Cable Testing

We had a large amount of rennovations done in the house this past month. It is time to move back into the rooms that got paint and new carpet. Kit Kat built her new furniture. I brought up a new TV she got too. But the thing would not work when I hooked up the cable.

I recall that Little Kat's cable was working fine in his room. So I brought Kit Kat's cable converter box over to Little Kat's room. Unfortunately Little Kat is out of the state visiting his dad. I had to bring up Little Kat's new TV into his room to test Kit Kat's converter. The test required a bunch of electrical outlet. Easy right? Nope.

First I had to move Little Kat's bunk bed to get to the outlet. Then I tried to screw in one of those outlet expanders that turns two outlets into six. The thing would not screw in no matter what I tried. Eventually Momoko brought me a different outlet expander that worked. This was after an hour or so of struggling.

The good news is that Kit Kat's cable box tested fine. Then I moved everything into Kit Kat's room and determined that her cable outlet on the wall was not working. Time to involve the cable company to fix it. Strangely enough, the basement cable is not working either.
Last I know, Little Kat moved the XBox 360 game system away from the basement TV. So I called him up, asking about the location of the cable converter box downstairs. Little Kat sent me a text informing me that the box fell behind the dresser. Fail. Momoko also did a search and found the cable remote control on Little Kat's desk upstairs. Double fail. I guess I will need the cable company to sort out the basement cable problems too.

Long and Hard Work

Kit Kat has a part time job this summer. It is a retail position where she stands up all day. Luckily she normally works 20 to 25 hours per week. This week, Momoko and I left Kit Kat alone so that we could go gambling. Kit Kat was scheduled to work a 22 hour week. She also had some chores to complete at home.

This past Wednesday, Kit Kat was scheduled to work 6 hours. Turns out that needed her to stay the whole day. That was a whopping 12 hour work day. Then her Thursday got turned around too. She was only supposed to go in for a half hour to speak with the regional manager. Her day got extended to 6 and then 8 hours. She was broken by the time she came home.

Yesterday they let Kit Kat have a day off. But it was only so she could rest up for her 12 hours marathon (I mean work day) today. So we went a little easy on Kit Kat. Let her sleep in yesterday until the afternoon hour. She still had some work to do in her room. But she finished it quick and spent the evening with her friends.

The only good news is that Kit Kat is making money when she works the extra hours. By my estimates, she is around 40 hours for this week or more.

Casino Vacation

Momoko and I took a vacation at a casino hotel this week. I had a lot of things to complete before we took off. Paid some bills. Moved stuff into the new shed. Changed and washed the bed sheet. Bleached the shower. You get the picture.

I got Momoko to drive us to the casino. In the casino's city, we stopped by Sonic for some food first. Then we proceeded to the casino. We got a parking space close to the entrance. Momoko was concerned that the room was not cold enough. That would be a theme for the weekend.

We gambled on the first night. Strangely enough I was up $150 on day one. Then on day two I figured I needed to make up for some of Momoko's losses. That was a bad move. I got aggresive. And I ended up day two with a little under a $300 loss. On the last day, I lost $50. I try to limit losses at an average of no more than $100 a day. So I quit gambling early on day 3.

I tried to sleep off some of the pain. Momoko kept coming back into the room and turning on the lights. It was tough to get any sleep. Then in the middle of the night between day three and four, Momoko wanted me to eat with her. We got some steak and eggs special at the 24 hour cage.

We gambled away Momoko's last $20 by playing penny slots. We spent about three bucks, gambling on many slot machines for a few hours. That left a few hours of sleep before we had to wake up to check out. We hit Sonic for one last meal. I drove us home. Kit Kat herself was pretty productive by herself at home. That is a story for another blog post.

Upgraded

Over the last few weeks, my phone hasn't been delivering timely messages so it was a good excuse to update my old phone to a new one. I am not sure if I can handle the new technology but at least Kit is around to help me out. My new phone is like hers but mine is a little newer. Everyone wants what I have but in due time we will update the phones for the whole family. Well, the kittens have to pay for their own phones but if they can save they can have the opportunity to upgrade.

Airoprt Crowds

Little Kat needed to fly to visit his dad. The plan left early in the morning. So we planned to get there as early as we could wake up. Normally there is nobody there so early in the morning. We should have known something was up when the parking lot was almost full.

It took a while line before we could check Little Kat's bags in. By the time we got to the counter, it was too late to guarantee that his suitcase would make it on the plane. We decide he could just carry the thing on with him. Then we got to the security line. The line was so long we couldn't even enter the massive area where you wait.

An airport employee noticed this problem, and directed everyone to go downstairs and enter security through an alternate entrance. Little Kat took charge and told the family to run. We got down in a much smaller line. We entered security with some time to spare. Then we found that Little Kat's flight was delayed.

We took advantage of the situation. Little Kat and I ate some pretzel hot dogs. We all ordered some drinks too. Little Kat had woken up the previous morning early to print out his boarding pass. He was in the first lane of people to board the plane. Momoko and I waited until his plane taxied out onto the runway. When we could no longer see the plane, we took off and drove towards McDonald's for some breakfast.

Installer Lies

This weekend the shed delivery guys came. They told me the entire job would take three and a half hours. During the first hour, I looked out the window. I saw the main guy nailing the floor boards. Another installer put a sheet of plywood up on the fence. That's an important observation. You will see why later.

A whopping six hours later, the guys said they were done. The main dude said the back vinyl siding got damaged. They will have to come back and fix that. I pointed out some other issues. He fixed some of them. Then I saw that my fence behind the shed was down on the ground.

I alerted the main installer to the problem. He asked whether it was broken before they arrived. I told him, "Of course not." Then he stated that they did not touch the fence. I told him that I saw his man put the plywood up against a standing fence.

Then the slacker went into damage control. He pushed one of the fence poles, saying that the fence was flimsy. I took him down to an area of the fence that was nowhere near the shed. I demonstrated how sturdy the poles were concreted into the ground.

Today the company called and asked for the final payment on the shed. I told them they had to address a number of issues before they get a penny more out of me. One of the main issues was this fence debacle. Let's hope they do the right thing.

Pottermore Fails Again

Little Kat is about to visit his dad for the summer. He is going with his Amazon Kindle reader. This is supposed to allow him to read books without lugging them around. He decided he wanted to read Harry Potter book 1 this summer.

I searched Amazon. Found the Kindle edition of Harry Potter on sale for $7.99. I let Little Kat make his Kindle purchases. So I ordered an Amazon gift card for the amount. Little Kat declared that he could not purchase the book. WTF? Turns out Amazon does not directly offer Harry Potter books. They refer you to the Pottermore web site.

Pottermore is apparently J.K. Rowling's web site. You have to enter your credit card info separately on that site. It does not accept Amazon gift cards. Fail. Amazon should stop referring readers to this site. It is a fraud and a fail.

Luckily Little Kat has a lot of other interests. He got a Kindle version of The Hunger Games. He also purchased a copy of "The Giver". Never heard of that book myself. Now Momoko needs a print copy of The Give to read along with Little Kat.

Contractor Error

I have a pair of handymen I use to fix up the house. They are brothers. Their rates are low. And they know what they are doing. Since they are also good guys, I swing work their way when I can. Previously they made our master bedroom bathroom beautiful. Now I have them rennovating the kids bedrooms and bathroom.

We spent a furious night cleaning out Kit Kat's room to preapre for handyman work. I told Kit Kat to unplug her cable box from the wall. The boys were painting Kit Kat's room a darker shade a violet. They needed everything out.

After they painted the walls, the result did not look good. There were splotches of paint on the walls. I asked my handyman how could we fix that. He said a second coat of paint should do the trick. He was right. The walls look great now. Before finishing the room, he asked whether they should hook up the land line phone to a jack.

I told the boys that Kit Kat does not use a land line. She only has a cable wire. I pointed to where the cable jack normally is in the wall. There was no cable jack. I had Kit Kat come upstairs to confirm. There used to be a cable jack there. One of the boys took the cable jack cover off. Then they patched over the opening and painted over top. Doh!

The next day the boys went outside and figured where the cable enters the house. Then they cut through the patched wall to reconnect the cable jack. Whew.

Going Back to See Mom

I spent yesterday sitting in the house, waiting for the tree cutters to arrive. They were providing a quote to chop down some branches in preparation for my shed delivery. Turns out they could not do the work in time. They are just too busy from the recent storm. Since I was busy yesterday, I had to go see my mom in the hospital today. I had scheduled to pick up my brother to visit mom with him. I was late getting to my brother's house.

I drove Momoko's car to visit my mom. The car was cool from the A/C that was running as we drove it this afternoon. As I drove down my brother's street, I turned over to the side to park. All of a sudden I ran into a downed wire from the pole. The thing normally rests on the bottom of the street. But on the side of the road it hangs down from the pole. Fail. I stopped the car quickly and backed up before any real trauma happened.

My dad could not wait for me. He went to the hospital before us. My mom wrote some messages for me and her family back in Japan. Mom talked with many doctors, including a surgeon who is a cancer specialist. Mom said her cancer was a bad one. Her's is not normally curable. But she said she will fight the thing.
Mom had a nodule on her thyroid for a long time. The nodule was small before. Mom lived with this thing for 25 years. The doctor thought that something triggered it to grow. It must be dealt with. Mom really could not speak much. But she could eat. She could also walked a bit by herself too. I plan to see her again tomorrow.

A Busy Day

The family rested a bit to recover from a gruesome morning of yard work. I was hungry. Normally I like eating at my favorite Mexican restaurant. But they were not open yet. We agreed to eat at Olive Garden instead. For once, their service did not suck. We got salad, soup and bread sticks.

Then we headed to Target. Little Kat is visiting his dad next week. We needed to shop to get him ready for high school. He tried on a bunch of khaki shorts. Once we found what fit, we picked him up some boxers as well. Then we looked at backpacks. Little Kat was not excited by any of them. We left the aisle without choosing one. Then we found a separate wall full of backpacks. Little Kat chose one that Momoko approved. Finally, as we were shopping for other goods, we found the nirvana of back packs by Shaun White. Little Kat grabbed one and we were good for school.

Momoko finally got some different color watch bands for her watch. I always thought one band was enough. Silly me. Momoko was smart. She asked for a "to-go" cup from Olive Garden. So she could enjoy her rasberry lemonade throughout the day. We drove home. I left Momoko and Little Kat unpack the Target goods. I had to run to visit my mom in the hospital. Due to the morning yard work and lengthy Target shopping, I was an hour late already.

Hard Labor

Today was our weekly yard labor day. Kit Kat had to go to work. So she will work another day this week. Momoko asked that we start work early to avoid the heat. We planned to begin at 8am.

The first task was to trim tree branches above the place where our shed will be built. The shed people said they needed 15 feet clearance in the air. Our back yard has a lot of trees. Little Kat and I struggled last week to trim the lower branches. By lower I mean 10 to 14 feet off the ground. There were higher ones to deal with today.

I got the ladder out, and raised its height to match the high branches. For some reason, I was the only one who went up on the ladder. I attacked the thickest branch first. It was difficult to cut down. I felt my one arm in pain as it tried to hang onto the tree for dear life. I stood very high on the ladder. Momoko tried to help from the ground by pulling down on the branch. It ended up falling down on her an injuring her.

The tree with the thinner branches was easier. I still had to climb high on the ladder and hang onto the tree. But the saw ripped through the branches. I had Momoko and Little Kat resize the ladder and bring it out front. Little Kat kicked the bottom of the ladder. Momoko had to grab the ladder as it fell. Mind you, the ladder was extended to about 16 feet. Momoko probably got injured again dealing with the falling ladder.

Momoko and Little Kat were broken, so they took a break inside. I picked up sticks and mowed the leaves from the storm. Momoko and Little Kat continued picking up the sticks as I mowed. I wanted to finish more work, but Momoko and Little Kat were done. I was even feeling exhausted. We still had a lot planned for the day.

Visting Mom

Yesterday my mom went into surgery at the hospital. They planned to remove her thyroid to help her breathe. I was jammed up and could not visit her until today. First I went to pick up my bro and dad. On the way there, I got into a traffic jam. A car on the side of the road was on fire. Great. I thought the thing might blow up. So unlike everyone else who crammed into one lane, I stayed in the lane on the side of the burning car. I sped past it.

Went had to wander past the intensive and critical care units to find mom. She was in a specialized critical care unit. She could not speak. Luckily I brought my planner and a pen. She could communicate with us by writing in my planner. Mom was unhappy that they left her in this unit for a long time. I tracked down the nurse who seemed busy helping another patient. Like magic, mom seemed to get moved to another room.

Moving mom was a significant feat. She can't breathe on her own. She also has other tubes connected to her. A weird sounding technician did all the work to transport mom. I saw the doctor who operated on mom for the first time. He cleared up a lot of misinformation I had. The surgery was to correct the problem to help her breathe. I thought it might have been something or one thing of many that they were trying.

The doctor was able to remove the whole thyroid and some of the cancer her found. However the cancer was aggressive and was growing into mom's trachea. For now, mom needs to recover and learn to deal with the tracheotomy (she breathes through a tube instead of her mouth). The doctor said mom can leave the hospital next week if all goes well.

After recovering, another doctor will study the cancer they found and determine the options. We left mom in her new room. She was trying to get used to the new environment. It is tough when you are struggling to breathe. I had to return to work. My bro planned to return again later to visit mom. My little bro has stepped up to the plate to take care of my mom and dad's needs during this ordeal.

The Visit

Little Kat just got tickets from his dad to visit him for two weeks this summer.  Little is so excited.

Usually, he spends the whole summer with his dad but things have been tough for his dad and Little has been waiting for this moment since school let out. I guess his dad finally got everything together.  Little leaves in two weeks.

We haven't finished his "highschool" room makeover yet and if we are lucky we will have most of it finished before Little Kat leaves on his summer adventure.  I am hoping to have all of is room completed while he is gone so he will not have to worry about it when he returns.  I am not sure that Little will think that is a good idea because he seems to be pretty private about what he has packed in his boxes.  He didn't want anyone helping him pack and we discovered a few suspicious items perchance.  One can only speculate on what he has hidden in his boxes of stuff. 

Car Maintenance

My oil change has been overdue. Just been too busy these days. Yesterday I tried to go to the local Jiffy Lube. They were closed. Figured it was due to the holiday. I went back today at lunch. There were people there. But they were out of power. Go figure.

I recalled there was another Jiffy Lube by my office. So I went there and got lucky. Only one guy was in front of me. I told them to change my oil. They tried to upsell me on a lot of products. I denied most of them. Then they said my coolant was low. They offered to top it off for four bucks. I agreed.

Many people came in after me. The guy told each of them the same story. Coolant was low. Four bucks to top it off. Typical scam. I got to be more vigilant to say no to these things. I don't blame the guys who work there. They apparently are required to upsell one out of every four customers. Otherwise they are fired.

There was one interesting moment today. En route to the first Jiffy Lube, I was going down a one way street. I wanted to make a left turn. So I checked the lane next to me. One guy was turning. Seemed like an opportunity. The guy behind him sped up though. Then I noticed him hitting the brakes. That was odd. But I found out why. Some car was coming down the wrong way of the one way street. Ooops.

Slow Cooking

Yesterday I woke up just in time to start work. It helps that I work from home. I make sure to leave my computer on and connected to the network at all times. That way I can get up at the last minute, go downstairs, and be working. Little Kat got up some time later in the morning. He fixed a pot roast meal in the slow cooker. This thing started cooking before lunch.

\ I had a busy day. So I did not get to lunch until almost 3PM. That's okay. I needed to drop by my bro's house to pick him up. We visited my mom in the hospital. She needs surgery on her thyroid tomorrow. We did not stay for long. My mom was getting overheated. It was a bad reaction to some steroids she is on.

When I got back to the house, there was some hot pot roast waiting for me. Momoko was starved because the roast took 8 hours to cook. Luckily I had a late lunch. Usuually Little Kat serves me his roast with some hot sauce on the side. However the beef and potatoes were so good, I needed no extra sauce. Even Kit Kat, who dislikes roast, ate up her portion and inquired about seconds.

Money Matters

Little Kat is getting old enough to start thinking about good financial habits.

 Black felt that Little Kat needs to be in control of his own money for him to be successful. I think Black is right.

 Step 1: Operation Bank- I told Little that I wanted him to open a savings account and he could pick the bank that he liked the most. He was very excited. He asked for help understanding bank terminology as he researched local banks. He compared the following banks: Suntrust, Capital One, Bank of America, PNC, TD Bank, and BB&T

Step 2: Money- We went down to his bank of choice and opened an account. He had to gather all the needed documents and talk to the person in new accounts. He put in $30 and was excited to find out that he could get an ATM card as well.

 Step 3: Let it Ride- The rest is up to Little. He can put in or take out as much as he likes. I am hoping he has a goal and keeps up with his savings account. I will make sure he sees me doing the same thing. I want to lead by a good example as well.

Suspicious Behavior

This morning I got up and started working from home. Little Kat came downstairs a few hours later. Apparently Momoko woke him up and he proceeded to start his laundry. I said hi to him. Then I went and retrieved the laundry I had completed the night before. At lunch I ran some errands. Finally, at the end of the day, I went to turn off the laundry room light that Little Kat had left on. I stepped into a very wet carpet in the hall that leads to the laundry room.

Immediately my mind thought that the fridge upstairs had sprung a leak. I came upstairs and noticed that the fridge was not directly above the wet carpet. It could not be the fridge. Then I did what anyone in our family should do when encountering such a situation. I called an emergency family meeting. Kit Kat already went to work. So the meeting was with Momoko, Little Kat, and myself.

Little Kat said that he noticed some water in the laundry room as soon as he started his laundry. He also stated that he dried that water with his towel, and decided the problem was solved. That made no sense. Why would Little Kat be mopping up water he discovered on the floor? And why didn't he tell anyone about it? I was in the room right next to the laundry room.

We reconstructed Little Kat's day. It turns out that he came back down to drop off some Coke 12-packs. He also returned back down to complete his laundry. When pressed, Little Kat confessed that he discovered the wet carpet on these subsequent visits. Those times, however, he did not try to dry the water. Little Kat's story really makes no sense. I suspect foul play.

I traced the water back to 2 jugs of distilled water on a small shelf. They both were suspiciously punctured. Momoko thought that perhaps they burst when our power went off. The cuts in the containers and the locations of the cuts makes me think otherwise. We may never find out what actually happened. All I know for sure is that there was some extremely suspicious Little Kat behavior.

Cici's Denied

The family had scheduled to do yard work early Saturday morning. It was a tough day. Grass needed to be replanted. That required chopping up some top soil. The sun was hot even though we started early. I got up extra early to buy more grass seed at the store. I returned home just about when the family was coming out to do our work.

Momoko worked until she felt dizzy. Then she needed to go in to cool off. Kit Kat also felt ill at the end of the work. I stayed out a little longer to water the grass. Everyone took a shower. I was very hungry. So was Momoko. So we changed our afternoon plans to eay first, then have a family meeting. I took suggestions from the family on where we would eat. Little Kat suggested Cici's pizza. Kit Kat and I agreed. Momoko was not exicted, but would go with us.

Before we left, I checked whether Little Kat completd his "wake up chores." These are a few tasks that Little Kat must do as soon as he wakes up. They are supposed to be done before everything else. They should have been completed before our yard work. Apparently he did not. Momoko also warned Little Kat to complte the must have chores after he took he shower. Instead he just lay on the couch.

Momoko asked what we were going to do. It was simple. We had to leave Little Kat behind. It was sad because we only visit Cici's about once a year. On the ride there, Little Kat texted the whole family that he had completed his chores. Unfortunately he was too late. Turns out Little Kat then got depressed a took a nap. The rest of us enjoyed Cici's.