Car Shopping

My bro is looking to buy a new vehicle. He asked me to go with him to do some car shopping. Nobody in the house was awake except me when my bro arrived. I thought we were going to the Subaru dealership. But my bro decided to see Honda instead.

We went to the same dealership where Momoko bought the Honda Fit for Kit Kat. My bro likes the Ridgeline. The sales associate showed us one in the showroom. We wanted to take a ride. The sales associate got us one to take for a spin by ourselves.

The thing had a sticker price of $35k. Yeah it was top of the line. I actually did not like that the sunroof took away headroom from the front seat. My bro liked both the acceleration and smooth ride. It felt more like a car than a truck.

This thing had a lot of undeeded extras. My bro does not want them. We asked to see a truck without the sunroof. The sales associate thought they might get one this week. I told her to call me if they did. Next week we hit the Subaru dealership to compare.

Party Preparations

Kit Kat had been planning to have a few friends sleep over during the Christmas break. Momoko suggested that Kit Kat invite some boys over as well for a party. Kit Kat agreed. Her friend's love when she makes her cheese fondue. So she and Momoko went shopping the day before. Unfortunately they went late at night. There was no french baguette bread available for dipping into the cheese. They decided to return to the store on the day of the party.

The family is staying up late each night since it is vacation. I am usually the first one up around noon each day. In the mid afternoon, I warned Momoko that she and Kit Kat should go to the store and buy some bread. Two hours before the party, Momoko asked if I could take Kit Kat grocery shopping. It turns out that Momoko had to go to the library with Little Kat before it closed. Poor planning. Kit Kat drove me to a crowded grocery store. We got 4 loaves of baguette bread. Just before the party started, Momoko had me go out and buy some subs for dinner. I brought Little Kat along for the ride (and to help use some of the coupons I had). When we returned home, everyone had arrived for the party. Don't these kids know how to arrive fashionably late?

There was a lot of dancing going on at the party. The dancing was part of the new Xbox game Kit Kat bought. I was impressed with the large number of songs the game has. Momoko and I try to stay out of the way during Kit Kat's party. A couple hours into the party, I heard Little Kat talking with Kit Kat's friends. Then I heard Kit Kat trying to shoo Little Kat away. I came down to investigate. Apparently some party goers talked to Little Kat, and he was only too happy to join the party. I inatructed him to politely ignore anyone talking to him, and to stay upstairs away from the party goers. We did allow Little Kat to come downstairs to snack on som eof the pizza that Kit Kat cooked.

At midnight, we kicked the boys out of the house. I had to drive one of the guys home. Good times for all.

The Rise of Chub Chub

At the start of the school year, Little Kat and I purchased some large goldfish for Momoko's classroom. The fattest one of these was Chub Chub. We stuck the fish in Momoko's 10 gallon school fish tank. These large goldfish have grown during the school year.

For Christmas break, we decided to take the goldfish home. At first we stuck them in a 10 gallon tank in the basement. Then me and the kids went to the pet store and bought a 20 gallon tank for the goldfish. We also picked up a powerful but quiet filter for the tank.

After taking down the Christmas tree, we rearranged the furniture in our living room. This opened a spot in the corner for Chub Chub. Momoko tried buying a fish tank stand online. It turns out to be unstable. So we went back to the pet store and bought a study wood fish tank stand.

While setting up the tank for Chub Chub and the other goldfish, Little Kat declared that there was a piece missing from the air filter. I told Momoko we would return to the pet store for a replacement. Kit Kat said she knew a trick, and found the missing piece inside the filter. Now we have Chub Chub and friends in a roomy fish tank. Let's hope they don't need an upgrade to a 30 or 50 gallon tank too soon.

Chipwrecked

The family got some movie passes for Christmas. We voted and planned to go to Tintin. However I double checked our passes and found they did not work at our favorite theater. So we regrouped and decided on seeing Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I had bad experiences at the theater that we had passes at. Their movie playing ability is suspect. The last time I was there, the volume was hosed and we had to get our money back. A big waste of time. That's why I got concerned when the screen went blank after the movie theater commercial. I said to myself, "Not again."

Some other patrons looked concerned too. The screen was blank for a minute or two. Then then movie theater commercial came back on. We were good after that. Everyone got some drinks. Little Kat bought some nachos. Momoko smuggled in candy for everyone. The highlights from the movie we a double rainbow and LMFAO's song "Party Rock Anthem."

Laptop Blues

Little Kat said his laptop is having problems. The thing won't connect to the Internet. I took a look and found some serious problems. Most of the services won't start up because they depend on something that has not started up. We tried to locate this missing unstarted dependency without luck.

I told Little Kat we could back up his data and see whether we could restore his laptop to the factory default settings. Momoko thought I could buy myself a new laptop, then let Little Kat use mine. At first I thought that was a bad idea. Then I took a look at the Sunday ads. Best Buy had a Dell laptop on sale for $350. It had 4G RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 15.6 inch display.

Tonight Little Kat and I try to scope out the laptop at the store. It was crowded. I asked a buy unloaded some boxes to help us out. He told us most of the low cost laptops were sold out. The only one for $350 had a small screen and no numeric keypad. The best low cost laptop Little Kat found for me cost $479. Too much.

Now we are at home regrouping.

Christmas Time

The family stayed up very late on Christmas Eve. This was why nobody was awake Christmas morning until after 10:00am. Very unusual. There was an abundance of gifts under the tree. The main gift this year was the Xbox 360 Kinect that Momoko got for the whole family.

We knew the Kinect was coming. So we asked some peeps to buy us Kinect games. The family is thinking that some of the cash we got for Christmas will go towards new Kinect games.

My family is coming over my house for Christmas dinner. Therefore I decided we should not set up the Xbox Kinect yet. We have a lot of cooking still to do. The cooking has be divided up among the family. In all the commotion, we forgot to eat breakfast. Little Kat and I are getting quite hungry.

Announcing Mr. Kat

In two months, the family plans to attend an anime convention. We are going all out. Momoko is renting a room at the hotel for us to stay in. That way we can be there the night before it starts. We can also go up to the room to rest during the day. Anime conventions can be taxing.

To get into this convention, you need to present your ID. Today Momoko took Little Kat to get his photo ID from the county. It took them around two hours. But now Little Kat is a card carrying member of the state. It has his picture on it. The card also has all kinds of info on it. Little Kat will keep the card in his wallet.

Watch out world. Mister Little Kat is on the loose.

Repair Slackers

We got some slackers in our house. A lot of them. My motto to them is, "If you see something wrong, fix it. Don't tell me about it." Nobody seems to take the motto to heart. I was reminded of this yesterday. Little Kat came up from the basement. He said the light bulb burned out over the stairs.

I directed Little Kat to put a new light bulb in. He told me he did not know how. Typical. Momoko told me to teach Little Kat how to put a new light bulb in. The kid is 14 years old. Time to step up.

Then I went upstairs and saw that a light bulb was burned out in Little Kat's room. I asked him about it. He said, "Oh yeah. It went out." I told him to replace that one. The bulb had broken from the base. Little Kat declared that this was a difficult task.

I ended up fixing that light bulb as well. Now I know I taught Little Kat how to use a pair of pliers to remove a bulb that broke from a socket. He knew better to tell me he did not know how. Just slacking.

This slackage is not limited to Little Kat. Kit Kat will be sitting there with 2 out of 3 light bulbs burned out in her room. Momoko buys the light bulbs. She pretty much never changes them.

When I saw a light bulb burned out in the kitchen today, I bit the bullet and changed it. Who am I kidding? Slackers aren't even going to acknowledge that the bulb went out, let alone do anything about it. Slacked.

The Walk

I spent a good deal of time going out on Sunday. So I was too tired to do my normal work like laundry and bills. I had to pick up that work on Monday. When the kids came home, I was tired.

However I had made plans with Little Kat to drive him to the store for some late Christmas shopping. Then Momoko wanted me to come with her to the pet store. We need a new stand for our newly acquired 20 gallon gold fish tank. After all that I was ready for a nap.

Little Kat, Kit Kat, and I had scheduled to go walking yesterday. But I had a pretty busy day. Plus Little Kat had tons of homework to do. I figured we would just postpone the walk. I heard a knock on my bedroom door at 9:30pm. Little Kat finished his homework and was ready to walk.

I put on my coat and reflective vest. Then Little Kat brought me our bright flashlight (to help cars see us in the distance). Little Kat went out and thought it warm. So he left his coat at home. No way. It was 40 something degrees outside. I made him put on a jacket. Then we walked down to the "M&M", a sort of cul de sac at the intersection of two streets.

En route to the M&M we discovered the house where a friend of a friend of Kit Kat lives. This is just 2 or 3 streets over from us. I was surprised we lived so close. This is just an acquiantance of Kit Kat since she goes to a different school. However it felt like it was a small world.

Burning the Soup

Some of the cats in our family are sick. It is getting cold out. Momoko thought it was time for home made chicken soup. Kit Kat and Momoko went to the store to purchase the ingredient. Little Kat was assigned to cook the soup.

I went out to a late lunch with a friend. When I came back, soup was getting cooked. Momoko said she thought she smelled some coffee. Little Kat apparently "burned" the chicken soup. How do you burn soup? Well in the post dinner analysis, we found that Little Kat put in 7 times the normal amount of rice in the soup.

With all the rice, the soup turned into gruel. The mush was cooked on high. Even though Little Kat said he stirred the stuff, it still burned. Momoko tried to eat some. After hearing her comments, Kit Kat did not want to eat any. Little Kat tried to put on his game face and eat his creation. He said it made him sick.

I was lucky that I was not hungry since I just ate a late lunch. We ended up dumping out all the soup. The house smells like smoke. Momoko still wants good chicken soup. Looks like Little Kat will be assigned to cook the soup again this week.

Early Morning Munchies

Saturdays are usually weird for eating. My bro comes over and we grab dinner together. We eat early, so I get hungry later a night. Normally Momoko picks me up something for a late night snack such as a salad. However Momoko was sick yesterday. So I had to make due without the salad.

This morning I felt the hunger pains. Essentially I missed one meal yesterday. So I woke up and was going to get myself some McDonalds. It was so early that my car had frost on it. Drat. I spied Momoko's car in the carport. It had a clean windshield. Problem solved.

It was cold out. I was glad that I was in Momoko's car. It has seat warmers. I used a coupon my bro gave me to get a free large Sprite. The lady in the drive through looked down in my bag, seemed puzzled, and handed it to me.

I always check the contents. As I was doing so, the lady started banging on the car window. She motioned for me to wait. Then she came back with my hash browns. Good thing too. I would have caught that. I know they pack those separately. On the way home I saw am empty McDonald's bag on the street. Someone else had the same idea I had.

Christmas Shopping

We had a busy weekend planned. Momoko still needed to do some Christmas shopping. So I drove her to "Five and Below" to load up on cheap gifts. I got out a little shopping cart. We found a bunch of good gifts. I was done my own Christmas shopping, but picked up a couple extra items. I also got a few goodies for myself.

At checkout I surprised that the line was short. It is Christmas time. Last week when I went to the same store, I waited a while to get helped. Momoko got a long item. They did not have a bag to fit it. They had to put it in a garbage bag. Doh. Then we took all our bags and wheeled the shopping cart towards our car. A guard ran out of the store and told us we could not take the cart out. Fail. So we did our best to carry all the bags. We should have made the lackey guard help us carry the stuff to our car.

Today Kit Kat had scheduled to go shopping with her friends at the mall. Momoko was going to drive Kit Kat there. But Momoko is getting sick. We decided to let Momoko sleep. Me and my bro drove Kit Kat to her friend's house. We go the friend and drove Kit Kat to the mall. The roads to the mall were fine. The mall itself was crazy. At night I got a call from Kit Kat. She needed to talk to Momoko. She said it was an emergency. I had to wake up Momoko because Kit Kat lost her debit card and needed help cancelling it.

Cold Cat

Yesterday it was surpringly warm for December. Momoko said it was 60 degrees or so. Kit Kat cooked pork chops and sides for dinner, heating our house up even more. By night time, Momoko and I were hot. So I turned off the heat and opened up a window. The house cooled down a bit after an hour.

Momoko wanted me to close the window when she went to bed. No problem. I stayed up a bit longer and went to sleep myself. Today I am working from home. At lunch time I felt that my feet were very cold. That is strange. We set the heat so that I am usually comfortable. I did not give much more thought to this problem.

Later as I walked around the house, I figured something was not right. I was cold. Then I figured it out. I never turned the heat back on. It was around 60 degrees in the house. Ouch. Let's hope this thing heats back up now.

Grubby Situation

Kit Kat went with Momoko to school today. Kit Kat needed to run some experiments for her research projects. It has to do with the way kids learn best (visual, auditory, etc). I dropped by at lunch time to give Kit Kat a pizza and Momoko some Mexican food.

It just so happened that today was Momoko's office work party. So I also dropped by the school to pick the kids up at the end of the day. Due to some oversight, we had no food to cook for dinner. The kids and I went grocery shopping. Cokes were on sale. Yay. They did not have my little microwave pizzas there.

In the classroom, Momoko's goldfish are getting really big. Little Kat and I bought them big, and they are growing. We wanted to take the fish home for the holiday. But we only have a small goldfish tank at home. So after grocery shopping, we bought a 20 gallon goldfish tank. We also picked up some gerbil food for home and school gerbils.

Af home after dinner, Kit Kat was going to play with our home gerbils. She opened up the store bag with the gerbil food and found a bunch of worms! They were white grub with little dark heads. Kit Kat counted between 20 and 30 of them. Nasty. Kit Kat and I immediately returned to the pet store for a prompt exchange. It was still oh so nasty.

Visitor Approved

Kit Kat has to do a research project during her senior year in high school. She has decided to run some tests on students. Momoko is proving as assist by letting Kit Kat interview her students. Kit Kat's friend decided to do the same thing. Momoko is her mentor.

Today Kit Kat's friend went to school with Momoko. There she shall run some experiments on the kids. She got permission from the kids' parents. I think it might be some sort of memory test. Momoko said it was sad that Kit Kat's friend just sits in the classroom during lunch time. She does not go to the cafeteria with the other students. I told Momoko I could bring by a pizza at lunch time. My work sched is very flexible these days because I am working from home. Now Kit Kat's friend is very picky about what she eats a drinks. For example, she does not like any toppings other than cheese on her pizza. Luckily Pizza Hut has personal pan pizzas. I got one for Momoko and Kit Kat's friend.

Since school was in session when I arrived, I checked into the main office. Momoko must have warned them I was coming. They knew I was there to deliver pizza. The lady behind the desk reached out with a big sticker. I asked if I was supposed to put it on the food? She laughed and stuck it on my jacket. It was a school visitor badge. Aha.

I was smart when I got the food from Pizza Hut. I dented in the little RB tab on top of the drink for Kit Kat's friend. She likes Root Beer. Momoko goes for Lipton brisk rasberry tea. Don't want to mix up our orders. Luckily Pizza Hut puts a little sticker on the pizza boxes indicating the toppings on the pizza. Mission accomplished.

Fighting the Fireplace

The last time the kids started a fire in the fireplace, we smelled a lot of smoke in the house. I bought an air ionizer. It is supposed to filter the air and remove things like smoke. So last night it felt cold in the computer room. I decided to start a fire.

I got some small logs off the massive log pile we have in our carport. Crumped up a bunch of newpaper. Little Kat got me the automatic lighter. The paper caught fire nicely. However the logs did not catch fire. Then I put some more paper in there. Fail.

Little Kat bought out the wood bellow that I purchased a while ago. It is a big fan to fan the flames. That did the trick. When we blew air in there, newspaper and wood got real hot and lit up. At first I did not smell any smoke. Check. But this morning there was a bad smoke smell in the house.

The biggest fail was that the flue in the fireplace was all messed up. The metal part of the flue that opens or closes was upside down, and fell down past the opening that holds it up. I spent a lot of time getting that straightened out. No wonder the computer room was cold.

Christmas Cheer

Little Kat and I noticed that there were few Christmas lights on our street. He suggested we get some and hang them up. That sounded like a lot of work to me. Momoko agreed with Little Kat and bought some lights. Little Kat and Momoko hung them up. Some of the lights are a bluish-white set of icicles hanging from the gutters. There are also some bright LED colored lights in the bushes. It was a lot of pain getting those lights hung up.

While the lights were being hung, Kit Kat lead the effort to put up out Christmas tree. Some furniture had to be reshuffled. Kit Kat and Little Kat struggled to move our recliner chairs out of the room. We got the Polar Express train secured around the tree. The kids hung the ornaments, lights, and cancy canes. Now we need to add some gifts under this tree.

At night we heard a bunch of sirens outside. They kept getting closer to the house. A big fire truck came up our cul de sac. On top of the truck were two firemen dressed up as Santa Claus. I guess they are looking for some donations this holiday season.

Left Behind

Momoko and Little Kat took it easy yesterday. So they have to run their errands today. Kit Kat came home late yesterday from school and tried to arrange some activities today with her friends. Unfortunately she needed a ride to all the places she wanted to go. Momoko was busy. That means I am driving Kit Kat around today.

Kit Kat's friends have their driver's licenses. So they just drive their cars to wherever they want to go. Kit Kat does not have her license yet. It would be a whole lot easier if she did. I am hoping that will motivate her to step and pass her driver's license test. They are tough to pass in our state. I don't know how these other girls made it.

I usually sleep in late on Saturdays. Today I had to set an alarm to be up in time to drive Kit Kat to Target, the girls' first meeting place. We got there 5 minutes after the scheduled meeting time. I thought we would see Kit Kat friends. Kit Kat called one of them up. She was in the next aisle over. As I left Kit Kat with her friend, I saw another of Kit Kat's friends waling in. All set.

The Daily Walk

The family had planned to walk three times this week. On Wednesday it was raining. Momoko also had a tough day at work. So I let us skip Wednesday. Little Kat said he made up for the missed day by walking on the treadmill on Thursday.

Today Kit Kat had an after school activity. She wanted to eat dinner with her friends after that. So the family decided to walk without her. For some reason, Little Kat decides to run ahead of us until he is out of site. At the half way point where we normally turn around to go home, Little Kat suggested we go a bit farther. Momoko said we could but she would not join us.

So Little Kat and I went to the next bend in the road. I was surprised with the amount of trash I found on the streets. Need to bring a trash bag and a little grabber next time we walk. The grabber let's me pick up items without bending over or touching them. When Little Kat and I got hoome, we found Momoko on the bench outside out house. She did not have a key to get in. Ooops.

Gerbil Mania

I was tired this morning and decided to stay home from work. That's okay. I was ahead of schedule at work. I also have the ability to work from home. People who really need me know how to track me down to call me.

I was being productive in our computer room. Then I heard a commotion coming from our TV room. The noise would not go away. I came in to see a flurry of gerbil activity. Out home gerbils were wrestling with each other. They were also running in their wheel, with bedding flying around.

The main disturbance was coming from the big school gerbil cage. I guess Little Kat did not bring them back to school today. Some gerbils were violently scrating at thier little wooden house. Others were scrating at the cardboard box placed in their cage. another was in their bath flinging corn meal around. And some were digging like crazy, making the bedding fly.

Not sure why these lil guys were wild. Maybe they heard me and wanted some attention. Perhaps the leaf blower or lawn mower noise from outside drove them batty. Eventually they calmed down and went to sleep. Sheesh.

An Uphill Battle

Last week the family took a walk for exercise purposes. We went to Kit Kat's morning bus stop. Momoko had a tough time walking there and back home. She said her legs and back hurt. This was disturbing because we did not walk that far. We did have to walk up a steep hill.

We contemplated how to fix this problem. I figured we should walk more often. I also thought we could take a new path that did not involve steep inclines. Momoko thought we could do swimming instead. That might work in the summer. But we are too busy to go to the swimming pool on a regular basis during the school year.

Today we tried out the new path. Momoko said her legs were fine. Her back still hurt. We only had to stop once on the way home. We plan to walk two more times this week. I hope we can walk a little further the next time.

Gerbil Scare

This weekend the kids found something wrong with one of our gerbils. She was shaking bad. Kit Kat did some research on the web and feared the gerbil might have epilepsy. We cannot know for sure.

Momoko and Kit Kat took turns holding the gerbil in a blanket. They gave her some water when she would take it. Little Kat prepared an incubation gerbil cage, just in case the illness was contagious. The gerbil seemed to sleep off the problem.

After a while the gerbil was up and drinking. We kept her in the separate cage for a little while. Kit Kat covered her in bedding to try to keep her warm. Then we returned her to the main home gerbil cage. The other gerbils slept in the little house with her, hopefully keeping her warm.

Introducing Breakout

I am taking a programming class at a community college. Got to keep those skills up. You never know when you need to look for another job. More skills means more chance at success.

This semester the instructor has agreed to substitute a final project in place of a final exam. I was planning to create an electronic football game for my final. Then I saw a demo of the old arcade game Breakout, and knew I needed to write it.

So far, Breakout is doing pretty good. The ball bounces around the screen and knocks out bricks. Most of the time it bounces off the paddle. Still got a bug or two to correct. I want to add a cool startup screen.

You know I am in good shape when I am worrying about tiny details such as a startup screen. The credits in the game state that this is an "A+ Production". Get it?