For god sake my father is doing better day by day with up and downs. But he didn’t stop worrying in any case. If he feels better any day he worries about the routine things, other wise he worries about his health and says I am not going to think abut routine things. But next day as usual. I can understand the situation.

He was in Mission and HIG hospital for four weeks in that around 16 days in CCU and 12 days in private room. When he was in CCU, Mission hospital, some how his palms got bubbles and still not recovered. Now he shifted to Hyderabad and staying at my sisters place. Here he was shown to couple of famous cardiologist in Hyderabad and none of them agreed with the opinion of Mission Hospital and suggested Medical Management only based on his body conditions. They didn’t mean that Surgery is not required, but the risk is more in Surgery than Medical Management based on his health conditions. AT Mission they took Angiogram and advised Two Bypass surgery and valve replacement. We want to show one more famous cardiologist and waiting for him as he went on vacation. Probably we go for Medical Management. I learned how corporate hospitals make big money.

On April 17th afternoon around 3:30pm (It was 1am in India), I received a call from my sister as my father was taken to Hospital as he got chest pain and not comfortable even after taking couple of tablets. On Sunday night (Monday early hours 5am in India) shifted to another Hospital where ventilators are available which is The Mission Hospital Durgapur, West Bengal as per doctors advise and he got survived. On Monday afternoon around 1pm I started in Albany and reached Duragapur on Wednesday afternoon around 2pm (430am Albany), after 40 hours. I traveled around 25 miles in Kolkata city and I didn’t see even one single clean street or good neighborhood. It just resembles Indian documentaries about poor India.

I went to see my father after 3pm in CCU, I spent around 20 minutes. He was on Ventilator and under sedation. I was not scared that much as I saw one friend before who was also on Ventilator and I was guessing for couple of days my father situation. After that I was standing out of the CCU along with my brother-in-law, that was scary time. When we came out he got VT(Ventricular Tachycardia, fast heart beat) and can lead to Cardiac Arrest. Later he got again another mild stroke was given electric massage. That was another critical and scary time. Then we called my brother to start from Phoenix, AZ. He reached Friday afternoon. He was better that day and since he started recovering slowly but white blood cells count was fluctuating from 13000 to 21000 per cmm. At present he is better and still in same Hospital and planning to shift to HYD on Saturday May 15th. All credit goes to my brother-in-law for his immediate actions and great care taken by him all the time.

Will be continued later…

Last weekend I fixed leakage in Garden hose line. We have one line front and one like back. Both these lines have leakage. I was waiting for warm temperature to replace these and postponing since one month. I want to be alone to Home Depot / Lowe’s to research and plan comfortably. Only possible time is morning before my wife / kids get up. Once they get up it is quite impossible to spend couple of hours for this kind of shopping. Finally last Sunday morning woke up at 6:15am and started to Home Depot on Washington Avenue Extension at 7am. On they way grabbed free coffee from Brueggers at Stuyvesant Palza. I was at Home Depot by 7:20am but it was not opened. On Sunday they open at 8am, then went to Walmart next to Home Depot and spent 45 minutes and back to Home Depot. I spent more than 1 hour 30 minutes and got what I required for fixing water leakage (new lead hoses). Also got new sprayers and quick connects. Quick connect is very easy to use, just push and pull type. I know this kind which used in Industries, but these plastic one are new to me. I felt very happy after finding those for $1.99/piece. There are 4 types of quick connects depends on where to connect in that brand and got total 4 pieces (2 varieties) and fixed. Now I can switch the sprayer in 10 sec without any tool. It is very useful when I want switch between regular sprayer and Lawn watering sprayer. After fixing all these I felt very very happy.

Capital District Transport Authority is the Transit service in Capital Region serves Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schenectady Counties and takes people to many destinations safely ate very reasonable cost. CDTA was started in 1970 and operates bus and train services now. CDTA and its subsidiaries own and operate the Rensselaer Rail and Saratoga Springs Train Stations. CDTA also operates the Northway Xpress Commuter Service between Saratoga County and downtown Albany. It operates more than 300 buses and with around 650 employees.

We are very lucky to have such a beautiful service in Albany area. In United States it is rare to have such a great public transportation. I personally used this service for several years at very reasonable price. I encourage to use public Transportation as possible as it influences many factors.

1) reduces traffic on roads
2) saves lots of fuel
3) less pollution and good for environment
4) Reduced accidents

CDTA offers different fares. Its base fare is $1.50 and it offers Day card unlimited use for $4, 3 day pass unlimited use for $10. It also offers 5 day swiper ard for $55 and 7 day swiper for $65. It als offers ten trip pass for $13. It also offers half fare swipers. CDTA also operates Park & Ride, where public can park their care at nearest Park & Ride for free and take bus and relax.

Cold is not dangerous but make your day uncomfortable and non productive. Some times you may suffer with more than cold, may be with fever and cough. For cold there is right medicine. But there is a theory that vitamin C helps you get over the cold faster than no Vitamin C at all. There is another theory says, getting Zinc gluconate or using a nasal spray with zinc gluconate reduces the duration of a cold. The reason behind this is zinc carries positive charge as does virus and stops viral infections by literally repelling them. Positive charge from Zinc repels positive charge on virus and virus not able to cause infection.

Other Indian traditional methods are nasal cleaning with warm salt water. I will tell my experience now. Normally when ever I got cold it stays around 4 to 6 days and goes away with out any medicines. This week I caught cold gone in less than 3 days. Last week I felt like I am catching cold but didn’t taken any action. On last Sunday I have running nose and by Monday morning it was worse, even my tone was gone. By Tuesday morning it got better and by Wednesday morning I recovered more than 95%. On Sunday night, Monday morning and night and Tuesday morning had a cup of milk with Turmeric powder. It looks weird but really helps. I am practicing this for last 10 years when ever I caught cold. And also cleaned my nasals with warm salt water and took Benadryl Children allergy medicine(I have at home). That’s all I did and not sure which one helped to recover so fast.

As I said each Library have different set of rules, Library Items over due fee is different at each Library. In Menands Library $0.10  per day for over due books and $1 for videos but in Guilderland Public Library $0.20 per day for any item.  I started utilizing these  services since 2002 and I might have been paid more than $250 towards fine in all these years. Initially I used ask to waive over due fee and they used to do it if it reasonable.  Slowly I used to it and I pay with out hesitating for their great service. I prefer to pay to the Library where I reside even though I goes to different Libraries. You can rent up to 50 items on each card, awesome. You can find every thing, you name any category, like   educational, history, art, kids, entertainment etc.,. Each Library have different sections for kids and they have thousands of books and videos.  At William K. Sanford Town Library (Colonie) they carry puzzles too for toddlers. They are very helpful and very Patience.

During Tax season we can find all  tax forms.  They conduct workshops continuously to help the community. At Library you can browse internet at free of charge and kids can play games. You can also get copy and fax service at very reasonable price.  You can reserve room and do group study. This is wonderful place for every one and have wonderful time with out a penny.

Upper Hudson Library System is the Library service to Albany and Rensselaer Counties which is the cooperative association of twenty nine autonomous public Libraries. Central Library is Albany Public Library and its service covers around 1178 sq. miles. URL is:

http://uhls.org/new/index.htm

It is one of the greatest library system and I am one of the 447,108 people of system service area utilizing this great service. The greatest advantage of this is that you can request any item from any member library and you can pick any where and also drop any where of these member libraries. You can renew online or call and renew. That is another advantage.

Each library has different set of rules. Currently I am going to Guilderland Public Library and there if I want pick any item requested by wife can be picked with authorization form given one time by her. No need of her library card. Now if I goes to William K. Sanford Town Library (Colonie), that is not valid, just they want my wife library Card. If I goes to Menands Public Library they just issue with my card, because it is small and they know every one very well.  I pay fine very often and now a days I like to pay at Guilderland Public Library, but when I used to live in Menands I used to pay only at Menands Public Library.

Will be continued in next post….

On last Friday 26th, 2010 we had celebrated JJIS migration to .Net Framework 3.5. All the team worked very hard to meed dead lines as took longer than planned and finally completed. We see the better performance and fresh descent look. We celebrated this occasion with great food like Italian, Mexican, Indian and American dishes like Pizza, Tacos, Chicken Biryani, Tandoori Chicken, Quesadillas and desserts like Cake and Flan De. All of we had lots of food  and enjoyed.  Still I remember taste of the Cake, it was awesome and I felt it was the best cake I ever had and every one felt it was awesome. I had lots of cake after several months as I couldn’t resist even though I limited eating bakery items. Other best cakes I had when  Chandini made them. When Chandini prepared I used to like it, but the topping was normal taste. Other best cakes I had were from Hot breads(NJ and Boston), Villa Italia(Schennectady), Vanilla Bean( Latham).  Alao I liked Flan De and Tandoori Chicken. Other food was ok.  Normally my favorites are Appetizers and Desserts than Main entries in any party except when we go to restaurant. Most of the times I taste dessert even before Appetizer if I have a chance.  Now you might have understood how I love desserts and appetizers. I don’t want to continue any more  as I finished my 2oo words, Thanks for your patience.

Now Eye glasses are mandatory for me. I started using glasses regularly for last three years even though I got  five years back.  Time is running so fast.  Today I went  for check up and Ophthalmologist suggested new lenses and it is bifocals.  For last  six months several times I had hard time to read some small tiny letters. Now it is time to change glasses. Now  a days  I don’t like glasses but it is required.  When I was less than Twenty I used  to get  head ache very very frequently and I was pond of glasses but glasses were not required. I bought couple of times and never used. First time I saw Ophthalmologist when I was Sixteen for head ache.  He checked and given some tablets and worked very well and head ache was disappeared for several years. Again I got  head ache when I was Twenty and got glasses too, but didn’t use much, some how I managed. Again I saw Ophthalmologist when I was Twenty seven and got glasses for head ache and  not used much. I used to get photo glasses just for craze. After that I saw Ophthalmologist when I was thirty seven in India and got glasses for sight. I started using when I remember and used to put it in safe place very carefully.  After some time I realized that I shouldn’t  take care that much to use regularly and to protect my eyes. Then on wards I am using very regularly. After that I saw Ophthalmologist again when I was forty and got new glasses on three pairs in India. After that today first time I saw Ophthalmologist in US and this is end of my story, now I need to buy new glasses.

Now a days I am not getting computer when I need it  and was thinking to buy laptop for last 6 months. In the mean time I bought Acer laptop for India for $300 and my 5 year old Dell is not charging any more. Finally ended up again two.  Chandini bought Sony laptop during Thanksgiving,  but I have given to friend as he came from India and again left with tow. Today I got Gateway laptop for $499 and Chadnini Planning to go India and again will left with two. Now I have to look another laptop for Chandini, probably for me because she will take this one If I don’t buy sooner.

This is Laptop was unexpected buy, because of deal and thanks Satish.  On Sunday I when I am ordering tried to buy through Bing and I didn’t see and ordered one. After 1 hour I saw Best buy in Bing and ordered another one  didn’t cancel because first one waiting for confirmation of orders. Finally Tuesday I got confirmation for store pickup for both the orders.  Today evening I went to pickup and there was only one for store pickup and I was there for one hour and they couldn’t find. Finally they asked me to find another laptop with that price. Then I demanded for same configuration Laptop and found one which is $630, they asked me to share 50% of extra money, I said NO. They agreed to take care of 100%, but found that it  doesn’t have blue-ray. Then I said NO. They said they can’t offer any more and asked me to contact Best Buy.com as I bought it there.  As I offered Gabe that Laptop, I tried to bargain to get decent one, but  that store doesn’t have comparable Laptops in around that price.

Now I am writing this post on this Gateway  Laptop.  I didn’t like the material of Laptop and also mouse pad. Key board buttons are soft and good. I don’t see that speed with that good configuration. One more interesting thing is that it has labeled as i3 but it has i5 processor.  I liked Sony Laptop better than this Gateway even though Sony configuration is not comparable and lower end. I feel this is worth for that money but not great deal. Finally Sorry Gabe.