Mission Fail

I gave Little Kat a directive a week or two ago. He was supposed to find the name and number of his case worker at school. Initially there were some excuses from Little Kat about not having enough time to do this job. I told him to make time. So he went to the front office.

Little Kat said he got the name of his case woker. But then he could not obtain the phone number. Later he was unsure whether the person whose name he received even worked at his school. I told him to get busy and find out the answer.

Little Kat returned to the main office a few times. He also wandered around the school looking for the classroom where his case worker or his case worker's boss was located. This resulted in failure.

Today Little Kat said his case worker came into his classroom and he got his number. But then Little Kat said the guy took back his phone number. All I got was an email address. So I emailed the guy and asked for a meeting. Little Kat needs to know how to get in touch with his case worker.

I tried to get Konner to learn how to obtain this information himself. But there comes a time when you need to step in, and that time is now.

The Avengers Cometh

I have been awaiting the release of two summer movie blockbusters to DVD - the Avengers and Battleship. Both released onto DVD today. I had these movies in my Netflix queue forever. Momoko also wanted to watch the Avengers. So she put the movie in her Netflix queue as well.

I normally watch my DVDs on Saturday. They movies go out in Monday's postal mail. Momoko watches her movies whenever. This past week she watched her movie and returned it in the mail on Saturday. This was a strategic return to hopefully time the release of Avengers and the shipping of the next movie in her Netflix queue.

Turns out Momoko was onto something. She got the Avengers. Netflix says they are delivering it to Momoko today. I was left out in the cold. Netflix now reports the Avengers as having a "long wait". In the mean time, I am scheduled to receive two B-movies tomorrow in the mail. What a fail.

If there is any consolation, a friend of mine told me she was buying the Avengers DVD from Amazon. She is going to loan me the DVD so my brother and I can watch it. Saved.

Two Hour Tour

This week we had a quiz in my community college class. The class only meets once a week. But the class lasts for three hours. The weird thing about our quiz was that it was a whopping two hours long. What kind of quiz lasts for two hours? Our's I guess.

The instructor provided a four question quiz. Three of the four questions were simple. The fourth one was massive. The instructor told us to read over the quiz and ask all questions in the first 15 minutes. I read over the big problem and found many issues. Some sentences in the description made no sense. Other requirements were missing. Some parts of the directions contradicted others.

I asked a bunch of question. Eventually I determined that the guy did not care what assumptions I made. Looks like he just wanted to give the class some experience dealing with real world problems. Because problems in the real world are always messy. They don't look like exercises from our textbook where everything works out fine.

There is a deaf guy that sits in the front row. His interpreter normally sits next to me. The deaf guy said he was going to be an hour and a half late for class. So his interpreter just left. Deaf guy showed up just in time for the quiz. He seemed to be scribbling a lot of stuff down on a piece of paper during the quiz. That was odd given that it was an online quiz.

In the end, the deaf guy was the first one to finish the quiz. I followed him out shortly thereafter. I figure the rest of the class probably never finished the quiz. That was one hard problem the teacher gave us. I liked it though.

Couch Shopping

We have two full size couches in our living room. Momoko sits on one of them most of the time. The kids share the other one. We purchsed these couches not too long ago. At first they seemed nice. However the cushions keep falling off the couch. The couch has also lost most of its support. In other words, the things were cheaply made.

Momoko proposed that we buy some new couches. Since we spend most of our time in the living room, I figured that was a good idea. We were definitely not going back to the store that sold us these defective couches. Momoko thought we could visit a new furniture store that has been advertising recently. Too bad their locations are all far away. Instead we went to an expensive furniture store nearby.

At least they were having some sort of sale at the furniture store. Momoko and I sat on every single couch they had in the store. It was a big store. We also layed down on the ones they felt good. In the end I narrowed it down to two couches. Momoko thought those were fine. But she thought two others should be in the running as well.

In the end, I decided to purchase two couches. I went for one of each of the two that were my top picks. We wanted the cloth couch to be green in color. The sales associate said that color change would cost an extra $100. Okay. Then she came back and said the extra $100 would be on top of the original non-sales price. Oh snap. That plan got rejected. The original tan color couch that was on sale was good enough. Luckily the leather couch cost the same regardless of color.

For an extra fee, the store would deliver the new couches, and remove the old ones. Deal. The couches are scheduled to arrive in 10 days. We can't wait.

Little Kat the Biker

Momoko and I were scheduled to do some shopping after work today. Little Kat was going to accompany us. At the last minute, Little Kat decided to stay home alone. He wanted to ride his bike. Momoko was worried that Little Kat was riding his bike with nobody home. The guy is in high school. He should be able to ride his bike.

I told Little Kat that he needed to lock the house door behind him when he left for biking. Momoko and I fought traffic to go shopping up North. In the middle of shopping, Kit Kat called us twice. Momoko got worried. She called Kit Kat back. She said that she came home from school. The shed door was open. The house door was open. But nobody was home. Kit Kat was disturbed.
Later Kit Kat got a call from Little Kat. He has crashed on his bike. Little Kat wanted a ride home because he was injured. But Kit Kat could not fit the bike in her car. So Little Kat had to hobble home. He said his leg got caught in his chain and he flipped off the bike. Some young kid came to Little Kat's rescue. The kid got Little Kat unchained from his bike.
Little Kat now says he has a sprained leg. I am now going to go pick him up a sub for a late night dinner.

Minecraft Server

Little Kat wanted Momoko to sign up for a recurring credit card charge. This was to pay for his Minecraft server. I guess that is some type of rented computer space out there on the Internet. They also probably provide some tools that let you set up a virtual Minecraft world that you can control. The thing would cost about seven bucks a month.

Momoko asked me for guidanceon whether this was a good idea. I told her that it would be better if Little Kat could figure out how to set up his own Minecraft server on his laptop or desktop computer. Little Kat said he tried many times. However other people were unable to connect up to his servers. The servers were also way too slow to host the Minecraft game.

I told Little Kat that he should try for a few more months to get s server up and running. If he cannot figure this out before my college class is over, then I would come in and give him some support. If we together could not figure it out, I told him we could eventually help him sign up for the recurring cost of a rented server.

Resignation

Kit Kat put in her two weeks notice last night for her weekend job. Things have been a bit crazy for Kit Kat. She goes to school a few day a week. She also works for her school in the alumni relations department. On top of that, she hung on to her summer job, working weekends. That meant she was working and going to school 7 days a week.
It was not just Kit Kat who was affected by her busy schedule. The family had to shuffle things around her schedule. We have two meetings a week to discuss our schedule and any issues. Those were moved around a bit because Kit Kat works on the weekend. There is a weekly shopping trip that could not happen on the weekends because of Kit Kat's job. All of that is changing now.
Kit Kat and I put our plans to teach her to drive manual transmission on hold for a while. There was just no opportunity to have Kit Kat go out driving in my pickup truck. Now I will give her a week after she ends her weekend job to celebrate. Then it will be time to get out there and learn to drive a stick shift.

Bike Repair with Little Kat

Little Kat and I both had flat bike tires a week or so ago. I ordered us some inner tubes off Amazon. They got delivered early. Little Kat scheduled up a time for today so we could work on our bikes. I had a tough day at work. After work I took a quite nap. Little Kat came knocking at our appointed time.

Little Kat grabbed Momoko's tool box. I helped him turn his bike upside down. He had trouble finding a wrench that matched the bolts on the back tire of his bike. When he could not find any, he tried using some pliers. That did not work. I taught him how to use an adjustable wrench. There was a second nut and bolt holding the axle on the bike. Eventually Little Kat used a wratchet wrench to get it off.

Once Little Kat had his wheel off, he had trouble taking the tire off the rim. I showed him how to use a blunt object to pry the thing off. The tube seemed much bigger than the rim. However it was the same size as the old one. Turns out we needed to compare the tube to the tire, not the smaller rim.

Little Kat had trouble getting the new inner tube and tire back on the rim. I explained how to do it. He could not understand. He recommended I change my own flat tire as he watched and learned. I changed my inner tube real quick. Then Little Kat put his inner tube and tire back on. When he pumped up the inner tube, we found the tire off the rim. I let a bunch of air out of the tube. Then Little Kat made sure the tire was fully on before filling it with air.

Little Kat and I tested out of newly fixed up bikes. We rode down the ramp from the shed. And then we rode around the cul de sac. Finally I followed Little Kat down the street. We waved to some neighbors. And then I followed him back up the cul de sac. We tried some hard core lines, riding off curbs and such. Then we went fast. We navigted between Kit Kat's car and my truck in the driveway. We has enough speed to ride up our steep shed ramp. It was time for Little Kat to start cooking dinner.

Say No to the Jump

I went to the home improvement store to pick up some supplies today. Was happy that I could find an indoor flood light bulb that matched my track lighting. I also picked up some lumber and a lot of mulch. I parked the old truck by the store exit. However I checked out by the exit at the other side of the store. It was a long walk back to the truck. I pushed the heavy cart the whole way.

Then I started packing the truck. Had three separate stacks of mulch bags going on the in the truck bed. Wedged a paint can in there as well. Put the lumber up on top. Wedged it down so that it would not fall out the back of the truck. When all was packed up, I took the cart back to the store. A guy asked me if that was my truck that just got packed. I told him yes. The guy then asked if I had jumper cables.

Now I carry jumper cables in all my vehicles. You never know when you need to jump start a car. However the cables were packed in the far end of the truck. I just spent 5 minutes packing this truck up. I had a lot of work to do. So I had to tell the guy that I could not help him. I felt a little bad. However I spent a long time at home getting the shrub garden bed ready for the mulch. I am glad I did not spend another half hour trying to jump start this guy's truck.
As I drove my truck out of the parking lot, I saw a store employee trying to help the guy out. Let's hope he had some jumper cables.

Back in Business

I had downloaded the latest copy of the Dragonvale game onto my iPhone. The thing had problems. Momoko said she did not have problems with the upgrade. Then I found out that she actually did have problems, just not on her brand new iPhone 4S. I have the ancient iPhone 3GS. Seems the new game requires a modern version of the iPhone operating system(iOS).

So I finally decided to install the new iOS 5 on my iPhone. You would think that would be an easy thing. No such luck. I first downloaded the iTunes software onto my PC. Then I tried to upgrade my iPhone's operating system. The program kept complaining that I had not transferred the apps I bought onto my PC. That made sense since I recently got a new PC. But I vould not figure out how to do it.

After doing some Google searches, I found out how to transfer the apps from my phone to computer. Then I was good to go. The kids said the iOS upgrade would take a long time. Seemed to run for about an hour. Then I got the phone and saw there were no apps. What? Oh yeah. I had to transfer them back from the computer to the phone. Okay.

Next I tried to transfer my music and photos. Oooops. They were not on my computer. Guess they got lost during the upgrade. Dang. I had some good music too. Luckily I don't think I actually paid for any of that music. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. Now I found some new problems. The phone would not connect to my wireless Internet router. A reboot of the phone seemed to fix that.

Finally I launched my Dragonvale game on my computer. Looks like the thing works now that I upgraded the iOS. I was able to gift some gems to my friends in the game. Been a long time since I have been able to do that. Now that I have iOS version 5, maybe I don't need to upgrade the iPhone hardware to the new iPhone 5 that is coming out later this month. Hmmm.

Come Home Chores

Little Kat has just a few chores he need to complete when he comes home. They are called the "Come Home Chores". He is supposed to attend to them immediately when he comes home. They should not take him that long to do. Luckily I work from home, and I listen out for Little Kat's return home.

I usually give Little Kat a half hour or more before I come up and check on him. One day this week, Little Kat came home on time as usual. His school is an early one. So he gets home by 3pm daily. I found Little Kat eating a snack. He heated up some leftovers or cooked a microwave meal. But none of this chores were done. What the heck?

Little Kat has a lot of time after he comes home. But if we wait until the evening, he gets really busy. That's why we have a small set of come home chores. They just need to be done. I walked Little Kat through his chores that day. Made sure he got them done. But I don't want to police him every day. We need to get him more responsible.

Almost Missing ParaNorman

Momoko decided that the family would go watch the movie ParaNorman this Labor Day. We are busy people. We hardly ever get to see the movies any more. Time to take advantage of the holiday. Kit Kat even scheduled her outing with her friends around our movie time.

Last night Momoko brought up the fact that Little Kat is no longer doing his 20 minutes of reading each weekday. He got off track this summer and just stopped. So Momoko is requiring Little Kat to read. She also is having him make up some of the time he skipped this summer. Today he was scheduled to read a whole hour. I told Little Kat he would need to read the hour, then prove to me he read. Otherwise we would go to the movies without him. Little Kat asked how he could produce such proof. I told him he could write up a short three sentence book report and present it to me.

I stayed up all night studying for my college class. It is only week two, and it is getting hard. That is a good thing. That means we are forced to learn the difficult stuff. I got to be around 6am. I needed to wake up with enough time to review Little Kat's reading before we went to the movies. When I went to Little Kat, he said he was unable to print out his book report. The printer was apparently not working.

No problem. I told Little Kat to bring me his Kindle so I could read his book and quiz him on the contents. He then came over and said he could not find his book on his Kindle. What? Apparently Little Kat read the book using his phone. I told him he better load the book up on his Kindle if he wanted to see the movie.

Little Kat went through all kinds of efforts to download the book to his Kindle. This should not be a problem. I paid for his eBook copy of Fahrenheit 451. He eventually got it. I quickly read the pages he said he read. Luckily Little Kat knew the material. This made us a bit late for the movie. We made Kit Kat use the interstate to make up the lost time.

Gem Troubles

Momoko told me that a new version of Dragonvale had come out. I decided to try it out. I clicked on install in the Apple App Store. The thing did not seem to load correctly. It happened too fast. So I tried again. This time the app showed it was downloading. Then it was installing. Finally I got it.

I launched the new app. The first thing I did was click the Friends link to gift some gems to my friends. The Dragonvale app bombed. What the heck? I launched it again. Then I tried clicking Friends. The thing bombed again. I tried to install the app again. But it says I already have the app. If I uninstall the app, it says I will lose all my game progress (which is significant).

I have attempted to gift gems to my friends about 10 times now. Each time the app blows up. Big time failure. Momoko had the problem when she first downloaded the new version of the app. But now she says the thing works for her. Come on Back Flip Studios. Fix this failure so I can start passing out gems again. To all you Dragonvale players on my friends list, don't worry. I will gift you my gems eventually.