Ziray Studio Labs

As part of our trip to Thailand, we stayed on a small island for 3 full days. They had rock climbing, snorkeling, kayaking and lots of relaxation. We did a lot of rock climbing in the afternoons since it was too hot to climb during the day. Probably the most memorable part of the trip.

Koh Laoliang, Thailand

The river to take us out to the island

 

On the island, we did some rock climbing. That's me at the top

A little better view

I'm near the tree line, center top.

 

View of our beach as we leave for a snorkeling trip

Side of our island

 

 

 

 

Our island is on the left. We're going to explore the island on the right

 

 

Humans on the second island

 

Our boat

 

 

Random dog on the island

Our island in the distance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These fish formed a dark cloud just under the water near the shore.

Sunrise

 

 

Sunrise on the island

As part of our much belated honeymoon, we ventured to Thailand with two goals in mind: rock climbing and scuba.

The first night we were there, we found a tiny rock climbing shop down from our hotel, the Haleeva (which I’d recommend, though a bit up from the beach, but we didn’t care). They took us on their boat to Railay Beach, a peninsula accessible only by  boat since the top is bordered by large mountains. We climbed for the first half of the day, ate lunch on the beach with two girls from Germany (we met so many Germans on this trip) that we met rock climbing and walked over to West Railay Beach where it was filled with people enjoying the beach.

Our goal however was to find a cave that was recommended to us. A bit of a ways up the beach, we found more rock climbers and eventually found a cave with fixed ropes and ladders inside. A flashlight was definitely needed (one was lent to us by a local climbing shop) as we traversed back and up inside this cave. It eventually came out 50 feet above the rock climbers we had previously encountered with a gorgeous view of one of the beaches.

Railay Beach, Thailand

Top of the climb in Railay, Thailand

 

 

Ana at the top of the route

After a little while, it started to get crowded

 

 

Low tide

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the boat back to Aonang

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aonang Boardwalk

 

Sunset

NetRef is our latest iPhone app, published through LTZ. With NetRef, you can look up all default passwords and IP addresses for those new or old routers. Once you set up your router, you can use the built-in Ping feature to ping and test the connectivity of the router. The Ping feature also includes DNS resolution so you can ping a web address as well as a IP address.

We developed the app with the help of Jonathan Cost who has a strong expertise in networks and network hardware. Check out http://netrefapp.com to download the app. We’re always adding more routers and features, but if you have any feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

Initial App Design

Router Manufacturers

Router Detail View

Ping a Server

Reference Material and Tips

Router Manuals in PDF

All models available

We visited the City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho and camped there for two days. We also got our first real rock climbing experience.

City of Rocks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you who follow, you always want to know what I’m up to.

Some might think I’ve spent all this time opening a dive center here in the New River Valley. In fact, I think I’ve only spent about 10% of my time doing that.

iPhone Apps

We have two that are completed and awaiting final testing. This is usually the longest part of creating any application. We haven’t had any of our live apps crash yet, and I prefer to keep it that way. So, we do a lot of testing. And when we think we’re done, we test some more.

Lab Work

One must think I’m getting my PhD in Environmental Engineering. I do have a degree from the College of Engineering (Computer Science), but Environmental? I would never have thought. But Ana is finishing up and I’m helping out. That means preparing batch reactors, measuring gas production and writing a thesis. Luckily I’m only helping in small quantities and the lab work is completely done. Now it’s just data analysis and finishing off that thesis. I guess it’s science, and we use a computer, so it’s kind of what I went to school for.

Businesses

As I mentioned, we opened a dive center in Blacksburg. But we also created a state of the art website for it that’ll allow the company to grow into something much more than a dive center. We had the awesome team from HellowYellow design us the site, and they did an amazing job. We’re working on a ton of new features to the site like class registration, videos, etc. How hard can all that be? Well it’s part of a much larger picture, so a little harder than you think.

Part of that larger picture is this: It’s not about opening a dive center and sharing our passion for scuba. It’s about taking a business, any business, and making it the best at what it does. Most dive center websites look like theirs were created in 1996, by a dude with 10 minutes of html experience while sitting on a beach, drinking coronas.

So we started something. That something has grown to include several businesses, several partnerships, several clients and a lot of change. That change will upset a lot of people, namely those on the other side. How many, will be our measure of success.