09 March 2008

My garden

I have a small garden. We maintain it ourselves. Thats why its always in poor condition :). We have around 25-30 hibiscus plants. The number varies as some of them dye and we get new ones.

We have a couple of hibiscus plants which flower two different coloured flowers! Here is one of them:


There is a bonsai hibiscus. In the last 4 years, it has grown around 6-7 inches. It flowers only during rainy season and since the plant is very small (around 1 feet) with only two branches, it has only 1-3 flowers every year. Here is a picture:



I had never seen hibiscus seeds. Last weekend I was surprised to see a pod and it had seeds in it. I went to google to search about this. It appears, I was the only one who did not know hibiscus plants can have seeds.. he he he... :D.

Some time back I saw a photo in a local newspaper of a 'rare occurrence' where there were 5 pomegranates in one bunch. Just a week before that I had 5 pomegranates in one bunch on my plant as well. I was not aware this was a 'rare'. Here is a picture:


One problem with having a garden is lot of spiders and ants in them. Its not only in the garden, these insects wander into the house as well. But thats ok. The spiders don't mind me destroying their nets while moving around the garden. We also have lots of butterflies and tiny birds that visit us regularly.

Our neighbours have hired experts to maintain their garden. And its turned up beautiful. We get time to maintain our garden only on the weekends. Thats why its not in good shape. Well, its not in bad shape either. I feel so happy to see every flower that blossoms, every fruit that ripens. I don't think I can get that satisfaction if I had paid for the effort and had a well maintained garden...

Centralizing address and phone.

I shifted my residence. There is a change in my residential address now and also my fixed line telephone number. I then had to update my new address and telephone number with:
1. My company
2. My mobile phone service provider
3. Insurance company
4. Another insurance company
5. My friends
6. My relatives
7. My passport
8. I had to cancel my voter's ID card and get a new one in my area
9. My bank
10. My another bank
11. My credit card provider
12. My home loan finance provider
13. etc,
14. etc....

My colleagues, who are bachelors, keep shifting their house every few years or so. I wonder how they manage all this. I asked them and they say the address is changed as and when the need arises.

What is necessary is maintaining a central database for addresses and telephone numbers. I control which service provider, friend, relative can see it. Of course, address for passport and other government related orgs can get it by default.

It should take care of permanent residence address, temporary address and office address. For telephone numbers I should be able to provide my fixed line number, my mobile number and mobile numbers of other members of my family. I should be able to link to my neighbour's, my friends, my colleagues and my relatives address and telephone number as well.

All the service providers can pull the address and telephone number from the database to contact me. In case of emergency, they can reach me through my neighbours, friends, colleagues or family members.

For security reasons, I should be able to control who can link to me (my address and/or phone numbers) and who all can see this data. I should be able to alter this info at any time. The telecom company should have the facility to verify this updates. For addresses, maybe the policy should be involved to verify.

There should also be a mechanism to prevent telemarketing callers from making those pestering calls.

Implementing this may not be very difficult compared to making entries for all existing people and educating everyone from using it....