We made a garden trellis with PVC piping

May 2nd, 2010 admin

Figure1: Basic plan showing the material required

We have two 4′x8′ (4 feet by 8 feet) raised beds, which we use for vegetable plants. Kavita has been asking me to either buy or build a trellis for her climbing plants (cucumbers, tomatoes and eventually some types of squash and gourds). I read several websites online and decided to build a simple trellis using PVC piping. It took one trip to the local Home Depot, and then about 2 hours of work. The cost for the material was under $10 (I already had all the tools needed).

We decided to build one and test it out before getting carried away and building more. We decided that we would roughly want the trellis to be 4 feet wide by 5 feet high. At the Home Depot we did some quick calculations based on the basic design we had in mind and came up with a total of about 29 feet of PVC tube. The calculation is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2: Materials and Tools for the project (4-way, + shaped, PVC connector missing)

The PVC pipes are sold in 10′ pieces. We got 3 pieces. We also got some string (I tried polypropylene string since I did not know any better, we’ll see how that works out).

Figure 2 shows most of the material and tools. The one caveat is, since I took this picture after completing the project, the one 4-way 1/2″ PVC pipe connector used at the center of the frame is missing from the picture. I had extra connectors of the other type, so I could use them for the picture. Also, one other thing that is missing from the picture is a power drill and drill bits. I used a 3/16″ drill bit to drill evenly spaced holes in the pipes to draw the string through, to create a framework.

Figure 3: Trellis plan with the stringing shown

Figure 4: Framework ready, stringing is yet to be completed

The spacing between the holes and how the trellis is supposed to look eventually is shown in Figure 3.

The thing that took the most time was measuring and marking the PVC pipes, cutting them to the right size with the saw, then measuring and marking the locations for the holes for the string to go through and then drilling the holes with the power drill. Since the PVC pipe keeps rolling about, making it stable before drilling is important. I just used an old rag to wrap around the pipe in order to hold it somewhat still.

Once the pieces were all ready, putting the trellis together took less than 10 minutes. There was no need for glue, since the connectors fit quite snugly. Figure 4 shows the trellis laid out on the lawn (with only one piece of string drawn through, Kavita will work on getting the rest of the mesh this evening).

We are not sure how well this will hold up, how long it will last etc. I will update the post with some pictures on the trellis in action, later.

Posted in Experiences, Information, Tutorials | 3 Comments »

The Mathematics of Mortgage, Overpayment and Refinancing Decisions

October 7th, 2009 admin

With mortgage interest rates at historically low values refinancing home loans is an option currently being investigated by many here in the US. I, too, considered the same issue recently and discovered that this is not an easy decision to make. I developed a spreadsheet to figure out if this was a good idea. You can download this spreadsheet by clicking on this link (Microsoft Excel 2003). In general, the spreadsheet was also intended to show how loan repayment terms are set, how banks make money on loans, when overpaying monthly payments makes sense etc. Feel free to use the spreadsheet and improve upon it or tailor it to your situation. The rest of this article is a tutorial on how to make decisions about mortgages, how mortgages work in general, whether overpayment of the monthly payment makes sense, and what to consider when refinancing. The focus will be on the mathematical aspects of the decision making. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Experiences, Information, Tutorials | 4 Comments »

iPhone 3G Yes!

July 19th, 2009 admin

Though not an i-Phone addict yet, I am now an iPhone user. From the time I have been introduced to the iPhone, by friends, I have constantly admired the versatility and the sheer quality of the product. And after a few bad experiences with our previous phone service with Sprint we decided to switch to AT&T. It has been a relatively seamless switch. But the highlight has been the iPhone.

Even before I opened the iPhone box I was impressed with the immaculate packaging. The phone was surprisingly easy to learn using, and any non-obvious features were easy to search for on the web. The ability to download the applications of our choice and even develop your own applications is a tribute to and celebration of innovation and creativity embodied by the iPhone. I could rave about this Swiss-army knife of mobile gadgets or I could argue that no one really uses a Swiss-army knife in normal life. Indeed, I have not yet figured out how best to effectively use this phone. Some of the features that translate into time and money savings are the GPS when you are lost on the road, the ability to look up the Internet to get answers to simple questions when you are in doubt, the ability to entertain yourself when you have time to kill (books, podcasts, puzzles, YouTube, newspapers, iPod music), the ability to shoot video and ship them to your friends (thus avoiding hours of procrastination) and the ability to synchronize the contact list and calendar entries with Google. In short, this tool allows you to use small pockets of time more efficiently, either the educate or entertain yourself, or to rewind. This is important, to me at least, because then the time with family does not need to be compromised for trying to rewind in my own way. Simple example: if I feel like listening to Louis Armstrong I can listen to him and other jazz artists on Pandora while driving back from work. Then once I am home, I can spend time with Kavita, as she wants me to.

So, finally, thank you, Anu, Shankar and Sandeep, for live demos and persuasive nudges, and thanks Kavita for the final push. I’m on board and I am enjoying the ride.

(I posted this entire entry from the iPhone. I am getting very good at typing on this, something I was not so sure about only two days ago.)

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A Fleeting Experience

December 26th, 2008 admin

We are driving towards Orlando in our overloaded Pontiac Vibe. Anant is in the driver’s seat; Kavita is sitting behind him, with a mountain of boxes and bags filled with camping stuff, food, clothes, maps, cameras and stuff for our week-long road trip almost leaning onto her to her right and from behind her. We are listening to Ira Glass’s “This American Life” CD. Up until a few minutes ago, I was reading the New Yorker magazine that Anant had brought with him from California. But as the light outside faded, I could not read any more and my mind wandered. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bharat Ek Khoj – Shyam Benegal’s discovery of Nehru’s Discovery of India

September 14th, 2008 admin

My good friend, Rajeev, discovered this treasure trove online – Bharat Ek Khoj, a TV series based on Jawahar Lal Nehru’s book, The Discovery of India. Nehru, the first Prime Minister of free India after the British Rule, wrote most of this book while imprisoned. The effort evokes in me pride, respect and awe. Attempting to capture the essence of the spirit and history of India in a 500-odd paged book, is in itself a courageous attempt. Doing so, while in prison, also shows inspiring determination, discipline, value for time and sense of duty. I cannot comment on the literary and factual quality of the book; I have not read it yet. However, this TV series, which started in 1988, is something I can comment on. Directed by one of the great Indian film directors, Shyam Benegal, and with a cast that clearly is stellar when you look back at those names (Om Puri, Roshan Seth, Ashok Kumar, Anjan Srivastav, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Neena Gupta, Salim Ghouse, Tom Alter etc.) with a couple of decades of work since then for proof, Bharat Ek Khoj is a gem in history of Indian television. Even though I was quite young when this series was on TV, and even though it was quite serious in tone and not a children’s show, I distinctly remember loving it. It’s catchy, yet philosophical, credits set the tone for the self-discovery that the series embodied. The seriousness of the attempt to discover that spirit of Indianness in each episode, the honest, accurate and non-fantastical version of epics and other historic records, and the wonderfully rich use of Hindi and Urdu languages were all aspects of the show that drew me to it. When I watch it today, I can watch it with the same dedication and curiosity to learn about India. I realized that though nostalgia is a part of discovering any such childhood treasure, that is just a fleeting feeling. I have seen several other old TV hits online, such as Ye jo hai zindagi, Hum Log and Mr. Yogi; however, with those the interest typically dies out after a few episodes because the nostalgia wears out and the paucity of quality hits you, and you wonder, “Well, may be it was good in its day, but it is not really that special”. Bharat Ek Khoj, on the other hand, still seems fresh. With each episode, my interest in wanting another one increases rather than diminishes. After 20 years since the show first appeared, I can still learn from it, and formulate a more complete picture of India. I found that series is available in DVD format for purchase here. It is quite expensive, with 2 episodes costing $30. This would run the total series to over $600. So the decision for now, for me, is that I will read the book.

Posted in Experiences, Friends, Reviews | 6 Comments »

On the role of the media in sports in India

September 13th, 2008 admin

Some things are only visible from the corner of the eye; they vanish when you try to look at them directly. Similarly, I believe, the best approach to religion  is not a headlong dive to grab its elusive essence, but rather, an indirect infusion of those ideas and ideals via a more concrete medium. One such concrete medium, which India seems to have never given much chance to, is sports. My friend, Akshay, sent me an article by Professor V. Raghunathan (author of the book “Games Indians Play: Why we are the way we are”) on why India’s performances in sports in general and Olympics in particular falls way short of what one would expect from a nation of over a billion people. The article is called “Games Indians Don’t Win“. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Experiences, Friends, Information | 2 Comments »

We make it to India in 2008

September 12th, 2008 admin

Amidst the tussle between technology flattening the world and fuel prices beating it back to being rotund again – one making the world seem smaller and the other promptly stretching it back out – we planned a trip to India. Rising price of fuel had sent the ticket prices soaring, and at $1860 round-trip per head, the trip took on the shape of a mystical vacation, something to be enjoyed to the fullest – something to be planned to perfection while at the same time left open for surprises worth recounting. Traveling alone is usually a bland affair for me. Traveling with Kavita makes it a an order of magnitude more enjoyable. This time it was special also because this was Kavita’s first trip to India after our marriage three years ago. She was bound to enjoy and react to every little detail of the trip – shopping for tickets, the anticipation of meeting people back home, figuring out what all she wants to get from India, the actual flight and all its associated procedures, train travel, actually meeting people, taking in the changes since she last saw the country, and so on – and I was bound to enjoy her enjoyment. Of course, I had been to India only six months earlier, in December 2007. So this was mostly a trip for Kavita. Read the rest of this entry »

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On Choice

September 11th, 2008 admin

My friend, Sandeep, sent me a link to a very interesting talk given by Dr. Barry Shwartz, a sociologist, who observes and persuasively argues that excessive choice is bad.

I agree with this observation. More generally, this observation applies to any kind of decision making. We make many decisions in life – in everyday life and in the grander scale of life. In everyday life, we decide on things like which vacuum cleaner to buy, or, which hair conditioner to buy, both of which were decisions I had to make last week. In the grander scale of life we need to make decisions such as who to marry, or, which profession to work towards. Read the rest of this entry »

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Protect your platinum – catalytic converter theft

June 25th, 2008 admin

Someone neatly sawed off and removed the catalytic converter from under Kavita’s Pontiac Vibe yesterday while it was parked in the Friday Center park-n-ride lot in the UNC, Chapel Hill, campus. When Kavita started up the car, it started up with a loud, complaining roar rather than the usual hum. Clueless about why the car was so loud, she stopped the car and started to look under the hood to see if she could spot any obvious problem, when someone shouted from across the lot, “Looks like your catalytic converter was stolen as well.” He was another of the many victims of such theft yesterday. He called campus police, which was good because Kavita was not sure what she should do next. She tried reaching me, but I was in the gym, away from my cell phone. So she called Anant in California, got my gym’s number and had the lady at the front desk in the gym call for me over the PA system. I came home from the gym, got Kavita added as an associate on my AAA account and ordered a tow-truck to get the car to our mechanic at Wasp Automotive. Meanwhile, the campus police officer, a lady, stayed with Kavita until I reached there. This was nice of her. With typical wait times of 60 minutes for the region, we were expecting a long wait at the lot for the tow truck. However, he showed up a few minutes after I reached the Friday center in my car. He noticed that Kavita’s license plate had expired and the tow-truck guy could not, therefore, tow the car as part of AAA’s services. He was a nice guy though. He had a huge lump of tobacco pushed against the inside of his left cheek wall, and in between spitting, he informed us that in the very same lot, last Wednesday, there were nearly 40 cases of the exact same incident. He had himself towed many a cat-less car that day. He said, “If you want me to tow this to Wasp, I can do it, but you can save yourself a hundreded and twenty five dollars by just driving it yourself. It will be loud, but fine.” He wanted us to file a complaint with the campus police since they had not provided any protection to the lot in spite of the sudden spate of these thefts since last week. We thanked him showing up at such short notice, and for not charging us a penny for his time and effort. His trip must have cost him at least a few bucks of gas. He did inform us that the state will slap a $250 fine on us because of the expired license plate. I drove the car with the emergency blinkers on to Wasp and left it there with a note that the insurance people want to take a look at it before we start off any repairs. So with the $250 fine, the insurance deductible (assuming they pay for it), this misadventure will cost us upwards of a thousand dollars. With our trip to India planned for this Sunday, I am not even sure if the repairs/insurance claims etc will be done before we leave.

In any case, the point of this whole entry is that catalytic converters are a relatively easy part of your car to steal. They contain precious metals like platinum, palladium etc. and when mined for the metals can fetch $50 to $100. Replacing them, of course, costs more than a thousand dollars usually. There is nothing you can do to avoid such theft except avoiding parking in desolate lots. When parking in public areas make sure you park at a location that is visible to pedestrian or vehicular traffic. Such visibility maybe a deterrent. Park close to mall entrances if malls do not have police cars driving around the lot or surveillance cameras. Comprehensive insurance is a good idea, as long as the deductible is low enough that you don’t end up paying the whole amount. Park inside a garage where possible. If you have any other ideas about how to reduce the chances of such theft, let me know.

Posted in Experiences | 2 Comments »

Spelling Bee – Can you spell a L-E-T-D-O-W-N

January 7th, 2008 admin

Kavita and I saw the Broadway musical, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”, at the Memorial Auditorium in Raleigh’s downtown yesterday. We bought the cheapest tickets ($21), but given that the auditorium was almost half empty, it was not hard to move down closer to the stage. I was not having as much fun as I normally do at musicals and theatre. I wondered if getting closer might help us catch some subtle expressions which I was missing, and, therefore, not enjoying the play as much. We did move closer to the stage, about 20 minutes into the show, of course, trying to choose an appropriate time so as to least disturb the thin audience and the performers.

However, the show never really managed to significantly challenge my expectations from a play. There were moments where it was inspiring, but most of it was a drag. The storyline, whatever little there was of it, was linear, going through each character’s circumstances and personalities one by one. There was hardly any complex, thought-provoking, interaction between the characters. The ballad, called the “The I Love You Song”, where one of the contestants remembers her mother who is in far-away India, seeking enlightenment, is powerful. Another sequence that I liked was one where a contestant, who, before spelling a word, always writes it on the floor using his “magical” right foot, does it in super slow motion. The sequence starts off at normal speed, ramps up in speed to a frenzy, and then slows down to a low frequency stupor, before rebounding to normal. The songs were not awe-inspiring, in general, and some dialogues bordered on being vulgar.

The stage and props remained quite static throughout, with not much in terms of visual impact. The literary impact, which must have been the main motivation behind making this a play, instead of letting it stay in the book that it originates from, was not terribly impressive either. I am sure I did not get all the subtle jokes, but before I denigrate myself too much, let me add that I did not want to go the show having done any homework. I went there to be entertained; if I did not catch all the subtle jokes, maybe they were too subtle. There was one piece of clever wordplay, where “what” is spelled by taking the w from a word where w is silent, h is taken from a word in which h is silent and so on. Such a “what” is never heard, claimed the contestant. Clever, but such cleverness would do just as well staying in a book. The theatre is supposed to be a feast for the eye and the ear, thought-provoking and awe-inspiring. This play does not manage to consistently meet such criteria, although it grazes those thresholds once in a while. There were some members from the audience who participate in the early stages of the spelling bee, providing some opportunity for seemingly impromptu, but potentially well-rehearsed, jokes, before their pre-planned elimination. Some of the commentary and references were from surprisingly recent political events. Participation by some members of the audience and this sensitivity to current news indicates that the script for the play lends itself to some modification and improvization.

Reviews I have read online were surprisingly positive, even rave, about the show. This is a small-budget production; maybe my expecting it to be comparable to the few other plays I have seen – “Phantom of the Opera”, “42nd Street” and “Annie Get Your Gun” – was wrong. However, even then, given that the tickets were priced just as any regular show would be ($21 to $70), I just did not guess that it would be a low-budget production. I am glad we did not buy more expensive tickets. I feel that plays are over-priced in the US. Except for one of the contestants walking into the audience throwing candy, most of the action was on the stage, which stayed pretty much unchanged as well. I do not see why I needed to go there in person to watch this show, when I could have probably seen it clearer, and, for less, on a DVD, feeling just as involved.

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