Washington Post's Local Explorer

Washingtonpost.com recently launched "Local Explorer" on their website which is a very useful tool for locals and those who want to be locals. It's local to Washington DC Metro area covering areas in Maryland, Northern Virginia and DC.

For anyone shopping for a house or looking to move to the area, it should be the go to place to research the area before you buy or rent a place. Local Explorer uses Google maps to show Places in the Area, Recent Home Sales, Schools, and Crime. You can click on point-marks to get more details of that place including Home sale information, School Reports, Crime Reports, etc.

It's also very helpful for people like me who already live here. I am able to look for restaurants, movie theaters, bus stops, daycares, etc around my area. Also, I can keep an eye on crime, home sales, etc around my area. After all, it makes me feel better when I see house prices going up while crime rate is coming down.

Brunch Party with Friends

Most of us Indians living in US have a busy weekend schedule filled with parties. Fortunately, we choose a lifestyle that doesn't take up most of our weekends for parties. We believe they are just tiring and take away lot of fun time we can have with our kids. So, we restricted our friendship to few friends who are all very close. We maintain a yahoo group and a Google calendar to share information about our weekend activities and we all always unite for any fun activity for kids.

We cycle through get togethers that occur once in 6-7 weeks and each time a one family hosts. As most parties, we had our parties at late evening and they last through midnight. Kids enjoy them a lot as all of us have kids in same age groups. But we come home tired and then it gets even tougher to get the kids from car to their bed. Then, for most part of the next day we are all tired.

Well recently, one of our friend had to host a brunch get together as I was on call and couldn't make it for night party. To our surprise we all felt it was just the best way to have a get together with kids. We all enjoyed chatting, playing games, eating (my fav part), and more food. The food was the best part as we get to enjoy all the famous traditional Andhra breakfasts like Pongal, Pesarattu Upma, Idly, several chutneys, Poori with mutton and poori koora, shrimp vepudu, fruit salad, fruit cocktails, and Mysore coffee.

We covered the whole day meals and when we returned home in the evening, we are all fresh for the evening and ready to sit in our home theater to enjoy a movie.

Probably, all the next get together's at our place will either be brunch or early evening cookouts filled with light food and lots of games and talking sessions around the kitchen island!

Why summer is so exciting?

If you are living like me in a place that gets below freezing in winter you know where I am going with this. The beauty of living in NorthEast or Midwest is the drastic changes you get to enjoy in weather around the year. Just when you get tired of hot summer the cool fall winds follow. And soon, you wake up to a cold snowy morning. Do you think you can enjoy a better morning than watching snow coming down when you are sipping a hot cup of coffee?

Well, after a cold dry winter nothing looks better than the arrival of warm Spring with blossoming trees. Walking down the street with kids and wife makes you feel like you started a new life all over again. You wish life stays like that forever. But, soon you realize you need a break from dealing with kids homeworks and rushy morning to get them to school in time to avoid pink slips. Just when we asked for it, we are into the summer break. No more homeworks for us (yes it's homework for parents as well), no more rushing in life. So, now begins the plans to make summer trips. Beaches, bays, movies, parks, etc. Summer brings lot's of smiles on kids face. Oh yeah! Smile on kids face! That is something. The more you can see them smile, the more interesting the life gets for us. Life is Interesting!

One of my life's dream is fullfilled!

I had one life long dream eluding me for years. I waited this long to get it right and then live with it for most of my life. Wondering what it could be? Well, I am enjoying it immensely with my friends and family now for over 2 months. A Home Theater!

A lot of time went into researching on how to put it together the best way possible with as little budget as possible without the expense of a professional. How do one go about doing such a project? Well, look no further than Avsforum's Dedicated Theater Design forum. Call it the Encyclopedia or for anything audio or video. I checked lot of galleries of forum members to get inspired. Finally, I got it done in a style of my own with some inspiration from several theaters I saw at AVS Forum. All commercial theaters have 2.35:1 screen and I believe so should the Home Theaters.

My theater gear:
Lutron Grafix Eye Dimmer control
12' wide 2.35:1 Da-Lite Cinema Contour High Power screen
Panasonic PT-AX100U 720p LCD Projector
Arcam FMJ | P7 7-channel Amplifier
Outlaw Audio Model 990 Preamp/Processor
Sony PS3 as Blu-Ray Player and Game and Entertainment Center - Undisputed King of my Theater
Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD Player
Belkin PureAV PF60 Surge Protector
NevoSL WiFi Universal Remote
Natuzzi Theater Chairs