Photo log of life cycle of "painted lady" butterflies

Last year we we brought "Butterfly Garden" by "Insectlore" from the Learning Express store. It was fun to watch the five caterpillars eat and sleep (as chrysalis) their way to become beautiful Painted Lady butterflies, one after the other. I've put up a photo log of the observations we watched the caterpillars go through metamorphosis.

posted by Amandeep 5/31/2006 11:50:00 PM | PERMALINK

New Car Buying Tips

I've been looking to buy a new car. So I thought I'd share my experience on how to buy a new car for the right price, without haggling with aggressive sales men.

1. Research and decide what you want. In general try to narrow down your search to two or maybe three cars that you will consider to buy. I found edmunds.com to be a useful resource on the web to look up car specs and read editor and user reviews.

2. Test drive the cars, to help further narrow down the car make and model that you will be buying.

3. Look up the invoice price, MSRP and actual price of the car. While edmunds provides, what they TMV (True Market Value), I found carsdirect.com to be even more helpful in finding what the car is actually selling for. Note that real price will generally be between invoice price and MSRP, but at times one may be able to buy the car for below invoice price. This is possible because many times manufacturers may be providing special incentives, either directly to the customers or to the dealers (which they are willing to pass on to the customers).

4. Once you have decided which car, and have a ball park idea of the actual price of the car, start getting quotes. No, I would not go from dealership to dealership and bargain with the salesmen. I'd rather ask for quotes online. Use multiple websites, like edmunds, autobytel, carsdirect, dealix etc. Another way is to get a listing of the dealerships within driving distance from where you live and then ask for the quote online from all of them.

There are several reasons for getting the quote online. One, many times car sales people are paid a commission on the sale. This commission is lower (or non existent) for online sale because they have to work less. So you save money. Secondly, you save all the time and energy that you would have spent doing this the old fashioned way.

5. Having already negotiated the price online, all you have to do next is - go pick it !

Note that car prices can be different from time to time and dealer to dealer. For example, a dealer with more overheads, e.g. the one located in the downtown, may be more expensive than the one who is a bit out off the way. Similarly, some dealer may be trying to meet a monthly sales target and may be willing to drop the price lower near the end of the month. Price may also vary seasonally, e.g. the prices may be lower near christmas time, when most of the people are busy and car dealers have very few customers. New model year introduction also results in price cuts for the last year's model.

That's it for now. Hope this helps.

posted by Amandeep 5/23/2006 01:27:00 AM | PERMALINK

U-Pick Farms In Brentwood, CA

Memorial day weekend is almost here. It seems to be too late to get a good campsite reservation. However, we can still go to the U-pick farms in Brentwood. Brentwood has a number of u-pick farms and is at a convenient driving distance from San Francisco bay area. We have been going there for three years in a row now, its always refreshing and fun family picnic.




Check the web for the latest weather and fruit availability before going. Strawberries, Cherries, appricots, peaches and nectarines are generally available during late May and early June.

posted by Amandeep 5/21/2006 08:05:00 PM | PERMALINK

Charlotte, NC pictures

As promised, here are the pictures from Charlotte.

posted by Amandeep 5/17/2006 11:22:00 PM | PERMALINK

Starting Tech-Tips Blog

I am starting a new Blog called tech-tips. I intend to post any tips or notes for myself and all. Things that everyone seems to know but at times when you need to use it, you want a place to quickly look it up (like just to check the syntax). Since the asingh.net and all the blogs are searchable, this would be a convenient place to start !

posted by Amandeep 5/16/2006 06:09:00 PM | PERMALINK

Starting Over

Ok, I have been lagging on posting to the website. Its time to start catching up. One does not have to wait for the new year to make new year resolutions !

Lets start with some old news: I was the invited speaker at the 2004 workshop on System Test held during the Internantional Test Conference in Charlotte, NC. I will be posting some pictures shortly.

posted by Amandeep 5/14/2006 10:50:00 PM | PERMALINK