Jakun in the car

Drop by my aunt's house to have a look at her computer problem just now, nothing much i can do about it since I didn't have an extra network card or a network cable. When I was about to leave my aunt mentioned to me that she needs to go pick up her children, and since I haven't had the chance to check out her new ride I asked if I could come along.
Riding in her new Toyota Estima, I can't help but to look like a "Jakun" who just came out from the forest sitting in a car for the 1st time.
"You all can come down now." my aunt said.
"Okie, coming down" voice of her children came out through the car's sound system and it's so clear that there is hardly any static, I then learned that her cellphone is connected to her car audio system via bluetooth and that enables her to pick up phone calls without touching her phone.
Bewildered with the technology that is in the car, I grew even more curious with what is in the car and what it could do, I know that the technology exist, yet I prefer to experience it myself rather then just knowing.
"Show you something" My aunt said while engaging her gear to reverse, the display comes to life showing a view of the camera located at the back of the vehicle with red, yellow and green lines guiding the car in reversing. She then push a button on the touch screen display and a female Japanese voice is heard. I couldn't understand what it means but my aunt said that it is now in Automatic side parking mode. She explains that the sensors around the car will scan the space and if there is enough room it will then move itself into the parking space.

Rear Camera view: the yellow box actually moves and guides the driver

Auto side parking mode

"There is a Hard Disc in the car, I could record from CDs to my car's Hard Disc and play it later too." My aunt added.
I now know how silly my car CD player is, gonna work really hard for a kick ass car with hardware like that.

Have A Great Day
Dennis

Where's Doggie?

It's a gloomy Thursday morning, I didn't need to get off bed early since work doesn't begin till after lunch time. Suddenly I heard...
"Dennis! I think I saw Doggie!"
My mother yelled with her paranormal high pitch voice, while she look for a picture of Doggie she took on her phone.

Doggie is a Labrador mix who had been with my family for a decade or more, he was brought back home by my father when it's still a puppy. Now it's been 7 months since I last saw Doggie.



"He ran off when I tried catching him but I managed to take his picture" my mom said while showing me a picture of the back of a dog running away.
The sun is shining again, I have 10 minutes before work. I think I'll go try my luck looking for Doggie before checking in.

The attack of the "Banana" Raiders

I'm gonna come for you Henry!

It's Sunday, I got my usual trekking gears checked and packed, the difference this time. I retired the super heavy duty machete which I usually carry and now carry a shiny new 18" machete perfect for cutting down overgrown bushes that gets in the way. Also I decided that this trip I would go extra light, which means I am not gonna carry a bag like I usually do for my previous trips.
The journey to the location had a few hiccups, for example: I totally forgotten that Wendy is gonna meet us at Linus's place and follow our car and SOMEBODY OVERSLEPT + FFK US!!!

We gathered at Batu Caves for breakfast and ice breaking session (+ a bit of cam whoring), the participants of this trip are:

1. Mei San
2. Samantha
3. Darien
4. Josen
5. Wendy
6. Donovan
7. William
8. Suresh
9. Adila
10. Timmy
11. Rebecca
12. YY
13. Linus (Photographer + cam whore)
14. Seng Keong (Sweeper)
15. Aurelius (Organizer + navigator + cam whore)
16. and Myself (Lead bush whacker + Scout)

Finishing our roti canai and the half boiled and half wrong eggs we started heading towards Gombak where the waterfall is located. We reached the pump station where the trail is supposed to start and after everyone have their gears on, we started by heading into the jungle crossing the river hoping that the trail is there, fortunately it is. We followed the trail which runs along the river and caught sight of KARAK highway. This is an unusual sight but it is a good sign that says "You are on the right path.".
The trail ended near a drain by the river, I knew that the river crossing isn't going to be easy since the river is about waist deep and especially in a group of 16 people so I told Aurelius that I'll go scout for a possible path by walking up the drain while the rest wait.
Running and following a possible path that runs between the river and KARAK highway on the the right hand side of the drain I found an unmistakable land mark.
"HOOAH!" I shouted to signal the rest to follow, some people asked me why do I shout in the jungle, the purpose is to signal and check everyone in the group in a fun, positive and purposeful way. (You can wikipedia HOOAH to find out more)

The land mark: Tunnels under the KARAK highway

We spent sometime (TRY) taking pictures, shouting and screaming in the tunnel for fun while getting to the other side of the tunnel. Right after we made it pass the tunnel, an eerie scream and laughter is heard coming from across the tunnel, to our horror we saw... OH S***! RUN!!!

We try to make our way to the waterfall as quick as we can as the horror follows behind stalking and following us, the condition of the trail is slowing us down rapidly due to the amount of mud.

Mud is good~~~

The shouting and laughing of the horror behind becomes louder and clearer and it is clearly closing in on us very rapidly, just when we thought it's over for us, we caught sight of the beautiful Sungai Pisang Waterfall. We stood there and admire the power of the beauty for a moment, while "The Horror" close in for it's kill, laughing and shouting to intimate it's prey putting an end to a 30 minutes chase.

"The Horror" with puppies eyes

Aurelius's final moments: He's all right, just cam whoring as usual

Truth is, another group mainly primary school children was brought to the waterfall by some of their teachers. There were at least 70 to 80 of them and I think it's only fair that, we, the smaller group to find another location to chill in the water. So we climbed up a path opposite the waterfall and start to try looking a place of our own, and to our delight we manage to find one right above the waterfall, it's the perfect place to be if you want to have your revenge. (I'm just kidding)

Playing and cam whoring at the top of the falls

We spent the time playing water at the top of the waterfall while waiting for the children to go back so that we can have the bottom pool for ourselves. I spent some time to explore the surroundings too, hoping to find anything interesting didn't manage to find much but a few camping sites littered with garbage, a very sad sight to see indeed.

This is a clear sign that somebdy forgotten his underwear

One with the force

Overall, this trip was very easy (for me at least) but enjoyable. The waterfall itself is beautiful, however its accessability might have been it's downfall, people frequently visits the place and some irresponsible ones do not take care of their waste and there is too much cam whoring, I hope that it won't be like that for the next trip.

The Machete

Wanted to retire my old machete, it has come to a point that if I were to lose it in the jungle or anything I might just die of heartache. Even thou I have been to many hiking and camping trips with it, the main reason is still because it is a gift from my late uncle.
Without a machete, an outdoor trip would be weird for me especially when I love taking the lead. Taking the lead doesn't just means that the person will merely walk in front of the group, the lead to me is very important role to play, not only he/she has to make sure that the group are on the right path and also clear the path, he/she must also make sure the surroundings is safe and nobody is left out.
So I hunted for a new machete in an uniform and outdoor adventure outlet called Outpost located in One Utama and here's what I got:

18 inches blade of horror

A 23" overall, 18" carbon steel blade Tramontina Machete with hardwood handle. How can one resist getting one of this? Anyone wielding this monster will look intimidating, besides, this baby's sheer size alone is enough to put the others machete freaks in my group to shame.

Yet for me is it still far from perfect, the machete comes with an ugly canvas sheath that couldn't completely hold the blade properly and it looks really bad, I hated it so much that I decided to make my own sheath. But with what? At first I thought leather would make a good material but it would be an ass to find the material and I won't be good at stitching it in to a sheath. Then I remembered during the time I acted in a short film as a communist, one of the prop was a fake sword in a wooden sheath, did a little research on wooden sheath and got a general idea how it's made, I when on to look for the materials I need to construct the sheath for my machete.

Wood cleaned and ready for a new life

Day one of construction, collected the wood of the right size and have them both sawed to the shape I want and grind clean, then I measured the shape and size of the blade, draw the outline of the blade on the wood then more grinding follows, grind/carve out the shape of the blade on both wood. I glued both wood together using glue and had them held together using clamps, I didn't want to use nails because it might damage the wood, creating unwanted splits or cracks.

Watching glue dry

That night I showed my unfinished work to a few friends, and they were laughing their heads off because of the thickness and how crude it looked at that point. They were even teasing me about using it as a chopping board and some other stuff. I tried to convince them that it is not finished and it will be smaller and much nicer when I am done with it, but then we were all still drowned in laughter.

Day 2:
Spent at least an hour grinding the wood to make it thinner and smoother, next I sand it to make it even smoother, filled up the cavities with glue and sawdust mixture and left dry, sand it again and then give it a nice finishing using shoe polish.

Here's the result

Both Machete

I just can't wait to put it to action for my trip to Pisang waterfall this Sunday!

Have A Great Weekend
Dennis

PC Setup

Hazard Box: Old rig that once served me

Just got a new PC and have been setting it up since evening, had to look through my old Hard Disc Drives, for any documents, pictures, music and other files, I got about 7 HDD of various capacity, 2 had been destroyed by my curiosity so now I only left 5 to check.
Found many old and interesting things, the one that caught my attention the most are some pictures that dates back the time when Henry and I were quite crazy about modding our computers turning the boring cream / white colored casing into something else, here are some pictures of the PCs that I modded.

Before Modding

Planning Stage

Result: CamoPillBox

In the dark

Power supply casing mod + cable sleeve

Sadly these 2 casing are laying around in my room and might end up at the scrap metal yard, I'm still trying to decide their fate.

Have a Great Day
Dennis