Why did the Snake cross the road???

Yesterday (August 6th 2012) at around 7 PM I was driving towards Amity inside helios City. I saw a huge snake about 5 feet in length moving across the road from the Park (at the corner of Bella Tuscany Fontana and Amity) to the other side. There was a gentleman who signalled us to stop to wait until the snake crossed the road!!!

I managed to take a photo but it was not clear. Not too long ago, when the C,D,E, F blocks in Amity was under construction, a security guard came and woke me up at 8 AM (I'm not a morning person).

He said that there is a cobra in my bike. Half awake, I went down and saw about 15 construction workers surrounding my bike and waiting for the snake to come out.

I was told that they saw a  foot long cobra crawl (I'm sure snakes don't walk :-) into my bike.
Then I waited along with other on lookers for about an hour waiting for the snake to come out.
But it never came out. Everyone saw it get into the bike but no one saw it come out.

Maybe all the noise outside scared the snake to hide somewhere inside the bike.

Well...I never used the bike for a month.


So all the morning walkers, people who use the Helios City park for boozing, people returning from office by walk, please be aware that we have other inhabitants in Helios City who have no legs and no hands but a very venomous fang!

Please share your experiences too...

Do-it-Yourself: Rust Removal

People living in amity or any place with hard/salty water for that matter, suffer with unwanted rust on their stainless steel utensils.

Even a good quality steel will start to rust, given proper conditions like exposure to hard water.

At the initial stages, it is only a surface rust and may not have done any visible damages to steel.
If left un-attended, it will go deep and create pits in the utensils.

The easiest way to remove surface rust is with baking soda (NaHCO2 - sodium bicarbonate). It is called as 'soda maavu' in tamil. Available in local provision stores.

Below is an example with a good quality steel knife that started to rust on exposure to our Amity water :-)

At this stage it is only surface rust.

Tools Required:    Baking Soda
Labour Intensity:  Very Mild

Risk of Injury:      Minor

Time Required:     5 minutes

Step 1: Apply baking soda

Apply a paste of baking soda and water on the rusted area.

Step 2: Scrub the rust

 

Scrub the rust with mild force. Use scotch brite or other hard scrub pad if the rust is deep seated.

You should not apply excessive force as the steel will get scratched.

Step 3: Wash the knife/utensil

 

Use plain water and wash the knife and see the rust disappear.

To protect the steel utensils from getting rust spots, wipe the utensils dry after washing it. It is an additional effort but atleast it will keep the rust away.

Do-it-Yourself: Fixing Photo Frames on Wall

There are times when we have a nice decorative wall-hanging gifted to us.
To fix it on the wall, we need to call the handy man to drill a hole and fix a nail.
All these hassles make us pack the decorative item and have it ready to be gifted it to someone else ;-)

Here is a method with which we can fix it on the wall without any screws or nails.
Best of all, it can be done by you in 10 minutes.

I learnt this method from Mr.Suresh in A block. He has fixed items that weigh as much as 500 gms.
This can be typically used for items that weigh less. Here in the example the wall-hanging weighs about 250 gms.

Tools Required:  Screw Driver, Scissors, 3M double sided Mirror Tape (available in most hardware stores)
Labor Intensity:  Very Mild

Risk of Injury:     Minor

Time Required:   10 minutes

Step 1: Remove the provision to hang on nails

Every photo frame/decorative wall-hanging comes with a provision behind it to hang it on a nail.
This needs to be removed.

Step 2: Fix the 3M tape

Fix the 3M tape behind the wall-hanging.

It is always better to stick multiple pieces of the tape instead of one long strip.

Apply pressure on all the pieces of the tape. This makes sure that the tape sticks firmly to the frame.

Step 3: Remove the sticker paper

Remove the sticker paper from the 3M tape.

Check for vertical and horizontal alignment and fix it to the wall.
Apply pressure after fixing.

Do-it-Yourself (DiY):

Most of the basic house hold repairs, maintenance and installations can be done with a basic knowledge of how things work and a decent amount of common sense. Using the right tools and taking sufficient precaution will ensure that you do not injure yourself in the process.

Calling the handyman is the easiest way; but I have always felt, if you want to get something done right, then Do-it-Yourself!

Rental Assistance in Amity

There are many owners who plan on renting out their apartments in Amity. Typically the owners stay in the city and it is not feasible to visit the remote village of Padur ;-) on a regular basis to show their apartments to prospective tenants. This results in a lot of ready to occupy apartments not finding a suitable tenant on time.

Should there be a rental assistance group in Amity that takes care of all the rental requests and show the vacant apartments to the prospective tenants?

There are many requests for rental accommodation in and around padur due the recent developments like  new schools opening up, academic year starting, people working in nearby IT parks moving closer to office etc. There is definitely a lot of demand, it is just a matter of streamlining the demand.

Question is...who should do this?
I would not count on XS Real as they are already very busy working on the pending issues for the past 12 months and still going on and on.

Should we form a group of volunteers consisting of residents?

Ideas and comments are welcome....