Not too tough to toast a piece of bread, slather it with mayo and layer a couple of slices of tomato on top. I did it w/a slice of tofu bread and Kewpie lite. The mayo and tomato makes a nice combo and I like the taste but as with last week's recipe, not particularly filling.

So for my second slice I added a couple of slices of prosciutto that I had lying around in the fridge. Could also make do with ham (or any other sliced meat of choice). Prosciutto may be wasted on this particular recipe though since the mayo tends to dominate the distinctive prosciutto taste. Anyway, final score for the original recipe: 6 out of 10.

This particular recipe is definitely super easy. Doesn't even need the use of fire, just a microwave. For awhile I was hesitant to try it because I'm not a fan of raw egg. I know the idea is that the egg gets "cooked" a little bit when it comes in contact with the noodle when you're mixing everything together but since you don't really need to heat the udon up all that much, you're still pretty much eating raw egg. The only other issue I had when throwing this together is that I didn't defrost the udon noodles enough before microwaving them. So the udon was still stuck together afterwards and broke apart into chunks instead of individual strands.

When everything's mixed up together, it's actually not that bad. I over-soy sauced it this time so it came out a little saltier than I like but otherwise it's pretty good. The only other problem with this particular dish is that one package of udon is pretty damn little, especially for an American-sized appetite. And with the lack of anything really of substance to it, it doesn't do very much to satiate hunger. But I guess you can't really beat it in terms of simplicity and low cost. Final score, 6 out of 10.

Long time readers (if there are any left ;-p) will know that I'm a fairly extensive user of Apple products. So when the iPhone 5 officially opened up for preorder, I woke up at 3am just so I could place mine (64GB black AT&T).

Flash forward a week when the iPhone 5 is due to be delivered. I was home that day but UPS was tricky and showed up in the morning when I was out taking my kid to school instead of their usual afternoon time. So yeah, annoyed already. But, I do what I usually do when I miss an UPS shipment: call them up and tell them to hold it for me at the local distrib center (which is about a 15 min drive away). Their nightly pickup times are from 8:30 to 9:30pm. Figuring it'd be a busy evening for them, I show up at 8:00pm to an already lengthy line. It got to be my turn at a little after 9pm. Surprise, surprise, my package can't be found. Guy at counter says possibly the driver for my area hasn't come back yet and to just wait around. So that's what I do. About a half hour later, while I'm staring a hole into the counter guy's head, he updates me, "Well the driver did seem to have already been back but we still have no idea where your package is." Hrrrgghh.... But he does give my package info to their iPhone runner (just a guy who's sole purpose that night was to run around the center tracking down iPhone packages) and the wait continued. Another half hour goes by before the runner comes back and YAY, he has my package!

So I hightail it home since it's already been TWO HOURS that I've wasted on what should have been at most a half hour wait. At home, I open up the shipping box and pause for a bit when confronted with a white iPhone 5 box. Heart sinking, I flip the box around and yup, 16GB white iPhone 5. Frack. Double check the model and serial # on the shipping box with the ones on the iPhone 5 box. Didn't match. Double frack. WTF do I do now? Decided to give Apple customer service a call. "Sorry, due to extremely high call volume, blah blah blah. Try calling back later." *click* *dial tone*

So, iPhone 5 launch day BIG FAIL!

I didn't even wait to get home to call customer service. Sat in the mall parking lot and called them up. Was on hold for around 45 minutes before I even got to talk to anyone. Then got transferred around in circles for a bit before reaching someone who knew how to proceed. After regaling her with my tale of woe, she said she'd never heard of anything like this happening before and to hold on cause she had to consult with her manager. And then, of course, my call gets dropped. !@#$&*(!@$!!!!!! To be fair to AT&T, it did drop after an hour of being on line. =p

I immediately called back, listened to really static-y elevator music for awhile longer before connecting with another service agent. This time I didn't bother going through everything again as I figured the original agent should have taken notes already. I just told this agent that I received a different phone than what I had ordered and he said, fine, send it back on us and we'll ship out a replacement when we can. Couldn't guarantee a date though. Said to expect return instructions via email in a day or so. And that was that.

So the weekend was pretty much shot with no new phone. =\ At this point I was pretty much resigned to not getting what I ordered for at least another month. After Monday late afternoon rolled around, I called up customer service again to check on the return instructions. Agent I spoke to said since I had called on a Saturday I might not get the info until Tuesday. Also let me know that I wouldn't have to wait for all the existing orders to be filled before getting mine. That they could definitely fit me in somewhere but still, unable to give an exact date. So at least a small bit of good news. Then that evening I got the awaited email.

Unexpectedly, I received an email the next day that my replacement phone was being shipped out. YATTA!!!! Was slated to be delivered the following Monday and I made sure to be around when it was delivered. I then shipped the white 16GB model that I had originally received back to Apple. BUT, we're not done yet. This new 64GB black iPhone that I had just received turned out to have a busted vibrate function. So I took it to the Grand Central Apple Store where they said they could replace it on the spot. Unfortunately I hadn't taken a backup of the phone yet so waited until the following Monday to do the replacement.

Thus order had been restored to my gadget world. Until...

Two days later, when I arrived home to a voice mail from Apple customer service notifying me that the white iPhone 5 that I had returned to them was actually purchased from an AT&T store "in my area" and so I would be charged the full, no-contract amount for the replacement 64GB black iPhone 5 they had just sent me unless I sent it back. Incredulous, I called them back to try to figure out what was going on. The first-level service agent I spoke with looked up my case and said pretty much that unless I returned one of the two 64GB iPhones, they would be charging me for the second one.

I swear it was like talking to a brick wall. So of course, I asked to talk to a manager. Once the manager got on the line, I explained to her that I had never received the 64GB black phone that I had originally ordered and had instead received the 16GB white one. She at least agreed to look into it further. But she also said that the 16GB white iPhone was being sent back to me. That night I shot off an email to her basically recounting everything that had transpired up to this point and asked her to forward it to their "iPhone group" who would be the ones looking into this matter.

About half a week later, the final word came back. Sorry, but because the 16GB white iPhone you sent back to us was purchased from an AT&T store in your area, we'll have to charge you for the replacement 64GB phone. When further pressed on if they could tell me which store it was purchased from, "Oh sorry, it wasn't purchased from a store in your area, it was an online order from the AT&T site." Huh? So basically, nothing changed. I know they would most likely never come right out and say it but I suspect that they thought I was trying to pull a fast one on them. Who would ever bother trying to pull such an obvious, doomed to fail scam though?

I peppered her with a bunch of questions.

Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? After asking multiple times if there was any other recourse from their side and getting "No" for an answer each time, she said I could probably contest the charge with my credit card company. Well yeah, I was already planning to do that but I was trying to avoid having to since that's just bringing another party into the mix. But at that point that seemed like it was the only (and final) step I could take.

So while waiting to hear back from AMEX about the contested charge, I was left with trying to figure out what to do with the 16GB white iPhone. I decided to contact AT&T (since it was theoretically their phone) to see if I could extract any information about the phone to help bolster my case. I contacted their customer service over Twitter and got directed to a service manager. After emailing him about my situation, he also said it was a really strange case and that he'd look into it. Heard back from him about a week later. He was able to confirm that it was indeed their phone but he couldn't give any other information about who had originally ordered it, whether or not that party had complained about not receiving it, and if anything else had been done with that party. So the only thing I got out of this exchange was that he was more than willing to verify that I indeed, was NOT the one who originally ordered this phone. And he asked if I could send the phone back to them. Which I did.

Now right around this time, the iPad Mini had just been announced so I tried preordering one online from the Apple Store. Only to have the order cancelled without notification the day after. Huh, ooookkk... let's try that again. Same result. Frak. So I contacted the Apple manager that I had dealt with prior and asked her to look into this. Two days later, "Um, yeah, because you had sent back a different iPhone AND because you're contesting the charge for the replacement iPhone, your account has been locked so you can't order anything from the online store... But you can still buy our products from any of the retail locations." Good grief. I eventually did get the wifi+LTE model that I wanted from the online store though. Apparently the account lock is only based on email address. So when I placed an order using the exact same name, address and even credit card #, but a different email address, voila, order ok. Utterly ridiculous.

But anyway, back to the original issue. After a few weeks, I called up AMEX to see if they were actually doing anything about my contested charge since I hadn't heard any acknowledgement of them having received my request. Apparently they were just waiting to hear back from Apple and it may take awhile. Still annoyed that Apple customer service seemed utterly incapable and uninterested in trying to figure out what really happened here, I decided to send an email to the man at the top: good ol' Tim Cook.

It's commonly known on the Intertubes that Cook was carrying on Jobs' tradition of occasionally responding to emails from any Joe Schmoe with something to say so I figured I'd take the chance if it'd help me get in touch with a sympathetic ear in Apple somewhere. I didn't think Cook actually reads every email that hits his inbox. I figured it was probably being filtered by lackeys first but maybe they could at least forward my email along to the appropriate channel. So I sent off a brief email, which was VERY hard to do considering everything that had transpired, asking to be simply forwarded to anyone that could help. I was very polite and even somewhat apologetic (for having the gall to email him directly ;-p). I really wasn't expecting much and after a couple of days had passed, figured nothing would come of it.

Until I got a voice mail on my cell from someone in Apple Online Store Executive Relations. Now, compared to their regular customer service, Executive Relations is on an entirely different level. In my email to Cook, I mentioned no details about what had been going on. But when I called this guy back, it was apparent that he had caller ID, and that he had done his homework. He knew what the issue was, everything that had already happened between Apple customer service and I, and had even looked at my order history stretching back years. He was apologetic AND sympathetic even though he stated up front that he couldn't guarantee that he could change the outcome. But at least it felt to me like I was finally talking to someone who gave a damn. And that's exactly what I wanted. He had me go over again exactly what had happened from the original delivery day to the present. He seemed taken aback when I said I had shipped the 16GB white iPhone back to AT&T. Should have held on to it apparently. But I gave him the contact info for the AT&T manager I had dealt with and he seemed fine with that. And seriously, these Executive Relations people are a cut above. He'd call me once at the start of the week and again at the end of the week, even if he had no new information for me. Just to assure me that he was still working on it and that I could always contact him if I had any questions. Now this is how customer service should be.

But anyway, the week of Thanksgiving, he called to give me the news I had been waiting 2 months to hear: they were going to waive the charge. Or rather, they would let my AMEX contest of their charge go through. And they'd be lifting the lock on my online store account. He still wouldn't (or couldn't) tell me exactly what the hell happened. But at least the entire thing was now over. Thankfully.

So, my takeaways from this entire ordeal?

1. If someone wanted to steal your phone from Apple's usual shipping box, it's really easy. There's only one piece of packing tape sealing the opening flap and it's stuck on perpendicular to the flap so doesn't seal that entire edge. You could easily slice the tape open, take the phone out, and reseal the box with another small piece of packing tape on top with no one the wiser unless they looked carefully at the tape and the sealed edge. I'm not saying this is what happened in my case but it doesn't appear to be particularly hard to pull off.
2. For atypical situations, Apple's regular customer service is... not very helpful. In my case there was a lot of waiting around for information from their internal "iPhone group" and absolutely no way to communicate with them directly. Hence the feeling that no one really cares about your issue. Since the customer service person one typically deals with can't really make decisions for incidents like this, there's no way to plead your case.
3. There's gotta either be another level of customer service in-between the front line and Executive Relations that handle special cases like mine. Or there should be a more obvious way of reaching Executive Relations besides having to email Tim Cook. Basic customer service never mentioned them despite my repeated attempts to get this thing elevated. It would be fantastic if customer service were all like Executive Relations but that's probably overkill.
4. I find it amusing that no one would answer me in writing (via email). Either from Apple, or AT&T. Any question I sent in got a call back. I'm assuming it's because they don't want to leave a paper trail in case situations go sour. Or held accountable. =p
5. Emailing Tim Cook apparently works. Obviously I won't guarantee that it will for you but it did in my case. The key I suppose is to keep it short, simple and to the point. And maintain a civil tone. No point in raging no matter how aggrieved you may feel.

So I suppose all's well that ends well. Every now and then during the entire ordeal I would think about boycotting Apple but who'm I kidding? I like their stuff too much. =p But it was definitely a pretty irritating situation to go through, with way too much time wasted. I still want to know what happened to the 64GB black iPhone I was supposed to have received originally. I periodically look up the serial # on Apple's Check Your Service & Support page but so far it keeps showing that the phone hasn't been activated yet. If Apple knows, they're not telling. I haven't had the chance to check if my online store account was indeed unlocked but I'll take their word for it. So Apple, you've managed to retain this long-time customer... but don't let this happen again. =p

Oh, and as for the iPhone 5? It's lovely. ;-)

So, at pretty much the very last month of the year, my better half decided that a trip would be required to end the year with a bang! After a few days of frantic scouring of travel sites, an itinerary was procured for the entire family, grandparents included. We would basically be flying out right after Christmas and spend 3 days in San Diego and 3 days in LA with an extra day capping both ends lost to travel time. This was not exactly the best laid of plans. To begin with, airfare is astronomical around that time of the year. Even more so when you're booking less than a month out. =p And it turned out to be pretty much the most annoyingly eventful "vacation" I've ever been on. What happened? I will proceed from the beginning and start with the bad stuff:

Now, due to the lack of sufficiently sized rental car inventory at San Diego airport, we flew in to LAX even though our first 3 days would be spent in San Diego. So after driving down to SD, we were all pretty beat and everyone pretty much hit the sack soon upon arrival at our hotel. Only to be woken up an hour or so later by Erin screaming about bed bugs. That's right,bed bugs. And she wasn't kidding either. I flipped over the pillows on her bed and then mine to find bugs of varying sizes on both. Plus the three Erin had squashed before waking me up. I called down to guest services and they told us we'd be moving to another room asap. Luckily Devon, Cailyn and I weren't bit and Erin only had a few bites. Unfortunately, we had to leave pretty much all our luggage in the infested room because they were going to lock it down immediately. So with pretty much just us in our jammies, the only thing I brought to the new room was my jeans, my computer/photo bag (no way in hell was I leaving that there), and the next day's clothes for the kids. Everything else we had to leave. So we were pretty much without our luggage and clothes for a bit over a day. I'll come back to the resolution of this particular episode later on.

Next, while we were in LA, we dropped by Little Tokyo for what was supposed to be a brief "so this is Little Tokyo" sightseeing stop. We wound up parking in this small underground lot that was super busy because of ongoing New Year's festivities. It was half-self park, half-assisted parking. Because the lot was small and the owners wanted more business than they had parking spaces, people were allowed to park in front of the marked parking spaces as well. So basically if you actually found a space to park, you were fine. If you parked in front of one of the marked parking spaces, you had to leave your keys with the attendant in case they needed to move your car when the owner of the car in the marked space wanted to leave. Luckily, we parked in a marked space. Unluckily, the fool who parked in front of us gave the attendant his garage door opener instead of his key fob. Harvard Alumni (license plate frame) my ass. =p Which of course was not realized until we had come back and wanted to leave. After wasting an hour or so trying to figure out what to do and having a "If you're the owner of a black BMW..." announcement made at the New Year's festivities happening outside, I took it upon myself to rummage through the contents of the car's center storage console and interior door storage. Found the owner's checkbook and..... an one month old AT&T wireless revised service receipt. From the receipt, we were able to figure out the owner's cell phone #. My cousin's husband managed to call the owner from the depths of the parking garage (I had no bars on my phone, stupid AT&T. Cousin's hubby's phone was on T-Mobile. =p) and after arguing with him for a few minutes ("I left my keys w/the parking attendant." "No, you didn't." "Yes, I did." "No, you didn't." etc.), he finally realized his mistake and said it'd take him 20 minutes to get back to the lot. WTF, who parks that far away from wherever it is you're going? *sigh* So anyway, thanks to this bonehead we had to scratch our next stop at the planetarium for a nice view of the "Hollywood" sign. =p

And finally, to top things off, Continental lost a piece of our luggage on the flight back. To this day it still hasn't been found. And they only had ONE PERSON working the baggage service counter that night so I had to pay our car service extra for waiting around an hour and a half for us to get everything squared away.

However, despite all the crap that happened, it wasn't all bad. Upon initial arrival in LA, I was able to upgrade our rental car from a 7-passenger SUV to a minivan at the counter which was much better as I was worried that we wouldn't be able to fit all our luggage in an SUV. Wasn't able to reserve a minivan online as it was "sold out" since forever. And we must've made the drive down to SD in record time: about an hour and 50 minutes. People were telling me closer to 3 hours was more the norm for that trip.

For the hotel fiasco, initially when I reported the bugs, they said they'd be moving us to a new room and oh, "here's some coupons for complimentary breakfast on us for tomorrow." Erin was having none of that so after calling for the manager the next morning and airing our grievances, we wound up staying there the 3 nights for free. So yeah, 2 rooms 3 nights for free. Plus they had given us 4 breakfast coupons which I gave to my parents so they had free breakfast for 2 days. And they let us have an in-room breakfast (spherical pancakes, yum!) for free as well. And they gave us free reign to buy new clothes and baby supplies for the one day when our luggage was quarantined, up to $500. We clocked in at almost $490. =p I was the loser of that deal as I just picked up a cheapo t-shirt and light jacket at Target while Erin went to town at Nordstrom and Macy's for herself and the kids. =p And we had all our clothes dry cleaned for free. And free valet parking during our stay. Plus we didn't let it screw up our plans too much as we spent a full afternoon at the San Diego Zoo after getting our shopping done. ;-p My parents said that the next day they saw two big, burly guys basically dismantling the room so I guess there really was an issue and not us just blowing things out of proportion. =p

Was also finally able to try out In & Out. Verdict: not bad. Cheap and thinnest hamburger patties I've ever seen but fresh and good. Also, I was surprised at how they're pretty much everywhere in the LA/SD area. I think I saw more of them than I did McDonald's. Also stopped by a Jack in the Box for my usual sourdough jack. ;-) And bubble tea almost every day while in the LA area. My cousin's house is within short driving distance from FIVE bubble tea places. So damn awesome. =) Oh, and lest I forget, Din Tai Fung!!! =) The wait for that was ridiculous but oh so worth it. =)

As for the parking incident, suffice to say, we didn't have to pay for parking. =p We were also nice enough not to key the offending car before leaving. ;-p

And the flight back with Cailyn was better. Not without her moments but still, better. Plus there were three other families with little ones on the same flight so if you weren't paying attention you couldn't really tell which baby was currently causing the ruckus. ;-p

And the luggage that Continental lost? It was just Cailyn's stroller so not a huge deal. Plus I assume we'll be compensated for it if they never find it.

But still, all in all I've never had more unlucky occurrences happen in one period of time than what happened during this trip. Luckily it didn't completely ruin our trip but it did make things more stressful than one would normally like for a vacation. =p I can't say I regret going on the trip as we did manage to see everything we originally wanted to see and it was great to stay with my cousin and finally meet her family and have Devon play with his cousins for a few days. Special thanks to them for being the best hosts that we could possibly hope for. =) Beats spending his winter vacation at home that's for sure. I just hope this doesn't happen every time though. ;-p Anyway, photos currently being sorted/processed so will be up in the usual places when I get around to 'em. =)

Cailyn originally had a tentative birth date of June 13. June 15th if we went by her ultrasound checks. We were expecting her to be early since we kept hearing that later children often arrive earlier than the first. But like her brother, she wasn't quite ready to make her début yet. ;-p Erin's doctor was all ready to send us to the hospital to be induced on the 13th because apparently Erin was already about 4cm dilated since the weekend. But Erin, having not exactly the most painless of births the first time around, wasn't exactly gung-ho about the idea. So we waited a couple of more days to see if Cailyn would be willing to come on her own.

Erin had another morning checkup with her doctor on the 16th and not much had changed. Erin had the odd contraction every now and then but nothing imminent. Tired of the waiting, we agreed to head over to the hospital for induction. Checked in at a bit after noon. Not much seems to have changed at Hackensack University Medical Center which is good cause it was already pretty nice to begin with. Because Erin was already semi-dilated, they just started her off with oxytocin. Erin had a different doctor this time because the one that delivered Devon retired from obstetrics after Devon was born. So this new doctor was much more lenient in the use of Epidural and basically said Erin could get it whenever she wanted to. Which was music to her ears and she got it done a few hours into things when she felt she didn't want to have to deal with the pain anymore.

About 5 hours after we had checked in, the nurse checked the dilation, said it was about time and went to get the doctor. Once the doctor came, the entire birthing procedure was a lot more relaxed and quicker this time around. It was just the doctor, nurse and me. I had to help again with pushing her left leg out and keeping her head up during the pushing. But it seemed a little unusual because we would just make small talk while waiting for each wave of contractions to begin. And since there was no pain, there wasn't any screaming. =p So overall, very quiet and low key. I think it was on the 4th or 5th wave (3 pushes each wave) that Cailyn decided to show herself.

Despite the much quicker and easier procedure this time, birthing still remains a rather bloody and messy process. =p I think obstetricians get a kick out of getting the fathers to look at what's going on during the delivery. "Look, look, she's got a lot of hair!" "Good job, look! Her head is out!" As I noted in a tweet afterwards:

And it really is. The miracle of childbirth will never cease to amaze (and scare the hell outta) me. ;-p Come to think of it, I don't understand why anyone would want to film their kid's birth. Seriously, no one wants to watch that. =p

Anyway, thankfully, everything has proceeded as well as can be so far since then. Devon looooves his little sister and if he shows any jealousy to the attention that she gets from us, he at least doesn't take it out on her. Grandpa's got a couple of new bruises though. ;-p The two siblings do look remarkably alike as babies though. I assume that will change when she grows. One difference that was very apparent though since Cailyn first emerged is that she has my bone structure while Devon is more like Erin's. She has really delicate and long limbs and fingers and just might wind up being taller than Devon in the future. She's relatively low maintenance for a baby right now, crying only when she's hungry or needs a change. Nothing has really upset her yet to the point where she would cry for longer than a few minutes. But we're all happy to finally have her in our family. =)

Since the Mac Pro requires no small financial commitment, my initial hard drive configuration for it consisted of one Hitachi 7200RPM 1TB drive. To that I added a Western Digital 10,000RPM 300GB Velociraptor and a Western Digital 5400RPM 1TB Caviar Green drive. The Velociraptor was partitioned in two and served as my boot drive; half went to MacOS X, the other to a BootCamped Windows 7. The faster 1TB drive was my main data drive and the green drive served as my Time Machine backup.

My price trigger when it comes to purchasing backup hard drives is $100. At the time of the Mac Pro purchase, that price slot was taken up by 1TB drives. When 1.5TB drives slipped below the $100 line, I bought one to use as a new Time Machine backup drive. At that point, all four of the Mac Pro's internal 3.5" hard drive bays were filled. I then replaced the 1TB data drive with a Seagate 7200RPM 2TB drive as I discovered 1TB wasn't quite enough to cover a year's worth photo & video. This setup worked quite well and remained unchanged until recently when I decided that it was time to bring a SSD into the fold.

I've been using a 128GB SSD in my unibody MacBook Pro since early 2009 so I was well acquainted with the speed advantages. I was hoping that waiting another year+ would bring prices down but alas, that was not to be. The SSDs have gotten incrementally better but they're still locked in to the same price slots as before. The other issue was also where to install the SSD as all the internal bays were full. To that end I had been keeping an eye on the OWC Multi-Mount solution which provides brackets that allows you install combinations of 2.5" or 3.5" drives in the usually free second 5.25" bay that's situated under the optical Superdrive. So my grandiose plan was to pick up a Multi-Mount along with their 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro SSD and pair my existing Velociraptor to it. The SSD would become my sole MacOS X boot disc and the Velociraptor would be dedicated to Windows. I would also add a new 2TB Caviar Green drive to use as my Time Machine backup since that had also recently slipped under the $100 mark.

However, I forgot about one thing: there was only one free SATA port internally. I needed two. The 2009 Mac Pro comes with 6 bays: 2x 5.25" and 4x 3.5", and it has one SATA connection for each bay only. I suppose I could have followed the same route that I had done with my MacBook Pro and removed the SuperDrive but I really didn't want to have to do that. And oddly enough, OWC doesn't have an existing solution to this issue. I chatted with their tech support and the only solution they could come up with was the rather expensive Sonnet Tempo SATA E4i PCI-e card that adds four internal SATA ports. However, besides the price, another issue killed this option dead: namely that hard drives connected via this card are not bootable.

So, I dug around some more on the Interwebs and discovered MaxUpgrades and their MaxConnect system. The MaxConnect system allows you to install up to four 2.5" drives in one of the 5.25" bays. The bracket it comes with isn't as nice-looking or as flexible as the Multi-Mount solution as it only fits 2.5" drives while the Multi-Mount can take either 3.5" or 2.5". But if you're only looking to add two 2.5" drives, the MaxConnect system also comes with a 2-port "bootable" SATA PCI-e card along with the requisite cables to get everything attached and running. Plus the price was quite reasonable. I first contacted them to see if they by any chance were willing to sell just the PCI-e card and cables since I didn't need the bracket but the answer was "no." So I bit the bullet and bought the set.

As seen above, the MaxUpgrades MaxConnect SZ-MPRO2509-04 kit comes with (from l. to r.): two power cable extensions, a SATA cable, a small PCI-e card, and two SATA extensions. Oh, and the aluminum disk drive mount which is not shown here since I'm not using it. Plus a CD containing installation instructions. Which, in my case was cracked so I wound up emailing their support for a PDF version that they emailed to me. A bit confusing at first but it all makes sense once you start connecting things.

First step was to install the PCI-e card. While it does have two SATA ports as advertised, only one is internal. The other is external. Something to keep in mind. I installed mine in the top-most PCI-e slot. The included SATA cable then attaches to the rear of the card.

In the photo above, you can see the route the SATA cable takes from the PCI-e card to the 5.25" bays. While doing this installation it's easier if you remove the 1 and 4 3.5" hard drive bays as well as the entire 5.25" frame. There's also a thin back panel that you have to remove first from the far side of the 5.25" bay compartment before you can thread the SATA cable through. If you were really a stickler for aesthetics you could probably try to figure out a way to hide the SATA cable running across beneath the row of 3.5" bays but I'm perfectly fine with it hanging about like that.

Here you see the OWC Multi-Mount with the SSD on top and the Velociraptor below it. The Multi-Mount at its most basic is just two metal pieces that screw onto a 3.5" drive so that you can then screw them into the 5.25" bay frame. If you want to install 2.5" drives instead, you buy another set of brackets that screw into the base pieces as you see on either side of the SSD above.

Above two shots just shows you what the entire setup looks like after everything is mounted into the 5.25" frame.

Now, this is what it looks like when everything is hooked up. By default, Apple provides two merged SATA+power connectors for the 5.25" bay. That's what the black cables are. For MaxConnect, you then attach the provided extensions to those merged connectors. One of the two extensions actually splits the power cable into two so from the original 2 SATA + 2 power connectors you wind up with 2 SATA + 3 power. The way I have it hooked up, the Superdrive is connected to the PCI-e SATA card and shares its power with the SSD below it. The Velociraptor gets the unshared SATA + power connector.

The above photo shows the back panel that I mentioned earlier that you have to remove first to be able to thread the SATA cable coming up from the PCI-e card into the 5.25" bay. Remember to put it back in before you finish up. I think it's primary purpose is just to keep the original cabling neat and hidden.

And voila, you slide the 5.25" bay back into place. The one drawback to all this is all the extra cables that you have to cram into the small area within the back of the 5.25" bay. It's a really tight squeeze and I wasn't 100% successful since you can see that the top right corner of the bay now sticks out a little bit. Doesn't affect functionality but again, less aesthetically pleasing. However, as I was typing up this post, I just realized that I could most likely remove one complete set of extension cables (the set that doesn't split the power into two) and still have the entire thing work. The reason MaxConnect needs that extra cable length is because if you use the mount that it comes with, the drives are placed side by side instead of stacked so the existing cables can't connect with that layout. But since I'm using the Multi-Mount instead, I could most likely do without the extensions.

Anyway, so now I have 6 hard drives humming along happily within the Mac Pro. The SSD boots and runs MacOS X crazy fast. The Velociraptor I wound up not repartitioning and solely dedicating to Windows because I didn't want to have to reinstall Windows again. =p So I kept the existing Windows 7 partition as is and now I use the former MacOS X boot partition as a Photoshop scratch disk. Then there's the 7200RPM 2TB data drive and 5400RPM 2TB Time Machine drive and then a 7200RPM 1TB plus 5400RPM 1.5TB that are just sitting pretty much idle for now. I have the 1TB also set as a Photoshop scratch disk and I'm using the 1.5TB to store all my app installers. Eventually I may replace the 1TB with another 7200RPM 2TB and run the two 2TBs in a RAID0.

So there you have it, how to install 6 drives into a 2009 Mac Pro. Hope someone finds this somewhat useful as I didn't really find much info on this topic when I first started looking into it.

As I mentioned in my previous post on smartphone-compatible gloves, I had ordered one of the new iPhone Glove by Dots Gloves which was backordered for a couple of weeks. Surprisingly it showed up quicker than I was expecting so I got to try it out for the past two weeks in this wonderful NYC winter weather. =p

This new lambswool style feels a bit thicker and stiffer than the old knit version that I previously had. Might soften up after age and more frequent use. Something I noticed immediately was that it felt snugger in the fingers than before. Also, there seemed to be a good amount of extraneous thread and knit inside that my fingers would keep getting snagged on when putting them on. So I turned them inside out to check it out.

What you're seeing in the photo above is the point where the palm and fingers connect. Not having owned wool gloves before, I'm not sure if this is normal with them or not but you can see the one big red loop in the center and two smaller silver loops to each side. And if you look closely you can see two thin red threads running horizontally across along the top underneath the loops. These were what my fingers were encountering whenever I put the gloves on. I wound up yanking the thin red threads out but left the loops all in. Overall it seems like rather shoddy handiwork to me but as I said, I have no other similar gloves to compare them with. Plus, once you get past this, it doesn't affect the overall utility of these gloves.

So, how do these gloves work? Basically the same premise as the Agloves. Silver coated fibers act as conductors between your flesh and the touchscreen. The difference here is that they only weave these fibers in to 3 fingers on each hand (thumb, index, middle) instead of throughout the glove as with the Agloves. As can be seen in the photo above, the silver threads seem kind of sparse compared to the Agloves but they work all the same. Because it's a much thicker glove though, response time seems to be a bit slower and precision takes a hit as well. Still able to work with a touchscreen quicker than the old metal dot version though but not as nimble as with the Agloves.

The one advantage that it has over its predecessor and the Agloves is that it's quite warm. Provides excellent protection against the cold. So when it hit sub-30 degree (Fahrenheit) temps here, these are the gloves I pull out first. So, as predicted, these new Dots Gloves have replaced the old ones as my go-to really cold weather gloves. The Agloves is still champs when it comes to responsiveness and precision but these new Dots Gloves are a good compromise between cold protection and utility.

Now this one I wasn't looking forward to at all. I'm not a fan of kimchi for starters. And I'm even less of a fan of jyako. But we always have a package or two of jyako in our fridge since Erin loves frying them up with some scrambled eggs as a calcium supplement for Devon. So I bit the bullet and bought a small jar of kimchi from Mitsuwa. The plan was to just make a small portion in case it was as un-palatable as I was expecting. I do love sesame oil though so it at least had that going for it. ;-p

Pretty much zero preparation is needed for this dish. Frying up the jyako in the sesame oil was heavenly (again, LOOOVE sesame oil) and then dumped in the kimchi. Stir fried in our little wok for a few minutes before dumping in some water. I think adding enough water to cover the kimchi is way too much water so next time I'll be adding much less.

As for the final result... Surprisingly, this dish was really good. Goes awesome with plain rice. Couldn't believe it. Polished off the entire portion I had made and was left wanting more. I think if you wanted to meat it up a bit you could probably throw in some thin pieces of pork instead of or in addition to the jyako. But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised at how nicely this one turned out. Final verdict, an 8 out of 10. =)

Despite each episode being only about 10 minutes each, they're able to throw in a couple of themed skits throughout. One of the main ones being "General Vamp's Quick Recipes" which is pretty self explanatory. So I figured what the hey, it's a new year, I might as well give 'em a shot. So tonight I made recipe #1: Simple Tarako Spaghetti.

I wound up using thin linguine since that was the only pasta we had on hand. And topped it off with a bunch of shredded nori pieces (that also had dried bits of tarako in it). Turned out quite well although I've already been a fan of tarako spaghetti. But it's really quick and easy (4 ingredients and 15 minutes of your time). Definitely something even Sunred could make. ;-p

The shredded nori I used is quite good by itself as well. We polished off the rest that came in the little packet. Most of the time you'll find nori in rather large sheets and packs but since it's not something we usually eat, I managed to find this smaller packet in the rice toppings section of our local Mitsuwa.

So General Vamp's Quick Recipe #1 certainly lives up to its name. Quick, simple and tasty. Probably not the most nutritious of dishes but it will fill an empty stomach just fine. I give it an 7 out of 10. =)

A month or so ago I came across a posting on Friendfeed listing a couple of smartphone-friendly gloves. The Agloves were the only ones that seemed remotely interesting to me so I sprang for a pair. At $18, I figured it wouldn't hurt the wallet too much if they didn't pan out. Plus they give a pretty decent 90 day test period in case you really hate them for some reason.

When they arrived, I was pretty surprised at how thin they are. Made out of 60% polyester, 29% nylon, 7% silver nylon, 3% spandex, and 1% acrylic, they are a pretty snug fit too. The Northeast being in the midst of a cold spell the last couple of weeks, I was pretty apprehensive as to how they'd hold up under the mid 20s to high 30s weather we were having. After a week or so of use, I can say that they're warm enough if you're a regular urban commuter. The palms get chilly quickly once it hits around 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) or below but shoving them into your pockets or just closing your hands into fists solves that issue for the most part. For temperatures ranging from the mid-30s and above, the gloves are perfectly fine in the warmth department. At least for me. Obviously everyone's temperature threshold will vary. Oh, and you probably won't want to get into a snowball fight with these. =p

As far as how they work on the capacitive touch screens on iPhones and other smartphones, they work perfectly as advertised. It's like they're not even there. Really great stuff. I've also grown quite fond of the thinness of the gloves as they're the only gloves I've ever had where I could actually shove them into my pant pockets and root around for things by touch. Normally winter gloves are too bulky to even get them into the pockets or doesn't give you enough of a feel to them.

Prior reviews I've read all sort of ding them on the blandness of the style. I don't mind much since most gloves I tend to buy are either black, dark grey, or dark brown anyway. =p When I purchased my pair, they only had the M/L size in stock and I find them to fit quite well with just a little bit of slack towards the wrist area on the back of the hand. As of now, they seem to have all their other sizes in stock as well finally. One advantage to their thinness is that if you do need extra warmth, you can always wear a thicker pair of gloves over them.

So if you're an avid smartphone user and urban commuter who wants a pair of easy to use and light-weight gloves, then definitely give Agloves a look. If the majority of your exposure to the elements consists of you running from your home to the nearest mass transit station and then to your workplace, then the relative lack weather protection provided by these won't be a big deal.

Now prior to getting the Agloves, I have been using a pair of old Dot Gloves since last winter. The old knit version which consisted of two metal "dots" sewed into the thumb and forefinger of each hand. Style-wise, these were nothing to write home about either although they did eventually wind up being available in a lot more different colors than the Agloves. Being heavy knit, they also provide a lot better weather protection than the Agloves but at the cost of added bulk.

However, where the Aglove trumps the old Dot Gloves is in actual functionality. Even though the Dots Gloves fit me just fine, in order for the "dot" to work reliably and comfortably, you generally want it centered on the fingertip. But more often than not it shifted about so you really had to make an effort to recenter it to the proper position. And then in use, I always had to be a bit more deliberate in my touches for it to work reliably. And doing that really slowed me down. Plus I could also never get any sort of pinching motion between the thumb and forefinger to work reliably.

For now I still keep both pairs of gloves in my winter jacket pockets since they're both really not all that bulky, particularly the Agloves. I use the Agloves more since they're a lot easier to use but will break out the Dot Gloves if it turns out to be a bit chillier than the Agloves can handle. After being alerted to the new iteration of the Dot Gloves in this review, I placed an order for one of their new lambswool "iPhone Gloves." A couple of weeks wait time unfortunately but once they do come in I'll compare them to the Agloves. My guess is the old Dot Gloves will be hitting the trash can soon after.

So a few weeks back I ordered this Incase Snap Case for the iPhone 4 through Apple's "We're Sorry You're Making Such a Big Deal Out of Nothing" program. ;-p It's not that I really needed it, having already gotten the ifrogz LuxeLean case beforehand which still works just fine. But who am I to turn down a free case? At the time it said shipping would be in 4 weeks so I think this came a little early.

As far as iPhone cases go, this one is pretty typical of the clear acrylic form-fitting cases I've had in the past with my previous iPhones. Compared to the ifrogz, as far as I can tell, it may be just a smidgen thinner but seriously, just splitting hairs at this point.

The left side of the case is a bit more encased compared to the ifrogz with separate cutouts for the ringer/vibrate switch and volume buttons. The case is thin enough so that operating these controls doesn't take too much getting used to compared to having just the phone uncased. Not sure why they embossed the "Made in China" on the inside of the case but that doesn't affect anything. The right side of the case I didn't bother taking a photo of cause it's just straight covered plastic with an embossed Incase logo towards the bottom.

The top and bottom of the case is pretty much exactly the same as on the ifrogz case. No surprises here. Easy access to all the controls, plugs and jacks at the expense of not so thorough protection.

And as you can see the back is pretty nondescript. The cutout for the camera lens + flash is not as form-fitting as on the ifrogz plus they encircled the edges of the cutout with what they call a "Flash Ring." Basically they just made the edges black so it cuts down on possible glare caused by the flash reflecting on the clear acrylic and bouncing back into the lens. I'm not a heavy flash user so not sure if this is truly useful or not but sounds good at least. =p You'll also notice from this shot of the back that like all clear acrylic cases, this one also picks up fingerprints quite easily.

You do get a bonus with this case though: a little dual-sided clear acrylic stand. Incase tends to include these little stands with their thin cases. I remember having a S-shaped black plastic one for the iPhone 3GS when I got their perforated case. They're cheap and kinda dinky but convenient and perfectly functional in a pinch.

As I mentioned it's dual sided so you can place the iPhone in at one of two angles. Not entirely sure what exact angles they are but something like 45 and 60 degrees would be my guess. And they only work with the iPhone placed horizontally. The iPhone will tip over backwards immediately if you place it vertically in the 45 degree angle. With the 60 degree it'll work but once you put any pressure on the phone it'll tip over. So just keep it in the horizontal position.

So, in a nutshell, this Snap Case is good if you're a real basic, no frills kinda guy. It's light and thin and gives you just the most basic of protection, mostly just against scratches. If you like to show off the look of the iPhone but still want some protection on it, then this case will be good for you. Like all clear acrylic cases though, I predict that the back of this one will wind up getting all scratched up after a couple of weeks. Better the case than the iPhone itself obviously but these types of cases don't usually retain their pristine forms for very long. Plus you'll have to wind up removing the case every now and then to clean out the tiny dust particles that will inevitably work its way in-between the back of the case and the iPhone itself. If you don't do this often, some of those particles can wind up scratching the iPhone. That may be less of an issue with these new iPhone 4s and their glass backs but it was definitely an issue on the previous iPhone 3GS.

Compared to the ifrogz LuxeLean, I probably favor the ifrogz a bit more at this point. The ifrogz, because of the colored paint has a more grippier feel to it than the Incase which can be quite slippery if you're not careful with it. And I like the felt-like backing that covers the interior of the ifrogz. That pretty much traps any wayward dust particles that make their way into the case and prevents them from moving around against the back of the phone. But besides that, both cases give you pretty much the same amount of protection with the least amount of size and weight addition.

It may be surprising to hear for those who know me but I don't follow Apple rumors very much. So their newly announced Magic Trackpad came as a complete surprise to me. At first I was like, seriously? A trackpad accessory for the desktop? I had always been under the impression that trackpads were just a tolerated pointing device who's longevity was due to being the de facto controller on laptops. Personally I don't mind using trackpads but it never occurred to me that people would want to use them outside of a laptop.

Long time readers will remember that I'm traditionally a trackball guy. But I'm also willing to try new things. So it was that a Magic Trackpad found itself at my doorstep a few days later. As you can see, it's quite possibly the blandest looking Apple product I've ever unboxed. Just a flat grey slate for the most part.

It does match quite nicely with Apple's wireless keyboard. Though oddly enough it's just a tad bit longer front to back than the keyboard. You would think since this is Apple they'd go that extra mile (or centimeter in this case) and make it a perfect fit. Not sure what happened there.

Physically it's also a little smaller than my existing Expert Mouse. Well, significantly smaller if you take the trackball's attachable wrist rest into account. And much thinner too obviously. And the best advantage over the trackball: being wireless. Unfortunately, Kensington et al. have so far still refused to come out with a new wireless trackball.

Now when I first started using the trackpad, I started off having my hand positioned directly over it like you see above. Thumb and index finger down on the pad, all the other fingers held over it to be brought down when needed. This quickly proved to be a pretty poor way to work with the trackpad as holding the fingers up for extended periods of time gets tiring.

So after some experimentation, I'm now using this hand position above. Basically the hand gets moved to the right so the ring and pinky fingers which are the most unused get to rest on the table instead of the trackpad itself. Another workable position has my pinky gripping the right edge of the trackpad. The middle and ring fingers still hover over the surface mostly but for some reason, with the pinky having something to grip and thus the hand spread out wider overall, the hand doesn't feel as tired over extended periods as before.

Interestingly, if you rest all your fingers on the trackpad and move only one, two, or three at a time while keeping the others immobile, the trackpad still works as usual. This also works on my MBP's trackpad but was never something I had to consider trying because the trackpad on the MBP is small enough so that you can rest your usually unused fingers on the body frame around it.

I'm still unsure as to whether or not the Magic Trackpad can replace my trackball for everyday use. Scrolling, which I do often, with the trackball is much easier although I prefer the three-finger swiping to go back or forward a page on the trackpad. Left and right button clicking is about even, with the trackball maybe coming in ahead because of dedicated buttons for each action.

Just for comparison, the above shows my usual hand position when using the Expert Mouse. Thumb on left click button, index controls the trackball, middle finger rests on and controls the scroll ring, ring finger just rests on the frame inactive, and pinky presses the left click button if needed. Index finger also stretches over to click the top left and right buttons when I want to move forward or back a page. It's a much more comfortable device overall because every finger can rest somewhere on the trackball without inadvertently affecting things. With the trackpad, I discovered that whenever I was working in Photoshop, I'd often accidentally zoom in or out of the image I was working on as that app seems to not ignore the thumb contact correctly at times.

So for me, while the Magic Trackpad wins on size, portability, three finger swiping and lack of wires, the trackball does scrolling better and is just more comfortable overall to use which I think is a more important consideration for such a constantly used computer accessory. I'll keep using the trackpad primarily for another week or so to see if anything changes.

Recently I decided that our cookware and cooking utensils needed an upgrade because we ruined two of our ancient non-stick frying pans during our last camping trip. In the process of researching kitchenware, I discovered that knives, in particular, had some pretty sweet products available. Unsurprisingly, my collector's mentality kicked in and I started delving deeper into the world of Japanese kitchen knives.

For the past 8 years we've been using an el cheapo knife set that consisted of one 8" chef's knife and three slicers of assorted lengths (4", 6" 8"). I think we resharpened them once throughout their lives with a sharpener that my mother gave us. Part of the handle on one had even broken off. Suffice to say, we weren't particularly picky about our kitchen implements up to this point.

Taking advantage of two Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons that were available to us, my first acquisition was a Shun Classic 7" Hollow Ground Santoku. I figured, hey, all purpose knife, that pretty much fits our (or more specifically, Erin's) needs to a tee.

The Shun Classic, despite being Kai's intro line, is constructed quite well. At least to my amateur eyes. Way above the nameless brand we had before for sure. The thick, round, "D shape", Pakkawood handle feels great in my hand and the blade came out of the box impressively sharp. The Damascus look on the blade is subtle and attractive and the hollow ground indentations running along the length of the blade is supposed to minimize stickiness when slicing through food.

Now you can't just have a one knife kitchen arsenal. Well ok, some people probably can. But usually you want a little more variety. So after perusing the web and running through numerous mixes and matches in my head, I settled on a three-knife set. Besides the aforementioned santoku, I brought in a 6.5" nakiri and a 4" paring knife. Both also Shun Classics just to keep things consistent. The plan was to have the santoku as the primarily meat slicing but also do-pretty-much-everything knife with the nakiri for larger volume veggie work and the paring knife for fruits and other things that would work best with a smaller blade.

In actual use though, for awhile the first knife that Erin would constantly reach for was the 4" paring. Pretty much used it for everything: meat, veggies, fruits, you name it. She just felt more comfortable with the shorter overall length of the knife. After constant nagging from me to use the appropriate knife for the task, she's started to use the santoku as well. So the nakiri pretty much just sticks on the holder looking pretty unless I'm the one doing the food prep.

Of course, you didn't expect that to be the end did you? ;-) While doing my research, I had come across Korin, a store specializing in Japanese knives and tableware. Their site proved invaluable in explaining to this newbie what all the knife types were for as well as available brands. And luckily, they're located in NYC. So I decided to pay them a visit.

Going in, I knew that I wanted to pick up a 210mm gyutou, aka an 8" chef's knife, just for my own use. I figured it'd be too long for Erin to want to use on a daily basis. The question remaining was, which one? I had tentatively narrowed the list to five with one in particular that was leading the pack:

1. Misono UX-10
2. Masamoto VG10
3. Masanobu VG10
4. Togiharu Hammered Texture Damascus
5. Ittosai Stain Resistant Layered Steel

But, as I was to find out, it's very important when knife shopping to get a hands on feel with the knife before making a decision. Like with camera shopping. The knife that I eventually left the store with, the Togiharu G-1, wasn't even on the original list. So what happened? I must have had the poor sales guy bring out almost every 210mm gyutou that they had, 8 in all, and compared how they felt in my hands.

My first choice going in was the Misono UX-10 as everything that I've read about it was exemplary. Unfortunately, the handle felt way too small and hard-edged for me. Light and very sharp but just not a comfortable knife to use in my hands. The Masanobu VG10, on the other hand, was HUGE with a long octogonal handle. Beautiful blade but quite pricey. I've read that some people like the octogonal grips, feeling that they're more secure but it just didn't do it for me. The Togiharu Hammered Texture Damascus was nice but I didn't like the hammered texture look as much as I thought I would. I don't remember much about the Ittosai Stain Resistant Layered Steel but I do remember Korin's resident knife master, Sugai-san, commenting to me that if given a choice, he'd go with the Masamoto VG10. But we'll come back to that later. The two remaining knives, a Suisin Special Inox and a Nenox G-Type were both quite excellent and stood apart from the rest because they both felt very handle heavy. While pretty much all of the other knives felt pretty balanced, it was instantly obvious once held that the Suisin and Nenox were different. Most likely because they both have metal caps at the butt end of the handle. I rather liked the heft of these two knives in the hand but ultimately decided against them as my first purchase because of the price. Either of the two are definitely on my short list of future purchases though.

So at the end it came down to two contenders: the Masamoto VG10 and the Togiharu G-1. The Togiharu I hadn't originally asked for but the sales guy brought it out with the Masamoto. And it was quickly apparent why. The two are pretty much the exact same knife. You put them side by side and you can't tell them apart. Held in the hand, no difference. Steel composition of the blade may be slightly different but in terms of metal hardness and use, no difference. Even though the Masamoto has a "composite wood" handle while the Togiharu has a bacteria-resistant "polyacetal resin" one, when in hand, no difference. The only discernable difference is the company name etched into the side of the blade. In this case, the Togiharu has a more eye-catching two-color etch while the Masamoto is a monotone grey-ish black. Masamoto however, has more of a history behind their name, having originated in 1872. Togiharu, while being "produced by a very highly respected knife maker in Japan, " is akin to a Korin house brand. I don't think they're available through any other store besides Korin. Even the price was similar, with less than $10 separating the two. So with all things being pretty much equal, I went with the Togiharu. Slightly cheaper plus I liked their name etching better. But really, you can't go wrong with either.

Oh, and of course, we couldn't exactly just throw these knives into the shelf when not in use so I mounted a 20" MIU France Magnetic Knife Holder to the wall. Strong magnets, attractive look, works just great. Mysteriously came with no mounting instructions but wasn't hard to figure out. Toughest part being I didn't have a drill bit large enough for the dry wall anchors so had to wing it a little.

So that's how we ended up with our current knife set. The Togiharu has proven to be a great slicer. 210mm (8") is on the short end for a chef's knife but we rarely butcher large pieces of meat plus our cutting board is tiny so it's the perfect size for us. Erin is, as far as I can tell, happy with the new Shuns although she's gotta be more careful now when cutting things in hand. Also discovered another very useful aspect about the Shun's fat D shaped handle. It's much more convenient when crushing garlic cloves. Can't do that with the Togiharu because its handle is comparatively thin and rectangular-ish. Erin almost gave me a heart attack when she started mashing the cloves with the face of the santoku blade but apparently that works quite well too. =p From everything I've read, it's better to be more careful about exerting too much force when doing something like that on a Japanese blade since they tend to be more brittle due to the thinness and hardness of the steel blade.

Eventually, I may wind up adding to the collection. Not because we need it, but because some of these knives are pretty damn cool. I did say that my collector's mentality kicked in, right? ;-p First on the list may be something from Maestro Wu, a Taiwan brand originating on the island of Kinmen. These guys have been basically collecting the artillery shells dropped onto the island from WWII and the 1950s Chinese bombardment and making knives out of them. Not much info on them that I could find in English but what I could find have been quite positive. Comparable to the better known Japanese brands. If purchased from US retailers, they're quite pricey (for the Damascus ones at least). So I'm trying to get a relative to bring some back for me. =)

I've also so far resisted the temptation of getting into learning how to sharpen these knives with Japanese water stones (also available, with instructional DVD as well from Korin). It's quite plausible that I may succumb eventually. =p In Korin's store, Sugai-san has a little alcove right where the knife section begins where you can watch him work his magic. He also gives free group lessons twice a week plus you can also schedule private, one-on-one lessons as well (not sure if there's a fee for this but probably so). When I was there he was giving one such lesson and from what I could tell, sharpening with the stones is one of those things that isn't too hard to get into but is hard to master. I figure for now, since I have relatively easy access to the store, I can just bring them in when they need sharpening. At $15/knife it's not too bad.

With my iPhones I tend to run through a couple of different cases throughout their lifetime. As is typical of every iPhone release, available cases during launch was pretty minimal. It was a little different this time around as Apple actually released their own bumper "case" for the iPhone 4. I passed on it though which apparently was a good decision. So I was fully expecting to be case-less for the next few weeks until the iPhone 4 cases started rolling in.

And then I walked into my local Best Buy store. Their iPhone 4 accessory section was pretty sparse. Not only because of the still early relative lack of options but because it was practically picked clean. Fortunately I was able to scrounge up one of these ifrogz LuxeLean cases which pretty much encapsulates everything I usually look for in an iPhone case.

Now my taste in cases, as in bags, runs to the minimalistic/barebones side. Since I don't make it a habit of dropping things, full on protection is not what I'm looking for. All I really want is a thin polycarbonate shell that hugs the gadget and protects the back and sides mainly from scratches. The ifrogz LuxeLean pretty much fits this to a T.

Most of the time, you can find these no-brand thin & slim cases on Amazon for like $10 or less. But that's usually a couple of months after launch and you pretty much get what you pay for. The ifrogz is a step up from those cheapo cases as the interior of the case is also colored (not the case sometimes if you go real cheap on Amazon) and they also put in a soft lining in the interior that covers a good portion of it. This protects the back of the iPhone from tiny dings and scratches that often occurs from small dust particles that can still make their way in-between these types of cases and the back of the phone.

Top and bottom protection is quite minimal, limited only to the corners really. The disadvantage is that most of the top and bottom are exposed and unprotected but the advantage is that most accessories that plug into the bottom port will work unimpeded with this case.

The right and left sides are mostly covered, with a large cutout for the mute and volume controls. They've also gone with a vented look for the sides which one may or may not like. I don't particularly mind it plus I think it's a good idea anyway since the iPhone 4 runs noticeably warm after extended use so any cooling effect will be helpful.

The back is fully covered with just the form-fitting opening for the camera lens and flash. And the ifrogz logo is small and unobtrusive towards the bottom. The feel of the case is nice and smooth. They call it the "Luxe Velvet Soft Finish." Um, sure. It feels nice to the touch but it's definitely not rubbery/grippy so if you've got naturally slippery hands, be warned.

Besides the green color that I got, this particular case also comes in iron and pink. Iron will most likely be the most popular but I rather like the green as it matches my Waterfield Cargo bag. =) Anyway, for those who prefer this type of iPhone case, the ifrogz LuxeLean will do the job quite nicely.

So last year I took a photo of all the bags I currently had in my possession at the time. Recently I've rejuggled a good portion of my lineup so I figured I'd take another shot. The good news is I much prefer this current crop of bags than the collection from last year. The bad news is, I actually increased my bag lineup by one. Even I know that eight bags is a bit much. =p

Looking at last year's group, the only leftover from then is the Waterfield Cargo bag (top left corner), which remains my daily bag, and the Bumbakpak Hybrid (top right corner). You don't see the Bumbakpak in this year's shot because I completely forgot about it when I was taking the photo. The Bumbakpak is actually one I tried to sell but no one wanted to buy. Not even on eBay. =p

As for the others, the two Crumpler photo bags were sold off and replaced by a single newer version. The small blue/black custom Timbuk2 messenger bag's strap buckle broke and was replaced under warranty with the brand spankin' new red/black bag. The Tom Bihn Buzz sling bag was eBay'd off and the Lowepro Classified 200 AW photo bag was craigslisted to make way for the ThinkTankPhoto Retrospective.

New for this year are the two backpacks: the ThinkTankPhoto Shape Shifter and the Timbuk2 Grubstake. The Shape Shifter is what I brought with me on last year's trip to Taiwan. And I really like it. The only negative being that you can't store a body w/a lens mounted on it. Everything is separated into their own individual pouches. The Grubstake is actually my newest acquisition and the reason I got it is because I can actually cram the Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home photo bag into it. Along with my 15" MacBook Pro. Why in the world would I want to do that? Well, during our Taiwan trip last year, I had to stow the Crumpler into our check-in luggage so that I'd have a camera bag to use while out & about. The Shape Shifter is great for transporting your gear long distances but I wouldn't use it as a daily bag. Now with the Grubstake, I can put my camera gear into the Crumpler and then stuff the Crumpler down into the backpack, freeing up a decent amount of space in our other luggage. It's a pretty tight fit however. So if airport security wants me to take everything out to show them why I have a bag within a bag, it's gonna be a bit of a hassle.

The other two new bags are both photo related: the ThinkTankPhoto Retrospective 30 and the ShootSac. The Retrospective is the largest camera bag in my arsenal. Used when I need to carry more than one body. The ShootSac is primarily a very light and non-bulky lens holder and it performs its function quite well. Use it mostly when I'm going somewhere where I know I'll want my camera out and ready to shoot at most times so don't need to bag it.

Anyway, I'll probably do individual write ups on the bags in the future so that's it for now. =)