M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Powered Speakers

I just did not like the audio quality from my iMac 24" built-in speakers, so I got this pair and I am loving it.

I am not much of an audio person, so I don't know whether the sound quality of this speaker is good or great. But compared with what I have and what I know of, I think this pair of speakers rocks for its price. I highly recommend this pair of speakers for those who are looking at improving their computer audio quality without spending too much money.

now that I am done with putting drywall in my garage, I've worked on applying joint compound today.

All I got to do is to cover up the joints and screw holes with the compound.

I've read in some place that mixing the compounding just right can be quite tricky, so I bought pre-mixed compound.

I worked on it last Sunday and today (the following Saturday) and got it done. My wife helped big time. If she didn't help, there was no way I could have finished this today.

Here are some pictures.

Before applying compound:



After applying compound:

Before applying compound:



After applying compound:

It seem little messier but the wall joint should now be all covered up and not noticeable. Will see how it goes when I am done with painting.

If you want to try doing this yourself, I highly recommend that you get putty knives in different width. Don't be so cheap. Least get fairly narrow one to work on details and get wide one to get flat, even surface. Also get in-corner and out-corner putty knives. You can get the very clean, sharp corners with those knives.

I will work on the painting next. Will see how it goes.

Nerf N-Strike Maverick

I modified this Nerf N-Strike Maverick and posted on youtube. This gun is not all that easy to disassemble, but not too difficult at all. You can get this pretty much anywhere, this is fun to play even as is. I highly recommend this toy gun for all boys in any age.

I did 3 different mods on this.

The 1st mod is the paint. I left silver pieces as is and painted everything else to be either dark green or gun metallic. I used Tamiya spray paint. Tamiya has very wide selection of colors, but their paint stink quite a bit.




The 2nd modification is is to make the cylinder pop out modification. This allows you to load the gun faster.

Before the mod: This comes out just far enough to load 1 bullet at a time.




After the mod: Now the cylinder pops out all the way.



The 3rd mod is the removal of the air restrictors, but I don't have any photos of it.

Here is my Youtube video:

Nerf Recon CS-6 Camouflage Paint

 I posted a video on how to do a Camouflage paint on Nerf Recon CS-6. This came out to be pretty cool.

This is how the gun look like before painting it.



and this is how I did it. Enjoy!

Swiss-Tech Utility Knife

I've been carrying Victorinix swiss army knife on my keychain for the last 20 years or so. but I've lost one recently, so I replaced it with this Swiss-Tech Utility Knife.






It is really about the size of your car key and once you hang it on your keychain, you'd forget that you are carrying a utility tool in your pocket.

This is how the key looks like when you split it open to use it.





It got a knife blade, flathead driver, precision driver with Philip and flathead, and a bottle opener. It was more useful than I had expected. A thing I liked most about it is that you don't feel that are carrying a utility tool at all.

What I did not like was that the lack of scissors. I was so used to a swiss army with scissors that it simply missed it.

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes new cool stuff and who does not care for a pair of small scissors on your utility knife.

Self made Attic (Loft?)

After I made the red racks, I've realized that I needed more storage space. So I created a loft in my garage by myself.

My long term goal is not to create just a clean, organized garage, but create a "comfortable space that would make me want to sit, relax, have some coffee and music ."

Only the extra storage space I could find was the space directly above my head, and so here is what I did.

This is how it looked like.





So I got some 2x 8's installed extra beams. Then I got some plywood and nailed them onto the beams.



As of 3 weeks ago, in mid-June-ish, I finished installing all the plywood except for the space where I was going to install an attic ladder.





So I got the attic ladder, took it home and it is....

HUGE!!

There was no way I was going to get it up there myself, so I got help from my colleague at work and carried it up to my attic. Installation of the attic ladder was very straight forward. I've created temporary support for the ladder with some extra 2 x 4's and nailed to the beams.

This is how it looks like now. When the ladder is up, it is kinda like this.

and when you get the ladder down, it looks like this.




I got more stuff stored up there now, and that means I got some extra space in my garage now.

This is the picture of the garage before I got the loft space.

This is how it looks like now.



Can you see the difference?

Garage rack

I moved into my current house about 4 months ago. The "house" part got organized pretty quickly, but the garage was a mess for the longest time. The previous house I lived had a built-in shelves, but not this house. So I spent a few weekends building some racks to get my garage organized.

I really need a clean, organized garage so I and my boys can actually do some DIY stuff in it. Not only do I want it clean and organized, but I actually want a garage where I would want to spend some time there with coffee, music, couch and maybe a plant or two.

So this was my first step to my ideal garage.

I made the racks with woods, kept the window part open and painted them red to to give an energized look and feel.



How does it look?




I still got a long way to go, but the space is now finally organized a bit. Good enough resume my Nerf gun mods and stuff like

Garmin StreetPilot i5 Portable GPS Navigator

A friend of mine had black & white version of this navigation system and I was laughing at him for wasting his money on what seemed to be an useless gadget. Boy, was I wrong!

I bought this Garmin StreetPilot i5 Portable GPS Navigator a few years ago and I am loving it. It is small, operates on battery, very intuitive design, has built-in US map, got color display and is cheap!!

Several of my frirends bought the very same model and they are all happy with it. If you want to grab a GPS that get you from point A to point B and is very reasonably priced, I'd recommend this StreetPilot i5 Portable.

Airzooka

I love this silly toy. I bought this a few years ago and I ended up buying 2 more, 1 for my brother and 1 for my colleagues in Japan. It is simple, harmless and you never run out of ammos. Where can you buy this toy? Just as anything else, you can find this on Amazon.com. this comes in 4 or 5 different colors. I bought orange, green and black so far, but I like black the best.

I made a video of this and posted it on youtube. Enjoy.