christopher ming lee

This hack creates an Aux-like hook-up from the stereo to an iPod, as pictured below.

To download a .pdf version of this guide, right-click here, and Save As.

Introduction

The hack was completed on a 2006 Corolla-S manual shift with a 6-CD Changer (model number: A51814.) The 2006 Corolla doesn’t have an auxiliary hook-up, and the stick physically interferes with a FM Transmitter – which sounds awful, anyway.

This hack was completed with zero knowledge about cars, stereos, or electronics.

References used:

Dante Cardova’s Stereo Removal Guide – no longer available

chrisayad’s Instructable

Matthew Jorgenson’s Ehow

Disclosure: Modifying your car and/or stereo may null/void any warranties, or cause irreparable damage. Working with a device that carries electrical charge may cause bodily harm. Proceed at your own risk; the author assumes no responsibility for any damage to the car, stereo, or yourself in following the guide.

Tools

Flat Head Screwdriver

Phillips Screwdriver

Socket Wrench

Paint Scraper (optional)

Wire Cutters

Headphone extension cable ($9 at Radio Shack – cut female end. Strip three inches to reveal three wires: red, black, and an exposed wire (gray))

Soldering Iron (requires a medium-level of soldering ability)

Solder

Silent CD (optional)

Stereo Removal

1. Disconnect positive lead from car battery.
   Prevents air bags from accidently deploying. Wait three minutes for charge in the capacitor to dissipate. Write down radio pre-sets; they will be lost.
2. Pop the base around the shifter.
   Wedge paint scraper at the bottom to pop off the base. Turn the base sideways to keep out of the way.
3. Remove single screw holding the A/C panel.
   Pull middle knob of A/C panel straight out. The screw is hidden behind it.
4. Remove the A/C console.
   Four clips, located at the four corners, holding the console  in place. Start with the top right corner – reach through the glove compartment and apply pressure from the side to release.
   Next, the top left corner – wedge with the paint scraper, or apply pressure from the side. Tugging from the front (hook index finger on the inside of the removed knob) helps.
   With the top unclipped, unclip the bottom, one side at a time.





5. Disconnect four cables hooked up to the A/C console.
   After removing the A/C console, cut a hole in the back of top change compartment with a screwdriver. The headphone extension cable will feed to the iPod at this point.
6. Unscrew four bolts below the stereo.
   Use the long socket wrench, preferably with a magnetized tip. Dropping the bolt will send it tumbling down into the wiry dashboard. There’s a middle screw that does not need to come out.
7. Pull out the stereo, which will come out with the vent assembly.
   Wedge paint scraper at the top corners to undo clips. The entire apparatus (stereo and vent assembly) will require some force to remove.
8. Unplug the stereo hook-ups in the back.
   There are three, including the antennae.
9. Detach vent assembly from stereo.
10. Start with the top right clip, then top left, then the bottom clips. Force required.
    Stereo Modification
11. Pop off face plate.
    Again, starting at the top right clip, top left, then the bottom clips. There are two ribbons connecting the face plate to the stereo; detach slowly to prevent ripping.

    

12. Remove side brackets.
    The screws are thread-locked, and will require force to “break” before unscrewing.
13. Unscrew the front, top, sides of the stereo casing.
    Start with the front, top, then the sides. Collect all screws in a zip-lock bag. Unscrewing the back of the casing is unnecessary, though there is one screw per side holding the sides to the back.
14. Lift CD changer off the stereo circuit board.
    Two ribbons connect the CD changer to the stereo; carefully disconnect. Soldering occurs at the pins of the larger ribbon cable, as indicated in the picture below.



15. Position the extension cable.
    The extension cable snakes out the back of the stereo, to feed into one of the change holders, which allows the iPod to be neatly tucked away. To execute, feed the extension cable from the bottom, through a cooling hole, then back up through a space between the circuit board and the casing.
    

    
    
    

16. Solder.
    On the cable: Red – Right Speaker
    Black – Left Speaker
    Gray – Ground
    On the pin set:
    P1 – Right Speaker
    P2 – Ground
    P3 – Left Speaker
    Keep wires clear of where the ribbon cable plugs in.

    

17. Secure head phone extension wire.
    Use hot glue, tape, or a twisty wire. Secure the wire along the bottom of the casing, where the wire was initially fed. Securing the wire shifts point of greatest tension from the soldering to the wire itself.
    Reassembly
    
18. Connect ribbon cables, place CD changer back on top of the stereo circuit board.
19. Screw back side plates, top plate, front plate, and replace the front screws.
20. Reattach brackets.
21. Reconnect front plate, re-clip vent assembly.
22. Feed the new “Aux Cable” into the back, down to the hole in the change holder.
23. Reconnect the three stereo connections, slide the stereo back into place.
24. Screw in the four bolts. Snap the A/C console back in place. Screw in the screw from the fan control, and plug the knob back in. Snap the shifter base back in place.
25. Reconnect the battery.
26. Plug in the iPod.
    Run the CD player. The connection should override any CD that’s playing, although creating a silent CD is a better option.

To download a .pdf version of this guide, right-click here, and Save As.

Arc: xc2la
by admin
Tagged: aux hook-up, corolla 2006, ipod hack
Comments (4)

“It’s not just about making tips,” Frank said. He’s always said it. “Don’t look at your job like that. Otherwise, you start thinking, ‘I’ll treat these people sitting over here better than those people over there because I think they’ll tip me better.’ You might know they won’t leave you a good tip. You might remember the last time they came in, how nice you were to them and how the man thanked you and shook your hand on the way out, but when you counted the cash on the table, you found they only tipped you 13%. Some people will think, ‘I’m not going to be nice to them now,’ but that’s no way to serve.”

Serving was how he passed the time in high school and college. He did well because his memory was sharp, he was quick with figures and quick with his hands. But his belief in delivering quality work with quality service kept him in this industry that turns naïve idealists into cold, calculating machines. Which was easy enough in good times, but during the bad times, you see how quickly those ideals get compromised.

“You don’t know how lucky you are. You can go out to dinner, spend $100 before tip, and it’s not a big deal. You can’t appreciate it.” There was truth to his words. Looking back, by the time the server cleared the dessert plate, the whole event was another memory. It was a miniscule detail the moment it was over, like brushing your teeth or putting on a clean t-shirt in the morning. “But for some people it’s a very big deal, and you have to treat it that way.”

“What if this is a family who can only afford to eat out once a month?” he asked.  A family of six; the father works six days a week while the mother stays home to take care of the kids. After the parents look at their budget, after deducting the costs of rent, utilities, groceries, putting money into the college savings and the account that looks more like a bad joke than a retirement fund, they figure, okay, we can afford to take everyone out to dinner once a month.

Their meal won’t be special to you. The parents won’t order wine or cocktails. The whole table will order water with lemons because it’s free. They’ll ignore your carefully crafted specials pitch, and opt for four of the more inexpensive entrees, and they’ll ask for a few sharing plates. They skip the appetizer, and the dessert.

Their check won’t be special, and the accompanying tip even less-so. Other than the 35 seconds spent grumbling over their meager contribution to your bottom-line, you won’t remember these guests in any way.

“To them, though, that meal is special, so you have to treat their experience the way they might see it. That’s how you look at your job.”

“What if you ruined this meal for them?” Frank continued. “All month, they look forward to the one night they get to go out, and do something special for the family. And you ruin it with your attitude, because they tipped you 4% percent less than you think you deserved.”

This responsibility isn’t a burden many servers carry on their shoulders. More often than not, they care little about the quality of food and even less about the quality of service. Their primary concern, at the end of their shift, is escaping with more money in their pocket than they came in with.

“That’s why you have to be different,” he said. “You have to care more. You have to know serving is not about you.”

Arc: restaurants
by admin
Tagged: customers, serving, values
Comments (1)

The giant textbook took up two tables – half of his, and half of the table to his right. He made enough room for his lunch after pushing aside the drinks menu and the soy sauce container: a beef teriyaki bento box, with shumai instead of harumaki, and sides of wasabi mayo and mustard. The cast iron teapot steeped the genmaicha. The warm bottle of sake rested by his left hand.

Joseph signaled for a second sake, and it was only as I poured his cup did a downwards glance catch the book’s color-illustrations: warriors in full-metal jackets resembling skirts, steep triangular helmets, halberds and katana.

I glimpsed the single-word title in the margin: Samurai.

With that, the entire scenario of this balding man, sipping his green tea over his bento box lunch coagulated like a specimen in a Petri dish, like déjà-vu after a handshake, or a certain smile. Joseph’s childhood was engrained by two events: the first, always the last man standing on the gymnasium hardwood, even after the girls. The second was the afternoons afterwards, which he spent absorbing kung fu movies and Samurai epics.

These afternoons spawned his interest in karate and Bushido, honor and seppuku, qi or chi or ki or whichever two letters are currently vogue.  It turned him on to The Dao, The Way, The I-Ching, and its physical counterparts like gung fu or wing chun and jeet kun do.

He ate Pocky Sticks and top-shelf ramen.

He owned his own pair of chopsticks.

He even had a sushi making kit lying around somewhere in his apartment.

All thoughts and practices and products pulled from ideologies as different as Naruto and Ni-hao Kai Lan! but falling under the umbrella in his mind of “Asian;” this alluring culture and aesthetic where he discovered acceptance. Despite never having so much as an Asian pen pal, and the closest he’s been to the continent was Lee’s Market on Central Avenue. That made the feelings even more real, not less, however. Call it faith – to believe in something without having seen it. How else did he explain his draw to the culture and the people and their way of life? Or those feelings he harbored, in the darkest crevices of his heart, that he’d be so much happier if he were born Asian?

Of course, Joseph turned a blind eye to the discrimination Asians faced, the social stigmas and the rejection outside of watered-down, trendy ideologies of feng shui and chakra balancing and Chinese take-out boxes. He didn’t notice those lofty notions of pride, honor, and perpetual motion towards becoming a Zen creature being replaced by designer products: Mercedes-Benz and Rolexes and iPhones. He only saw what the tourist books and large textbooks about Samurai life wanted him to see: the mystery, the history, the high drama.

He even started falling in love with Asian women, every single one he passed by: wandering the stacks in the library, brushing close as he left the coffee shop, standing outside of the movie theater. They whisked away his heart with a single glance, like ninjas in the Tokugawa era. He felt she (and she and her and she) would understand him better than any woman ever would. He imagined he could tell her anything, and she’d cradle his face in her soft hands and tell him it’d be alright. He loved them for the thought of them; the thought of their long black hair, demure glances and soft voices, and the way he’d hold her close during cold nights. Don’t call it a fetish, either, because he was one of them – maybe not in his eyes, his skin color or the texture of his hair, but where it really mattered. In his heart, he was a Japanese warrior.

He raised the sake glass to his lips, and to his dismay, it was empty. He sighed, closed the textbook, and all those thoughts took flight again. He was back, sitting alone in the restaurant, plain old Joseph.

He struggled with his large, white hoodie, and shimmied it over his squat frame. He donned a white ski mask to cover his face, then pulled the hood tight over his head, shielding himself from the cold outside. The large book went into his bag, a green-nylon one, the kind female soccer players toted around during fall practice, and with an awkward swing, he secured it to his back.

Have a good day, I wished him as he left.

He pulled down the mask, revealing his puffy face. He thanked me. Then he said something in Japanese, and I could only smile back. In this area, few employees in a Japanese restaurant are actually Japanese. I considered telling him, to save him the trouble or embarrassment next time. But I held my tongue, afraid to break his heart.

Arc: restaurants
by admin
Tagged: customers, japanese
Comments (0)

He cuts the nori into tiny pieces. Not like mincing garlic; it’d leave the sheet in assorted flakes sizes and shapes, a confetti of seaweed. Michael wants order.

He slices the seaweed into strips first, turns, slices again. He doesn’t rush, his expression neutral as he works. He imagines the taste and look, the visual balance between nori topping and garnish.

He takes the two rice balls he made earlier, tennis ball-size, and gently rolls them over the flakes. The sticky, short-grain sushi rice is perfect for latching onto the seaweed. It lifts the shards easily, and Michael coats each rice ball without deforming the shape’s integrity.

He puts them onto a white, rectangular plate. No garnishes or sauces yet. He hands out spoons. “Try,” he says.

What’s inside? I ask.

“Fruit.” He offers nothing else. I edge into it, revealing a fruit potpourri inside. It’s a sunset splashed against a grainy, drab canvas. The palette difference is striking, and the first of many contrasts: sour sushi rice, created with painstakingly measured portions of vinegar, whole lemons, salt, and sugar, meeting a melody of mangoes and strawberries. The warm rice and refreshingly cool fruit fills the mouth with a balanced glow. Even in the texture, there’s a seesaw of the dissimilar – coarse yet delicate rice grains, crunchy nori, and yielding fruit flesh tap dance across the taste buds.

It’s good, I tell him. Sweet. Good for a spring dish.

“Better with fruit more,” Michael says. He takes a spoonful for himself. He chews, slowly, contemplating the sensation swirling in his mouth, his taste buds detecting any weakness. “Not enough sweet,” he says finally. “Need sauce.” He goes to the kitchen.

Michael isn’t the head sushi chef. It isn’t his responsibility to come up with new dishes every few weeks, but he does it anyway. In the past few weeks, he developed dishes with names like The Black Dragon, The Fancy Tuna, and Tuna Dumplings.

Work could be simpler for Michael. His pay doesn’t warrant the extra effort. He could use the same uninspired, tired plating techniques sushi chefs have used again and again, instead of carefully planning the placement of every oba leaf. He could use his downtime to read the Chinese newspaper, sitting on the empty container of pickled ginger. He could play games on his cell phone. He could sleep.

But he can’t help himself. The desire – the very need – to create overwhelms everything else, anything else, and soon, he’s back on his feet, back to the cutting board, building, tasting, imagining.

“Making specials not easy,” he said to me once. “Together, flavor need taste good, feel good, look good. But now,” he pointed to his head. “I think it, I just do it.” Creating is how he sheds the new flavor and texture combinations that torment him. It’s how he expresses what haunts the darkness behind his eyelids.

Michael comes out of the kitchen, using a plastic fork to whip the yellow contents inside of a pint container. The fork whirls, expanding and contracting the sauce, breaking and building at the same time. He stops and drizzles some of it over the Fruit Rice balls, the concoction pulled through the void by gravity, before striking grains of rice and creeping into and over the nooks and crevices. He gestures for me to try.

The sauce immediately binds the contrasting flavors with a natural stickiness and sweetness. The rice tastes fresher, the fruit taste sweeter, and everything is melded together in a fusion I didn’t realize was missing until now. “Egg, honey, mayo,” he says before I can ask. He takes his bite, and nods, satisfied. Dish completed, we quickly polish it off, until there’s nothing left but the dirty plate and the empty pint container.

This Fruit Rice Ball may never make it to the specials menu. It’s certainly not a winter dish, and the name needs some work. By the springtime, who knows what Michael will come up with? Moreover, The Boss wasn’t even here to see what Michael created, and save a sauce-stained plate, there’s no evidence of Michael’s initiative. He’ll receive no credit.

For now, though, the itch to create is satisfied. Finally, he can sit down and lean against the wall, the comfort of silence and darkness unimpeded by new flavors and textures and colors racing through his mind. Finally he can rest.

Arc: restaurants
by admin
Tagged: chefs, rice, sushi
Comments (0)

He wants to build his vocabulary and improve his grammar. So we don’t say much in way of conversation as I stand to his left, his wakiitai, his side-cutting board. Instead, we practice expressions while taking turns scooping rice from the Zujirushi rice warmer, pressing fluffy mound onto nori.

Broke, I say.

“Bloke.”

Broke, I repeat.

“Bloke. Bloke down.”

I nod my head. But broke down, you can only use that when you’re talking about your car. Everything else, you just say broke, I say in Chinese.

“Yeah, car bloke down,” he says. Then he points to an imaginary object on the table between us. “This is bloke.”

I nod again. I look down at our cutting boards, comparing my nori to his. On one, the rice is pulled across unevenly, with miniature mounds and valleys extending across the green plain. That one isn’t Michael’s.

His long, unconditioned hair lies flat against his bowed head as he works. The way he parts it – straight down the middle – makes his oval shaped face appear even rounder. Small, squinty eyes peer at the roll that’s quietly emerging from his gloved-handiwork. He starts piling on thin slices of cucumber.

“‘What do you think?’” he says to himself, slowly. His teeth are jagged, and there is plenty of space in between to work with. “‘How do you like it?’” He has an accent, but the meaning is clear. We focus on phrases he can directly apply while behind the sushi bar. The better he communicates to patrons at the bar, the better tips he’ll make.

Peering through the glass and rows of raw fish filets filed neatly one after another, the whole restaurant looks different. Facing out from behind the cutting board puts you on stage, an actor in his craft. Suddenly, you’re conscientious of your every move.

Everyone’s staring at you, the voice in your head reminds you.

Don’t pick your nose, it says. Don’t scratch your ass.

The attention doesn’t make learning any easier. Fortunately, Michael’s a patient teacher. He watches carefully, correcting the ingredients you’re placing in the roll when necessary, adjusting your form when it’s incorrect. Most importantly, he lets you make mistakes. It might be solely to give himself a good laugh, which he does nothing to hide: it’s open mouthed and barking, and there’s a twinkle in his eyes. It never feels like he’s laughing at you, though, only with you. You smile because he’s smiling. His laughter never makes you want to quit. He never laughs to flaunt his superiority.

“Inside out,” he says when he sees me building the roll with the seaweed oriented in reverse; placing the kani, avocado, and cucumber on the rice, instead of flipping it over and putting it on the seaweed. What the hell? I mutter to myself Fukinese, an expression he taught me. He chuckles.

“No no no,” he’ll scold when he watches me hack at the completed roll, butchering them into eight pieces. He pushes me aside. He shows me how it’s done; back and forth like a saw, but using speed to make the cut clean, crisp. It’s three quick movements: slice forward with knife tilted up, slide back with knife tilted down, then flat and pulled backwards as the knife strikes the cutting board.

After three sessions of practicing rolls, I ask him to show me how to do sushi.

“Qi sing,” he says in Chinese, with an incredulous look. It means “crazy.” When you train to be a sushi chef, he says, you spend weeks just doing side work, and if you’re talented, maybe rolling California rolls. Only when you master California rolls are you allowed to make rolls with fish, then after a few more weeks, the more difficult rolls – seaweed-outside and Chef Special Rolls.

I remember Danny, our previous sushi chef, saying something similar – except his training was underneath a Japanese chef, and more rigorous. For one month, Danny only cut cucumbers. They were the only things he was allowed to take a knife to, but he did it for 2 or 3 hours a day, everyday. He cut around the circumference, opening up the vegetable into one long sheet. Then he piled 5 or 6 of the sheets atop one another, and sliced them paper thin for the head sushi chef to use. That was it for the cutting for the rest of the day – then back to standing on the sidelines, watching, or washing dishes.

Yet here I was, asking Michael to teach me despite barely being able to cut properly; or knowing all the ingredients in all the rolls; or still forgetting, at times, which rolls were seaweed-inside or seaweed-outside.

For whatever reason, though, when the next order for sushi came through the printer, he signals me to follow along with what he’s doing. He cuts two pieces of fish – mackerel – and puts one down on my cutting board. With one hand, he reaches into the warmer and plucks out a small morsel of rice. His fingers deftly roll the morsel into his palm, around and around, until it’s spherical. He hands it to me. “This much,” he says, then tells me to try.

I pick up what I imagine is an equal amount.

“No,” he plucks a chunk of rice from the amount I grabbed. “Too much.”

I try again.

“No,” he repeats. He removes another chunk.

On the third try, he approves, and I start rolling the rice between my fingers. I resist the urge to put the morsel on the cutting board to shape it into a ball, like Play-Doh.

He shows me how to hold the fish gently in the left hand, then press the rice onto the bottom, using two fingers to flatten the base of the rice, nestling it into the fish. “Gentle,” he says in Chinese. “Don’t use too much pressure. Very soft.” I imitate his motions. His left hand cupping the fish gives the sushi its rounded figure.

He flips the product over in his hand, with the rice pressed into it. Using his thumb and index finger, he squares off the fish, ensuring every grain is covered evenly, save a thin white line at the very bottom.

He pulls out a dish and plates it; the mackerel looks pristine on the clean white, perfectly sized and proportioned, a gentle, gleaming curve hugging the rice.

I follow suit, and put my mackerel sushi next to his. He laughs – no attempt to hide it. It’s lopsided, the fish slipping off the rice on one side. There looks to be enough rice to engulf the entire fish. The symmetrical culinary masterpiece next to it magnifies the sloppiness.

“No good-uh,” he says. He picks it up, and starts fixing it, laughing as he does so. “Qi sing.”

Arc: restaurants
by admin
Tagged: chefs, sushi
Comments (0)