Weird Trash Pickup

Yesterday we had scheduled to have bulky trash pickup to get our "appliances". I heard the truck arrive and looked out the window. The guys had a truck that did most of the work. The truck had a platform that lowered to the ground. They pushed the appliances on the platform. Then the platform rose and pulled the appliances into the back of the truck.

One of the trash guys dropped down to the ground. I thought he might be looking under the truck. Nope. He proceeded to do some push ups on the ground. He crossed his legs for extra difficulty. I guess that's what happens when you have a truck that does all the lifting for you.

Today the guys came to collect the rest of the bulky trash. They started out fine. However they did not exercise enough care when putting our huge TV into the truck. The thing got crushed with glass flying out the back of the truck. I had to go out in the rain afterwards to pick up all the glass pieces. I was still glad that all our bulky trash is gone.

Bulky Problem

I tried hard to finish up work on time today. It was tough, since I had some loose ends to tie. Got done at an average time. Then I got dressed for outdoor work and headed to the store. Needed to pick up some materials for the yard. Got some grass seed and dirt with fertilizer in it. Purchased a replacement pot for the rose plant on the back patio. And so on.

When I got home, I stepped inside to grab a drink and get the keys to the shed. Momoko was on the phone. But she told me our bulky trash pickup was scheduled for tomorrow and the day after. We have been accumulating lots of large items that I just stored behind our shed. Now it was time to bring them to the curb.

Appliances get picked up tomorrow. The rest gets picked up Wednesday. But what is an appliance? Dishwasher is. But what about a microwave or air conditioner? I placed the items as I saw fit, grouping them by type. Momoko and the kids helped. The dolly came in handy. Now I am all broken. Let's hope the bulky trash pickup people actually come.

Goodbye Mac SE

The family has decided to do some house cleaning. Finally we started last night. We attached the closet in the guest bedroom. Threw out most of the stuff in there we do not use. I did my share by pitching an old Macintosh computer. Little Kat protested, thinking the thing was worth some money. I doubt it. He said he could keep it in his closet. Unfortunately Little Kat has his own old Mac which he never uses.

The Mac I disposed of was the Macintosh SE. It was made int he 1980s. I used one of them at my first job. About 10 or 15 years ago, I found out a guy was selling one. So me and my buddy went down to check it out. He had all the accessories for it. He also packed it in a custom carrying case. I shelled out about $100 for it. The carrying case itself cost more than that.

The Mac SE was an all-in-one computer. The monitor was built in. But it was a small 9 inch black and white monitor. I don't think this computer could go on the Internet. I liked it because there were some computer games I played in college that would only run on old Macs like this. I have not booted the machine up in over 5 years. It was time for it to go.

Laundry Surprise

I did a load of laundry in the morning. One of the perks from working from home. In the afternoon I pushed to get another load done. I noticed the wash basin the washer empties into had some gunk on the bottom. So I poured some bleach into it. I figured the washer water would wash the bleach down the drain soon enough.

I went upstairs to do some more work. Then I smelled the bleach. I knew there would be some smell. But it was too strong. Something must have been wrong. I went downstairs and found the wash basin full of water. If the water got too high, I was going to shut off the washer. Eventually the thing drained very slowly.

When the water was finally gone, I looked down the drain. There was some stuff obstructing the water flow. I got the long screwdriver. Started scraping out some stuff from the drain. 25 to 50 percent of the drain was totally obstructed. Finally I pulled out a penny. The thing got stuck down there. Whew. Got to keep an eye on that drain. The thing runs fine, for now.

Dancing with the IRS

I flowed a small amount of cash from my business to my brother this past year. He buys me lunch almost every weekend. I feel like I should give back a little bit. However my bro wanted to know how to report the income on his tax return. I didn't know how to do it. But I took the action to figure it out.

In cases like this, you just got to defer to the Internal Revenue Service. I googled their web site and made a call. I was on hold for a while. Then the person told me I had called the phone line for businesses, not individual taxes. I got the the phone number for individual taxpayers.

I had a long wait. When I talked to the next IRS employee, she was only able to transfer me to another department. I waited for a super long time. Finally I got someone on the line. She told me I had to talk with the small business department. I perservered, and waited for another long time.

Finally I got someone to answer my question. The income is taxable. Must be reported on Line 21 of the Form 1040. This is the "other income" line. My bro must put the amount on that line, and describe the income type.

Voyage Home

Today was the day to travel home from our anime convention. I made sure we got up on time to check out. The parking garage was weird in that they required us to use our hotel room key to exit. Guess we keep the keys. We did not eat before leaving. So we stopped by the Olive Garden for brunch. Soup and salad was the meal for most of us.

I wanted Kit Kat to drive us home. Her excuse was that she did not have her contacts. Fail. As we pulled into our house, I thought it was strange that one of our newspapers was missing. Turns out our neighbor brought it up to our side door. I told him we were going out of town. Guess he didn't want anyone getting the idea that we were gone.

We also had a scare when we entered the house. One cage of gerbils got into a nasty fight. Little Kat thought one of the gerbils had died. However she was just hiding well because the other two were engaged in Mortal Combat. We have since separated the two broken gerbils. We can't keep living like this. We already had to separate our gang of 5 gerbils from school. Next year's anime convention trip might be cancelled due to gerbil watching duty.

Anime Convention

Today is our last day at the anime convention. Officially we are still here tomorrow. But it is a travel day. We all had different schedules. Most of the time I was by myself. Momoko and Kit Kat stayed together for most of the day. I met them at the voice actors' panel.

Kit Kat was the only one who was dressed up in costume. She was the wolf girl from Spice and Wolf. Speaking of Kit Kat, she was scheduled to attend a session at 2:00am this morning. She went but the thing got cancelled.

Everyone except me went to get autographs from their favorite voice actors. I went to a seminar on how to produce web comics on the cheap. Little Kat was left in the hotel room by himself during the afternoon. Turns out he finished up the soft drinks and meat for sandwiches we brought. Therefore Momoko had to order some Dominos (room service is too expensive). The delivery lackeys made Kit Kat come down to the lobby to get the pizza.

The highlight of the show for me was a panel on how to create an imaginary world to write about. Turns out the family saw these guys at a later session. Momoko bought one of their graphic novels and got it signed by them.

College News

This week Kit Kat got a letter in the mail from her top choice for college. I did not think much about it. The thing came in an orange envelope. It was the size and shape of a birthday card. Figured it was some propaganda or other nonsense. Nope. It was her acceptance letter. I was taken aback. Normally these things come in a standard #10 white envelope.

Kit Kat was very excited. The "card" she received played a song when you opened it up. The message was clear. It was welcoming her to the college. Now we still need to wait to see whether Kit Kat will get any scholarship or financial aid to help pay for college. She needs a bunch as she will need to live and eat on campus if she goes to her top choice.

These are still very exciting times. I myself am savoring what might be the last few months before Kit Kat goes far away to college.

Caught Speeding

Momoko got a speeding ticket in the mail today. It was a photo enforcement for Kit Kat's car. However Kit Kat was not driving the car on the street that the ticket says she was. I advised Momoko to contest the ticket. That means she probably has to go to court.

Momoko and Kit Kat started talking about their elaborate plans to prove they were not at the scene of the crime. I advised them that their proofs did not address the complaint on the ticket. The ticket just states that Kit Kat's car was speeding on a certain street on a certain date. There is nothing claiming that Kit Kat was the one driving the car.

Instead I recommend that Momoko gather up evidence that shows her plate goes with our little red car. That could be a picture, plus the registration from the state, as well as an insurance card. Then Momoko can show the judge this evidence, contrasted with the picture of some random Jeep Cherokee, whose picture is on the ticket. That discrepancy alone should get the ticket revoked.

Underworld Returns

Kit Kat has been waiting a long time for the latest Underworld movie to come out. She was ready to go see it. None of her friends have seen the series. So Momoko planned to watch the movie with Kit Kat. Then Momoko got sick.

Kit Kat said she would go to the theater by herself. That seemed too sad. So I volunteered to go. Kit Kat looked up the time on Flixster. It was showing at 4:20pm. We left for the theater an hour before hand. It started snowing heavily. But we planned this thing out. So we forged on. We searched around to find a parking spot. The guy at the ticket booth said Underworld was not playing at 4:20pm. Fail. We got tickets for the 5:00pm showing.

Food lines we long, but we had plenty of time. We actually snuck into the end of Mission Impossible. After it ended, we got better seating. The theater was tiny with six total rows of seats. As the previews we about to start, Kit Kat noticed that everyone had 3D glasses on. Great.

I ran out to the ticket person, who gave us some glasses. We put them on in theater to find they did not work. They were IMax glasses, not 3D glasses. I ran back to get the right glasses. The movie turned out pretty good. No spoilers here except that the bad guy is the actor that plays in Lost Girl. Nice.

Super Bowl Ads

This year the family decided to watch the Super Bowl together. We were mainly interested in the advertisements. However the game provde to be a good one. There were a ton of snacks at our house. Little Kat made pulled pork in the slow cooker. Kit Kat prepared some guacamole and chile con queso. We had purchased a cheese and meat tray as well.

The ad that made me laugh the most was one from Sketchers. It was a dog race with many race dogs, but one short dog. The short one tore up the track and won the race by moonwalking over the finish line. What was his secret? He was wearing two pairs of Sketchers shoes on his feet.

The second best ad was for the Kia Optima. The sand man comes to sprinkle dust on a couple while they sleep. The wife gets some dust and dreams of a prince rescuing her. Sand man trips over some shoes, spilling way too much sand on the husband. His dreams go wild. He is driving a Kia Optima. Babes are in the stands. There is some sort of wrestling with pyrotechics in the middle of the course. The husband goes wild on the track, then punches it to drive into the wife's dream with the Optima. Over the top.

The honorable mention ad goes to Chevrolet. It is post apocalyse in 2012. The world seems destroyed. We see one vehicle starting up from under the dust. It appears to be a Chevy Silverado. Then there are more Silverados starting up. The trucks gather in a circle. Someone asks about Dave. He did not make it - he was driving a Ford. LOL.

The Passing of DJ

Momoko noticed that one of our fish was floating upside down. He was still swimming. But Momoko said that is usually a sign that a fish is near the end. We had named this fish DJ, which was short for Dojo Loach, the type of fish it is. DJ was a recent aquisition (in the last year). He is not the shortest Dojo we own. But he is the skinniest Dojo.

The next day, Kit Kat told me that DJ had died. He was floating near the top of the tank. Poor DJ was rigid in a straight position. Kit Kat scooped him out and disposed of him. Luckily we have three other Dojo Loaches in our tank. One of them is pretty old. So perhaps we may pick up some more of these and put them in our incubator tank.

Goodbye DJ. Your time came too soon.

Case of the Missing Tube

This morning I brought down a toilet paper tube for some of our gerbils to chew. I put it in the cage with our oldest gerbils. They need softer cardboard to chew as their teeth are not as strong. At lunch I saw that the tube was gone. Wow. They must have really chomped hard on the thing.

After lunch, I layed down on the floor next to the old gerbils' cage. There was a lot of activity in their small wooden house. Then I figured out what happened. The gerbils chewed about half of the tube. Then the dragged the remains into their house to finish chewing. Heheh.

These older gerbils have the largest cage int he house. Usually we use the space to give them all kinds of toys. Right now all they have in the cage is their wooden house and metal corn meal bowl. The gerbils use the bowl to roll around and take a bath in the corn meal we pour into it.

After school today, I will instruct Little Kat to fill up the cage. We have a gerbil wheel for them that just got cleaned. We also have a circular cardboard box they like to hide in. There is also a large sturdy box they love to climb on top of.

Exhausted Cat

This week is Science Fair at Momoko's school. And Momoko is in charge of it. So on Monday, Momoko brought Kit Kat to work for help. Apparently Kit Kat was worked hard. Luckily Kit Kat brought her own car to the school. After the school day was over, Kit Kat drove herself and Little Kat home.

When Little Kat arrived in the house after school, he plopped down on the couch and was out. I let the lil guy sleep for about an hour. Then we woke up Little Kat to cook us some dinner. It was a good move. Momoko came home really late. However she was just in time for Little Kat's dinner being ready.

Today the Science Fair is still going on at school. I went out to work in the yard. Kit Kat stopped by Momoko's school after school was over. She picked up Little Kat again to bring him home early. Momoko stayed really late. Apparently this time Little made it upstairs to his bedroom. He needed another nap.