Traffic Alert

My company laptop is really old. It is time to get a new one. The big boss' assistant placed the order for me. The computer finally came in. But it is located across town. I have been busy at work. I scheduled a pickup of the computer for today.

I woke up this morning and heard that traffic was a mess on the highway. Some accident had only one of four lanes going through. Oh no. Luckily I had a meeting in the morning first. That meeting went way over time. The assistant sent me a message wondering where I was. I called her up and said my meeting was never ending. Finally I got out around lunch time.

I skipped lunch and went across town to get my computer. Never been to this specific office before. I had to MapQuest directions there. It was in a crowded section of town. All parking was paid parking. I called up the assistant and found they validate parking. Got my new computer and checked it out. All systems go.

They were a little troubled that I did not bring my old laptop with me. Hello? I need to transfer my files first. Luckily I found that I could just ship the old computer back to the office across town on the company's dime. That works for me. The drive home was tought because of the bad traffic. And that was just the middle of the day. Imagine rush hour.

Little Kat in High School

This is Little Kat's second week in high school. He takes the bus every morning to school. The bus comes very early. Good thing Momoko has to go to work early too. She finds that Little Kat oversleeps a lot, and she has to wake him up. Our next door neighbor goes to school with Little Kat. He was not at the bus stop during the first few days. We feared he might have transferred to another school. Luckily he eventually showed up.

Little Kat is at a slight disadvantage. He went to elementary and middle school at the school where Momoko teaches. That was not the neighborhood school. Now that Little Kat is older, he is going to the neighborhood high school. However most kids that go there went to the local elementary and middle schools. Little Kat does not know them. It is a tough world when you are the only guy from a school that feeds another high school.

For some reason, Little Kat got put in a math class that was for students who previously failed Algebra. Little Kat never took Algebra before. This was not working out. The teacher assumed the students all knew the basics of Algebra having taken it before. Eventually Little Kat spoke up and said he had never taken Algebra. Wouldn't you know it? A few other kids piped up after Little Kat saying the same thing. The teacher got them all transferred to a normal Math class.

This transfer was a good thing. Little Kat's lunch period moved as a result of the class change. He now eats lunch with a few kids that previously went to his middle school. There are a few kids that get pulled into Little Kat's school for some special programs. Looks like Little Kat finally found them. Little Kat now also gets to enjoy the better lunches that the high schools provide. Good luck Little Kat!

College Orientation

Kit Kat had her college orientation today. Momoko was busy at work. So I took the day off and accompanied Kit Kat. She chose the morning edition of the orientation. We had to get up really early. They provided breakfast. But it was weak. We were really early. I decided we should get some tasks done.

Kit Kat and I got our books, student ID, and parking permit. Then I wanted to go to financial aid. Kit Kat thought we did not have enough time. She was right. We went anyway. Kit Kat sorted out the business she needed done for her on campus job. Then we went to the orientation arena late.

We were diverted to the overflow room. Kit Kat would not participate in the ice breaker. I wanted her to talk with a stranger like they requested. I was glad one speaker mentioned a "yellow bag" all students should have. Kit Kat did not have one. I went and retrieved one for her.

We next broke out into majors. Kit Kat's session was very crowded. Kit Kat got the last desk in the room. I had to stand. We went to a few sessions Kit Kat had signed up for: paying for college and transferring to a 4 year university. At least Kit Kat talked to some new people in those sessions.

The last event we participated in was a campus tour. By then I was starved. Kit Kat and I bugged out of the last meeting for the day. We had to eat up in a diner she loves.

Desk and Hutch

Little Kat has a desk which is merely a computer desk. It has a drawer for his keyboard and mouse. But beside that, it only has a desktop. There are no shelves or drawers to store items. Not much of a desk.

I have been buying the kids some new furniture to prepare them for high school and college. Momoko had Little Kat look through the iKea catalog to see whether any desks would do him good. Kit Kat had selected a desk from iKea that she loves. We figured Little Kat would do the same. Unfortunately he did not see anything he liked.

Momoko had Little Kat look online at the place where we ordered Kit Kat's bed. We liked the selection and pricing. Little Kat saw a desk that met his needs. It has a place to put his desktop computer. It also has a drawer for keyboard and mouse. There is a spare drawer for storage. There is also a hutch on top of the desk with extra shelves for storage.

The desk and hutch was supposed to get delivered today. I heard a loud boom downstairs and figured it had arrived. I was right. I used the dolly to roll the thing into the house. Little Kat wanted us to carry the box upstairs for assembly. No way. Little Kat could not even turn the box over, let alone carry it up the stairs.

Little Kat carefully opened the box on the main level. We carried the thing up piece by piece. Little Kat was worried that pieces had numbers such as 30, 41, and 74. Luckily piece numbers start at 30 and are not consequtive.

More Work for Slackers

Little Kat was on yard duty this weekend due to bad behavior. I told him he needed to trim the bushes in the front yard. Normally I have him put down newspaper to collect the clippings. Little Kat thought that was too difficult. He decided to pick up the clippings from the ground after cutting.

I had my own work to do in the yard. I checked up on Little Kat periodically. Every time I looked, he was slacking off. He would be singing or talking to himself. Or he would be playing with something he found on the ground. Fail. Of course he did not finish. One bush remained to be clipped. Many clippings were still in the mulch. Looks like Little Kat will have to do yard work next weekend as well.

My job was to fix the work table I previously built. It is too tall for Momoko. I decided to cut half of the table down, and rebuild it at a lower height. In the process, I also shored up the high side of the table. It was buckling in the middle. Water would collect and stay in the middle.

I added some braces under the table. Then I ran some long boards across under the middle of the table. I finished by putting some shims under the center of the high table to keep the middle high. I covered the place where the lower portion of the table shall go. That is a job for next week as well.

Job Search Ending

Kit Kat's job has a lot of drawbacks. The schedule shifts every week. And even after the schedule is set, it changes without Kit Kat knowing. Kit Kat has to stand up all day long at work. She also has a strict wardrobe. I told her it was time to get a new and better job.

Kit Kat was supposed to get a job at her new college. She seemed to be taking her time looking for the job. She said she was too busy. Momoko got on her case. When Kit Kat complained, we set a deadline before which Kit Kat needed to find a job on her own. After that, I was going to step in and make her hit the pavement on campus.

The day by which Kit Kat needed to find a job approached. I reminded Kit Kat that she neede the day off from her work. Then Kit Kat said she could not get the day off work. I told Kit Kat she would either neither to get that job quick, or she might need to miss work that day.

Kit Kat went to work making calls, sending emails, and applying for jobs online. Then a position seemed to pop up and was moving fast to getting filled. Kit Kat got lucky and scheduled an interview. Apparently she aced it. She was offered the job on the spot. She can start as early as one week from today.

Now Kit Kat needs to figure out what to do with her current job. I thought she could resign. She might try to just work her current job on the weekend, and work the new job during the week. We shall see. The good news is that the new job is a desk job. Kit Kat will not have to stand on her feet all day.

Slackers Will Slack

Yesterday Little Kat played XBox video games all day. By the end of the day, I found there was a mess in his room. He was trying to watch some movie with Kit Kat. Seeing as how he needed to get up early today for high school orientation, we put him to bed. I made a note to myself that after orientation, I would put Little Kat to work. No more slacking.

It took Little Kat a while to get home from high school orientation. I was getting a little concerned about his tardiness. But he arrived home safe. Then I treated him to some Chinese food. Did not want the guy starving while he was put to work. I had him show me his chore list. It was missing some items. Those got added right away. Then I prioritized the items for Little Kat to complete.

Little Kat complained that I was making him unpack his boxes before he put up the extra shelves in his book shelves. I conceded and moved the book shelf task up higher in the list. Then I had Little Kat start his work. Things began well enough. Then I asked whether he had completed the bookshelf work. His answer was a bit non-committal. So I went upstairs and took a look for myself.

Little Kat complained that he could not access his second bookshelf. He wanted to wait until his desk was moved out before working on the bookshelf. I demonstrated that the bookshelf could be easily put into place with the desk present. Little Kat started whining. I told him he needed to get busy. If the desk was in the way, he needed to move it.

Little Kat was whining about how long it would take to move the desk. I tossed some desk items aside, and moved the thing out of the way with Little Kat. Then I made sure he understood that we were in the "no excuse" zone. He needed to get stuff done. I also demonstrated how quickly items could be moved out of his boxes to their permanent location. Little Kat has been working all afternoon on this.

The Fridge Cometh

Our fridge has gone bonkers. It freezes all our groceries. Time for a new fridge. In fact, it is time to accelerate the plan to get a stand alone fridge. We got a unit that is all freezer. We love it. Time to do the same for the fridge.

There is a problem though. An appliance that is just a fridge is a specialty item. There are not a lot of them out there. And they are expensive. Finally, it is hard or impossible to get one in a color that matches our other appliances.

I needed to take a look a fridges to figure out how big a fridge we need. Momoko and I went shopping at Sears this weekend. They had exactly one stand alone fridge. It was white and too small. Two strikes against it. But we did see appliances like freezers that helped us figure out how big our fridge needs to be (19 cubic feet).

Momoko did some research online. The top of the line fridge costs $2000. Looking at the pricing of fridge/freezers, I decided that was way too much. We found another fridge for $1200. It was the right size. The color was not right. The price was still high. But we got to stop the groceries getting ruined by the cold.

I actually ordered from Amazon. The seller used Amazon as a store front. And they used "A&B Shipping" to get it to the house. Today I got a message from A&B. Our fridge arrives tomorrow. We already cleared and cleaned out a space for the fridge in the kitchen.

Lack of Integrity

Each week we have a family meeting. Everyone in the family gets two rounds to speak their mind. Usually Little Kat is pretty quiet during these meetings. I encourage him to bring up issues or make proposals. Today Little Kat did do so.

Here is the background. Previously Little Kat had been negligent in doing his laundry. He would hide the cleaned laundry so he would not have to put it away. Or he would just toss the clean laundry into the laundry basket. To prevent such shennigans, we make Little Kat fold his laundry downstairs and carry it up in small batches.

So today Little Kat proposed that we allow him to resume folding his clothes in his room. That would require a leap of faith on Momoko and my part. We told Litle Kat that if he could demonstrate integrity over the next month, we would let him bring the clothes upstairs.

It was late at night when the family meeting ended. I figured Little Kat would just do some chores and go to bed. Then Momoko discovered some contraband. Little Kat had done some laundry earlier today. Turns out he just threw the cleaned clothes in his closet to avoid folding them. Failure on day one. Looks like Little Kat is not going to earn our trust any time soon.

Macy's Commercial

I have been noticing this catchy Macy's commercial lately. Whenever I see it, I think that the music seems to good to be the background to a commercial. Today I found out why. The song is performed by Megan and Liz. They are an up and coming duet. Macy's was just borrowing them for their commercial.

You know a song has blown up huge when there are people on YouTube producing videos with the song as the background. Another indicator is that there are a ton of people singing their own version of the song on YouTube. Yep. Megan and Liz got that.

Obiously Macy's put some big bucks behind the commercial and it shows. I have been trying to pinpoint what it is about this commercial that I love. Sure the lyrics to the song are cool and sung well. "This one's for the girls, messing with the boys..." But the real draw is the dancing that goes with the music.

The commercial focuses in on a trio of girls dancing to the song. We only see them dance for a few seconds. The girl in the center looks like she might be the girl next door. She has some good moves. The unusual thing is that she appears to be really happy, having a good time.

This might be good acting. Or perhaps they caught the dancers having a great time. Either way, Macy's got my attention. This is for something called "mstylelab". Unfortunately the commercial did not explain what the heck that means.

Frozen Fridge

Previously we had noticed that when you place the eggs in the fridge under the ice maker, they get frozen. Our fridge is weird. There is a freezer drawer on the bottom. The top has a two barn door style fridge. In the upper right hand corner of the fridge is the ice maker. I guess the cold from the ice maker descends on whatever is below it.

Today Momoko told me that the meat compartment in the fridge is now freezing our meats beyond repair. Fail. There are a lot of other troubles with our fridge. It leaks water sometimes. The covers to some of the compartments have fallen off. The handle for the freezer drawer pops off a lot. Basically we need a new fridge.

I would like to get a dedicated fridge that has no freezer. But we still need an ice maker. I looked into buying a separate dedicated ice maker machine. The only one we liked was sold out. So now my plan is to buy a dedicated stand alone fridge. We will also purchase a side by side fridge/freezer combo. The main purspose of the combo is to provide ice for us. But we will make us of the extra fridge room too.

The cabinetry in our kitchen was limited. So I purchased a couple tall bookshelves to store extra items in our kitchen. They work great. They also take up space. We now need to reclaim that space for the new fridge. Luckily some free space just opened up in our dining room. Good timing.

Bad Timing

Momoko brought Little Kat to work with her today. He helped to start the setup of Momoko's classroom for the upcoming year. They both came home at lunch time. I had planned to spend tomorrow afternoon off from work to help Momoko at school. She came home to tell me that school was closed tomorrow.

Kit Kat slept in this morning. It is her first day off this week. Plus she had a brand new premium matrees to sleep on. We had a family meeting where Momoko broke the news about school being closed. Momoko got Kit Kat and Little Kat to sign up to work in her classroom this afternoon.

The immediate need was for some lunch. Kit Kat proposed some Chinese food. I agreed since they have good lunch special deals. I placed an order on the phone. Then the boss called me and told me I needed to attend an emergency conference call. I had to send Kit Kat to pick up the Chinese food. An hour and a half later, I decided I better eat my Chinese food. The conference call would continue for another hour and a half.

Sometimes you got to put up with nonsense from work. That's okay. Since I was going to help Momoko with her classroom tomorrow, but school is closed, that means I am going to take a free afternoon. That's karma for you.

Mattress Delivery

Today I had a busy day at work. It was getting towards the end of the day. I had the task of calling up the mattress store to check whether Kit Kat's mattress had been delivered to the store. I was also supposed to find out when the store closed. I took care of my business.

When Kit Kat came home from her own long day at work, she said she had energy to go pick up her mattress. So we got in the truck. I made sure I emptied the back camper. I packed some strong string and scissors. I also made sure I had the receipt that showed I already paid for the bed.

Some other dude pulled into the parking lot before us with his own truck. He got helped first. There was some confusion over his order. So we were next. Luckily our's was an easy pickup. I signed for the mattress. Then the sales guy helped load it on top of my truck camper. Then the real fun began.

Kit Kat jumper into the back of the truck inside the camper. I fed strings down through the front opening in the camper. We tied two long strings criss cross over the top of the mattress. Then I tied one small string side to side in the back to anchor the third string. The third string went straight down the length of the truck.

I took it slow going home. There was a surprise when the back gate of my truck fell open as we were driving. This did not affect the matrees, as it was securely tied on top of the truck camper. I was worried that my string roll or scissors would fall out the back of the truck. I pulled into a local school and had Kit Kat slam the gate closed.

Currently Kit Kat and Little Kat are bring out the old and carrying up the new mattress. In the big scheme of things, this is a middle of the line mattress. However for Kit Kat, this is probably going to be the most luxurious mattress she ever owns. Heck. I might sleep a night on her bed.

Almost a Manager

They are short one manager at Kit Kat's work. So they are borrowing a manager from another store. Nobody likes that setup. The big boss asked Kit Kat's manager about potential promotions from within. It seems the choice was Kit Kat. The visiting manager agreed with this assessment.

I took a look at a salary web site. Assistant retail store managers make some decent money in our area. Nine out of ten such managers make more than $12.50 an hour. Bamm. That's a lot more than Kit Kat makes right now. I thought it would be good if Kit Kat could rocket her earnings up to that level.

The was only one problem with this plan. Kit Kat was not excited about being a manager. It is already hard enough to be an associate at her work. With school starting up, Kit Kat wants her job to get easier not harder. Today Kit Kat went in and broke the bad news. She had to just say no.

The good news is that Kit Kat's hectic schedule for this week got reduced in hours. I guess that's because she does not have to spend any time training to be a manager this week. Management experience is good. There will be plenty of time for Kit Kat to be a manager later.

Laptop Sale

I scoured the Sunday advertisements as usual this week. We get them a day early which is handy. I only found one deal worth pursuing. Target was selling a Gateway laptop computer for $250. The regular price was $380. You say a whopping $130. I decided to do some surveillance the day before the sale. Momoko decided to tag along.

I found an electronics department salesman. He showed me where they keep all their laptops. He pointed to one he thought was the sale item. I told him the item numbers did not match. Then he found the actual computer. There were three on the shelf. He said there were six more in the back.

I pressed the sales guy for more info. The store opened at 8am on the day of the sale. I found out which counter I needed to run to in order to purchase one of the laptops. I lalso found out that there is an informal policy of only one sale item per customer if other customers are waiting for the same item. Finally I confirmed that this was a straight $250 sale. No rebates or other gimmicks.

Momoko made me inform Kit Kat about the sale. She wanted to buy one too. I was concerned that she needed to save her money for college. However she has been working long weeks, so she has some extra cash. Kit Kat woke up early today and knocked on my bedroom door to make sure I was awake. I left the house 30 minutes before the store opened. Kit Kat accompanied me.

We pulled up to the store and saw a lot of cars. Kit Kat figured they were just employees opening the store. She was right. I waited until 1 minute before the store opening. Turns out they opened the doors 2 minutes before official open. Four people walked in the store before us. I rushed to the electronics department. Nobody was there.

I had Kit Kat ask an employee to help us. They called up the electronics dude who ran down the aisle. He got us each a new Gateway laptop. There was a delay as the electronics department cash registers were all turned off. I knew we were good because the guy pulled the two laptops for Kit Kat and myself. There was no way we were leaving the store without these computers.

Sleepys was Asleep

Previously I had purchased Kit Kat a new bed frame which included built in box spring support. I also bought her a head board which serves as her bookshelf. Now we just needed to get her a new mattress. Kit Kat has hard days at work. She is standing up most of the time. Sometimes she needs to work long shift. It will only get worse when she also has to go to college (and work).

I brought Kit Kat to the same store where I bought Little Kat's mattress. We tried out 15 to 20 mattresses. I found three that I liked. Kit Kat only liked one. Luckily the one she picked was one of the three I thought were best. There was just one problem. The matress alone listed at $749. I was planning to pay half that price. The salesman said he would sell it to me for $699.

I told the sales guy that I would need to check some other stores to ensure this was not a $300 matrees. He took me to his computer to show what some of the other popular stores label this specific bed. He also looked me up in his system and saw I purchased Little Kat's bed at his store. He told me he would give another $100 off for customer loyalty, bringing the price down to $599. I still needed to see what the going rate for the bed was at other stores.

Kit Kat and I drove to Sleepys, a bed store that has been advertising a lot lately. I told the saleslady there that I needed a price quote. She said she needed to to an analysis on Kit Kat first. So Kit Kat had to answer a bunch of questions on a computer. Kit Kat also had to lay on a test bed and answer more questions.

I saw what this saleslady was doing. She was trying to justify selling me a pricier bed. She guided us to an $1100 bed. I told her I just wanted a quote on the bed we specified. It turned out to be $614. As we walked out, she said she could offer 10% more off. No deal.

I returned to the original store later. I put in an order for the bed Kit Kat liked. We pick it up later this week. Kit Kat is stoked.

Gerbil Move

Previously we kept out gerbil cages on the ground in our family room. There was one problem with that configuration. The coffee table obstructed the view of some gerbils. I could not see our home gerbils. Momoko could not see the school gerbils. Momoko's plan was to build a large bookshelf to hold the gerbil cages. That way we could all see all the gerbils.

We scheduled an afternoon to do the bookshelf building. First we removed the gerbil cages and cleaned up. Then we pulled all the videos and games off a smaller bookshelf in the room. Then we transferred the DVDs we wanted to keep onto that small bookshelf. We removed another small bookshelf from the room to make room for the big one.

All that cleaning and moving took a lot of time. We were on a tight deadline, since Kit Kat wanted to meet her friends at the movies later that night. Kit Kat and I broke open the big bookshelf box and brought in the pieces. Momoko read the instructions. Kit Kat did most of the assembly. I helped when she needed a hand or we needed to speed up.

At one point, Momoko was giving us instructions that turned out to be wrong. We had to get Momoko up off the chair to point out how to proceed. We did not have the time or the patience to listen to her try to explain the assembly. Finally we mounted the bookshelf to the wall so it would not fall over.

The gerbils fit nicely. We have some lighting problems that we need to fix (the bookshelf took up the space of our main lamp). Another problem is that the gerbils get spooked every time I come around the corner and pop out next to the bookshelf.