Bees and flowers

Even though my daughter is not terribly fond of them, I really like to see honeybees in my garden. They are doing a good job pollinating my plants.

It's fun watching them buzzing from one flower to flower. They will suddenly stop flying for a while and the flower will suddenly bend under their weight and the bee would start flying again and move on to the next flower.


bee on our mint flowers


Bee on our marigold flower


bee on our lavender flower

This is my Green Thumb Sunday post for this week.
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Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Charlotte Cosmetic Dentist

A dentist who is also into amateur photography- sounds strange. Well, Dr. Tom Farley, is a dentist who uses his hobby to document his dental work. The photographs have proven useful to visually communicate with patients, labs, insurance providers as well as his peers.

Dr. Farley is a qualified cosmetic dentist who resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. His clinic offers a full range of dental services from restorative to periodontics to whitening. In case you are wondering, his portrait studio is situated right in his office.

I later found out that he's a blogger as well. check out his blog here.

False alarm

I was engrossed in my web designing work today when a loud alarm went off at the office. I saw every one getting their jackets and leaving the office and guessed that it was the fire alarm. So I followed the rest down the stairs and went outside. It was quite cool and nobody was panicking. The building is only 3 stories high anyway.

We were given the green light to go in after a while. The funny thing is that as I was about to enter the office, the alarm suddenly went off again. The security people told us that it was something setting off the alarms. Must have been some stupid guy who tried smoking in the toilets.

Test your internet speed

It was reported that more than half of UK homes have broadband now. You may find it hard to believe but customers in the UK have a bigger range of ISPs to choose from than in the US.

However, it was reported that many of the ISPs are not delivering the promised broadband speeds, with customers in some places reporting less than one fourth of the promised download speeds. Of course, there's always a warning in fine print:

Download speeds may vary substantially depending on where you live and technical factors such as the quality of your telephone line

Take the Internet Speed Test to find out whether you are getting the speed your ISP said you would. It is easy to use. All you have to do is press the "Begin" button and you will get the download and upload speed results. It's totally free. The website also has links to a number of freeware links as well as tips and tweaks.

Back to office

It felt strange going back to working in an office after nearly a year. Yes! I finally got a job but it's only a temporary position at the University of Warwick for a few days. I guess that ends my status as a full time blogger. I know it sounds crazy, but it actually felt nice to be going to work, stuck in a traffic jam and working with other people again.

The pay is good and I wish the job was for a longer period. I am hoping that this will lead to other opportunities. Got the job through, Unitemps, a temporary employment agency, based at the University of Warwick. After several applications and a few interviews, this was my first successful application. Won't be blogging much for a few days.

Turning your photographs into works of art

Recently while visiting Warwick castle, I was looking at the big portraits and was thinking that it would be great to have a portrait of our small family. Nothing ostentatious, without the gilded frames and not too large either - just a simple one. Sitting for portrait session is so old fashioned and of course with the kids, would be almost impossible unless you kept them tied down to the chairs.

Learn to Dream is among the companies who can convert your photographs into paintings.

They do more than just enlarge your photos. After you have sent the picture of your choice to them as a printed photo, a negative, or in digital format, there will be a personal consultation process. They will discuss the best choice of material and photograph manipulation techniques to create works of art from your photographs.

You can have the pictures printed on a number of materials - ranging from art paper and photo paper to canvas and image blocks. My personal choice is the canvas. They are even willing to give you a full refund in case you are not satisfied.

Google $30 million moon contest

Space the final frontier

Last Thursday, Internet search giant Google announced the sponsorship of $30 million prize to anyone that can land a robot on the moon and send back images and data. Known as the Lunar X Prize, they are offering it in partnership with the Los Angeles based X Prize Foundation.

According to the post "Fly me to the moon" on Google's blog, they hope that the prize could

lead to important developments in robotic space exploration, a whole host of new space-age materials, precision landing control technology, and who knows what else.

Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation said:

The Google Lunar X PRIZE calls on entrepreneurs, engineers and visionaries from around the world to return us to the lunar surface and explore this environment for the benefit of all humanity

The contest is on till Dec. 31, 2012 unless extended.