The story of Seiko Diver’s watch

Seiko Big Boss is a diver’s watch made by the Seiko company. This one is in particular is a good looking all stainless steel watch which works on Kinetic energy. Means hand movements charge a small battery that keeps the watch working. It shows date and time, besides having a rotating bezel for time keeping and also uses Lumi Brite (glowing) paint for showing time in the dark. The Big Boss is water proof till 200 M and is an average watch, not something out of this world. I am not particularly fond of collecting wrist watches but random Googling about the Seiko took me to its history page which itself is quite interesting.

How did Seiko get down to making a wrist watch fro Scuba divers? Well it all started with a letter from a Scuba diver to the Seiko company complaining that none of the wrist watches were capable of sustaining pressure at depths greater than 300 M. This single letter got the Seiko engineers working and in a few years they introduced the first ever Seiko watch for professional Scuba divers in 1975. Off course divers watches were known to exist even before this era but this one beat all others in that it was the perfect answer to their woes at greater depths. It will not be incorrect to say that the Japanese are masters miniaturization and precision. The Big Boss and other models purpose built for Scuba divers are a testament to their hard work and dedication and the Seiko company’s acumen for its clientele. The story I found very interesting and hence decided to share with my readers 🙂

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The “Softo” effect!

Those, living in Rawalpindi since last 30 years or less might recall a small shop selling Ice Cream in Saddar called as “Softo”. Well the shop and its owner has been there since my teens and is a favorite of any child living in Rawalpindi, including me, that is 🙂 And frankly there’s still a small child inside me that craves for Ice Cream any day specially if its stifling hot. So last Sunday while “She” shopped and I had nothing better to do than receive text messages each time the Card was swiped by “her”, got myself busy in looking at old/used books that still adorn the sidewalks on Sundays. Not much buying done except an old Urdu book. With time well past noon, the Sun smiled even more and the little kid in me begged for some Ice cream. His wish was deftly granted and lo I had this small cup, a Mango Strawberry flavor mix. Sat down myself on the pavement and started savoring the contents of this unobtrusive paper cup. Sure enough it was hot, there were urchins a lot more than usual, lots of traffic and suddenly the grey haired forty something was transformed in to a guiltless teenager enjoying the ice cream in the repressive heat.  Pretty soon nostalgia took over and the two score plus aged kid had a time he will not easily forget. Thank you “Softo” and keep selling those tasty cones and cups. Bless you!

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The quest for clean drinkable water

I live in an area where we get sub-surface water, thanks to the management. Its enough for us to drink, bathe, clean and wash. The management has installed water filtration plants where one can go and get drinking water. To be frank this becomes a big hassle specially in summers. Besides I could never trust the management or anyone for supply of clean drinking water. So I decided to solve the problem myself, using a triple stage water filter. The quest for clean drinking water was more difficult than I had imagined…

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Do Superheroes really exist?

Image courtesy of vectorolie at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Little Ibs is always bombarding me with his innocent questions and at times I find them laughable, sometimes I really have to think hard to answer his questions. Making a small boy understand complex questions is really difficult. Here’s one for example, he told me to get a new car a about two years ago. I told him, “I have no money for a new car”, to which he replied, “just go to the ATM and get it :-)” How do you make a small kid understand that money doesn’t just come in an ATM, you actually have to earn it?

Continue reading Do Superheroes really exist?