Changing Lanes

After the vada pav at Urban Tadka, this is what me and SJ were upto.

Basically I had to shift the remaining stuff i.e. plants, pots, stools, odd leftovers etc to my new house. Coincidently SJ was around so I decided to take her help. We got sweaty, dirty and wet in the process which also left my car quite messy on the inside to compliment the filthy outside. But it was fun in the end...as usual. Anyway shifting has been completed, and we're trying to settle into our new home. This should be fun...I think.

Tried light painting with SJ in the middle of the night...literally. It was 12am when we started shooting after being warned by a muncipality official from shooting at our initial location. Me being the control freak took over as we just had one tripod (Note to self: need to allow SJ take over the shoot next time). Even though it was loads of fun and sweat, we didn't end up with very cool shots. I suppose we needed one more person to help us out. Hopefully that'll happen next time.

Camera Model : Canon 7D
Shooting Date/Time : 08/26/2010 12:12:29 AM
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 30secs
Av(Aperture Value) : f5
Metering Mode : Pattern
ISO Speed : 100
Lens : EF-S 10-22mm
Focal Length : 10mm
Camera Model : Canon 7D
Shooting Date/Time : 08/26/2010 12:36:18 AM
Tv(Shutter Speed) : 30 secs
Av(Aperture Value) : f6.3
Metering Mode : Pattern
ISO Speed : 100
Lens : EF-S 10-22mm
Focal Length : 15mm

About three months back I got the Mondeo. Even before deciding to buy a car, I had decided to wash it by hand most of the time with maybe a manual car wash at the local petrol pump once in a while. I got the necessary equipment (cloth, polish etc) and have washed the car at least 8 times till now. It takes me an hour to do the exterior which in this Dubai heat translates into sweaty and tired me. For the interior, I’ve bought a portable car vacuum cleaner that I use once in a while.

The reason I chose to wash the car by hand is not financially driven. Car washes in general are great but I’ve never been completely happy with the job they do. Also spending one hour cleaning it is a good workout. But in the end the main reason is that it reminds me of a person who used to wash her car all the time and this is just one of those things that I do to feel connected to her.

Btw I washed the car today and while removing it from the shade a bird decided to answer natures call right above my car. The story of my life...

Driving all the way to Sharjah to video the fire behind National paints seemed like a great idea yesterday. I don’t feel the same way about it anymore.

The place where I had parked and where I was standing was the area where the wind was taking all the smoke. Even though the smoke was quite high, there was some wet sticky soot falling over the area. It fell on me and my car. A quick bath made sure I was all clear but getting it off the car was a completely different story.

Started off by trying to clean it with water, then tried some soap and then tried some scratch removing car wax. None of it worked so decided to go for a car wash today. Told the cleaner about the soot and he tried to remove it with a liquid and then blasted the areas with water. He managed to get some of it off but there were still a lot of it left. I paid AED35 for the wash and AED15 as tip to the cleaner for trying.

Disappointed, I drove off to the Yellow Hat outlet in Nad al Hamar. Showed the sales guy my car and he said that it would be better if I showed the car to the detailing guy who then told me it would take ages to remove them all and that I should make a booking instead. Booking for external detailing done for tomorrow morning and it’s going to cost me AED340 (after a 15% discount).

Total cost AED390 (assuming I don’t tip the guy tomorrow)
Financial benefit from video AED0
Earnings this month AED350

Life’s good…