Once again, we treated this as a family reunion of sorts and were happy that The Paches made the trip (capitalized since Christian is so tall) as well as the Nas. Grandma was there as well as Uncle Chung who has since actually moved to a house just around the corner from my parents. As always, the other Wangs (my parents and Mike and Jen) were there to serve as our local guides.)

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the photo log of our trip:

Over the course of the week, we spent a fair amount of time at a couple parks close to my parents’ house:
Amanda looking up after a successful slide:

Chloe looking ever more the teenager:

Aidan seeing the sights:

Alissa and Chloe through the looking rock:

Ashley and Amanda flying a plane:

Car models:

Fearless Amanda:

Despite this whoopsie:

Alissa’s first time doing monkey bars:

We also went to the strip…

…to visit the holiday display at the Bellagio…

…as well as visit the M&M store.

The one grown-up night out we did was with Christian, Anna, and Jen to dinner at Nobu. Here are a few of the dishes we had:

It was very yummy but perhaps not blow your mind yummy. Especially considering the price.

Otherwise, we spent a lot of time hanging out at home and enjoying the great chilly but sunny weather:
A little tennis video I made just for fun:

Some Wii games:

Amanda getting her finger prints all over my iPad:

Ashley enjoying a seaweed snack:

Jelly faces:

Of course, we also exchanged some gifts, mostly for the kids. However, Leslie also had the great idea to have a photo quilt made for our grandma who has been dealing with Alzheimer’s. The quilt allowed for 60 images and turned out great. Here she is opening the quilt:

All in all, a great trip. Here’s to 2013?!

The funny thing is the ones we paid for are even worse. Maybe next year!

Speaking of food… the cupcake factory started up a few days ago and didn’t finish up until late this morning. Bonnie made red velvet, carrot cake, and chocolate cupcakes with either a chocolate frosting or a cream cheese frosting. All from scratch. With fondant flowers. And fancy sprinkles. They were a hit and now I can sort of appreciate how people get away with charging $4 for a cupcake.

Chocolate:

Carrot Cake:

Combined with the Red Velvet in the cupcake tower:

Bonnie also made sugar cookies with a “Happy Birthday Alissa” message imprinted on them.

Needless to say, the Kitchen Aid mixer got quite the workout the last few days. Speaking of working out, I’ll need to hit the gym to burn off all the butter, cream cheese, and sugar that I consumed while doing “quality control” along the way.

As for the party itself, we had almost 80 people between all the friends and family with kids around Alissa’s age. For entertainment, we hired a balloon-ist who played a few games with the kids and gave our prizes. And of course, we had to supply ice-cream to anyone who was interested in more sweets after partaking in the cookies and cupcakes bounty. Otherwise, we had bought the requisite Chinese fried chicken along with a few noodle and veggie dishes.

Of course, I can’t just leave the post with pictures of the cupcakes and cookies, so here are a few others from the festivities:

Next time, I’ll flex my bicep harder. Or wear a tighter shirt.

One of the games the kids played:

Ashley and Amanda enjoying the sweets:

Enjoying the balloons after opening presents:

Also, I added a bit more bracing to the inside since plywood isn’t quite as dead a material as MDF:

A little sanding and a little tung oil later:

And done:

The thing weighs a ton… the driver itself weighs 25 lbs, mostly from the magnet but also from the beefy cast aluminum frame.

Pretty happy with it considering everything was scrap materials except for the driver and the stainless screws I used. The same setup from parts-express.com is almost $600. I paid $100 for the driver from a fellow DIY’er. Yay DIY!

Bulldog, Eeyore, Butterfly about ready to go trick-or-treat:

Ashley and Amanda looking at the newest addition to the family, Kate, the goldfish:

Amanda and Ashley love their nai-nai:

Walking back from the Chinese bakery:

Aidan’s birthday party
We went to “new to us” kiddie gymnastics place for Aidan’s birthday party. Kids had a blast running, rolling, sliding, swinging, balancing, and otherwise gymnastic-ing.

Bonnie is easily impressed.

Ashley chalking up for the high bar.

Alissa was pretty good at getting across the balance beam by the end of the session.

The birthday family.

Kung-Fu Alissa

Video montage:

2011 09 03 Aidan’s birthday from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

Benita’s Birthday
Bonnie made a cupcake cake.

Amazingly, they’re all smiling and looking at the camera at the same time. Even Alan!

Ashley saying, “Hi!”

Random photos:
We just go to Trader Joe’s for the stickers.

My trusty steed. 10 years old and still looks pretty good.

Alissa reading.

Ashley coloring.

Amanda smiling.

Sleeping beauties.

More fun with Instagram.

Gilroy Gardens

Pony Rides:

For my third pair of DIY speakers (I know… running out of rooms to put speakers in), I decided to try a new style with an open baffle design. The open baffle designs that get most of the press are Linkwitz’s Orions and John Krekovsky’s NaOs but those use really expensive drivers with active electronics requiring multiple channels of amplification. So instead, I’m using one of Paul Carmody’s designs that he has dubbed the Sunflower XT.

It uses dayton reference drivers which are great performers at a good price. I used a few from this lineup for the ZDT 3.5 speakers from the last project as well. Also, it uses a Vifa XT tweeter which is a driver used in many high end designs that is generally accepted as an excellent tweeter with low distortion and great dynamics. Whatever that means.

In any case, here are a few pictures of the speaker in progress.

March 13, 2011

The baffles:

The rears with the cutout and recess for the port:

A little photoshop on what will be the side panels (maple birch ply):

The “box” part glued up:

View of the bracing and foam on the inside:

Side panels cut and just positioned to see what it will look like:

Next step is to do some sanding and bondo-ing before figuring out how to assemble the pieces together and paint. Speaking of which, I think the “box” part is just going to be black. Either a spray textured black or a brushed/rolled on enamel flat black. The plywood sides are going to just have a few coats of a simple tung oil rub. That’s the plan right now anyway. More to come.

March 27, 2011
A few updates:

The “translam” top piece (still needs to be trimmed and sanded)

It will look something like this:

Also, here’s what I think the crossover box top will be:

It’s a remnant piece of hardwood (not sure what species) that I book-ended and sort of-kind of biscuited together with my table saw and a piece of MDF.

It will look something like this (carrying through the translam concept):

Got some glue/water sealing done today also.

March 29, 2011

March 31, 2011
Got some painting done:

April 5, 2011:
Drivers installed and crossovers partially complete:

April 9, 2011
Got the crossovers done an everything wired up.

2011 08 28 Seattle Trailer from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

2011 08 28 Seattle vacation – director’s cut from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

A full post will follow shortly!