Layman's Review of the Corsair Voyager Air 1TB Wireless Mobile Storage (Hard Drive) With Ethernet

We had been contemplating on getting an external hard drive for our little home network for some time. After our second PC went town in one month we pulled the trigger, a day late for some of our files but it's up and running now.

I am pretty far from being tech savvy so something that is relative easy to use was important as well as something that we could use with the iPhone's.

My son recommended a couple of drives and the one we selected was the Corsair Voyager Air 1TB. Some of the features that stood out were
1. It works with all of Pam's iThingy's
2. It is wireless or can be
3. It has an Ethernet connection
4. It has a USB (USB 3) if your computer supports that
5. It has a battery which claims to be good for up to 7 hrs
6. It's small and portable

From some of the reading I did it appears the Voyager combines the best of the other small portable drives.

I haven't attempted to watch any movies from this on any of the iThingy's yet but it claims that you can stream movies to 5 devices at a time. With the car charger (USB with a cigarette lighter adapter) this would be a great device to keep the kids (large and small) entertained during a road trip. We thought it would be great to have this to take on vacation since we seem to take a lot of pictures.

It set up fairly easy, when I got it and unpacked it there was the, USB 3 Cord, Power Cord, Car Adapter, Travel Pouch and of course the Drive which measures 3 1/2" x 5 1/2" x 1". I let it charge overnight and the next day set it up. I plugged it into the router with the 10/100 base T connector or the Ethernet cable (whatever it's called) turned it on and found it in the network. I went into the settings and re-named it then added a security code or password for the wireless.

After you locate the drive on your network, right click on it and select "map network drive" this will add it to your computer where your other drives show up.

One thing I didn't do that I would suggest doing is enabling the "Pass Through" feature. This allows your internet for your iPhone/Pad/Tablet to "pass through the Voyager when you are viewing files on the voyager with your iThingy. The apps worked fine but neither Chrome or Safari would access the net until I turned this feature on when the WiFi was connected to the Voyager.

One of the things I read is that if you have USB 3 that you can actually download a 2 hr HD movie in about 30 seconds. I haven't tried that yet and right now I'm moving about 300 Gigs of Data and it said it will take like 13 hours with the USB (which seemed like a long time to me) and I am pretty sure the old laptop does NOT have the USB 3.

I have a FirmWare upgrade or update to do and will report back after I've got that installed.

If you have any questions or comments fire em off.

Update 7/5/2013

Regarding the iPhone and other Apple products to use them with the Air Drive you need to download the Voyager Air app from your app store, I would imagine it's the same for the Droid phones as well. After the app is installed go to your settings, then open up the WiFi and select the Voyager Air WiFi or whatever you have re-named it, the first time you log onto that WiFi connection you will need to enter your password for it.  Go back to the Voyager Air app and open it up. For there to be full internet access through the Air Drive in the Settings for the Voyager Air drive and check to be sure "Passthru" is enabled and that your WiFi is listed next to it. If it's not just click on enable, select your WiFi and enter the password for it. EzPeezy.

Now to transfer info from from your iPhone/iThingy to the Voyager Air Drive - in the Air app go to the folder you want the picture, music, video or whatever you want to put on the Air drive, at the bottom of the screen is an icon of the Air Drive with an arrow click onto that and a screen with Four (4) option will appear "Photos" , "Video's" "Local Files" or "Cancel", select the location your data is at, then simply select the ones you want to transfer and tap the "Done" button in the top right and you've got it!!

6 Tunnels 1/2 Marathon Race Report

This was a race I have ran a few times in the past and today I was looking at it as a long hard training day. The weather had been warm a day or two before but a change in weather was on the move. It was cooling down and winds were reported to be picking up. My Cousin Mary had been in town so we dropped her off at the airport prior to heading to the race, I wasn't sure what to wear so had a couple of options on what to wear, shorts or tights, and had a couple of tech shirts. I ended up going with the shorts and both tech shirts, one long sleeve and my one of my Maui 1/2 Mary shirts. I took the long sleeve one off about 5 miles into the run and it was perfect temp.

This course goes out away from the lake initially about 2 or 3 miles up hill then turns back to the tunnels, when you get to the tunnels it's a gravel road pretty much the balance of the race, which I like. There are two or three short steep hills around mile 9 near the second turn coming back to the tunnels, which really suck btw. the first 1/4 of the race I took at a pretty good effort then shortly after the turn I backed off a little until about mile 10 and picked it up just a bit and held that pace until the last 1/4 or 1/2 mile. The wind picked up shortly after the race started or maybe even before but it certainly picked up as the race progressed. I did a fair job of drafting when I could, @ 6'2" good drafting candidates were far and few between. A couple of notable drafting times a young girl probably just over 5ft got on my hip and stayed there for the longest time, it was nice to have a little company another time and I think she was still behind me a young lady I was drafting off of the best I could in some brutal wind, I looked behind me and there was a line of like 6 people tucked in behind me. Somewhere around mile 8 close to the dam I was running with another gentleman near my age and a gust of wind came up that almost brought both of us to a standstill.

All in all in was happy with my effort especially considering the conditions and very pleased with my time. I think it was like 1:54:xx 162 overall out of 6xx peeps and 6th out of my Age Group,,,,, you know the old fat man with grand kids age group. :)

It does make me curious as to what I could have done in Maui as that was an A race, well until I came down with the Flu the day before and an easier course. Oh well that's life and in the big scheme of things not a big deal.

It looks like the next race will be Leadman 125 Vegas, unless I come to my senses. Let's see Silverman, Ironman, is there a Copperman? All 1/2s or 70.3s btw.

Maui Ocean Front 1/2 Marathon ?!Race!? Report

Leading up to this race I did one of the best jobs I've done at hitting my workouts and especially my key workouts. I felt very confident that anything over 1:55 would be a disappointment.

We left Vegas on Thursday am before sunup and not only got on our preferred flights but got upgraded to 1st class on both of them. Pam & I arrived in Maui a little after noon, got checked into our hotel and had a nice little run along the ocean before dinner. Friday am we went for another short easy run I did a few short race pace efforts and then we loaded up for the day and went snorkeling. Had a nice dinner, went to bed about 8 or 9 Hawaii time and a couple of hours later the wheels started to fall off of my race. I woke up about 10 or 11 with a nasty stomach ache, which soon became apparent was some kind of 24hr flu bug. I spent the majority of the day Saturday in bed, I did make it out for a little sun, wind and beach time later in the day and felt like I was somewhat on the mend, I was pretty sure it was 24hr bug anyway. I didn't eat hardly a thing Saturday but did fall asleep about 5 pm and slept pretty much straight through until it was time to get up for the race on Sunday. I decided I'd give the race a shot, I paid for the damn finishers metal and was determined to get it.

Well race morning I did have a little bit of an appetite and a pretty big concern of being dehydrated. I had a protein smoothie and a couple of bottles of Gatorade before we left for the start. I had a protein bar before the race start or part of one anyway and headed to the start or well, the port a john. The time was short to the start the line was long but as weak as I felt I didn't see it as a big deal. I was one of the very last starters to cross the start line about 2 minutes after the gun. It was probably for the best as this way I didn't get caught up in the moment and go out to fast. I had a lot of bobbing and weaving to do the first mile or so then settled into a comfortable pace. I had a water bottle with me and finished that pretty much by the turn 24oz I also had a goo that I took between mile 5 & 6. I was starting to think that I could come close to a 2 hr race if things continued as they were. I picked up the pace a little at the turn and felt ok all things considered and passed quite a few people between the turn and mile 9 then all of a sudden I began to get some kind of pain in my abdominal area or cramping, whatever it was it hurt like hell, so I backed off a little and a little more and the pain continued until I was walking, now a lot of the folks I had passed began to pass back, just not much I could do about it at this point. I ended up run walking the last 3 miles, I was just thankful that I finished. We didn't hang around for long.

I came in 12th out of 20 in my age group with a time of 2:18:48 Gun time and 2:16:59 Chip Time Results

** Mile * * * Pace * * *Avg HR
1. ** 1.05 * * 09:08 * * 136
2. ** 1.09 * * 08:43 * * 145
3. ** 0.99 * * 09:05 * * 145
4. ** 1.06 * * 08:59 * * 144
5. ** 1.04 * * 08:59 * * 147
6. ** 1.03 * * 08:54 * * 148
7. ** 1.14 * * 08:50 * * 152
8. ** 1.03 * * 08:45 * * 156
9. ** 1.05 * * 09:15 * * 154
10. * 1.03 * * 12:47 * * 143
11. * 0.92 * * 14:27 * * 133
12. * 1.07 * * 13:00 * * 134
13. * 1.01 * * 12:20 * * 137


My original plan was to warm up for a mile and a half or so before the race and go out the first mile at about a 9 min pace or just under and pick it up to between an 8:40/:30 to see how it went and then go from there, hopefully to get the average as close to 8 as I could. I did have to make one port o let stop at about mile 10, I'm officially calling this a Shitty Race!!!!! :)

What lingering affects from that bug were either gone or suppressed for the balance of our stay in Maui and we had a great time!!

PumpkinmAn Triathlon Race Report

As many of you know the Olympic Triathlon is a 1,500 meter swim (which is just under a mile) a 40 Kilometer bike ride (right at 25 miles) and a 10k run (just over 6 miles)

Well this was a pretty exciting day for me, not because of my race but this was Pam’s first Triathlon ever. Here is a link to her Race Report

Well the day started out about 4:30 am, had a banana, bagel and a protein bar prior to the start. We arrived at T1 a little after 5am and put our bikes in the rack and went back to the van to drink some coffee and wait for the sun to rise. Went back to T1 and added our water bottles and other items needed for the change from the swim to bike. I made sure Pam had her bike in the right gear and her bike computer was set correctly and zeroed out. (the computer was something I should have done for myself as well). Went through the very long transition area it was probably 200 to 300 yards long. Scoped out the mount line and marked the spot where our bikes were at so we didn’t have to hunt for them. Pam went down to get ready for her wave and I followed behind her after I went back to the van to change into my Tri suit. Went down to the water and was able to find Pam and shortly after that the gun went off and she was underway, lost track of her pretty much right after the start.

Ok, now onto my race, 20 minutes after Pam’s wave mine took off, about 5 minutes before the start I put my goggles on, my cute little swim cap and went out and warmed up a bit. I was hoping to have a pretty good swim, as I’ve really been focusing on that this past year. The gun went off and so did I. I went out a bit fast at the beginning and then settled into a comfortable pace. It seemed like the pack was leaving me behind and after looking at the finishing times they did (I found out later had I used my wet suit that I would have saved about 4 to 6 minutes on my swim time, lessons learned*). I was really pleased with my sighting and navigation during the swim, probably one of my very best. My swim time not so happy with 33:25 2:14/100 M 6th of 10 in my age group

I hit T1 at 33:25 and knew I was in the back of the pack when I got to my bike and most of the others were gone already, I had a great transition, best in my age group (but I didn’t have a wet suit to remove) 2:29. Ran my bike out of transition and stepped on the shoe it felt a little funny and I didn’t move as far forward as normal so I didn’t throw the other leg over, did it again and then realized the socks I put in my shoes for the sole purpose of stretching out the shoe I had forgot to remove before I loaded the bike in the van,,,,, So I took the two big bulky pair of wool socks out and proceeded to put them in the back of my tri top,,,,, I guess the other racers must have figured that I was the hunchback of Pumpkinman. So, off I went out on the bike. Long story short on the bike I was pretty happy with it, (I passed two younger guys on really nice P3s) it’s a lot of climbing with about 1,200 ft of elevation gain, I said before the race if I could average 14 to 15 mhp I’d be happy I was right at 14 and was 5th out of 10 in Age Group,,,, getting out of the shoes, dismounting and running into transition went great, had the fastest T2 time in my age group, and am thankful I remembered to take the wool socks out the back of my tri top. I did the Bike course in 1:46:14 avg 14mph 5th of 10 in my age group

Lightning FAST T1 1:32, I remembered to take out my Hunchback Props out of my tri top, slid my shoes on grabbed my bottle of water and on to the run. As usual a little tight at the start but felt pretty good especially for pushing it a bit on the bike going up that 6 mile hill to T2. I was carrying my own water bottle so I didn’t have to stop for drinking water at the aid stations but did throw a cup of water over my head at most of them. The run has a few rolling hills which I don’t mind. I only had a few people pass me on the run and passed a lot of people both on the way out and the way back. The run course is more downhill on the way out and more uphill on the way back and I was able to negative split it. On the final ½ mile I passed about 5 people and wasn’t passed by anyone after the turn. 55:47 Pace 9:00 flat 2nd of 10 in my Age Group

I ended up with a total time of 3:17:57 5th in my Age Group 145 out of 245 for all males

After the finish I found Pam, had some pasta, bread and a beer or 4 then we loaded up and went home.

*Regarding the swim I did some testing with and without a wet suit out at Lake Mead the Friday after the race, I started deep water at one of the buoys and swam past one buoy and turned around at the next one and went back, I'm guessing on the distance but pretty close to 500 meters or just under. The wet suit over the TJ kit was 1:38 faster than the tri suit alone or around 5 minutes for 1,500 meters. I guess I should have wore it for the Tri last Saturday,,,,, who knew?!?

Tri Kit only 10:19
Wet Suit, Promotion Full Sleeve 8:41

Lava Core Wetsuit Review

How I lost 6 pounds overnight @ Kohala Divers Ltd.

My Henderson Gold Core lasted me 8 years before the zipper broke in the middle of our trip here on the Big Island. The folks at Kohala Divers had told me about their new Lava Core neutrally buoyant suits that seemed more like a liner for a dry suit than a wet suit. I tried two sizes the XL and L, I'm 6' 2" 185 pounds give or take, at first I thought the XL was the right size due to the way it felt on me in the shop, the Large felt to snug initially but after looking at the sizing chart I decided that would be the correct one for me. Now the next step, how much weight can I shed using an Aluminum 80,,,,, after talking with the always helpful folks at the shop I decided to go from the 14 pounds I had been using to 10,,,,,, no problem with the 10, the next dive I went down to 8 again no problem and was able to have better buoyancy control from 10 ft to the surface than I ever had before and that was with the Aluminum 80 with under 500 pounds. So I decided to go one step further, 6 pounds, I can honestly say I've never felt so in control of my buoyancy in the water before, just loving it, same thing on the shallow diving, great control under 500 pounds of air between 10 ft and the surface . Ok I did try to go to 4 pounds and I can say that was fine until I got down to about 700 pounds and I was pretty much turned into a snorkeler. It's a lot lighter than the neoprene, the inside is a soft comfy fleece material. I don't know what the outside material is, I have knelt down a couple of times in the rock and sand on a couple of shore dive exits and it doesn't seem to have left a mark on it. The only thing I could think of and maybe there is a reason they didn't do it would be to put some type of rubber on the knee area. I've got about 6 dives with the Lava Core now and am very impressed. One other thing that is different is the zipper is in front, going on it's sooooooooooooooo easy,taking it off seems a little difficult pulling it off my shoulders, but it's very doable without assistance. You can't just let it hang down like most traditional suits, but if you sort of loop the arms of the suit around each other in front it stays like that just fine.... Did I mention how comfortable it feels compared to a traditional suit, well it's very comfy. It's also a lot warmer than I thought it would be, my Henderson Gold Core 3mm was pretty warm, this if it's not as warm it's within 85 to 95 percent as warm. The one word of caution I would have is to make sure you get the right size, if it doesn't feel to tight in the shop, it's to big for you. Another thing is it's a lot more flexible and your movement is NOT restricted near as much as with a traditional neoprene suit.

Dive Report 6/13/2011 Puako, Big Island, Hawaii

We went out at Paniau aka End of the Road at Puako about 9am, hadn't been there in a few days. As usual an easy entry, with my new wet suit I tried using just 4 pounds of weight, going down no problem at the beginning of the dive. On the way out on the upper shelf nothing really unusual the normal suspects. I dropped down a little early on the upper shelf instead of the canyon to be sure I could go down with such little weight, I left 4 more pounds on shore near the entry in case I could submerge, but didn't have to go get it. Shortly after entering the Canyon I was looking at the walls to see what was around, I saw a small Yellow Margin Eel looking out the bottom of a coral head that was hanging over the top of the canyon from the upper shelf. got a nice video of that one and saw some little clown fishes, since there were 3 of them together decided to try to get a video of them, they are quite shy and good little hiders, got a few pics of them and noticed a small school of some very bright colored fish about a half inch long or so, got them in the video as well and mixed in with them were some of the smallest baby rock mover fish I've ever seen about an inch long it appeared. Finished up that video and moved on out to the buoy, we had discussed our dive plan before hand and decided we'd go to the first buoy then over to the second one and see if we could find any sharks sleeping in the caves or areas under the reef by the sand. Well no disappointment this day, popped over the coral just before the buoy and there was a white tip about 4 to 5 ft long just resting on the sand. I looked back to let Pam know and she saw it just after i did, I got one still pic and thankfully noticed I had the camera on pic not video mode and switched it over to video mode and slid down closer to the shark as Pam stayed put as not to scare the Sea Kitten away (so she said ), I was able to get about 10 to 15 feet away before it got annoyed and scurried off. We've seen sharks when we've been diving before but this by far was the best shark encounter we've ever had. Here is the Video. Moved out toward the other buoy but didn't see any more sharks. I did see some tangs and Big Eye's in a small cavern and crack in the reef so I began videoing them and followed them into the crack when I noticed a real big thick yellow/goldish oh,,,, it's a big Yellow Margin Eel I could see the gills where it expels the water it takes in and this thing was huge, I just stopped there and watched as the other fish scurried around and one ran into the Eel and he made a real quick move towards the tang which was also toward me,,,, ah, yes it well I'll say startled me, I wish I could have kept the lens pointed toward the Eel longer than i did but you can see his head just before I reacted. We decided to move out a little deeper and away from shore and circle back to our exit, saw a group of fish we see a lot of eating in the sand and I got a video of them and they let me get real close, I should know the name of them but I don't bigger fish that are black with orange/reddish accents. Off of the sand flats and on the thick deep coral I saw Pam about 20 yards ahead of me upside down taking a photo of something, I got a little closer and saw she found a Feather Duster, no wait two Feather Dusters right next to each other moving with the currents as beautiful as can be, I got the video rolling and slowly approached until she backed away and was able to get pretty close to them and captured them retreating back into the safety of the reef they were attached to. Well as I mentioned with my new wet suit I started out with just 4 pounds of weight, I had gone from 14 with my old Henderson Gold Core 3mm to 6 pounds and it worked so good with 6 I thought I should try 4, well after a few minutes of cruising in on the reef at 15 to 20 ft I motioned to Pam to trade Cameras, the video is 2 to 3 pounds of negative buoyancy and her's is pretty neutral, well when she started sinking and I started floating almost uncontrollably to the surfaced I knew 4 pounds wasn't enough weight my Aluminum 80 still had 900 pounds of air and it would only get worse, we both quickly adjusted and I took my camera back and gave her's back and was able to stay down until I got to about 700 pounds and was pretty much reduced to snorkeling back in. On the way back in I saw a Jack and figured the way it was moving it was working with an Eel for a late morning breakfast and sure enough there was the white mouth under him in the reef. I got a video but it's not a great one. I snorkeled the rest of the way into our exit while Pam stayed submerged, we ran, almost literally in to Mary & Sebastian who we've seen a lot this trip, we stopped to talk to them for just a minute as they were heading out. 8 video's and 6 or 7 pretty good ones. All things considered, this was probably one of the best dives of all time for me.

Attemp at a food/cooking blog

Pam and I were talking this weekend and decided that we will start a food blog this year. We are still deciding on a name and other details. It will consist mostly of what we do and how we go about our preparing our meals. We eat pretty well and keep the cost down. I (Jim) love to cook and try new things. Some of the items we've had so far this year are

New Years Eve, Steamers and a Fillet (fillet courtesy of Kory a very good friend) used manila clams about 3 pounds first I sauteed some onions in EVOO Extra Virgin Olive Oil and butter then added some fresh garlic after it got a little love in the pan with the onions I added some fresh basil and parsley (dried would be fine too) then put in about a cup of wine let it come to a simmer/boil and added the clams and put on the lid until most of the little fellows opened.

New Years day was another food fest Scallops with a new sauce, kind of a sweet sesame balsamic sauce. The scallops were seared on my favorite cast iron pan I'd be happy to provide the details of the sauce if anyone is interested, let me know,,,,, it would have made a bumper taste good.....

Today was total pig out day,,,,, Garbage Omelet,,,,, today's included left over ham, mushroom, onion (onion is a big staple in my cooking, it adds so much base and flavor to almost any dish with a little sauteing, the more it's sauteed the more sweet flavor comes out)some cheddar cheese inside and on the top when it was finished. While I was preparing the omelet I noticed that there was some leftover gravy in the fridge, so I took out one of the frozen chicken fried steaks (yeah it was one of those store bought things,,,,, but I still love em) nuked it for 30 seconds on each side and just as the omelet was finishing up I slid it in a hot pan of canola oil for a minute or so on each side,,,,,,, oh the calories,,, both were outstanding.

I made a small batch of roasted garlic today