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Eco Friendly Pump House
After having decided to build a not so small pump house, we wondered if we should stretch our budget a little bit and go for eco friendly construction material. We have always wondered how it would be to live in a house constructed with mud bricks. Many say that it not only is eco friendly for several reasons, but also helps moderate temperature inside the house, keeping it cool during summers and warm during winters. We have only heard of the advantages but never experienced. We visited a couple of farmers who built their houses with mud bricks, but a one or two day experience does not tell you much. So we decided to build an eco friendly pump house and experience it ourselves.
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Mechanical Keyboard Repair
A few days ago, my mechanical keyboard started to develop some weird issues. If you remember, this is my first mechanical keyboard which I bought in November, 2021. The purchase date has a significance because in almost exactly 3 years, in November 2024, the keyboard started to misbehave. I know it is a coincidence, but sometimes I wonder if it is part of the planned obsolescence theory. Manufacturers design the hardware in such a way that the products automatically fail after a certain period.
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Pump House
Since we finished the bore, the next order of business is to build a small pump house. Small enough to house the starter for the submersible pump that we will install once we get the electric connection. We wanted to be prepared with everything for the electric connection. Again we had to go through a lot of thought and planning. Should we build something really small like a 5 feet by 5 feet room, just enough to house the starter for the pump and some tools. Or should we build something bigger for future needs. After much discussions and thought, we decided to go with a slightly big room with bathroom so we can use it when we visit the farm instead of worrying about where to relieve ourselves.
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Music System Frequency Response
Although I am not an audiophile, I am a critical listener and I can tell when the sound quality is not up to the mark. While I like my current 5.1 music system setup, I still feel like it could do better. I spend about 70% of the time listening to music and about 30% of the time watching movies, or TV shows or live TV. So a major part of my listening is music. Generally I like a very flat response from my speakers. I don’t like overly bright sound in general. A slightly warm sound is acceptable, but prefer the frequency response to be flat so I can listen to music as the original author intended it. So I decided to check the frequency response of my speakers.
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Solar CCTV Installation
Our real estate agent and friend Mr. J suggested that we install a CCTV before doing anything else in the farm. Neither he nor we were know about possibility of theft in the area. But while talking to a few of our other farmer friends, some of them have had a bad experience with theft. So having a CCTV there seemed like a good idea if for nothing but to act as a deterrent. Since we are not going to live in the farm yet, anything we buy for the farm like pipes or pump etc, can be easy targets for theft. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the farmers these days are neither innocent nor god fearing nor humble nor moral nor ethical or any of the other positive adjectives you normally associate with farmers.
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Rich Or Wealthy?
I consider myself wealthy but not rich. While it sounds like they are two sides of the same coin, there is a subtle difference. One is related to contentment while the other is related to possessions. If you are investing money to buy more stuff, you are trying to get rich. If you are investing to buy freedom, then you are trying to be wealthy. I can keep going, but the Stoic philosophy has as much to say about wealth. The name of the game is to buy freedom not things. Of course everyone needs money, but it is important to understand that happiness isn’t always found in material possessions.
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Electricity Connection Application
After getting our bore drilled, we proceeded to get electricity connection. This was another messy process. To get a 3-phase connection so we can run our pump, we need to apply for electricity connection. Since there is no transformer near by, they cannot give us the connection directly. It seems unless there are at least 2 connection requests from a location, the electricity department will not setup a new transformer. The alternative is for us to bear all the costs of setting a new transformer and the cost of all the poles and wiring up to the transformer. The cost comes to around Rs. 2-3 lakhs.
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Why Is Financial Planning So Hard?
I’ve seen people with various kinds of behaviors when it comes to financial planning. I find it strange. Perhaps it is not strange. Perhaps it is just their history and their experiences in life that make them behave in a certain fashion. I have seen people living in the moment and not worrying about the future and I have seen people with a lot of assets who could have retired 10 years ago, but wouldn’t. The worst part is that they still worry and stress out about losing their job. I am like, – “Dude, if you lose your job, that is the best thing to happen in your life. You can enjoy all the super huge assets that you have saved up”. Crazy world I tell you or perhaps crazy me (more likely).
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Drilling A Bore In the Farm
Soon after registering our farm land, the first thing we wanted to do was to get a bore drilled. Remember that our land did not have anything. No bore, no electricity, no fence, nothing. It is just barren land. Supposedly, the previous owner used to grow corn using the rain fed method a few years ago. Basically they would sow corn just before rains and the only way the crop would be watered is from rains. Since we wanted to grow a vegetable and fruit forest which needs water year round, we decided to get a bore drilled and setup a sprinkler or drip irrigation system to water our plants and trees. So the first step was to dig a bore.
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How Good Are Chit Funds?
I have never understood chit funds. I still don’t. But I have heard great things about the returns on them, so thought I should learn about them from a friend who knows a great deal about chit funds. So thanks to him, I have some data that I collected and decided to check if they are a good investment. Remember that I only have very cursory information and you should not take my advice without doing your own research. I am presenting all the data as I received from my friend and as such I don’t really know any chit funds which offer similar schemes. I do not have any investments in chits, nor will I invest in them in the foreseeable future. But things can always change and if I do invest in them, you will know about it from my blog.
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