Surprise Skaters

Yesterday that kids planned to go ice skating at the local rink. I was thinking about going to watch them. But I heard they charge you to enter, even if you don't skate. That was sad. Because the menu at the skating rink cafe looked like a good deal.

Kit Kat is our local skating pro. By that I mean she can skate without holding on to the rail on the side of the rink. So I thought she would be the one showing the other cats who was boss.

However both AmKat and Little Kat reported that they increased their skill very fast. Turns out they were skating circles around Kit Kat. Very strange. Kit Kat was happy about skating though. Momoko was too tired to drive the kids to the rink. So I took them instead. We ended up driving up right behind Kit Kat's friends' car. Hehe.

Cake Corner

Today we went to the gourmet cake store to order a cake for AmKat's b-day. Little Kat looked up the hours of the store. He said he does not call stores. He uses the Internet. Momoko made me drive. We headed into the sun in the afternoon. It was hard to look into the sun and find the store.

When we got there, I was impressed that they had a Scion xB parked out in front of the store. It was their delivery and advertising van. Unfortunately, there was also a sign on the front of the door saying that they were closed. Doh.

Luckily we had a second errand to run. We headed to the library. I actually picked up 9 books and am reading one now. Kit Kat and AmKat got some books too. We made Kit Kat drive us home. She did it under protest. She just does not like to drive. AmKat showed me the computer program she wants to get to allow her to author some songs. I already forgot the name of the thing.

BBQ Dinner

We spent the afternoon at the mall today. It was very crowded there. I felt like we got the last two spots in the parking lot. The kids had gift cards and money from Christmas. They wanted to spend.

Little Kat and I checked out a weight bench on sale with some weights. Looked ok. But they were out of stock. Try again later. After the mall we returned home to deal with dinner. We deliberated over a restaurant that everyone would enjoy. And the choice was Famous Dave's BBQ.

We got seated immediately at a big table. Little Kat was most interested in all the BBQ sauces they give you. Everyone chose meals that came with corn on the cob, muffins, and two sides. Nobody left hungry. The favorite sauce was some type of Sassy Southern sauce. I usually like really hot sauce. But the saucy BBQ sauce was indeed superior.

The Year of the Camera

Momoko woke up around 9am on Christmas morning. I was tired because I stayed up late Christmas eve. She found the kids still in their bedrooms. However they were both awake.

Little Kat came outside my bedroom door and started knocking. He only knew that he was supposed to know. I told him to go away. Later he came back to tell me the family was waiting on me to open Christmas gifts.

Kit Kat got the most present by count. However it seems everybody was getting cameras this year. Kit Kat got a purple digital picture camera. While Little Kat got a digital video camera.

It seems even Momoko's niece AmKat came with a new Cannon camera. However that's a story for another blog post.

Thug Life

Being Christmas eve, I had to drop off some gifts today. I brought Little Kat along for the ride. Momoko assigned me the task of picking up dinner for the family. I took orders from the family for Chinese food. I figured I would go to our favorite take out restaurant.

I was disturbed to find our favorite take out restaurant was closed. So Little Kat and I went to a Chinese food restaurant in the hood. Turns out this place is actually a liquor store that served Chinese food on the side. Little Kat said he was scared. There were a couple times where I planned out my moves in case some cats got out of line.

Both Little Kat and I noticed one dude who looked like he was about to steal some beer from the store. Luckily at the last minute he came back and returned the booze. When we got our order, we high tailed it out of the liquor store. We will not be going back there any time soon. The food tasted ok. It was our lives we were fearing for.

Game Proposal

Every weekday our family plays a game of Scrabble. This serves many purposes. Momoko really loves the game. It helps the family get together. I think it also helps the kids with their vocabulary.

Little Kat really wanted us to play the game Scattergories instead. Kit Kat told me she dislikes the game. Momoko and I have never played. I told Little Kat that we would only play it if he could talk us into playing the game.

At first Little Kat tried to explain the game to us. That was a fail. We ended up playing Scrabble again. However Little Kat tried again. He skipped the rules. Instead he listed the merits of playing the game. He got Momoko and I to give it a try.

The game was not that hard to understand. It was hard to well in. Of course Momoko won the first game. You try to think to words that begin with a certain letter in timed rounds. On my last round, Kit Kat kept coming up with the same words I chose. That disqualified us both.

Power to the People

There have been some crews digging up the ground on the next street over. I figure they work for the gas company. Poor cats are out there in the cold digging with shovels.

Today the crew had taken over the right side of the street. I passed them on the way to pick up some lunch. When I came back home, one cat looked at me as I drove up. He clenched his fist and rose it in the air.

WTF? What is that supposed to mean? At first I thought he wanted to say, "Power to the people." But this is no revolution. The look on the guys face became frantic as I came up on him. Then I guessed that he wanted me to stop. My hunch was confirmed when I saw some hoses running across the street. The dude pulled the hoses out of the way so I could pass.

Come on utility man. You are in black cat's domain now. Better learn the correct usage of universal sign language. If you want a car to stop. You hold your hand up, palm facing the car, with your fingers spread out making the "5" sign. That's how you halt a car in my neighborhood.

Mail Box Fail

Our current mail box is broke down. The flag is always falling off. Then I need to hunt around the ground to find the nut and bolt to reattach it. That got old the second or third time it happened.

I decided it was time for a replacement. So I picked up a copper colored bigger mail box. It seemed to have a sturdy flag. Today I got up the energy and removed the old mail box from our post. Then I put the new one on top. There was just one problem. The new box is bigger, and does not fit the board underneath it.

Dang. It took a while to cut a piece of plywood to have a fit for the new mail box form factor. By the time I was done, it was getting dark. Plus it was about time the mail truck comes. So I am saving the switch out until tomorrow.

Christmas Pwnage

Momoko had been talking about getting Little Kat a weigh bench. You know. It is like a mini home gym where you do bench presses and exercises with your legs. Well I saw a bench and weights on sale for $90 at Sears.

I first headed to lunch with an old friend today. After that, I drove my truck to the mall by our house. I should have known something was wrong when there was a ton of traffic on the road that leads to the mall. Finally I arrived at the mall and saw the problem.

The entire mall parking lot was full. People were illegally parked everywhere. And there were traffic jams of cars trying to get into the parking lot. I did my best to turn the truck around and go home. Maybe Little Kat's weight bench will have to wait until after Christmas. Or maybe I need to get up as soon as the store opens and grab a bench.

An Eclipsed Weekend

For Saint Nick's day, Kit Kat got the Eclipse DVD. This is the third installment in the Twilight series. Momoko and myself saw the movie in theater. I think Kit Kat went with her friends to see it in the theater as well. Little Kat is the only one who had not seen it.

I asked Kit Kat if we could watch the movie as a family earlier this week. She told us that she had secretly watched the DVD by herself in her room. Doh! We were punked. Well I then scheduled for the family to watch the movie this weekend.

I slept in until about noon. Kit Kat needed her rest. The rest of the family was in different stages of being sick. However I did wake up the family and we started watching the movie. Finally we get to find the secret about Jacob's family and clan. We took a quick lunch break in the middle of the movie. I thought the movie was quite funny.

Little Cough

I had a terrible drive home from work yesterday. There was snow falling, making the traffic bad. And a truck broke down on the road leading out of the office park. Double pain. So today I decided to work from home.

I got up early enough to see Kit Kat leave for school. Normally she leaves so early that I don't see her most mornings. After working for an hour or so, I thought I heard some noise upstairs. I figured it was just the house creaking or something.

Around lunch time I heard a cough coming from upstairs. This was strange. I saw Momoko go to work. And I was there when Kit Kat left for work. Maybe Little Kat was still home. Yup. He said he was still sick. He slept in a lot, then lounged around the house all day.

Cold Times

Momoko complained this afternoon that she was cold. This happens every day. However I also felt extra chilly. Checking the thermostat, it read 60 degrees. Ouch. We have the heat set much higher than that.

Some searching exposed the air conditioning was on. That must have confused the furnace. But turning off the air conditioning did not fix the problem. I was thinking about calling the HVAC guys tomorrow. But it was getting just too cold.

I tried out a new HVAC company. They came real quick and figured out the problem. Bad news. It was going to run us $689. But hey, we need to stay warm. When they were done, they presented me with a bill for $815. WTF? They tried to add on a service charge and some tax. I refused the service charge. They did not mention this when they gave me the total estimate. However they would not budge on the tax. I am happy they fixed my heat. But I probably won't be using these bait and switch guys again.

Preparing for Snow

Everybody in the house has their own snow shovel. It helps keep things going when we need to clear the driveway. Momoko told me that Little Kat's shovel is broke down. I been looking for a snow shovel replacement for almost a year.

Now it is snow season. I headed over to the store. There was a shovel in the front of the store for $25. The thing felt flimsy and broke down. No way I was buying a lemon like that. I found some other stuff in the store. I saw a guy with a bunch of snow shovels. He pointed me to the back of the store where they had all the shovels.

I picked up a steel shovel for Little Kit. It was a standard thing. I also bought us this mega shovel. It is mostly plastic. But it is huge. It has some special handles to help you lift a lot of snow. We shall see if this is all hype or not. Next Momoko is trying to talk me into buying a snow blower. It might be just the thing we need to save our backs this winter. They are calling for a lot of snow again

Driver Fail

After work I needed to do some shopping. That's ok. There is a Walmart and Target one exit down the highway from my work. So I start driving down the highway. I must not have been concentrating. Before I knew it, I missed my exit.

It was a total fail, because after I missed my exit,
I hit a traffic jam. I thought I could just turn around at the next exit. No luck. There was a traffic jam on both sides of the highway.

After shopping I was running out of gas. I spied a gas station out of the way with 87 octane going to $2.89 a gallon. That sounded good until I started pumping the gas. The $2.89 was only valid if you bought a car wash. That's the last time I am going to that gas station.

Sick Little Kat

Not feeling well, I went to bed early on Friday night. Turns out Little Kat stayed up very late. The next day Little Kat was the first one up. During the day he complained that he did not feel well. Then he whined a lot when we had him fix the Christmas tree.

I thought he should go to bed. Too bad he brought his laptop up to his room. I don't think he had much sleep. At night he was scheduled to go ice skating. In hindsight, that should have been postponed. He went anyway. Kit Kat went with him. She said he looked sick at the skating rink. She thought she might need to call Momoko. He stayed out the night.

At night Little Kat got sick. He has been ill ever since. Little Kat spent the whole day Sunday in bed. Momoko stayed home today from school to take care of him. He stayed in bed the whole day again. He has not eaten anything in 2 days. Tomorrow he goes to see the doctor. We have to be more careful with Little Kat during these cold days with the flu going around.

Leaning Tower

Last night Momoko stayed up late. Around 4:00 am I asked her to go to bed. She agreed. That's why I did not find it strange that at noon she said she still needed some more sleep. Little Kat loves this. He sneaks downstairs and has the big screen TV all to himself.

Finally the family all got up. First Kit Kat drove to pick us up some fast food. Then it was time to get to work. I have been sick recently so we have had no company over the house. It was time to get this house ready.

The big chore was to get our Christmas tree standing up straight. It was leaning a little bit. Then the kids put a star on top, making it tilt some more. Little Kat tried to figure out what was wrong with the base. No luck. They ended up sticking some paper under one of the legs, like you would a wobbly table. Now the thing it reasonably straight. We even got a few gifts under the tree already.

Big and Small Wins

Today I got caught up with a lot of work. So did my lunch buddy. I almost skipped lunch. But I just got too hungry. Headed over to Burger King because I saw this buy one get one free deal on TV. They had it. Paid $4.23 for an original chicken sandwich. Got another one free. Yippee.

Kit Kat came home late from school. She showed me this deal on the web. Apparently she had "won" either a $1000 Walmart gift card, or an iPad/iPod combo. Well it looked fishy to me. The catch was that she had to provide her cell phone number. My guess was that by giving her number, her cell phone would be charged some bogus fees. Let's hope Kit Kat does not take the bait.

Rescue Tools

Momoko had a tire that was running a bit flat. Kit Kat took my tire pressure gauge, and headed to the gas station. Oooops. Somebody was using the air machine there. Then the one at the next gas station had a broken air machine. Bad luck.

But hold up. Kit Kat forgot about the obvious - Black Kat's garage. I actually have an air compressor in the back of my truck. The thing works very slow. But it works. You plug it into your cigarette lighter, and wait a long time for it to fill up the tires.

Turns out all of Momoko's tires were low on air. So Kit Kat hooked her up. Now Momoko should be good to go. I am glad I bought these tools like the air pressure gauge and the air compressor. They come in handy on a cold day like today.

Out with the Old

Today the kids got some DVD videos for St. Nick's day. I was told that I got a video too. However it went straight into the DVD library. That will teach me to not put out my shoe.

Tomorrow is trash day. In the cold outside, I sadly loaded up our old Christmas tree parts into the trash cans. It was time to retire that faithful tree.

Momoko had to take Little Kat to the doctor today. She took advantage of the day off by purchasing a new star for the top of our Christmas tree. It is a red glittery thing. Looks good.

After work, the family watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice with Nick Cage. Momoko and I actually saw it in the theater. It was new for the kids though. Was just as enjoyable the second time around.

Relient K Christmas

Kit Kat postponed having her friends over for Friday. So the kids decided to decorate the tree instead. Momoko had me put on some Christmas videos on the TV. The best one was one Sleigh Ride by Relient K. You got to see it.

Momoko bought a new Polar Express train for under the tree. The train is more trouble than it is worth. It falls off the track a lot. The track gets messed up when people step on it. Fail.

Now it is Saturday. Kit Kat's friends have come over to spend the night. The girls are playing Wii. Perhaps Momoko and I will play with Little Kat to get him out of their way. Scrabble anyone?

Family Game Night Fail

Last Sunday the family decided that tonight would be our family game night. Little Kat and I were excited because the both of us purchased some new games last weekend. After work, the family went to the tennis courts for exercise. It was cold. There were a bunch of hoodlums smoking pot next to the court. We called it quits as soon as it was too dark to see the ball.

At home Little Kat cooked us up some goulash using a new recipe. Then we were ready for family game night. Or so it seemed. Kit Kat said she needed to do her homework all night. That sounded suspicious. We had her spend half an hour to see how far she would get. She did not get very far. Then it came out that Kit Kat thought we had enough games last week, and that we should not be holding game night tonight. Oh snap. No kids are allowed to cancel family game night. Not in this house at least.

Momoko supervised Kit Kat doing some more homework. However she is going to be spending the rest of the night doing her homework. The backup plan is for us to hold family game night tomorrow. That is a bit inconvenient for Kit Kat. Her friends are coming over and spending the night (to see the big screen TV). However family game night preceeds everything except homework. I guess Kit Kat's friends will be joining us for family game night. Little Kat is happy, since he usually does not get to play with Kit Kat's friends.

Intuition

I stayed a little late at work today. So I had to drive straight to school after work. Traffic was good, so I had time to stop off and get a steak and cheese sub. I got to the college campus with time to spare.

Now I had already read the chapter for this week. However it was not a meaty chapter. So I decided to read ahead into the next chapter before class. I almost finished it. Turns out this was a good move.

Our instructor breezed through the chapter for the week. Then he moved ahead to next week's chapter. I was prepared. The instructor also cancelled the final exam. Bold move. He said he already knew the grade he would give each of the students in the class. If I was not already making a strong A in the class, I might have protested.

Mistaken Identity

Today I had to stay late at work. While I was leaving, I saw two cats come out of a neighboring building. They were dressed casually with t-shirts, sweat pants, and sneakers. At first I thought they must have been the cleaning ladies.

I spied on them as they headed to their cars. One of them walks up to a top of the line Lexus sedan. Bamn. The other one drives off in a top of the line Acura sedan. And it was brand new.

Well if these cats were the cleaning crew, they must actually own the company that does the cleaning. You don't drive an Acrura RL if you make just minimum wage. That will teach me to make any snap judgements based on people's clothing.

Sick Puppies

Everyone seems to have a little bit of a cold around here except for me. I have been trying to dodge the mountains of used Kleenex and used Halls wrappers. I am being serenaded by the sound of sniff sniff cough cough sniff sniff cough cough for many days now and I have realized that I have been surrounded by a relaxing rhythm of sickness. I made chicken soup and made sure we were stocked with sprite in hopes the family will feel better soon. KEEP BLOWING!!!!

The Gig is Up

Some time around a year ago, I realized our cable bill was getting out of control. It was something like $150 a month. Now that is ridiculous. Slowly I worked on getting the costs down. First I got rid of the pay channels like HBO and Starz. Then I sent back the Digital Recorder box. Even that was not good enough.

It was time to get radical. I cut our Internet speed option down to the slowest one available. Then I asked to cut out all but the local channels. The price of cable TV plus Internet plummeted down to $50 a month. That is reasonable. The good thing is that they forgot to turn off some of the cable channels we were receiving.

We rode this accident out for about a year. The whole family has been enjoying cable channels like Lifetime and Cartoon Network and such. Not any more. I just got a letter from the cable company stating that they realized we were getting too many channels and not paying for it. They are cutting out the extra channels next month.

What are we to do? I might be able to sign up for some special 6 month deal, then cancel again in 6 months. We can only hope they make another mistake and forget to turn off the good channels. Now it is time to start slashing the cell phone bill. The thing was running $130 a month...

Big Screen TV

On Thanksgiving I woke up at 6:00 am. I heard Little Kat's alarm go off. He must have forgotten to turn off his school alarm. That's ok. I needed to get up anyway. I got in the truck and drove North to Sears. Got there at 6:50am. There were people already waiting outside the doors.

I figured it was cold outside. So I thought I would wait in the car until 6:58 or 6:59 before getting out. There were already a lot of people there. If I got out immediately, it would do not good. I was shocked as the Sears employees opened the doors at 6:55am.

People all seemed to head towards the electronics department where I wanted to go. I got out of the truck and ran to the front doors. Other people were waiting in their cars like me and I needed to beat them. Once inside I saw a sales associate chatting with a customer. I gave the customer the evil eye and he left. Yes.

The salesman sold me a 50 inch Zenith plasma TV for $499. I've been watching the prices on these TVs for about a year. They seemed to hover between $599 and $699. I did see an inferior one go on sale for $550 once. I bought a better one for $499. I ran out and drove to the merchandise pickup. The thing fit in the back of my truck (barely). When I got home, I used the dolly to wheel the thing into the living room. Nobody was up yet. I figured I would wait for Little Kat to wake up before opening the thing. He was just as excited as I was about getting a big screen TV.

Little Rat Emerges

Today we played tennis as a family to make up for skipping it yesterday. It got dark real quick. Afterwards Little Kat and I separated from Kit Kat and Momoko. Little Kat and I went on a mission. We spied on a Thanksgiving day sale at Sears. They got big screen TVs for super low prices.

Turns out they don't have many TVs at the low price. After the shopping, Little Kat and I needed to get some dinner. We started heading North towards Sonic. However Little Kat said was too hungry to wait during the long drive to Sonic. We instead ate at a New Orleans style restaurant. We ordered a pasta spinach dip appetizer, along with an order of fried pickles
.
During dinner Little Kat saw his reflection in the mirror behind him. He confessed that he has an alter ego inside him that is bad. This version of him is called Little Rat. The Little Kat that we know is the good version of him. Although this all sounds a bit suspicious, it also kind of makes some sense. Got to keep an eye out for the Little Rat.

Living Room Furniture

We have some old furniture in our living room. Momoko wants it replaced which is fine. She also decided we should move the old furniture down to the basement.

There was just one problem with this plan. Both pieces of furniture are very heavy. Kit Kat tried to "slide" the love seat into the basement. It got stuck on the way down the stairs. Somehow we managed to lift the love seat back up the stairs to get it unstuck. My back and Kit Kat's arms suffered as a result.

Now I have made a new and final plan. I will buy some new furniture for the living room. But the cats that deliver the new furniture must take away our heavy couch. My back is is just too important to throw out just to save the couch. I am sure Kit Kat agrees.

All Leaves

I had plans to eat lunch with my buddy today. So I got up real early even though it was the weekend. Woke up the family to get us out in the yard working. Little Kat worked with Momoko to remove the leaves stuck in the bushes in the front yard.

I used the leaf blower to remove all leaves from the patio. Then I used the rake to pull leaves away from the perimeter fence. Kit Kat used the lawn mower to pull up all the leaves. We bagged a ton of leaves.

In the end, we filled up all the trash cans. Little Kat went with the ladies to see the new grocery store. I got some fish for lunch. Then Little Kat and I went to Target. He told me that he and Kit Kat wanted some Cran Grape juice. I hooked them up.

Sonic Found

Yesterday Momoko talked me into going out for dinner. We went to our favorite Mexican restaurant. Afterwards we watched The Last Airbender on DVD. I hurried up and took a nap. Because I watch the poker Big Game in the middle of the night.

This morning I was the first one up. Momoko wanted to see Harry Potter with the family. So I woke up Momoko, who in turn woke up Kit Kat. I thought the show we wanted to see was at 11:00am. It was actually at 11:30am. That was a good thing. We were 30 minutes early, but the theater was full. Any later and we would not have been able to sit together.

Afterwards we drove up North to search for a new Sonic that had allegedly opened. It was 30 minutes from the house. The traffic was terrible. But the Sonic food was awesome. Now we don't have to drive 2 hours to get to Sonic. Shhh. Don't tell Little Kat. He spent the night over his friend's house and missed out on the Sonic goodness.

Wrong Way

I was driving home from work. Came up to a traffic circle. There were many cars coming from the other side of the circle. Luckily most of them were just passing straight through the circle.

One oncoming Toyota vehicle decided to make a right turn. However something did not seem right. They missed the actual right turn out of the circle. Instead the went down the wrong way of a one-way street.

I kept an eye on the vehicle. Would they figure out what went wrong? Yes. They were going head on with another vehicle coming the right way. Before I drove off, I saw the car stop and turn around on the street.

This was almost a bad accident in the making.

Rainy Day Blues

Today a bunch of workers from our global team came together at my office building. We hardly ever see these guys in person. So at lunch time we all went out together. I know the local area. Therefore I volunteered to drive.

On the way back to the office after lunch, a coworker asked if he could roll down the window. I said sure. He wanted some fresh air. Maybe I should have turned on the vent. The window down on the drive to the office was fine. But he forgot to roll up the window when we parked.

After work I saw the open window and realized the error. Luckily it was not all the way down. I did not get a flood, just a little rain. Speaking of rain, it looks like our Tuesday tennis session is cancelled. Boo. I love that tennis exercise.

Dojo Scare

When I came home, Momoko told me that our Dojo fish had quite the scare today. Little Kat must have made too quick a move by the fish tank. Dojo was terrorized. He dug himself fully under the rocks at the bottom of the tank,.

Kit Kat was concerned because our Dojo never puts himself under the gravel. So she tried to scoop him out of the rubble. By the time I came home, he half buried himself again.

I guess the fish does not have a great long term memory. He now has come up above ground and seems ok. Be careful around the fish tank children. We don't want too much stress on our fish.

Value Searching

Little Kat and I have the weekly duty to do the Walmart / Target shopping. This week was no different. We usually go on Sundays. I subscribe to the newspaper 7 days a week. The Sunday paper has plenty of coupons. You know I am clipping them to maximize our value.

One coupon I clipped was to save on some plastic bags. I brought Little Kat to the aisle where they were. He showed me the brand they like. I told him I had a coupon for another brand. But the coupon does not tell the whole story. We compared prices between the favorite brand and the discounted brand. Turns out the favorite brand was cheaper (most like due to a store discount). We ended up getting the brand the kids like. Using coupons is nice. But the main objective is to save money.

In other news, we bought a new Christmas tree today. I thought we should get an imitation Douglas Fir. However Little Kat voted for an imitation pine. Momoko concurred with Little Kat. Now he wants to put up the tree really early this year. I am a bit sad that we are retiring the tree we have been faithfully using each year. But it is getting to be time.

Never Again

Some time ago Momoko and I went into the city to visit this Italian restaurant. We used Momoko's car because it has GPS navigation. That was little to no help. The GPS kept telling us to go the wrong way. That is no fun when you got a lot of city traffic on the streets.

Momoko wanted to return. But there was no way I wanted to be driving back in that mayhem. Well Momoko said that if she got her diploma from grad school, she would like to return to the city restaurant. Her diploma came in the mail. So today we headed back.

As soon as we entered the city, I knew we were in trouble. The traffic was heavy even though it is the weekend. There were people walking the streets everywhere. And there was a lot of traffic. Random lanes were closed down due to traffic.

We enjoyed something called The Bookmaker Salad as an appetizer. It has salami, boiled egg, tons of shrimp, and a delicious house salad. Although I loved the food, I definitely don't like this evil city driving.

Family Game Night

Today I had to work late. Momoko and the kids were off from school. It was also family game night at home. Little Kat and I voted for Monopoly. Momoko and Kit Kat protested. The flip of the coin gave us Monopoly as the first game.

Nobody wanted to do any property trades with me. Luckily I got a monopoly by myself on the green ones (Pacific Avenue, etc). The rest was just building houses and raking in the rent.

Little Kat did not want to go to bed. Momoko suggested we play the Game of Life. Kit Kat loves this game. Strangely enough we do not have the directions for the game. Little Kat and I were fighting for the win by the end. We both ended up at the millionaire's mansion trying to get some extra life tiles. Little Kat won it all.

Communication Fail

I had to pick Little Kat up from school today. Momoko is staying late for parent conferences. I asked Little Kat how much homework he had. He said only 2 lil things. Kit Kat got home just after we did. I asked the kids if they were ready for tennis. Kit Kat she needed 15-20 minutes to take care of some things. I told the kids to meet me outside when they finished what they needed.

So I made the most of my time. Used the leaf blower. Then started using the lawn mower to pick up leaves. The kids were taking an awfully long time. I came inside. They said they were almost done with their snack. I went back out and mowed up more leaves. A long time later I came in to find what the delay was. The kids were watching a DVD. Huh? They said they were waiting for me. I was waiting for them. Fail.

We did some tennis. Little Kat got beaned in the eye with a Kit Kat tennis ball serve. He sat out for a game. Little Kat whined that we only play tennis. So we wrapped up our tennis game, and headed to the football field behind the tennis courts. It was nice. They were all the yard lines painted with some white stuff. They were night lights making the field very bright. We practiced throwing and punting the ball.

When I got home, I asked Little Kat if he could wrap up his homework in an hour and a half. He said no way. Then he informed me he had 4 homework assignments (instead of the four earlier). I had him complete them all. He was crying that his hands hurt from so much typing. Well he has tomorrow off from school. The 3 day weekend should allow him to recouperate.

(P.S. The image above is the cover of Little Kat's poem assignment. Good stuff.)

Five and Below

Yesterday I drove Little Kat to a store called "Five and Below". Everything in the store costs $5 or less. This place is better than the dollar store, where Little Kat says they have a lot of junk.

Little Kat ended up buying a laser pointer and a book on dogs. I did not pick up anything yesterday. But today I started thinking that I passed up on some good deals. So I left work early and headed over to Five and Below.

There were a lot of computer games and DVDs for sale at $5 a pop. I picked up a total of five games including Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. The DVDs were nice too. Some were 2-disc sets. Others had some extras in the DVD jacket. I have a feeling I will be returning to Five and Below soon.

Daylight Savings

Today I rushed home from work and found that everybody was already home. Great. We can go to tennis early right? No luck. People needed to eat a snack first. I still wanted to get out there early because of Daylight Savings Time. We run out of sunlight much earlier now.

Well we did get to tennis a bit early. There was nobody else there at the tennis court. We all did a lot of running to catch the balls. This tired everybody out fast. Momoko took a break, returned, and voted for us to go home. What? We were supposed to be there for exercise.

I talked everyone into playing one last set of tennis. However that did not last long. At least we get home early for dinner. Kit Kat is cooking brats. Good stuff.

A Sick Momoko

Late last week, Momoko started coming down with a cold. She blamed it on allergies. I just thought she was sick. By the time the weekend came around, Momoko was sleeping all day.

I thought that might mean that Momoko would stay up all night. However she slept through the night as well. She is sleeping again today. Me and the kids had to do the yard work without her.

Momoko needs to get well because this week is parent-teacher conferences. And now for a little good news. It looks like a new Sonic has opened up 30 minutes away from us. Let's go.

Gutters and Curbs

We had to cancel tennis late this week due to rain. I went and raked up some leaves on the backyard hill. It was hard because the rain was coming down when I did it. The leaves were very heavy due to being wet.

Today I came home and decided to do more leaf removal for exercise. First I raked the leaves out of the curbs in front of the house. Those leaves were wet too. Then I climbed the ladder and scooped the leaves out of the gutters in front of the house. That was hard because I had to keep moving the ladder to reach all the gutters.

I hope the weather is good this weekend. Then the family can come out and support me in removing the leaves from the front lawn. It might sound easy. But the leaves have invaded our gardens. Got to remove the leaves without pulling out all the mulch.

Poker Challenge

These days I am hooked on this poker show on cable. The bad news is that it is on in the middle of the night. Not good when every night is a work night. Yesterday I took a nap in the evening to be able to stay up late enough.,

Today was tough because after work I had to go to school. Before heading to work, I stopped by Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed in my car. They knew how to turn off the sensor on my dash. I like that they vacuum my car too. These guys tried to ignore my $5 off for coming in at the right time. I got that fixed at checkout.

My class was about a short chapter in our textbook. So our teacher let us out halfway through the normal class time. Next week we must go over the huge chapter in the book. Might have to start studying right away. Bye for now.

Voter Fail

Today Momoko and the kids had a day off due to elections being held in school. I was the first one up this morning because I had to go to work. While I was collecting the trash in the house and taking it outside, I woke up Little Kat. The rest of the family was asleep when I went to work.

Before work I went and cost my vote for governor and other local issues. Some dudes were in the way when I drove to our voting location. Then these slackers asked me to vote for their candidate. Yeah right.

After work I came home and found a house full of couch potatoes. Not much happened at home. Momoko did not vote. I think Little Kat played with his new laptop. Everyone else watched TV. I thought tennis would pep the family up. Nope. Little Kat was dragging his heels the whole time. Fail.

When we finished tennis, Kit Kat drove Momoko to the polls. By then there were too many people so they turned around and came back home. We were thinking about going out for some steaks. However Kit Kat does not like them, so we are staying home instead. Boo.

A Little Problem

Tonight the family played a game of Clue. Momoko insisted. We had just played a game the day before yesterday. However Momoko had not won. Today she won.

After the game, Little Kat went downstairs and returned saying, "We have a problem." There was a lot of water on the floor in the laundry room. The basin where the washing machine water goes to had overflown.

Little Kat got out the plunger. We figured the drain had clogged. Yep. Little Kat threw a washcloth in there by mistake. He used a carpet cleaner to suck up some water. Then we used towels and a huge fan to dry things up. I had to pull out the washer and dryer.

The only good news for today is that Little Kat bought a used laptop. I saw a new one in the store for $350. I figured that same model would go for $175 used. And I figured such a used model could be "sold" to a family member for around $87. Our neighbor gave Little Kat the family rate. Now he owns a Toshiba Satellite M300 series laptop.

Laptop Surprise

Previously I had wrote about how Little Kat made some money by helping our neighbor cut down some trees. I was proud of Little Kat that night. He played tennis with the rest of the family. Directly afterwards he went to work with our neighbor.

Well just last night, this neighbor came by and said she knew Little Kat was saving up for a laptop. She said she had an extra laptop, and handed it to me. She said me and Little Kat could check it out. I asked her how much she would sell it to Little Kat for. She told me that whatever Little Kat had saved up would be enough.

I checked out this laptop. It has Windows Vista on it, as was Microsoft Office. There was a 230G hard drive and 4G RAM. Dang it. This laptop is better than mine. The only problem is that Little Kat has trouble saving money. He had spent a lot of his laptop fund already. Momoko and I need to decide whether to allow the neighbor to essentially give a laptop to Little Kat.

Stepping Up

Today it turns out a lot of the family needed to go the library. But Momoko and Little Kat came home late. We had Little Kat check the library hours. Ooops. They close early tonight. So the only thing we could do was go play some tennis.

As we got to the park with the tennis courts, we saw a couple entering the courts. They usually play beside us. We passed them and went to the far court. In the beginning, Little Kat was slacking. None of his shots were going over the net. He was not moving any on the returns. He would just swing his racket wildly.

I taught him how to bounce the ball on the ground before serving. Then I tried putting him in the back court to get him moving some more. Momoko had an even better idea. She say out for a few rounds, and pitted Kit Kat and myself against Little Kat. There was no more room to slack. Little Kat had to work the whole side of the court against Kit Kat and myself. He started to step up and return some serves. A few of his hits went into the court next to us. But he continues to improve his tennis game as long as we push him hard.

More Tennis

Kit Kat and I were waiting for Momoko and Little Kat to get home today. We were scheduled to play tennis at 5:00PM. We needed to be on time so we could successfully watch Glee on TV tonight. Momoko did not show up until 5:30PM.

Then Momoko informed us that she was too busy today. She needed to grade some papers. Kit Kat has not been doing enough grading for Momoko. So we left without her. Kit Kat did the driving.

There was nobody at the park as usual. We started in the far tennis court. However the balls kept flying over the fence. We then moved to the near court. Little Kat had a couple good ball returns once he moved onto Kit Kat's side of the net. Kit Kat had some trouble when the tennis ball came right at her. Got to remember to send the tennis ball a little to the right of her for a good return.

Football Miss

We wanted to take Little Kat to a high school football game. However he was sick this weekend for Kit Kat's homecoming football game. I figured we could all go to another one of Kit Kat's high school home football games. Kit Kat was not down with this plan. She does not like football. Momoko overruled her and said she must attend.

I took the action item to find out when the next home football game is. The web did not easily show the football schedule. I called up Kit Kat's school. Got put through to the football coach. Then I found the school schedule on the web. Looks like all the home games for Kit Kat's high school football team are over. Boo. We might have to go to an away game.

Well it is time to go play tennis with the family. See you soon.

Football Afternoon

Today was Kit Kat's homecoming football game. Little Kat was sick yesterday. So we left him home. As we got to the game, a lot of people were hitting us up for donations. I needed to use the restroom. Kit Kat brought me up to the school. Good thing she was there. I could not tell which was the boys and which was the girls.

We got some tickets and went straight to the concessions stand to get food and drinks. We sat on the side of the field where the visiting team sits. There was more room there. I was impressed by the opposing team's cheerleaders. They were not many of them. But they were loud.

Kit Kat's team did not throw many passes. They did not have to. Each down they ran for what seemed to be a first down. By half time, Kit Kat's team was up 28 to 0. There were high school alumni around to watch the game. There were also some alumni cheerleaders out cheering. I wanted to sneak out in the 4th quarter to avoid the parking lot jam. Kit Kat made us stay to the end. It was ok. This may very well be the last football game we go to. Kit Kat is not that into the football. She is getting ready now for the homecoming dance though.

Deadly Beefaroni

I had to visit my customer's building today. So I did not go in to the office. Momoko had to take Kit Kat to the doctor's. She stayed home as well. We had scheduled to play tennis again today for exercise. However Momoko said her knee was hurting bad.

It took a couple reminders from me to get Momoko to go pick up Little Kat from school. When he came home, he said his leg and back were hurting. Then to add to his problems, he dropped his hot bowl of Beefaroni. Kit Kat had to come in to help him clean it all up. She said she almost died 3 times due to the slick floor with sauce all over it.

This weekend we are hoping to finally attended a football game at Kit Kat's school. It is homecoming. Kit Kat definitely plans to go to the homecoming dance. But she seems to have no interest in the game. Momoko and I both remember the good times going to our high school football games. Kit Kat should at least experience it once. Oddly enough, none of Kit Kat's friends want to go to the homecoming football game.