Getting a Lift

I was at a lift lobby on a high floor waiting for a friend when a lone elderly gentleman showed up. He walked towards the lift door and pressed both call buttons for the up and down riding lifts. I was feeling perplexed by his behaviour. Normally, one presses a single call button, indicating whether one wishes to go to a higher or lower floor. The building was served by multiple lifts. I decided to stand back and observe what's going to happen next.

"Ting...". The lift alarm sounded and an up-riding lift stopped at our floor. The doors opened and the gentleman noted that it was an up-riding lift. He waved his hands to the passengers that he did not want to enter the lift. The doors closed and he stood and waited.

"Ting.... " went the lift alarm again, this time for the down-riding lift. The doors opened, the gentleman stepped in and the door closed behind him, leaving me carrying a big WHY at the lobby.

At first, I could not fathom what I saw. Then it slowly drew on me. He had a mistaken belief that the buttons were TRUELY call buttons. By pressing both buttons, he thought he is calling both the up- and down-riding lifts to stop at his floor. However, he might not have realised that these buttons, besides serving as call buttons, were also directional buttons.

With all due respect to his age and seniority, he clearly knew where he wanted to go, but might not have realised the second function in these call buttons. This particular episode led me to ponder a bit further. Do you chart your directions in your daily life and are you doing the right things to stay on track ?

If you know what you want to achieve, then good for you ! You have a goal. It does not matter if it is a short or long term goal. The important thing is that you have set yourself a target. Just like the elderly gentleman, he knew where he wanted to go (to descend in the lift). Question is that he did not realise that there was a better (and faster) way of getting there.

Similar to pressing the correct lift button, you should do the correct tasks (and do the tasks correctly) to attain your dream. If the target that you dream of seems overwhelming, then you should break it up into managable steps with near term goals. In engineer's lingo, this is the "divide and conquer" approach and with each step, you gain knowledge, experience and confidence.

If it helps, write it down and paste it around your room. Do whatever you can to stay on track and commit to it. It is certainly not easy as effort and sacrifice is needed. Anyway, Rome was not built in a single day.

War and Peace

The National Day of Singapore is on 9th August and this year, the celebrations were held on the Padang. One of the star attractions in this year's parade is the mobile colunm or a drive past of armoured vehicles. This is to showcase the military hardware in the Singapore Armed Forces.

During rehersals, some of the major roads in Downtown Singapore were closed and I took the opportunity to get up close to these vehicles. Leading the mobile colunm were the Leopard II Main Battle Tanks which SAF recently acquired as part of her arsenal.

The tanks formed up outside Suntec City and I could take a few nice good pictures of the tank. The prime armament of a tank is of course the main gun. The Leopard II tank has a fully stabilised 105 mm gun and it has a four-man crew. Driver, Gunner, Loader and Commander.

Being a former Tank Gunner (but not the Leopard II) myself, it was quite exciting to see these tanks up close . Brings back some memories when I was serving my NS in a tank company. Most exciting was the live firing exercise. From firing the main gun and coaxial machine gun to servicing the tank after that and getting greasy and oily. I can relate to the bitter sweetness of being a tank crew.

Any military hardware is a machine of war and using it means casualty and destruction. Hope that we don't get to deploy this on the front line and that we remember our history.

Happy Dip and Happy Feet

Sembawang hot spring is the only known hot spring on the main island of Singapore. The other hot spring, I am told, resides on Pulau Tekong (a military training area), which is out of bounds to the public.

Situated along Gambas Avenue, the entrance to the hot spring is not prominent as it is marked by only a red signboard. Turn left, walk along the concrete path and my wife and I reached our destination. There was a very faint smell of sulphur lingering in the air.

Do not expect to 泡汤 here like the Japanese or Taiwanese. All you can do is 泡脚 and soak your tired legs. The hot spring water issues from several water taps located on site and there are spare water pails lying around.

Pick up a reasonably clean looking pail and gingerly, fill up with hot water. Again, gingerly, carry it and place it next to your seat. Then you just have to wait.....

Wait for what??? Wait for the hot water to cool down lah !!! There were reports of scalding incidents in the past and you may dip your legs slowly in the water when you can tolerate it. Then just sit back and relax... Ahhhhhh.

With hot water flowing 24/7, it is no wonder that people come here to make use of this free resource. When we were there, we saw one bringing back bottled spring water in glass bottles, an uncle scooping water from pails and bathing, and a domestic worker doing her laundry.

Saving money and Mother Earth...

Lift-Drag ratio

Aircraft designers want to maximise the lift-drag ratio of an aircraft. An optimised ratio means that the aircraft has maximum lift and minimum drag which implies that the aircraft is doing the most work with minimal fuel.

The aircraft is lean and there is minimal wastage of resources. To do that, and to put it simply, designers can choose the wing shape and foil shape for the intended flight speed, streamline the body, remove unwanted protuberances from the fuselage, and sweep back the wing if the aircraft is flying at high speeds.

Lift is essentially the useful force that is generated when the aircraft is in motion. Drag on the other hand is the unwanted force when the aircraft is also in motion. To see these forces in action, the keyword here is that the aircraft must fly.

Contrast that to our life, we should also strive to maximise our "lift-drag" ratio. So, to experience these forces in your life, you must be in MOTION. Like the aircraft, you should move and strive for your goals to reap the positive benefits that work brings. The benefits can be tangible stuff like material wealth, to intangible stuff like happiness, job satisfaction and a general sense of peace. You could be involved in social service work, cooking for your family, or just doing your best in your job. When your life is moving, you reap some benefits along the way. The key for you is to identify these as you trode along. Once you have found out what perks you up, you have found your lift force. Kudos.

On the flipside, you encounter various problems and obstacles when your life is in motion. You make mistakes, you have problems with your superiors and sub-ordinates, the computer may crash on you, your high heels get stuck in the railings.... the list is endless. Like drag, you wish to have the least problems and hope they never show up. You can minimise your problems like minimising the drag force on the aircraft and each person will have their own bag of tricks to do that. But you can't expect zero problems just like an aircraft cannot have zero drag. To offer a solution here is not my aim but to put it in a cliche .....

"Plan for the worst... Hope for the best"

If you do this in your life, essentially you are maximising your Lift-Drag ratio.