bonnie & jason

Dancing babies

Amanda may be little…

… but she can hold her own.

Here’s my interpretation of what’s going though their heads.

Amanda picks up the book and says, “I’m gonna give this to mommy. Oops, I fell.”
Ashley, being the pain in the butt younger sister, immediately makes a move to get in Amanda’s way. “Haha, can’t get past me… I’m even going to arch my back so you can’t use the couch to get by.”
Amanda says, “Outta the way fatso!” and proceeds to throw her out of the way with a stiff arm before finishing her off with a hip check.

Ashley says, “Hi.”

Happy Valentine’s Day

Amanda and Ashley go to the park

We ran some errands in San Mateo today and took the opportunity to visit a new park. A quick search revealed Boothbay park had some good playground equipment so we stopped for a bit and let Alissa explore some new turf and let Amanda and Ashley try their hand at swings. Amanda kinda liked it. Ashley wanted nothing to do with it. Here are some pictures.

Amanda’s a mess with her snotty nose and out of control hair. Such bad parents.


Not sure about the expression.

Alissa on the “rock wall.”

Took some liberties with the editing here.

Alissa is a big fan of throwing the wood chips around.

Here are some random pictures from yesterday.

Alissa riding her tricycle on the tennis courts by our local playground.

Amanda in the kitchen.

Happy Birthday Amanda and Ashley

We got some Hawaiian takeout and gave the babies some cupcakes today to celebrate on their actual birthday.

Amanda went to town:


Ashley seemed to like in a slightly more reserved fashion:


No surprise, Alissa was also a fan:

With daddy:

With grandparents (and everyone looking and smiling at the same time!)

Zaph Audio SR71 DIY Speakers

I had this setup as a separate blog page originally. Now that they’re done, I’m archiving here.

To go with the amplifier project, I’m building a set of speakers. This DIY community is also very active and has lots of resources available. I chose to build this kit from Zaph Audio and Madisound.

It’s a two-way system with a 7″ reed/paper pulp cone woofer and a ferrofluid cooled tweeter with a pre-coated fabric dome. The kit includes a crossover (this determines to what level what frequencies the woofer should produce and which frequencies the tweeter should produce) as well as all the hardware needed to put them into cabinets.

The cabinets can be bought pre-made, but I decided to try to build my own per the design specified by Zaph Audio. Here’s what they would look like if I had bought the cabinets (for like $300.)

I still haven’t decided the details… but it will either be MDF or plywood or solid hardwood… or some combination thereof. More to come.

1.23.2010
I went to Macbeath lumber today and got a piece of African Mahogany. It wasn’t cheap, so I figured I’d use it for the front, top, and rear panels and just use plywood for the remaining sides. This way, I get a nice two toned look and don’t have to deal with veneer or paint. I’ll just sand and tung oil and be done with it. Need to pick up some tools still, but I’ll probably make some rough cuts on the table saw.

1.28.2010
Got some work done on the cabinets the last few days:

The kit from Madisound came in as well. Everything looks pretty much as expected. Should be able to get a lot done this weekend as well. Still have to cut the holes for the drivers and cups. Then rabbet and chamfer the woofer holes. Then glue the front and rear baffles in before rounding over the edges. After that, I think it’s just sand and put some tung oil on it and they’re done. Except for the actual wiring install of the drivers and crossover.

1.29.2010
Got a little bit more done today. Made a couple small mistakes though.

1. I should have rabbeted the baffles vertically to insure flat surfaces to mate to the cases (my table saw is kinda so-so.) As it is, my glue job may have some small gaps. I’ll have to take a look after I trim and roundover to see if there are indeed gaps and if so, fill in with some sawdust/wood glue.
2. My initial countersink for the woofers was a tiny bit too small. About 0.10″ or so. I didn’t realize this on the first one until after I cut out the thru hole. I was able to sort of kluge together the little circle I cut out back in place so I could use the jig again with some backyard engineering so that worked out ok I think.
3. I probably should have made the countersinks a little deeper. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get the drivers in flush after I put the gasket in. I figure I could always add more gasket to build up to flush if necessary.

Well, hopefully tomorrow I can get them trimmed and rounded over. Then sanded and tung oiled.

1.30.2010
Trimmed all edges and rounded over the front baffles:

2.3.2010
I got them all done today. Soldered the connections up and added the stuffing. Installed the crossover and drivers and voila!

I still have to get them broken in and I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do about speaker stands yet. But I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. And I’m looking forward to setting them up properly with good amplification.