Unloading my think tank...

...absolutely rocking! I spent 2 days with my mom, sis, her hubby, and their absolutely adorable 5-month old girl. It was packed! Not because we went out to meet relatives or had chores to do, but because of the kid! She's such a handful! She keeps making those cooing sounds and smiles a toothless smile. Put her on your lap, and she'll stand erect, and start walking rapidly all over you! Yea, she walked right on my face! That was so cute :)

And she's so tall; err... mmm not tall, cuz she cant stand as of now, you can say she's long. Hahaha that sounds funny! So anyway, she's tall and has slender long fingers and toes. She has pink lips and poses like a pro in front of the cam. Yup, its a different look on her face each time! She keeps kicking her legs and hands in the air, and I bet she's gonna take up sports as her mainstream career. She can also do ramp-walk modelling, part-time, I'm sure.

Oh dear, look at me. I am talking about her career already! She's barely 5 months! Seriously, she's a darling. And watching a baby grow in front of your eyes is most delightful. Most :-)

Hubby dear came to the station with a beautiful flower bouquet to receive me. That man I totally love him :) He never fails to surprise me or keep me happy. In fact, I could hardly wait to be back in his arms, and get showered with love all over again. Being married is, great, in a word.

And kudos to this man featured in Mumbai Mirror. Given the power shortage, we could all learn a lesson from him. Below is the news article copy-pasted from the paper's online edition.

For famously spirited Mumbaikars who face the first ever serious prospect of load-shedding in the island city in a hundred years, here's a family that's showing the way, a family to follow seriously if we are to successfully tackle the crisis now staring us in the face.

G V Patil, 55, third-floor resident of Sugandha in Mithanagar, Mulund (E), who lives with his wife Priya, 55, and daughter, 25, in a 500 sq ft flat, has got the 'reward' of a Rs 175 discount on his power bill from the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) for slashing monthly power consumption to less than 300 units.

Starting December 2006, the MSEB decided to give a 'discount' to all household consumers who reduced their monthly power usage to less than 300 units. The additional supply cost would be waived off for such consumers, the utility said. Thus the discount would differ from consumer to consumer, depending on the number of units consumed.

The incentive was offered in view of the serious shortfall of electricity in the city: in 2006, Mumbai had a deficit of 201 megawatts, which is expected to go up to over 500 megawatts this summer. While Mulund and Bhandup already have power cuts, load-shedding could be introduced this summer in the island city -- for the first time since the city first got power in 1905 from the British Power Company.

The Patils brought down their consumption from 414 units in October 2006 to 289 in December 2006, and then to 189 units in January 2007. The corresponding decrease in their power bill has been from an average of Rs 2,200 per month last year to Rs 600 in January 2007.They achieved this by making limited use of electrical appliances in the house, and even while they saved power thus, they realised they did not really have to cut down on their comforts. They could conserve power and still lead the life they had always led.


How they saved power
Step 1: Assessment
“With only three members living in our house, I was shocked to get electricity bills in excess of Rs 2,000 every two months. That was when I decided to keep tabs on where power was being wasted,” Patil said.
He first made enquiries on the amount of units consumed by each electrical appliance in the house (see box) and then took advice from a family friend, Sudhir Parab, an electrical engineer, to locate areas where power consumption was unusually high.

Step 2: ‘Overused’ washing machine
The Patils used the washing machine for three hours every day. But they discovered that if clothes were soaked before they were put into the machine, use of the fully automated machine for three hours could be avoided. “Now the clothes only had to be rinsed in the machine, and we managed to cut down its sage by nearly half this way,” Patil said.

Step 3: The A/C
Patil said that keeping the air-conditioning unit at 24 degrees for just three hours provided good cooling at night. Result: consumption, which is heavy in case of a/c units (see box), was again reduced. “Previously we used to keep it at 19 degrees, due to which electricity consumption was high. After keeping it at 24, we found that cooling was similar,” Patil pointed out.

Step 4: CFL lights
In the case of lights, Patil said that substituting the glaring spotlights with 9-watt CFL lights contributed significantly to saving energy.

Step 5: TV
“We cut down the use of the television and switched it on only for select programmes that everyone in the house liked. The rest of the time, we kept it switched off,” he said. He emphasised here that they put off the TV mains and did not use the remote control.


Consumption of units on appliances per hour for 30 days ( a month)
• 100 watt bulb: 1.20 units
• Refrigerator (200 litres): 6 units
• Air Conditioner (1.5 ton): 60 units
• Washing Machine (700 watts): 21 units
• Television (200 watt ): 6 units
• Computer: 22 units

I think what they are doing is just great. I try to do my bit too; I have replaced energy-consuming-and-poor-light-throwing yellow bulbs (yuck) with CFL ones, and make it a point that lights, fan etc are off in a room where there's no one. And my electricity bill pummelled down to Rs. 800 from Rs. 2000! Attagirl me! :D