Nail Art

This week I was really bored and went to play in my housemates' room. My housemate, Virginia, was making these miniature clay models of desserts. She told me that you are suppose to bake them in the oven and they turn hard. Then you can glue them to your nails with nail polish. I thought this was a neat project. I wouldn't do this on my nails of course, but this seemed worthy enough for an entry in my blog.

Water Tower

I woke up at 12:30 AM today to finish up a water tower that my team and I built for my structural design class. We spent a good amount of time putting this together. I ended up taking it home today and reinforced the joints with wood glue. While I took the time to do this I realized how great engineers are. Throughout this whole project we were given some basic requirements, a limited supply of materials to choose from, and our minds to help design this water tower. I took a good look at our tower and thought it was really simple, unique, and sexy.

I'm going to rant for a little bit because I've been very frustrated over the past weekend. UCSD is one of the only schools in this country that is accredited for structural engineering. It certainly feels good to be in one of the top schools for your major. Engineering itself is very challenging. Majoring in engineering makes me appear really smart, but I'm not because I'm not a master at what I do. I feel as though I'm not allowing myself to learn. One thing I find important in the college experience is being in an environment where there is room for the individual to grow in every aspect possible. When one is allowed to grow there is this path that opens up. You start to have an idea of what you'd like to do after you get your degree. I would like to be at this level eventually. Enough for now.




Until next time...


kudos,
Jeff

The Infamous Sunjar Project

Hey everyone,

Today I will talk about making a sunjar. This was one of my projects I did a few months back when my roommate's birthday was coming up. I didn't want your ordinary project so I added a wonderful photo of everyone and included some plastic jewels. This is a really creative project and it is lots of fun when you get the lights working.


So lets get started!!

What You Need:
Jar (Ikea - about 3-4$)
Solar LED Landscape Lamps (They usually sell in packs of 4 and up but i think you can order them individually online. I bought a 4 pack 15-20$)

Optional:
Window Frost Paint (This is if you want an ordinary sunjar. you can tint the glass so that the wires and light assembly aren't as noticeable to the naked eye)

Plastic / Glass Jewels (You can also fill up the jar with jewels so when the light turns on, it will be scattered through different directions. Looks nice if you mix two colors.)

A photograph. (This is like how I did mine. I think this makes the project becomes more personal.)

Since I didn't take pictures of the process while making this project, I will try really hard to explain everything.

What to do:

If you want to tint your glass. This is the first thing you should do. Make sure you isolate the area and spray either the inside or outside of the jar. I have never done this before so I don't know which side you should spray.

You will need to take apart the light assembly from the Solar LED landscape Lamp. Make sure you don't break the circuit board. Luckily, I bought lamps that were easy to take apart and only needed to break a small piece of plastic.

Once you have your light assembly you are going to position the light assemble so that the solar panel is facing the top part of the jar. You may then want to use a hot glue gun to make this part stay. Then you want to make sure the light is facing the middle of the jar. Glue this part on the bottom of your solar panel. Test your light to see if it will work and how bright it is. you might want to play with the positioning until you are happy with what you have.

Lastly, you may add jewels, marbles, crystal rocks, etc to decorate your little jar.


I hope you have fun with this sunjar like I did.

Be creative.

until next time...

kudos,
jeff

The Filler

Today I am going to just write for the sake of writing. I am currently making an attempt to take the necessary steps in improving myself. Writing in this blog will help me with this because I will be in the habit of discussing about a certain topic or explaining about a specific project. Since I will not be discussing about any projects for this entry, we will go review the website www.askmen.com .

I've always looked up to this website as a guidance for improving myself. Half of the time I go to this website, I am able to take away something valuable. Most of which comes from the health section. As a structural engineer I don't usually keep aware with health related things and so reading the related articles keeps me keen with the latest risks or reminds me about what to think about when I'm taking care of myself. Another thing I find helpful from this website is their entertainment and daily feeds. Most of the articles they come up with are not so great, but I'm always able to find something interesting to share with others. Like today I read that there are 635 prisoners on Death Row at the San Quentin Prison.


The bad thing about this website is their top 10 category. Most of these types of articles are very biased and usually the author writing them doesn't know what the hell they are doing. For instance I read last week about the top 10 fast and furious cars. Somehow the VW Jetta was ranked 5 or 6 (I forgot). I honestly do not think that it deserved that spot. They forgot a lot of other cars like the S2000. I get really disappointed when I read stuff like this.


Enough of my ranting... I'm going to continue my read of "Looking Good".

Lets hope next time I put up a DIY project.

Until next time...

Kudos,
Jeff

Thit Kho Heo. (meat braised pork)

I haven't written in this blog for months!! Even though I did not update this blog, I have been doing numerous number of projects and wish to update them soon.

For today we will be discussing my favorite vietnamese dish, thit kho heo. I remember my mother would make this for me at least once a week and I never grew tired of it. Fortunately my rooommate Virginia did this mothers day of 2009.

I'm going to try the best I can to describe to you what Virginia did here. This is not the exact process of how to make this dish so if you'd like accurate results go to this link.
http://www.foodbuzz.com/recipes/646204-mom-s-recipe-th-t-heo-kho-braised-pork-

What you Need.
Pork (we used pork belly. you're aiming for something with not so much fat)
Daikon (optional)
Eggs!! (The more the better!)
Onion
Garlic
Soda
Fish Sauce
Black Sweet Soy Sauce
Black Pepper
Salt
Caramel Sauce
Coconut Powder or Sauce

Boil your eggs in a pot full of boiling water
Cut your meat, vegetables, and herbs

Have your coconut powder soda, and caramel sauce ready

In a pot cook your meat first up to a medium rare and dump your caramel and fish sauce. Gradually put in the rest of your ingradients! and it should be done after awhile.

Mobile Photograph Hanger

A few years ago, I was at the gift shop in the museum and I saw this crazy picture holder for 15 dollars. I couldn't afford something like this at the time and today I will be showing you how I came to build it. For those of you that don't know what a mobile is, it is an ornament that you see above baby cribs and just hangs for aesthetic purposes. The picture on the left shows what we want to recreate using other materials to get the same product. Originally, I did not have a picture to reference what a mobile actually looks like. What I did was draw on a piece of paper and made up my own interpretation of what I thought it would be. This is a good idea because you are allowing yourself to creatively input some of your ideas into an already made product. Doing so makes it a product of your own.

The photograph below is the one I drew.




What You Need:
Pliers (to attach the string to the alligator clips)
Saw (to cut your rods)
Alligator Clips (bought at Radio Shack 2.99 for 12)
Picture Hanging Wire or Wire (I used two beaded necklaces that I found from my desk)
Two long wooden rods (48 inches long bought at Home Depot or you can find some at Walmart)



I used two packed of alligator clips and two long rods. I didn't have to pay for the wire because I had some so...

2x(2.99) + 2(.59) = $7.16




Putting it Together:

First, I cut my rods into two 24 inch pieces, and four 12 inch pieces. Second, I cut my strings into 8 equal pieces and 3 long pieces. I attached two clips on the ends of the strings so that one clip grabs the rod and the other clip grabs the picture. With time and some creativity I came up with this.





This is what I ended up with


Thanks for reading!

kudos,
Jeff

Seductive Fabric Curtains

This is a follow up on my drape posting. If you would like to know how to create a drape please go to the previous posting. The purpose of this is to create a fashionable curtain using a sewing machine and fabric. I wanted to keep natural sunlight shining through my room so I chose thinner/transparent sheets of fabric.

What you'll need:

Fabric (I chose a solid black and a black/white leafy design. 1$ per yard at Walmart)
Sewing Machine (to sew the two fabrics together. Not necessary for single fabrics)


Before you begin buying fabric, I suggest you calculate the length from the ceiling to where you want the curtain to fall. In addition measure the region you will be covering. In my example, I chose the curtain to fall 69 inches from the ceiling and the region I will be covering is 211 inches. With this information, I can estimate how many panels I can cut because buying fabric comes with a fixed width. dividing 211 inches by that fixed length will give you how many panels you should make and multiplying those panels by how far you want the curtain to fall should give you the total number of inches you should buy. Convert that into yards and you will have to buy that amount of fabric. Keep in mind that this is an estimation so you might want an extra yard or two so you don't mess up in calculations. After I sewed my fabric together I simply hung them up on clips.

This is what it looks like

At certain angles depending on the light, you are able to see the design or straight through the curtain. I was surprised to notice this effect and was very happy with the results.

This is a picture with the curtains tied into knots

thanks for reading!

kudos,
jeff