Jay Lagare

General

Pre-Nuptial Photo Shoot

By on Sunday, May 3, 2009

When I first heard the term, “pre-nup” from Crissy,I thought was referring to a pre-nuptial agreement between her and then-fiance Jimmy. I was surprised because I thought it was something reserved only for the mega-rich. I turned out that she was referring to a pre-wedding photo shoot. Kinda made sense :P

When I saw the results, during their wedding reception, as well as in others’, I was mightily unimpressed. The objective, it seemed to me, was to capture a regular day in the life of the engaged couple. But for some reason, there was something wrong and it looked fake… staged. I resolved back then that I won’t have anything to do with it.

Fast forward to now when Michelle and I just finished our own “pre-nup” shoot (guess who wanted the shoot and who agreed out of love :P). I was scanning through the photos and recalled how, during the shoot, the photographer and the videographer were making us do poses we wouldn’t do in reality. They were awkward, uncomfortable, and just plain off. That, I think, is why the photos looked fake and staged.

Something to watch out for when I shoot “pre-nups” :P

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General

GMABooster

By on Tuesday, April 28, 2009

I first learned about GMABooster from YugaTech. It’s a utility for speeding up the Intel GMA 950 graphics chip, which happens to be the graphics chip of my Asus EEE PCs (as well as most other netbooks). But unfortunately, the first time I downloaded it, it doesn’t seem to launch at all. I tried installing and reinstalling it as well as the .NET framework (yeech!) to no avail. Last night, I tried it again by downloading the latest version and it finally worked. I can now speed up the clock speed from the default 166Mhz to a whopping 400MHz. It’s no GeForce but higher detail levels is now possible with DOTA. Not bad for a free download.

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General

First Ultrasound

By on Friday, April 24, 2009

ultrasound1We had our first ultrasound today. It was long in waiting but finally the time came. Michelle went into the ultrasound room where the OB did the procedure. After a while, she called me in and also showed me. It is a teensy weensy baby with a tiny beating heart. It’s wonderful!

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General

Benchmade Pika II

By on Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Since I lost my Gerber EZ-Out, I’ve been looking for a suitable replacement. I looked far and wide but haven’t been able to find one until recently: The Benchmade Pika II. It reminds me of the Benchmade AFCK which is a knife I’ve always liked. But there’s more to it than that.

Let’s begin with the blade. It is 3.5″ long and is a modified clip-point with a partially-serrated edge. It has a big nice round ambidextrous thumb-hole. The steel is 9Cr13CoMoV from China but it’s said to be equivalent to 440C steel which has the highest strength, hardness and wear resistance of all the stainless alloys. Pretty good so far.

The handle is made of glass-filled nylon with molded “triple-grip” pattern. It was the thing I least liked about the knife as it was too intricate but it does seem to work. Polymer handles are pretty tough by themselves as I’ve experienced with my Gerber EZ-Out but Benchmade chose to further reinforce it with a steel inner lining. Nice but could be a problem when exposed to saltwater.

The locking mechanism is lockback.  A lot of people don’t like lockbacks and opt for a whole bunch of new technologies like axis locks. But lockbacks seem fine to me so far. The lockback mechanism on the Pika II seems very well made with no slack or wobble whatsoever.

The clip is the one of the best thing about the Pika II. It is small, light, and very strong. But best of all, it can be relocated to 4 positions. You can carry the Pika II any way you like! There’s also a provision for a lanyard. Well-designed, indeed.

The Pika II is part of Benchmade red box line: “Best in class value”. The knives in the red box line are low-cost, well-designed, fully-functional, and made in China, Taiwan to be precise.

There’s actually nothing wrong with that. Over a decade ago, I got myself a clip-point lockback that was made in Taiwan. It had a good, sharp, stainless steel blade. The only thing wrong were some chrome plated fasteners that eventually rusted. But it did it’s job, and well. I expect the Pika II to do the same.

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