Sriracha on the Go!

Finally, my wait comes to an end! I can finally have sriracha sauce wherever I go.
I've always bright a small Nalgene squirt bottle with my lunches, but I've always wanted one on my keychain for those unexpected restaurant visits when I just need/crave that extra blast of spicy goodness.
The first time if actually thought about it was during my trip to Arizona when I'd stopped into a kitchen gadget store. There was this little bottle of something on a keychain and I'd just thought it would be perfect to carry sriracha around in. However, at over $6.00 for the thing, I deemed it not worth my purchase and carried on. However, the idea was always in the back of my mind.
When I'd come back from my trip, I kept going on Google to see if there were any keycha with tiny bottles.  No matter how many different search terms I'd tried, none of then populated with what I wanted.
Fast forward to this sleepless morning. I don't recall exactly what I was doing or even thinking about, but my mind eventually rested upon hand sanitizer bottles. Then I recalled making like paracord "caddies" that attached to keychain carabiners not too long ago. (They're also known as "germ grenades around the Interwebz.") For whatever reason, I'm not sure what triggered it, I'd figured the little one ounce bottles of hand sanitizer (in this case the Bath and Body Works one) would be perfect for my long awaited plans to come to life.
Lo and behold, the Sriracha Bomb was born.
It's on a lanyard for now, but if I can find the teenier Purell bottles (I think they're half ounce bottles), I'll throw the Sriracha Bomb on my keychain instead.
I'm quite the satisfied person right now. I think I can finally drift off to sleep. I'm going to have to regardless since school starts in about 2 hours!

Ooh Yeaaaaaah!

I've always wanted my own kool-aid man pitcher. However, they'd discontinued that years, if not decades ago. I think you would exchange kool-aid points our something to redeem one.

Anyway, with all of the glass jars left over from family night cooking, I've been having since fun designing random things. Before going to bed last night, I realized that I can finally have my own kool-aid man!

Very cool. I use out as my cup now. :) I'm looking into getting a glass cutter to make cups out of bottles for gifts this upcoming holiday season.

Glass Etching

So I've been toying with glass etching a lot lately. I'm no professional, but it's great fun! I've been practicing a lot on glass jars I had lying around after Hat Cai's family night the other weekend. There are plenty left over after having to buy enough ingredients to feed 200 people...

My other projects weren't anything to gawk over, but this latest one makes me proud! I'd actually taken my sweet time on this one, making sure that my stencil would come out as perfect as I can make it.  I present to you, the Cereal Killer!

Another Successful Mission

Just wanted to make a quick shout out to the Joes of G.I. Joe Search and Rescue team as well as many of the residents and authorities of Twin Peaks, for locating and rescuing little 8-year old Joshua Robb.  :)  I wish him all the best.

Retiring the Moleskine

Next month, my first ever Moleskine will be a whole year old.  However it's only been filled about half way through.  But I think it's time for it to be retired. 

It was one of those days again when I have trouble sleeping so a lot is on my mind.  I'd decided to maybe write in my journal, but couldn't come to write in it; the last entry was from after Joe's incident back in April 2011.  Reading the previous entries before that, the year was just filled with a lot of sorrow and anger.

By all means, I think retiring it is the best thing to do and start anew.  After all, our lives are too short for anything other than ensuring each others' happiness.  Smiles all around.  :)

CamScanner - Phone PDF Creator

I think every college student (who has an able phone) should have this app!  It really saved me a lot of money this semester.

Very quickly, it's a FREE app that uses the phone's camera (mine's the Motorola Atrix w/ 5MP back camera) to take a picture of a document, crop, and enhance it much like a regular computer scanner would.  The interface and app itself  is VERY easy to use.

The free version's "limitations" aren't that bad either.  From the app's description, it reads:

 "With advertisements, PDF files created with watermark, limitation of 50 documents, 10 pages per document, and up to 3 scans in batch mode."

Seriously?  Those aren't really limitations, IMHO.  That translates to: tiny advertisements that are almost non-existent (I didn't even notice them while I was using the app unless I was actually looking for them!), the "watermark" being their website link at the bottom of your PDF file, limit of 500 pages at any one time, and who cares about batch mode?

The quality of the scans came out just as if I had photocopied the pages.  The algorithm used is pretty good at "flattening" the pages.

The upload feature is just as any upload feature on an Android device; it allows you to upload to e-mail, DropBox, Twitter, facebook, etc. in a few pokes at the screen.  I find it easiest for myself to just have it uploaded to DropBox for the sole reason that I can access it anywhere on campus with an able device and WiFi (or w/o WiFi if I'd "starred" it on said device).

All in all, it'll take some time out of your day to scan your pages.  But it's well worth it in my opinion, considering I'd saved hundreds on textbooks. 

As a reminder, CA state law allows the copying of textbooks so long as it's for my personal study use and not being sold or distributed for moniesss.  That's why they have photocopy machines in the library for our use.  Also note that the US copyright law allows the copying of small portions of textbooks for certain uses (scholarly, reviews, critique, to name a few), but not the book in its entirety.  I literally will only copy the pages needed for my assignment; usually only the homework questions so that I could do the homework at home rather than sit in the library all day.

P.S.  The full version has no advertisements, watermarks, and unlimited scans and no limitations in batch mode.  However, it's gonna cost you $4.99 (plus another $1.00, some reviews said) for the full version license.