Eshin Direct

Why England can’t forget 1966

This past week I have found myself in the curious position of having to explain the rivalry between England and Germany. When I talk about the grudge match that will be played this evening, I get looks from folks hereabouts that range from puzzlement to complete disinterest. Apparently the significance of England facing Germany is lost upon them¹.

Of course, I’m being mightily Anglo-centric on this and it really shouldn’t be a small wonder that people haven’t heard of the much loved battle-cry of the Brits – “Two World Wars and one World Cup².”

Here is an amusing article that attempts to explain some of the rivalry between England and Germany – World Cup 2010: why England v Germany is more than just a game of football.

C’mon England!

1. With the exception of my rather bizarre Scottish friend who thinks his homeland teamed up at some point with the Germans rather than the sneaky French [↩]
2. A loving reference to the last time that England significantly beat Germany in 1966 [↩]

Apple OS4 – This did change everything

Unfortunately, not in a good way.

For some inexplicable reason that only the Apple marketing team can probably explain to me, I was in a rush to install the new OS4 that promises to be the first step in making my phone obsolete. Don’t even get me started on the fact that it is just barely a year old. To be fair, iTunes happily tells me that it will take about an hour or so to download and update, so I leave it to do its thing overnight.

Again, the Apple marketing boys and girls have some explaining to do as I happily I bounce out of bed like its bloody Christmas. I can’t wait to get my eager hands on the goods only to be told that…. iTunes was unable to restore my iPhone.

Errr, okay (nervous sweat beginning to appear). Breathe, I’ll just do a restore… Apple wouldn’t let me down… I’ll just restore to a last restore point. Crap, no.. it’s an error telling me that the actual restore doesn’t work. (nervous sweat begins to turn cold as I realise that all my stuff on the iPhone has just disappeared into the ether).

To be truthful, it didn’t worry me as much as that since most of my stuff is in the much vaunted cloud. At worst, it meant that I would lose a few hours restoring my old apps and setting up my phone to be just right. Of course, I would have lost most of my SMS which I hate.

But needless to say I was pissed. I tried to restore again and again, each time failing as surely as the previous times I tried to restore. Interesting, Apple had now but me in an endless loop of recovery, denial, recovery, denial.

My solution, and this is what made me irked to the point of posting, is that the solution wasn’t found in a number of complicated fixes that explore the fun side of manual resets and by-passes, but it lies in the Apple Universal Dock. Error 2001 refers to third party USB peripherals mucking about on your Mac, so Apple recommends disconnecting them all. I had none except for my iPhone and its nifty new Universal Dock. So I tried disconnecting the USB cable from the dock and plugging it directly into the iPhone and voila¹, the iPhone resumes its recovery process.

You would think that Apple products play nicer together since the company is run by a bunch of control freaks. Evidently not. Did OS4 change everything? I can’t tell you since I’m still sat here waiting for it to complete the restoration. But maybe I’m being harsh, it did change plenty – my perception of Apple shifts a little further to the big evil empire feeling and as of writing, I have a very beautiful brick of a tech piece on my desk.

1. a nod to my embarrassed French friends at the recent World Cup knock out [↩]

Swim for a cause – Thank You

Wow! We did it.

Through the Swim for a cause fundraising drive and my own Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore swim, we managed to raise a total of S$3,083.88!

In under a month, we exceeded our target amount of S$2,000 by 54%, which is pretty impressive. Here is the breakdown of where the proceeds will be going:

• UN High Commission for Refugees: $2,312.91
• Asian Women’s Welfare Association: $770.97

To all those who donated, you can give yourself a pat on the back. Here’s a special mention for you:

• Marios Kallis
• Joeri Gianotten
• Fiveyuan Sun
• Jenny Ang
• Valerie Goh
• Andrew Mason
• Stef Sng
• Joanna Ash
• Anouk van der Ros
• Alynn Teo
• Kerstin Strolz
• Chen Feng Yue
• Greg Chu
• Jaclyn Aw
• Reyhan Suryaditama
• Daren Goh
• Lee Huey Tan
• Lin Koh
• Chris Leo
• Debra Devied-Clayton
• Yvonne Yeo
• My parents
• My parents neighbours in Holland…
• … and a couple of you who wanted to remain anonymous!

Thank you to all of you and whether your donation was big or small, it has made a difference to people who need it.

Last call for donations

Just a quick blog post to let everyone know that today is the last day that I’ll be accepting donations for the Swim for a cause fund drive. If you haven’t yet donated and were intending to, your donations are still very much welcome even though we’ve managed to exceed the target of $2,000 by 53%!

Keep it coming boys and girls.

I’ll be doing a thank you post after the fund raising has officially closed. Keep it coming because you are making a difference!

Swim for a cause

What happened at the swim

Wow, another Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore behind me and it seems to have flown by me in record time. Every time I watch it, I am in awe of the triathletes that are the true Ironmen and women who swim 1.9km, cycle 90.1 km and still have energy to do a 21.1 km half-marathon run. The weather was especially grueling this year as the heatwave didn’t seem to let up in spite of two days of rain before the event¹. My respect goes to all the athletes that took part yesterday whether it was as part of a team or an individual attempt.

So how did my swim go? I have mixed feelings about my result this year. I made my cardinal mistake that betrays my sprint tendencies and enthusiastic over-confidence took me in the lead pack at the start². This was not where I wanted to be as a breaststroke swimmer. In my training, I had been keeping a wide berth from crawl swimmers since I had no wish to injure them but this courtesy meant that I hadn’t actually trained to be in the centre of the pack. So I started to panic as I needed to be at the side of the pack and when I couldn’t get there, my OCD tendencies began to come out – my swim cap wasn’t on properly, my goggles began to fog up, the Aviva-branded top became too constricting.

All these things culminated in my nearly bailing out after the first leg of the race. I lost my rhythm and I could feel myself involuntarily hyperventilating. I managed to pull to one side and surface swim with my head above water for a few meters. I saw a lifeguard move towards another competitor that was close to me, who was doing backstroke. Was he bailing? My mind started to also rationalise that same decision, even though I had not made it yet. There’s no shame in knowing your limits. Even the best athletes call in no-joy every now and then. I’m a mere mortal, what can I hope to achieve? I was going to tap out and enjoy a nice ride to the safety of the beach.

I realised that a great deal of the panic came from the pressure I was under too. My colleagues had been training hard and there was a strong air of competitiveness about the proceedings. My girlfriend was stood on the beach watching. There were people watching her watch me. My whole team was watching, both race team mates and work team mates – two folks from another department that I had egged on to turn up to watch the swim. My entire social circle was watching as I’ve not been shy about sharing the details of my training or this swim. And whats more, people had actually committed donations to my cause because of their faith in me. Not a good day to be letting anyone down.

For some reason, panic turned to action. I wouldn’t take the option that was all too easy to take and quit. I was determined to make it through and started to find my rhythm again that reduced my breathing from short staccato breaths to long drawn out ones, increasing the oxygen to my brain. I could think again outside of the blind haze of panic. I was embarrassed and shamed by the episode but I stripped out all those things and focused what I needed to do and swim the distance in the best possible time I could do. That’s not to say the all the support (and pressure) wasn’t there to drive me – I think it helped as a catalyst to bring me out of the state of inaction that I was in. But so many people were relying on me to deliver what I said I would do.

It was tough though. The panic attack had cost me energy, determination and more importantly, time. I went at a pace that I felt would last me the distance. The markers were so far away it made me hesitant to burn out my energy stocks too soon. But I was struggling as I started to feel a stitch on the second long straight on the first lap of two. I blamed my own lack of fitness and sufficient training for that stitch and the doubts almost came again. Instead, I powered on ahead despite trailing back from the pack.

People asked me later whether this year was tougher than last year as I looked knackered as I came out of the water each time. My panic incident hadn’t gone unnoticed and my fellow colleagues swimmers were way ahead of me. What I found out later, to my delight, was that it was tougher this year as I was going out like the clappers – when I exited the water I clocked a time of 46′ 12″, and my officially logged race time was 47’03″. Either way, I was chuffed as I had beaten my personal best from last year’s Ironman 70.3 and also in my lap pool training of 48′. Unfortunately, I had placed amongst the lowest for the Aviva teams taking part – one colleague was behind me and another had pulled out after the first lap.

Thankfully, my team mates who did the cycle and the run helped to make up the time. We won first place in the Corporate Challenge Mixed category and won glory for Aviva. Of course, it helps if you are competing in a small category made up of your own company but nonetheless it is a small victory.

What the swim, and even the Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore teaches me, is that you’ll keep pushing yourself to be better and rise to the challenge. Was I satisfied with my result? Satisfied, yes but not content. I think that with these things you’ll keep pushing yourself to stay out of being just content with your performance and satisfied is the best you are ever going to get. I look forward to next year’s attempt.

Lastly, for you pledgers or those who want to get a last minute donation in, please visit my swim for a cause. Donations are being accepted until the 26 March. If you are having any problems with the payment on the donating platform, please contact me.

1. Apparently the organisers follow local superstition and have a virgin plant chilli padis on the race course to ensure good weather. I think they either put too much chilli padi or they used extra virgin oil! [↩]
2. my Nike 10k run suffered the same error [↩]