We are PCs

Today Momoko said she saw an advertisement for a laptop. The cost was $299. She asked if that was a good price. Kit Kat and my laptops went for $279. So the one being advertised was close. Momoko decided to go for it. Her school is changing from Mac to PC. She needs the practice at home now.

I worked out in the yard cutting grass for about three hours today. It was a tough heat. By the time I came in, I was ready to pass out. Luckily I drank a lot of fluids so I did not die. I did take a nap after a nice shower. Momoko comes in and tells me she got the laptop. Good news. The price was $279. Even better than $299.

Now Momoko is setting up her laptop. We just need her to use the darn thing instead of the Mac that she is used to. Microsoft, Intel, and the PC continue to take over the world.

Breakfast Surprise

Momoko woke us up early to take advantage of the hotel hot breakfast included in the room price. They had bacon, eggs, and hash browns in a big hot plate. I was delighted to see that they had hot sauce for me to put on the hash browns. There was also all you can drink juice. I started with cranberry, then went to apple.

Kit Kat ate the hot breakfast. She also had other things like cereal, a danish, and an apple. I supplemented my hot breakfast with a bagel plus cream cheese. This was a great deal. Momoko liked that it did not cost any extra than the room price already paid. It was a good thing that Momoko got us up early. By the time we left, the breakfast area was getting crowded. Tomorrow I might check out the waffle maker.

Bearly

I hurried through my tasks at work today. We planned to take a couple hour drive to visit another college for Kit Kat. I tried to get the family to eat lunch at my favorite pizza place. I was outvoted. So Momoko treated us to Chinese food.

The traffic was not bad for the road trip. We had to pass over many mountains. The car, like others, struggled to climb the steep inclines. I got up early so I was dozing off in the car. Momoko and Kit Kat started talking about some animal on the side of the road. At first they could not identify it. Then they realized it was a young bear. It was the first bear we ever saw outside of the zoo. Whew. The bear wanted to come on the highway. But it changed its mind.

We did a dry run by campus before the tour. It felt small. You could not drive through the heart of campus. Most roads were one way. There were lots of restricted parking lots. For dinner Momoko found a Western Sizzler. I thought this was like the Sizzler restaurants we used to have. Nope. Turns out it is more like the old Ponderosa. Tomorrow we return to campus for the tour.

Getting Lucky

The permit office rejected my drawings for the driveway addition we are planning. They recommended I hire a surveyor to prepare the proper documentation. It was going to cost me around $500 to get this done. I was bummed.

I had a copy of a survey done for a previous owner. The permit office said that survey was skewed. Momoko recommended that I contact the original surveyor to get a copy of the orignal. They were on the Internet. So I called them up. For a nice $25 they would send me some copies. Yes.

I just got the docs today. Now I see what went wrong. I had a copy on a normal 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. The originals were on long 8.5 x 14 paper. Now I am ready to go back and get my permit approved.

Finances and Dorms

I told Momoko we needed to visit the financial aid booth at the University of Deleware open house. The cost for Kit Kat to live on campus, eat at the dining halls, and attend university is $40k per year. We will need muchos help to get that bill paid. It was a long walk to the financial aid booth. We took a couple breaks in the middle.

I learned a lot about the specifics of paying for college there. We need to apply to the college by December 1st for them to consider merit scholarships for Kit Kat automatically. We also need to need to fill out a FAFSA form by February 15th to see what kind of financial aid we can get. We can also look at third party scholarships online.

After financial aid, we ate some university produced ice cream. Then we took a bus back to the parking garage. The bus driver was too fast and too furious. It was still better than walking. We finished up our open house experience by visiting one of the dorms. Girls and boys live "together" in the dorms. They do not share rooms or bathrooms. But they can be living across the hall or next to each other. The room we saw was nice. It better be for $40k a year.

Heat Wave

Kit Kat's alarm did not go off on Saturday morning. Luckily Momoko had a backup alarm set. Kit Kat said she did not sleep all night. Everybody was tired. We made the drive onto campus like we practiced the night before. Then we walked to registration. The had a continental breakfast in the campus theater. An admissions guy with great public speaking skills spoke at the beginning of open house.

Next we took a walk to the building where the pre-vet department would be. Kit Kat said she was not feeling well. She was worried because the admissions guy said you needed two years of foreign language, of which sign language did not count. Kit Kat wanted to bolt.

I did not drive a couple hours and commit my weekend for us to just go home. So I brought Kit Kat to the pre-vet professor. We quizzed him on why his university was better than any other one that offered a pre-vet program. Next we were supposed to go on a tour. But Momoko and Kit Kat refused. They were too hot due to the heat wave. This trip was not going well. To be continued.

College Hunting

On Friday I rushed through work. The family planned to visit a university this weekend. It has a Pre-Vet program for Kit Kat. The university happened to be hosting an open house on Saturday. We left the house around 3:45PM on Friday. That put us in the middle of rush house traffic.

I drove Momoko's car. After traffic calmed down, I pulled over and tried to get her to take over the wheel. No luck. She only got a coke out of the trunk. We drove into the college town and found a lot of construction going on. There were also many one way streets making navigation difficult.

We made it to our hotel and checked in. The room looked nice and had a pull out sofa for Kit Kat to sleep on. Then we scoped out campus to locate the check in location for Saturday. We also figured out where we were parking. This had to be done Friday night because open house started early Saturday morning. Then we got some soup at a restaurant down town. To be continued.

Shot Down

With Kit Kat driving a new car that Momoko bought, the parking at our house is getting tough. We line up three cars in our driveway. The problem is that our driveway is only one lane. That means we play musical cars when we need to get cars out. That is getting old.

My plan is to get a new driveway lane paved. I found some contractors who would do the job at a reasonable price. The only catch is that I have to go get the permit for the work. Today I went to the county permit office. I had my application filled out. I also came with copies of my site plan. This is a document that shows our property boundary lines, along with where everything sits on our property.

The parks and planning division immediately rejected my plan. They told me it was not drawn to scale. I told them the plan was based on documents I received when I bought the house. They thought maybe somebody faxes the documents, skewing them (they grew in height but not in width, making all the proportions wrong). Now I need to hire a surveyor to draw up correct site plans. Can you say ka-ching $$$?

Ice Cream Run

Momoko had us watch a movie about a princess and a curse tonight. During the movie I asked about some dessert. I had to wait until after the movie. We went out to get some ice cream.

It was late. I thought we would go to McDonald's. We tried Baskin Robbins first. It was 10:00pm. I ran up to the store and the door was opened. We hurried in and talked the employee to serve us even though they were closing.

Afterwards we watched some anime on demand from Netflix. At the end of the night, Momoko found a college nearby for Kit Kat to check out. The problem was that it costs a whopping $18k a semester. What the heck? The local state school costs $4k per semester. Kit Kat's dream school costs $15k a semester. College costs are out of control.

Shrimp Scammy

Kit Kat had an interview with a steak house close to our own house. I like that it was just a mile or two away. They are also pricey, so you can make good money in tips. Momoko had to drive Kit Kat to and from the interview. So she thought this meant she could not cook dinner.

To me that did not compute. I like us to be scrappy and cook dinnner instead of going out. We got bills. We need to be diligent. Momoko said she just did not feel like cooking. She did present some coupons to the local all you can eat diner.

The coupons gave you a big discount if you paid for a drink. They also stated that the added shrimp to the menu. We went to the place.

The price was right. We got unlimited drink bar for all (normally we all get just water). However the shrimp was a few types of popcorn shrimp. Overall it was a good deal. But it felt like some serious false advertising.

New Arrivals

Yesterday the family went fish shopping. We have an incubator fish tank with small new fish. It was time to add some more fish to this tank. Momoko and Kit Kat accompanied me on this adventure.

The plan was for each of us to choose two fish. I chose a black molly and a red fish. I think the red was a Red Dwarf, but I am not sure. Kit Kat chose another Dojo. Momoko exceeded her fish limit as usual. She got some Loach type of fish that is striped. She also chose some other colorful ones.

We got some chicken for lunch on the way home. We had Kit Kat drive for practice sake. I was holding all the fish in the back seat. Momoko directed Kit Kat to take the back road home because it is shorter. But it was a bumpy ride. Poor fish. I am happy to report they all made it alive to our house.

Coned

Kit Kat decided to go to the pool with her friends last night. Momoko and I drove her there. Kit Kat's friends saw us on the road and beeped their horn at us. Afterwards Momoko wanted to get some ice cream. We drove to a farm near our house that sells ice cream in the summer. I got a huge waffle cone with butterscotch and soft serve.

Now for an update on our dryer debable. Momoko called the store manager who said it would be easy to hook up our dryer exhaust. He came over this week. After struggling for an hour, he finally got the thing hooked up. Kit Kat did some laundry. The dryer vent fell off on the first dryer use. Epic fail.

Momoko called the store manager again, explaining that his handy work was not too handy. The manager sent the install guy who should have done the work the first time. He cut out some of the vent ducting from the wall. Then he connected the dryer directly to the opening that leads outside. Let's hope this thing holds tight. I am never going to use these delivery and install guys again. A total waste of time. I got my own handy man who will charge a bit more, but get the job right the first time.

Duct to Nowhere

Today I went to work a little late. The networks were down yesterday. So I tried to wait until I could confirm they were working today. As soon as I got to work, Momoko called me with some bad news.

The new dryer delivery guy brought the dryer into the basement. But he did not connect the duct to vent the steam to the outside. His ducting was too short. What a fail. I was unhappy because I had to pay for the ducting, and had paid for the guy to do the isntall.

I thought I would have to come home and deal with all this mess. Momoko later decided to try to solve the problem herself. She called the sales guy and complained. Now they say they will return to make the install right. It is the least they can do.

Dryer Fail

Even though it was the weekend, I woke up early yesterday. A concrete contractor was supposed to come by in the morning. I waited all morning and finally got a call at noon. The cat needed some more time to get to my house.

When he came, this cat had a low estimate for new driveway lane we want paid. He quoted us less than half the cost of the previous guy. Momoko was a little bit suspicious. I have an action item to check with the county as to whether the short cuts this contractor recommends are legal.

Momoko made me get one more quote from a reputable company. In other news, our clothes dryer broke down yesterday. I scrambled to get to a laundromat to get my two loads of laundry dried. Momoko is scheduled to go out and actually purchase our new dryer. That is a relief. I am spending a lot of my time with these driveway contractors.

Construction No Show

With a new car in the family, we need more room in the driveway. So I called 3 concrete guys from the local paper. One cat came and said it would cost a whopping $10k to add a lane to our driveway. The other two cats did not show up. Dang.

This morning I woke up late to find a message on the answering machine. One of the other cats had called saying he was coming over. What? He already missed his earlier estimate of when he would come. Then he just shows up. I called him back and he seemed confused about what we needed. He told me he would need to call me back. He never did. So I guess he is out. Momoko wanted me to talk to him because he said he could do the work for $5k.

Another one of the cats I called finally called me back. This was a few days after he said he could come by. Fail. He apologized and promised he would visit first thing tomorrow morning. If he does show up, and has a good price I will consider him. We need this work done. And I don't have a lot of cheese to spend on this project.

Zombie Party

After watching the movie Shaun of the Dead a few times, Momoko convinced Kit Kat to throw a Shaun of the Dead party. This party is tonight. Some of Kit Kat's friends declined the invite because they hate horror films. The rest talked Kit Kat into cooking and serving fondue.

We like Shaun of the Dead. One reason is because the main actor is Simon Pegg, a British actor that is plain lovable. This is a campy zombie movie. It takes a while for Shaun and his best buddy to realize the undead wandering around London are actually zombies. These boys are a bit dense.

The plan for the party is for it to start after driver's education class is over (around 9:00pm). Then the main party will last until midnight, at which point we kick out the boys. Then the girls will spend the night with Kit Kat. I have to visit my company's main office early tomorrow morning. I hope the undead activity does not keep me up too late.

Unlocked

We have been having some difficulty with the lock on our house door. The front door lock was always a bit messed up. We could not use the key to get in. Now the side door that we always use got hosed.

I got up early this morning to go to work. But I could not get the side door locked from the outside. The key would just not go all the way into the lock. It took a while to wake Momoko to come down and lock the door behind me. She stays up late in the summer.

During lunch, Momoko went to the store to buy replacement locks. We just need some deadbolts. The trick is to get a pair of them (for the front and side doors) that all use the same key. Momoko suceeded.

I worked hard all day to be able to leave on time. Momoko and Kit Kat had already left to a picture appointment. They had to leave the house unlocked. That's why I rushed home. I replaced just the deadbolts on the two doors. Now we are well again. Time to make copies of the new keys.

Flying High

Today we drove up to the airport. Momoko had me drive the new Honda Fit. We let Little Kat sit up front because he was flying. The airport parking lot was not too full. The check in lines were not too long. Little Kat was checked in over an hour before take off.

Kit Kat and I said goodbye to Little Kat. Then Momoko took Little Kat through security. Kit Kat and I had a seat in the restaurant outside security. Kit Kat ordered some calamari. I had chips and queso. We waited a long time. Then we moved to a window seat by the front of the airport.

Momoko kept texting and calling Kit Kat. After Little Kat's plane pulled out on the tarmac, Momoko came looking for us. She could not find us. We had to go find her. Kit Kat was not in the mood to drive the long distance from the airport. So I took us home. Tonight we eat pork BBQ from the slow cooker. And we plan to watch Inception. Have a safe flight Little Kat.

Light Me Up

Little Kat is visiting his dad for the summer. So the family decided to take him out to dinner. Little Kat wanted to go to an all you can eat restaurant. Kit Kat drove us there. It started raining as soon as we got into the car.

Kit Kat put her lights on. Momoko thought the lights were not shining. Kit Kat said she turned them on. There was a bunch of wind and rain. But Kit Kat made it to the restaurant. When Momoko got out, she found that our headlights were not on. fail.

Momoko showed Kit Kat the correct way to turn the headlights on all the way. I think it is time for Kit Kat to read the manual of our new car. At dinner Momoko found her favorite cabbage in abundance. I was happy because the salad bar was fully loaded. Both kids had some soup and lots of dessert. Today we send Little Kat off to fly up north by himself to visit daddy.

New Car Time

Momoko purchased a new Honda Fit this week. We got the Milano Red color that we wanted. Had to go up to a higher level of trim. That bumped the cost up almost $2000. But we are just loving this color. The higher trim had some other useful things like security system, arm rest, radio controls on the steering wheel, and so on.

It seems that the family is driving the new car all the time. Momoko tried to get me to drive the thing a few times. I did not want to. It is new. I don't want to be the first person to get into an accident with it. I drove once to pick up Little Kat from the pool. Then I drove Momoko to pick up her car from the dealership. That is it.

Luckily Kit Kat likes driving the new car. I vote that she do most of the new car driving from now on. We are a little cramped with parking. My truck is boxed in the back of the carport. Momoko's car is usually boxed in the driveway by the new one. I park out on the street. Time to look into getting a larger driveway paved for us.