Nature's propellers

I was out having lunch at Tommy Pastrami in Irvine with a friend (I was trying to quench my craving for corned beef sandwich) and I noticed the blossom on the side of our table.

The flowers had 5 petals and each petal had a distinctive twist to it resembling a propeller. As I picked one up and dropped it from a height, it started spinning and drifting away from the lift it created from the spin induced by gravity. Not sure what the reason is...maybe to disperse the seeds away from parent plant? (but its a flower..don't they reproduce from pollination?)

Amazing...how we as humans have learned so much from nature and copied some of their designs..from Velcro (from seeds that stick to your socks from those undergrowth) to high strength carbon nano-structures (from "honey combed" structures of bones with amazing strength to weight ratio) to rough hydrodynamic skins on race sailships (from studies that rough shark skins help with hydrodynamics) .


Here's my humble attempt to mimic the flower with my 2-fin paper propeller..it actually spins and works!

Dirty linen on the run

I think I spoke too soon of the W. Last night, my team spent the final night together at the W lounge. After 3 martinis and other concoctions later, I returned to my hotel room past midnight; ready for the bed as I was planning to get up 6 hours later to go to the gym before work.

I soon realized my laundry wasn't back and things got more exciting that they couldn't trace it. They kept looking for a good 1/2hr keeping me up awake. The manager finally appeared at my room, deeply apologetic. I kept my calm and gave them two options; 1. they return my clothes before i check out at 7 or 2. pay for them. The manager proposed to continue looking for my clothes till 6am, past which they agreed to pay. They also agreed to launder my only remaining dirty shirt i had and hand deliver it to me at 6am.

True enough at 6am sharp, the manager knocked on my door breaking the bad news of my missing linen and returning my clean shirt. I quickly drafted out an invoice; 2 Shirts from Zara {one of which was a gift from mom :( }, 1 t-shirt from the institution {my 2004 graduation shirt :( }, 1 ralph lauren undershirt {time to replace it anyway :) } = approx $150.

They promised me to send a check to my office. W was also graceful enough not to piss off their platinum reward members and gave me 5000 points as a token of regret.

When I got to the office, i learnt that one of my colleagues also lost his laundry at another W...so the lesson is; bring old dirty clothes to the W that you may never want to see again.

The windy city

So this week I got to work out of the Chicago office after an extended period of detention/exile in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. It reminds me of the line in the Gladiator where the gladiators return to the Colosseum after spending many years in "flea infested filthy towns in the outskirts".

As I was trying to be industrious, the lap top today presented a blue screen of death; much to my dismay. I almost felt like throwing the tablet out of the window but I remembered that I was on a high rise building in the middle of chicago.



It might have been my fault that it's been temperamental. Past weekend I had the lap top running and kept it in my insulated bag and absent mindedly left the bag in the car trunk on a very hot day. By the time I rescued the tablet, it was hot enough to cook an egg on the keyboard. Anyhow, it seems to be running fine now. If not, I will probably be getting my 7th lap top in 2.5 years.






So I got to stay in the W at Lakeshore this week. They seem to play trance and lounge music every where. I actually felt impressed that the hotel played Gabriel & Dresden, David Guetta and the like in the elevator. The hotel room is also artfully decorated...like a window with shutters in the bathroom that a peeping tom in the bedroom could have a front row view of his /her hotel room mate taking an indulging shower; how convenient.



I didn't know the room had a full view of the lake till I woke up in the morning. The ferris wheel at the pier got me nostalgic about the time my folks and sister visited me for graduation 6 years ago and we went on the ferris wheel.









Of cos, no visit to Chicago is complete without visiting the Penang restaurant in China town. I had my favourite rendang and sambal kangkong! :)

The curse of the elusive engine

The familiar sight of sitting in Maam's white audi A4 with a red ambient dashboard lights while driving home to OC from our soccer sessions at USC is nothing but memories now. Maams has returned to Singapore for good. This weekend, I caught myself almost calling maams for lunch or to find out if he is going out to play soccer; a routine that has been developed over the last three years. Another one of my closest buddies that I am really going to miss.














Meanwhile, back in Kansas, the river that flows besides my hotel swelled. The effects of the bad weather further south was evident.



















On my flight back, I took a picture of the jet engine. I'm not sure how many of these pics I have but I just love the sight of it running. That also reminded me to look for that elusive engine of mamba2 that has been well hidden beneath the back of the driver seat. I have yet to see that engine since I bought the car and I was adamant about finding a proof that it exists.














So, I have to drop the convertible top by about 4 inches, unrig the convertible harnesses, remove the leather storage pouch, remove the think sound insulation mat, unscrew the composite engine cover lined with the metal insulator to get into the engine.














No; I didn't figure this out by myself. I had to read a manual. I had no idea that getting to the engine can be such a task.
So there she was...the heart of mamba2...Bellissimo!


















It must be the curse of the pandora's box of some nature...the grease I got on my hand refused to wear off even after a day..thats after I used all the solvent I could find at home including rubbing alcohol.