life as I know it

Going again for the Velas Turtle Festival

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Velas is a quite village on the Konkan Coast, mostly populated by Coastal Brahmins. As soon as you enter the village you will not get a cellphone reception as the last cell towers were in Bankhot the village before Velas, this really helps you cut off and relax.

Velas isn’t at all destination for a weekend getaway there aren’t any comfortable hotels or restaurants here, further the locals aren’t really that hospitable (IMHO), accommodation here is mostly home stays, and meals are available if you ask nice and in advance (and they won’t be that cheap cause ration comes from other villages). That said people still flock to Velas because on the west coast of India this place has the most Olive Ridley Turtles Nesting.

A local conservation group systematically dig up nests and transfer them into protective enclosures on the beach which are manned by volunteers and villagers, this helps the eggs survive both predators and humans alike. Around Feb – March the turtles emerge from the nests and crawl out from the sand. These volunteers then release these turtles into the sea. Where they begin their mostly unknown journey.

To promote this conservation efforts locals and volunteers host tourists who can come and experience these turtles hatching during this Turtle Festival. Where turtles are released twice a day (if any hatch out).

I went there twice last year with my friends from Yatri Sahyadri and they are again organizing a trip to Velas and I’m all excited to go there after a year and see whether this place has changed in any way.

Starting up in 2012

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Last December, I quit game4u. To start something of my own which paid me to work on stuff I liked and watever time, I was comfortable with.

Feeling christmassy didn’t quite help… I barely got a website up or even visiting cards printed. But one thing I did well was talk to a lot of people put the word out on my “available for work” status.

And just when I started believing that its going to be more difficult than I thought, I got the replies and some more inquiries in fact I got more people replying positively than the days that have finished this year.

Let’s hope they pay well (that’s another story).

Credit it

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Recently a colleague told me that credit cards are the root cause of modern day debt woes people have. It’s an evil instrument designed to make people spend needlessly.

Yes a lot of people have fallen into credit card debt, but that’s because they’ve not got a simple thing in their heads that they shouldn’t spend to the extent of their card limit but to the extent of what they can afford when payment will be due and you’ll be surprised what this amount could be.

First we need to understand a simple fact that our money has potential to earn i.e. money can make you more money. So when you go and spend hard cash your loosing out on that opportunity to earn and on the other using credit cards let’s you keep your money with you longer and still spend it now, thus at one point in time you will have more money which also increases your spending power.

So imagine you earn 10k/month and spend 8k during a given month thus saving you 2k/month. Now imagine instead of paying you used your card to pay the 8k and thus your bank a/c would have the entire 10k in it. And by the time your card would be due your next month’s salary should be in your account as well, from which you would pay the 8k, leaving 12k in your account. And even a fool would tell you that banks would pay more interest on 12k than 2k.

Using the above example instead of the expense being a regular 8k expense imagine if it were a one time 18k expense with a 10k income. I would still make the purchase in the first month with 10k in the bank and pay it once the second months salary comes in, when I would have a total of 20k in the bank.

I know this is easier said than done but then I have used credit cards without having any problems for seven years now.

Free is not free

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Free is never free of hassles.

Tired of incorrect bills and dealing with the numbskull customer service advisors. I decided enough was enough and if i need to put in so much time to deal with hutch then they need to compensate me effectively… Each time they made a mistake and each time they delayed resolving it.

when i had an issue with my bill for june, which took most of july to be sorted out. I asked this guy called clifford d’cruz a senior manager from the company to give me my internet pack free for a month it costs Rs. 499 for 500 meg.

But the bug loaded hutch billing system issued me a bill with incorrect charges to a sum of 2.5k for the extra 500 meg. and getting that sorted took a lot… Finally i emailed the highest authority whom i could find an email for on their website.

Never seen a indian company respond so fast to an email, just 2hrs (godaddy.com replied in 20mins, but 2hrs can pass as an indian record one for the limca book.)

the guy sorted things out right away, but i had some tickle in my behind and i told the guy what about compensation. and he unhesitantly offered the 499 internet pack free for 2 months.

but has i said free is never hassle free.

I’ve recieved a bill which has rental charges for the 199 internet pack which i never had.

i’ve spent over 10hrs of call time, tryin to sort this out, and i’m still awaiting a resolution.

Going with experience the wait ’s gonna be long.

SEO

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Few months back i left 3G the Call centre… and joined ecreeds. When I was offered the job i was told I would be an SEO in the company… No No its nothing like a CEO or a top company boss…

But its an exciting job… the problem is 90% of the people i know, don’t know what an SEO is (10% are from the web design and development industry, So they obviously know it)… When I told some of my former colleagues from three that i was an SEO… they were really happy for me as I went from being a Customer Relations Advisor to a Chief Executive officer… yes i know they were getting it all wrong but only someone out their minds would explain to those numb skulls that an SEO was different from a CEO.

Then I informed some of my friends, whom i knew from Sunrise (the office of the Late Mr. Sunil Dutt, then Union Sport Minister of India) they were upset because they thought i could do better.

Can’t blame them their understanding of SEO was Spl. executive officer of the Maharashtra Govt. (to be able attest your photocopies for school admissions) .. something that the smallest office bearer of the congress party becomes.

From then on when asked what i did for a living, I always replied that I was working for a company that’s into web design and stuff… (I do the stuff)

By the way if you didn’t know. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimiser, are people who do stupid stuff and take money from website owners, so that they do good in search engine results.

Hey but its not an easy job, it takes a lot of time in researching stuff.