Shed Time

It is finally time. I saved up some money. And now I want to get us a new shed. We have a trusty metal small shed. There are some holes that let rain and mice inside. The real problem with it is that it is not tall enough. I have to hunch down to get inside. If I stand up inside, I bang my head on the roof. No fun.

We have one other problem. The place where we want the shed is inside our fence and on a hill. So we cannot have somebody drive up a pre-built shed and drop it off. The fence is in the way. We also need some type of custom technique to level the new shed we get.

I guess we could build the shed ourselves. But that would be no fun. Momoko wants one that has a work bench inside. I would like it to have a garage door on the front. But the main thing I need is a tall door, and an even taller roof inside. Would be nice to have real wood shingles. And hey. It would be great if the shed could having some siding. Momoko said she would pitch in to buy the thing. We should be set.

Case of the Lost Coin

I go to lunch each day with a guy from my old team at work. Today he said he had a meeting with the boss right before lunch. That was ok. We could wait for him. Then I got the bad news. He was stuck indefinitely in the meeting. He told me to go without him.

There was another guy from my previous company that I eat lunch frequently with. We got some delicious Chinese. They were very generous with the fried wonton served with the hot soup. That is some good cooking. I had the Sha Sha Chicken for my entree.

As we were paying our bill and preparing to leave, my buddy thought he dropped something under the table. We both looked, but did not see anything on the floor. When we got the car, my buddy said he knew what he lost. He ran back into the restaurant. When he returned, he showed me his lucky coin. It was a gift from his sister in law's sister, who works as a nun in the Vatican. This was an Italian coin blessed by the pope. Good thing we did not leave without it.

Boating and Working

Kit Kat and Little Kat went out with their friends on a boat. They were going to eat at some fancy restaurant by the shore. However it was a long wait. So they bought some subs and ate on the boat. Kit Kat got stung by a jellyfish or two. The team caught some crabs, but threw them back due to size.

Today is my work day. Momoko volunteered Little Kat to help me. I asked him if he was ready to work. He said no, but also that he had no choice. It was hot today. Little Kat and I took 3 or 4 water breaks. The job was to chop up a bunch of branches and bag them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is. We ended up with 4 bags of bundled branches. Good work Little Kat. We are working on manning him up.

Kit Kat is in charge of our family dinner tonight. We will get chicken parmesean, angel hair pasta, and broccoli. Delicious.

Labor Day Plans

One guy that works on my project has a beach vacation house. He used to joke around that we should come by some time and check it out. I did not give it any mind. However another dude at work said he wanted to go.

So we made plans to drive to the beach on Labor Day. Told the family I would be going to the beach without them. This was a boys night out only. Then the guy who wanted to go found out some family is visiting him for Labor Day. Therefore he bumped our trip. Bummer.

Now I am free for Labor Day Weekend. Maybe I can get the family out into the yard to do some work with me. Yeah that does not sound fun. But it will help me.

Rubik's Cube Solved

Good news. After turning the darn thing about a million times, I solved the Rubik's cube. I got a couple combinations down. However I am not sure how to do it again. I need to study up my combinations to understand them a little better.

The nice thing about it that I am starting to understand some of the analytics behind how solving the puzzle works. I was never able to do more than a side or two of the cube when I was young.

House Building

Today Momoko and Kit Kat went to Momoko's school to get ready for the start next week. Momoko also went to straighten out Little Kat's middle school issue. He was still not sure which school he will be attending this year.

Little Kat and I took the truck to the store. We spied on some wood for Little Kat to build his mini house in the back yard. He had some real expensive ideas.

We looked at home sheds for sale at the store as well. Little Kat studied their construction to help figure out how to build his own house.

Slow Computer

I came home from meeting a friend for dinner. Little Kat told me that we had a problem. He was planning to go to his same old school with Momoko next week. However he got a letter in the mail from the county stating that he had to go to another school.

Momoko is going to work this problem. In the mean time, Little Kat wanted to review information on his "new" school. He went to his computer and started complaining. His computer was too slow.

I asked Little Kat if he knew why it was so slow. He said it was due to (1) the computer was old, and (2) there were too many files on it. Logically this did not sound correct. I have an even older computer with much more files than Little Kat. And my computer is probably the fastest one in the house.

So I sat down with Little Kat to google the top 10 web pages for making a slow computer fast. One page listed 99 ideas on how to make a computer faster. I took a lot of notes. Little Kat started getting apprehensive. He said he liked his computer just the way it was. He did not want to make the changes recommended by these web pages. That did not seem acceptable. He was whining all evening about his slow computer. It is time to get that PC zippy.

Missing in Action

I was out mowing the lawn as usual this afternoon. Trying to beat the rain that is supposed to come this weekend. I was on the side of the house. Saw Momoko's car drive up. I assumed the kids were with her.

Later I finished my work and came in the house. Momoko was dozing off on the couch. Went upstairs and saw Kit Kat on her bed using her laptop. But Little Kat's room was dark. I found that odd.

I asked out loud where Little Kat was. Kit Kat outed him. He was hiding under a purple blanket behind Kit Kat on her bed. What the heck? I was too tired and sweaty from working out to investigate. Typical Little Kat shenanigans.

Flood Time

We had some massive rains yesterday. It was treacherous for me to even walk down the driveway to my car. The water was flowing so heavy out of the rain gutters and down to the street. I had an umbrella. However the rain still got me soaked.

Momoko had it worse. She tried to go to Chik-fil-A for breakfast. They shut the street down that Chik-fil-A is on. I think she got trapped and had to take the detour. That caused her to be late for work. It's ok. Everybody else was late too.

The newspaper had a big story on the floods. A lot of people's basements got flooded. They had some pictures of car trying to make it past the high water. Not smart.

Happy Birthday Dad

I got off work on time again today. Went to visit my dad and wish him a happy birthday. I got him a picture book called Cars of the 1940s. Now I don't think dad is old enough to have had a car from the 1940s. But he does remember them. I think one of my uncles had a 1940s car. And he let dad drive it all the time.

Momoko had told me that Little Kat was coming home from his friend's house today. So I hurried home after visiting my dad. Strangely enough, I found nobody at home. There were a lot of messages on the answering machine for me though. Momoko and the kids went to her school to work on her classroom. They are staying late. That means I need to fend for myself at dinner time. I started out with a nap. Then I decided to get some Dominos carryout. They had a special where you could add cheesy bread and a 2 liter drink for five bucks. I'm in.

Nobody Home

I got out of work on time for once today. By the time I got home, Kit Kat had already left with her friends to see Eclipse at the movie theater. Little Kat still looked like he just got up. I went out and started cutting the grass.

By the time I got to cutting the back yard, Little Kat came running out. His friend was coming over to pick him up. He is spending the night over at his friend's house.

I completed cutting all the grass and came inside. I called out for Little Kat. There was no reply. I found this strange. All the lights were on and the TV was on as well. The front door was open. Little Kat must have left without saying goodbye.

As I was about to step into the shower, Momoko came home. It was good timing. I cleaned up and we went out for a date. Momoko felt like Mexican. We did not eat too heavily, saving room for a sopapilla. Delicious.

The Rubik's Cube Craze

The family is now hooked on the Rubik's cube. Momoko, Little Kat, and Kit Kat have already solved the cube. Now they can't do it really fast (like in a minute). And sometimes they have to refer back to the solution book. But they have all solved the cube multiple times.

I have only been able to solve two sides of the cube. When I try to go further, the sides I have solved get messed up. I am trying to figure out the solution myself. But I might break down and read up on how to do it. I thought I had grown smarter since the last time I tried this thing as a kid.

Climbing Trees and Chasing Planes

Momoko and I got up early this morning and headed to the airport. The traffic was light. So we stopped off at Burger King for some breakfast close to the airport. Weird people kept try to enter the exit from security in the airport. That causes all kinds of automatic alarms to go off. It kept us awake.

We saw the kids pass the exit. Kit Kat was sporting a ball cap. Little Kat had a new shirt on with words like "welcome da lobsta". He was proud of it because he bought it with his own money.

When we got home I decided to finally deal with a tree situation on our street. Down the street there is a tree in a neighbor's yard. The branches hang down over top of the street where we drive. The wood hits the top of our cars as we drive by. I gave the owner some time to realize and deal with this tree. No luck.

I packed up my handy truck with my ladder, saw, and gloves. Then I drove past the place where the branches hung. I parked my truck so nobody would drive around the corner and knock me off my ladder. The larger branches were hard to cut off. I think I did a good job. Packed all the limbs into my truck and drove back home. In the driveway I chopped up the limbs and bagged then for the trash man.


Finally this afternoon I bleached our shower. The mold just keeps coming back. Bleach is the only cure. The problem is that the bleach fumes always knock me out. Hopefully I can get some more rest later. Good thing I took this day off work to deal with the kids. Otherwise I would really be knocked out.

Trash Patrol

This week I noticed some trash out on our street. Looked like it was the container for some ice cream discarded along with its top. Not sure how it got there. Perhaps the trash man left it behind. Or some slacker was littering.

The trash was not close to our house so I ignored it. Figured the peeps who were close to the trash would pick it up. I was wrong. The thing stayed there during the week.

Last night I took our house trash to the trash can because today we put out the cans for the trash man. Momoko cleaned out the fridge and loaded up the trash can again.

I had to take out one last load. I decided to clean the trash in the street. Put a latex glove on and walked around picking up trash. The neighbors across the street moved out. So I picked up some trash from their yard as well. You have to have pride in your neighborhood. Otherwise it will go down hill.

Rubik's Revenge

Some people at Google have determined that you can solve any variation of the Rubik's cube in 20 moves or less. Previously there had been some mathematical proofs that it would take no more than 52 moves. More recently some other math types proved you could solve any Rubik's cube combination in 22 moves or less.

The Google guys had a different approach. They used a huge number of computers testing out what it would take to solve any combination of Rubik's cube. They then used this massive computer network to solve all the combinations. And they found that with the right moves, all you need is 20 moves at most.

Now your normal person cannot solve the Rubik's cube in any number of moves. I think I can solve one side, maybe two. I don't think I have the brain power to solve three sides at once. Momoko plans to attend a workshop where they teach her the secret moves. Maybe she can get it down to 50 moves or so. We shall see in one week when she attends the workshop.

Movie Time

My bro and me watch DVDs every weekend. It is hard to find a couple movies each week that are good. Sometimes we get lucky like this weekend. First we saw The Crazies. I thought it was going to be a bad B movie. However it was decent.

Then we watched Kick-Ass. Momoko was supposed to join us. But she was caught up in a long phone conversation. Her loss. This movie started out pretty campy. Things got a lot better once we saw some more characters revealed. I was surprised to find out that Nicholas Cage acts in the movie. He is not the main character. But he has a good role.

Hungry Cat

I came home from work and took care of some chores. Took out the trash. Deal with the laundry. After I changed my clothes, I took a nap. Then I woke up hungry. Came downstairs about 10 minutes before dinnner.

Momoko was on the computer. I asked her if dinner was ready. It had not even been started. Whuuut? I later found out what the problem was. Momoko had joined FaceBook.

Now I need to keep an eye out to make sure Momoko stays on task. Sheesh.

Don't Like It Hot

Momoko ordered some new style pizzas tonight for dinner. I heard the doorbell ring and sent Momoko to answer the door. False call. It was the mailman with some packages. The pizza did finally arrive.

My pizza was a hot one. There was some spicy sausage on there. And there were some large jalapenos. They were hotter than the ones Momoko normally serves me with nachos.

The pizza was too hot. Ouch. I had to drink some extra tea to put that fire out. Still got 6 pieces of that pizza to eat. Might have to skip the jalapenos next time. Can I get a pepperoni up in here?

Working at School

Momoko has been getting her classroom ready for the upcoming school year. There are some jobs she cannot do. That makes them a job for Black Cat.

Now I cannot skip my own job. So I get up early and head to Momoko's classroom. Yesterday I moved a bunch of boxes from being stacked too high. Then I put up some posters very high on the blinds. That is hard because there is not much room on the ledge to stand on.

The biggest win was when I helped unclog Momoko's classroom sink. I got this new super plunger in the mail from a catalog. The thing looked funny. It was small and made of plastic. But it worked like a charm. It pulled up a pen out of Momoko's sink. She got close to the sink and whoops. She was drenched with a bunch of water and gunk that came flying out of the sink.

I went back this morning to Momoko's classroom to help again. Put up some background paper on the walls. Moved some more boxes. Hung some posters. Today I did not get any breakfast. So I got tired real quick. Then I went to my own job for a long day of work. That means it is time for a nap now.

Buffet Problems

I spent a few hours working in the yard today. There was a lot of bending down. So I was hurting afterwards. I was also hungry. Momoko voted that she go pick up some chicken. However I have been in the mood for some salad for the last few days.

My first thought was to go to Ruby Tuesdays to eat. Their salad bar is nice with real bacon, homemade croutons, and boiled egg. Then I thought we could upgrade to Golden Corral. Momoko recommended we go to a local buffet. It turned out to be a disaster.

We missed the lunch pricing for the buffet. They also charged us extra for drinks. The buffet did not have the cabbage that Momoko likes. There was not steaks. The person who was supposed to carve the meats was missing most of the time. The salad bar was a joke. I picked up the last three and a half croutons. There was an empty bowl where the sesame seeds were. I had to try to scrape up the last bit of ranch dressing. Pitiful.

I am not going back to that buffer. In the future, I shall insist on Golden Corral.