Day 32 - Back to routine

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Morning went for our usual walk to Tom Thumb. Back at 9am. Amma called. Washed clothes and cooked. Tried prawn pulav and tilapia fish fry. Came out well. In the evening R and V played table tennis while i watched a movie 'Pelican Brief', starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington at home. M came for dinner at 8.30 and took leftovers for lunch the next day.

Found strange:

1. There is a anti-bark collar for dogs. It will give a shock to the dog if it barks. So the owners put this on for thier dogs when they are away. Else the neighbors will complain to the police.

2. There is a pet entry door to the house which will automatically open for their dog/cat when it comes in and not let in any other pet/intruder. (the infra red detector is tied to the collor of the pet).

3. There are advertisements by law firms in tv which says 'if anyone close to you ever died of cancer and had ever taken this XXX drug, you can make lots of money ...contact us'

Another advt says 'Have you ever been involved in an automobile accident in the past three years? Even if you have received compensation you can still get more money....pl call us NOW'

UTD

4. Police are very helpful. They keep moving around in golf-car within the campus and give lift to people to go to the parking lot (to avoid hot sun).

No one switches off the lights in the corridor or outside the house. They are burning all the time.

Tom thumb (like spencers...much bigger)

5. There is a self-service counter for checking out in most of the supermarkets. Customers roll the trolly, do the the billing of each item through scanner and pay for it.

6. There is absolutely no checking whether you are billing or just take the trolly full of goods directly to your car without billing. At Tom Thumb, sometime I push the cart beyond the billing counter without billing because there are many items kept outside the main door. So I have the option to go back and do the billing or walk out!

7. Since no one is checking what we take inside, from tomorrow onwards N is planning to take all the empty plastic covers and reuse them rather than wasting the fresh ones kept near the vegetables.

8. There is a machine that gives change automatically after billing. It will be poured in a cup kept away from the billing clerk. We need to pick up the change ourselves. The billing clerk will give only currency notes.

9. There is a machine kept separately to change our coins into currency notes. It takes 2 cents commission for changing 100 cents into $1.

10. There is a machine for checking BP. Available free just near the pharmacy counter!

11. The trolly that is used to take our stuff to the car will get automatically locked if we try to push it beyond the store boundry.

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Photos

Viswam's Apt
In the block 51 (not seen in the pic)