Love of My Life

Here's a story about the love of my life. The one that I dreamt of. Found. Cheated on me. Soon leave me. My newly found love is the perfect title for this post, I thought. But not so new after all since the feeling started to grow about a year plus now. I saw her for the very first time and I quickly looked down. Scared. I wasn't quite sure of what. Until today the feeling is still there. At first, I didn't dare to even look at her. Like I said earlier, my eyeballs quickly find their way to a more comfortable spot. I admire her only from afar. That is how close a man like me could go, I thought. But then she proved me wrong. We started to get to know each other. Although at times I could see her lifting up her you-can-look-but-you-can't-touch sign. She's very different. Totally. The more time you spent with her, the more you want to understand her. Yet the more you don't. I got to know her from my seniors. Everybody talks about her. Hot stuff. She's every man's dream I must say. Soft and beautiful yet strong. If admiring her is the only thing I could do in this life, I guess I'm lucky enough. I couldn't help myself from falling in love with her. A wonderful feeling inside. Thinking of her makes you feel nervous. She can take you on a smooth sailing cruise and frantic wild ride at the same time. Only a year ago, we became very close. So close that when I touch her, it feels like I own the world for that one very moment. She makes me stand tall, brings me high to a place I can only picture in my dreams before this, places I've never been. We have a great relationship between us. Like any others, there's ups and downs. She cheated on me. Once. Twice. Many times. And I know. Saw her with another guy. Different guy every time. Her friends maybe,trying to calm myself. She knows that I know. I play cool. So she doesn't know that I know although she knows that I know that she knows. I'm dating a hot stuff and this is normal, I say quietly in my heart. I know this relationship won't lead us far. Someday somehow we will have to end it. I will soon go back to Kuala Lumpur and she'll stay here. She'll be just fine, that much I know. With so many guys around her. I'll be the one left alone. Again. Now,I'm enjoying the wild ride while I'm still in it. When the day comes for me to say goodbye to her, I'll figure out how to handle it. As for now, I'm taking Miss D to Penang. My flight is at 0800hrs.Take care peeps!














Miss Diamond 40D.
That's not her size people..that's the model.

my space

Have you given yourself that little room you know you need? Well I'm sure we will never admit that we need the space. But trust me,we all do. It doesn't matter if you're a guy or girl, married or single, young or old. Everyone needs it. We tend to hide the outcry of it. Ego I would say. That space can be found in many forms. Some chill for good coffee, some hangs out alone at park, while some grab good books or even crash a gig with some booze. It differs from one to another. How we pamper ourselves with pleasure. And of course, how we define pleasure itself. One can be very vulnerable when it comes to this. But it all boils down to one conclusion, and that is how we manage the space we have.
Communicate. Talk it over. Get over with it. Solved. It may sound a little too easy to say and type it out in a blog like this. But it's a lot more than that.The space is there to give us the time to understand certain things but what happens next will determine whether or not it works in solving the problem. Confused?Try this.
Imagine having problems you know only time could heal with your girlfriend. You took a time off, so did she. But if things aren't properly laid out over a dinner or lunch together, things will not change. You may have the peace of mind after going through the 'space' that you need. But that peaceful mind won't lead you nowhere if communication doesn't take place.
And now, let's assume communication did take place, and we call it solved as all the issues were laid out, talked over and done. Whether or not the relationship can start fresh all over again depends on the level of honesty we put in the conversation we just had. And it takes two to tango. I guess when they say honesty is the best policy,they really mean it and I couldn't agree more. And by communication I mean those that's exercised verbally, face to face. Not those I-think-I-know-what-she-meant-over-the-phone kinda thing. If you think you know what she really meant, trust me mate, you don't. We think girls are very good in mind-reading. Maybe. But not all the time. Girls think that guys read mind. No, we don't. Even if we do, 99% of the time we end up translating it into languages we don't understand ourselves. So the best way is to be frank and honest to each other. You like it,say it.No point of going around the bushes and waste more time. The whole idea of arguing or in some cases procrastinating is already wasting so much time.
Simple example of this similar case is when a guy wants to make his first move. His gesture is pretty much clear that he's attracted to the girl. The girl starts to notice it and may get the idea that he likes her. Days gone by, he goes out with her few times, trying to be the nicest guy ever lived, and yes, she gets the message but waiting for the guy to say it. But the guy thinks actions speak louder than words. So why bother saying it out. He simply let it be, which is exactly what I call time wasting.
So here is the point that proves my argument I made awhile ago. The girl thinks the guy likes her. A very good mind reader.No doubt. But she demanded for more. Actions. Waiting for the guy to spell it out in front of her.Did the guy actually understand that part? No he didn't. Why? Because he thought she gets the message. In this case, maybe she did get the message but the guy couldn't tell that she wants more out of it.This is the point where communication should have taken place.I'm not saying that the two stop talking to each other.But what I meant when I say communicate is to talk about issues they have in hand.They may be talking and seeing each other everyday but until he sits down and spell it out to her, about how he feels and thinks, relationship can never be built. Be the same person you are, do it with the strength you've got from the space you've given yourself earlier on.
You may end up having the perfect relationship you could ever asked for or in worst case, you might have misinterpreted her thoughts and actions all these while and ended up being rejected. And when this happens, go back to that little space of yours and start all over again. Shit happens in life but they make us wiser. Remember that everything happens for a reason and only time could tell.
Go find that little room of yours, not to weep, but to regain strength. I've found mine!

"As long as we can love each other, and
remember the feeling of love we had, we can die
without ever really going away. All the love you
created is still there. All the memories are still
there. You live on-in the hearts of everyone you
have touched and nurtured while you were here."
-Prof. Morrie Schwartz

life.flying

I was online the other day when I thought of downloading some TV series and came across a whole list of "Air Crash Investigation" torrents. Knowing that I'm staying at a hostel where I couldn't even find time to scratch my ass, what more to make my way down to the common room to catch Air Crash Investigation on National Geographic. So, I clicked on few torrents and started downloading them. I continued to surf the net for hours and I then realized the downloads are all now completed. One of the miracles a great internet connection can do these days. I clicked on one that says 'Kid In The Cockpit' to start viewing one.

It is surprising to know how much we could learn from just watching this sort of documentaries. Not only that we get to analyze the cause of the crash, we are also able to understand those methods to avoid such mishap, in order to save the aircraft as well as the passengers. Being in this field, I feel that it is my business to sit down and watch this. My ground instructor once said to me, "Learn from mistakes other pilots had done but never ever make any mistakes that would allow others to learn from you.Because you might not be around to tell them your mistake.". We are lucky today that we are able to reconstruct the entire flight and learn from it with the help of the 'magic box' or the black box fitted in all aircrafts. It is called 'magic box' not only because it records the communication that takes place through out the flight and all the flight data, but also because our little black box will remain in one piece even after a disaster turns the entire aircraft into debris. Sometimes I wonder why can't they build the entire aircraft with the same material.(haha..).We can find out the speed the aircraft was flying at before the crash, the power setting of the aircraft, anything,from the black box. You name it. So long those data are from the flight management system (FMS), the black box would be able to give you.

With the advancement of technologies, pilots are no longer required to 'sit' on their rudder and fly the aircraft all the way to the destination. Autopilot system is a very good friend of all commercial airline pilots. But it can also be the cause of fatal accidents. Like the one in this episode of Air Crash Investigation of Flight 593 that belongs to Russian national carrier, Aeroflot bound for Hong Kong. 75 persons on board including crews. Good weather. Brand new aircraft. Fitted with latest technology. Yet it went straight down on frozen Siberian wilderness, killing all on board. It is a shocking discovery that during the chaos of Flight 593 trying to recover from the spin they entered, a 15-year-old boy was behind the control column on the left hand seat. The captain's children, two girls and a boy, were on a short trip to Hong Kong with their father and two of them were brought into the cockpit by the captain's friend.It is, by law, against the regulations as no one is allowed to go into the cockpit unless you wear tight skirt and ready to serve the captain ...a cup of coffee, of course. It became stricter after 9/11. Usually, a secret code will be set among the flight crews before each flight and it'll be used by cabin crews to verify themselves before entering the cockpit. But of course when your father is the captain of the aircraft, I don't see any secret code is required. I bet it is exciting to sit in the cockpit with your father flying the aircraft. And being the father who is, of course, proud to be seen on the left hand seat, he then offered his son to sit on pilot's seat. Only morons would say,'No'. So, he got on to his seat put both of his hands on the control column and was warned by his father not to touch anything else but the control column. So he did just that. Only at one point, he pushed to control column against the direction of the autopilot.

The system of autopilot works by controlling the ailerons, which means it controls the manoeuvrings of the aircraft along the longitudinal axis. Or in layman's term, it turns the aircraft left or right, depending on the preset waypoints on the FMS. If in any circumstances, the control column is forced to go on the opposite direction of the autopilot and held on to that position for more than 30seconds, the autopilot will automatically go off. In other words the aircraft is now in the hand of the pilot entirely. Or at least in the case of Flight 593, in the hand of a 15-year-old boy. The investigators were left wondering ; why isn't there any alarm or warning system that tells the pilot the disengagement of the autopilot system? ...besides the question as to why did the pilot allow his son to take the pilot's seat and fly the aircraft?.. d'oh..When the aircraft started to turn, slowly but progressively into a very steep turn, the dramatic movement of the aircraft begins to push everyone into their seats. Makes it difficult for the co-pilot to grab the control column, and pull it back to recover from the super steep turn. The boy was the only one with both hands fully on the control column and he could only take the most basic orders. He couldn't get up. His body feels twice his normal weight due to the force. With too much bank angle, the aircraft now starts to lose height. A warning system started to sound which signals the complete shut down of the autopilot. The plane is about to stall. The Airbus A310 has a fail-safe system that allows the aircraft to stay flying by lowering the nose. But this time the Airbus entered a steep dive of frightening 40,000 feet per minute. The co-pilot pulls back the control column as hard as he can to bring the Airbus out of the dive. The nose finally comes up and the aircraft begins climbing quickly. He managed to bring the aircraft out of the dive but now it's climbing too fast. During this time, the G-force starts to ease and the captain quickly leaps into action and back to his place that was, all this while, occupied by his 15-year-old son. Not a single commercial aircraft is designed with engines that can take the aircraft almost vertically up. They have now stalled the aircraft because the aircraft is an aircraft not a space shuttle that can be shot right up. It is normal for any aircraft to have its airspeed drops dramatically and experience nose drop when it stalls. This is so that airflow can be regenerated over the wings and lift can be created. Only this time, the Airbus entered a cockscrew dive instead. Chaos builds up even more. The captain kicked the opposite rudder hard to get out of the terrifying spin. Slowly they managed to level off the aircraft but not completely in control of it. But they ran out of time and hit the ground. Search and Rescue (SAR) team started to search for Flight 593 within few nautical miles from the last reported position. It was clear that no one survived the devastating accident.

After a series of investigations, they finally made a conclusion that there is no adequate training in upset situations and extreme flying conditions for the pilots. And by upset I mean the attitude of the aircraft which is beyond the normal flight i.e greater than 20 degrees nose up, greater than 10 degrees nose down, and bank angles greater than 25 degrees. That's because the captain as well as the co-pilot were both new to the aircraft. And apparently this weren't even taught during the training. Then, it came to the simulator system that helps investigators understand the situation better as the flight is reconstructed using it. They discovered that the pilots could have saved the aircraft during the spin they entered by simply letting go of the controls. The aircraft has an inbuilt survival mechanism that won't allow it to stall even at low speed.So simply by letting go the controls, the aircraft will slowly comes out of the dive and regain its attitude and 75 lives could be saved.

It ended just like that leaving me pondering on so many things. It dawned upon me that life is just like flying an aircraft. Sometimes in life, in order to survive, we ought to not only learn how to keep holding on but also learn how to let go. Just like Flight 593 that could be saved by simply letting go of the controls. Though it may sound a lil harsh to some, but if that's what it takes for us to move on, then just let go.