch. Phew! As you can see it was a bit tedious and multiple trips can take the excitement out of anything (atleast for us if not for Snugli :-D).

So we thought about it and decided to get another car - a second hand one. I did suggest a 2-wheeler (they are getting to be quite common these days), but it doesn't really make sense in winters here. Now that Snugli is growing up, I am planning to put her to some kind of classes soon and she'll have to attend them in winter too ;-). So we had to opt for a car. After about a month of research later, here we are. We zoomed in on a 2003 Toyota Camry last week, got the registration done last Wednesday (March 31st) and brought the car home.

So here's our new (well, old :-p) car. Its fourth-hand and older than our SUV, but it doesn't really look its age :-D.




Compare and contrast with our SUV..




Its actually a kind of Grey..




But looks almost the same colour of our SUV..




Its my first car ;-), though I have to say that I am not really jumping up and down with excitement (I did that when we bought the SUV, so feel kinda jaded :-p). Its officially my car, but since I am the one toting around Snugli everywhere, Sri takes the Camry to office and the SUV is all mine (unofficially ofcourse ;-) :-D) muahahahaa >:-).

Spring is in the air..

Flowers everywhere
Fragrance in the air..




Roads that bring cheer
Smiles there and here..




The bulbs are in bloom
Dissipating the gloom..




Gladness fill my heart
Sorrows miles apart..




Not a chill in sight
Warmth day and night..




Mother Nature is awake,
Back from her winter break.

The sights are divine
Time to rise and shine :).

(As you can see, have been busy with photography experimentation. More soon :-D).

The clueless :-D

The baby blues guys are brilliant. This is something that happens at my house ALL the time :-p. Click to get the bigger picture ;-) :-D.

Hope springs eternal..

The daylight savings have begun again in my part of the earth and spring is almost here. So are some of my flowers. Yay!

The Jaaji (the winter jasmine which I cribbed about saying no flowers since 2 years) has finally blossomed :). The fragrance is a bit too gaudy for my taste (nothing like the Indian version). But am very happy nevertheless..




Then we come to tulips and other bulbs. After last year's fiasco, I had hoped that covering the containers with tarpaulin for the winter after planting the bulbs would work and the bulbs won't rot no matter how hard the winter will be. Turns out, I was right!




I have Tulips, Hyacinths and one other variety of bulbs (don't remember the name at all now) that have shoots coming up. Feels wonderful that the work paid of. Now if only I could think of what to plant for the summer :-p.

The question..

Today I was at the Walmart billing counter with Snugli, when the lady at the counter pointed to Snugli and asked me this -

"So are you going to arrange a marriage for her?"

Hehehee :).

I did not know that about astronomy..

Did you know that you can take perfect photos of galaxies, nebulae and many other DSOs (Deep Space Objects) right from the earth? If you knew, kudos to you. Well, I did not.

I am a big fan of astronomical photographs. So much that "astronomy picture of the day" is my daily cup of tea. I always assumed that most of the photos of space were either from the Hubble telescope or some of the special satellites designed to take them. Well, assuming certainly made an ass outtta me :-D.

From the past couple of posts, you know that I was feeling down. I wanted to come back up and one way I thought I could do that was to immerse myself in the activities I love. I thought I would take photography classes or attend a photography workshop, but they don't have them in my town and the private lessons available in a nearby town are atrociously priced :-p. So next, I searched for an astronomy club and found one. While I was exploring through the site, I find the members' photo gallery section and thats when it hits me. Amazing photos taken by people right on earth!

The standard search on Google for more information revealed the term - Astrophotography. Suddenly it was as if the last puzzle piece clicks into place. Felt like a true calling. Felt like, hey thats what I always wanted to do, since I learnt the basics of astronomy (I gave up because of all the math, hehehee). I started reading more and more, getting more and more interested. Don't know how or when really, but I know I want to get into Astrophotography soon.

Its certainly not going to be easy. Astrophotography brings together 2 extreme things in photography and astronomy. It requires the knowledge of operating a high quality telescope (not to mention some knowledge of night sky) and a Digital SLR camera, both of which in turn take quite a bit of mastering. All these don't come very cheap either. Plus from what I have heard, its going to take years to get it right. Just pointing a camera into an eye-piece of a telescope will not get the perfect pics. So its going to be an expensive hobby if it is a hobby and I don't know whether my interest will be strong enough to go on for years and make it into some sort of a career. But right now, I am interested and I am excited.

I have decided to start off initially reading about photography, experimenting and then moving onto buying a digital SLR (which has been one of my all-time wishes). Meanwhile probably will also simultaneously explore buying a beginner's telescope (after going to a couple of meetings of the local astronomy club ofcourse) to learn and explore the possibilities. By then I should know whether I want to pursue this or not ;-). I have several good books on hold already and I can feel the impatience boiling in me ;-) :-D.

I know I am going to have lots of fun figuring it all out :). My only hope in all this is that this will make me look back on the bad phase in my life I have had for the past month fondly as a new beginning :).