Viva Las Vegas!!

Well it seems like its been ages since I've posted anything here. Lots of stuff happening. Was in Las Vegas last weekfor the Collaborate 2007 tradeshow. While everyone ooooohhhss and aaaahs about Vegas, they never bring up the topic of sore feet. If you ever happen to visit Vegas, remember to carry comfortable footwear along, and be mentally & physically prepared to walk a lot!!!!

Sleeping & not walking on air!!!

Well, to continue further, we have now purchased what is known as an AeroBed here. It's this beautiful electric blue inflatable mattress (2-layered), with an inbuilt pump. As part of our home furnishing exercise, we picked this up from Costco (a large wholesale warehouse store).

All one needs to do is to spread it out on the floor, plug it in, into the wall outlet, and as they say proverbially "let er rip"!!!! The bed takes about 60 seconds to inflate to an optimum level, and the best part is that it comes with a built-in safety valve, which prevents overfilling!!

We also setup our comforter set on it, to give it a homely touch. Chinni & Raja, this is going to be your bed once you come here - so you might as well feast your eyes on it!!!

Saturday

Right...so continuing where I left off. Saturday dawned nice, bright and sunny....while we did crash out the previous night, it wasn't a very great sleep - owing to the lack of pillows and a mattress!! But nevertheless we did try to grab some shut eye. Got a call from a Kim Hoang from San Leandro Honda, stating that they had a special going on for the end of the month, and that she was really desperate to sell a car.

A quick tip - the trick to buying a car in the US is to pit different dealers against each other to get the best possible rate / deal. Then again, within the dealership too, once can get two different rates for the same car - one from the retail salesman and a different one from the internet salesman. While the retail guy makes his commissions on how much the car is sold for, the internet person makes his commission based on how many cars he sells in the month. So the trick is to talk to the internet guy for the best possible rate as he/she would like to move the car off the lot - irrespective of the price, and then talk to the retail guy to see if he would go any lower than the said price.

Since we do not have any credit history in this country, all interest rates on loans were very high - upwards of 10.5%, which is a ridiculous sum of money. Anyhow, since it was a special (it's all in the timing - end of the month & end of the quarter), we managed to secure a 4.9% which is really good.

We ended up buying the Honda Civic EX with Navigation with the automatic transmission. The color is Beige. Will upload some photographs soon. From start to finish - the entire process took less than two hours - including the financing etc. The actual sale took just about half an hour!!!
While we received delivery of the vehicle, we couldn't take it off the lot, as we didn't have insurance. We finally managed to get insurance on Monday and so drove it back from the showroom on Monday. It was the first time that I drove on the Freeway, and believe me, I was gripping the steering wheel like a dead man clutching straws!!! If at all I am able to drive in this country - it's all thanks to Anil. He has been a tremendous help here.

Technorati Tags: honda civic, freeway, credit hitory, apr, interest rate, car buying tips,

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Details....Details.....Details Part #1

Well, am sure you all have been waiting for the details - so here they are! Am going to split this into a couple of posts for easy readability.

Anyhow, as I had mentioned in my previous post - we moved into our apartment on Friday. Mayur & Purvi came back in their Lexus RX 350 (SUV) and picked us up at 9:45 am along with two of our big suitcases, two pieces of hand baggage and two laptops - boy that car sure has a lot of space. We drove to Ardenwood Forest and there met Emerald at the leasing office. After we managed to get the lease in my name ( as it was originally in Mayur's - since I didn't have a social security number at the time when we signed up originally), she handed over all the paperwork, and asked for a cashiers check(note - it's check here as opposed to the British cheque). Apparently a cashiers check is similar to a demand draft. 'Twas a learning experience for us, as I had no clue as to what a cashiers check was! Anyhow, we went to our bank "The bank of America" (drum rolls in the background!!!), and got that made for the requisite amount, and were back in record time. It was only after that, that she handed over the keys to us, at about 11:45 am!!

With the keys in our hands, we drove up to the apartment, and had the first look.Another learning lesson: Ground floor is known as first floor here, while the first floor is known as the 2nd floor, and so on. So as per US terminology we were on the 2nd floor. Mayur and Purvi help out in moving the luggage in, and then left in a while, as technically, it was a working day for both of them. We started to unpack as much as possible, as Anil, Vikas, and Kiran were due to arrive by 1:30 pm in his Toyota Sienna Van to help us move the remaining stuff.

By the time they arrived we had managed to fill in the cupboards and ended up emptying most of the suitcases from the first trip. We then went back to the guesthouse to pick up the remainder - two more suitcases, the cookwares, dining table & chair, and a couple of cardboard cartons. Stopped for a quick bite at Taco Bell en route, and reached home by about 3:30 pm.

After moving everything in, the first thing to do was the milk boiling ceremony. Mahi carried it out perfectly and then also made some Kheer. As is evident from the photographs, all of us enjoyed it immensely. Anil, Vikas and Kiran, left by 5 pm as Anil still needed to get back to work. If there is one thing that I can say about Anil, it's this: "He goes out of his way to help you out - and it's very hard to come by his kind these days. The amount that he has helped us out is no small feat - I wonder if I would ever go to that extent myself."

Anyhow, once they left, we kind of settled down a bit, and unpacked some more. We finally crashed out in the night, looking forward to Saturday.

Technorati Tags: ardenwood, apartment, fremont, housing, friends, ramesh, ramakrishnan, lexus, toyota, sienna, van, moving

it's been a while....

...and we've been busy. And I mean really busy!!! We moved into our new apartment in Ardenwood Forest on friday, went car hunting on saturday, bought the car on saturday, left the car at the dealership for the accessories and for lack of an insurance, went grocery shopping on sunday, made mountains of food on sunday, assembled the dining table on sunday, went to office on monday, bought insurance online on monday, brought the car from the dealership on monday back to the office, showed it around to colleagues on monday, drove back in the evening.......and then took a sigh of relief.

If you'd like the details on all these activities, you would need to wait, as I'm still cataloging the photographs, and these posts will be up soon - very soon....so see you soon.

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Technorati Tags: honda civic, ardenwood forest, home, geico, insurance, ikea