The Giver

Momoko and Little Kat tried to read a book together this summer. I got Little Kat a Kindle version of Fahrenheit 451. And I got Momoko a print version. That project did not turn out too well. I doubt they read but a couple chapters.

Momoko wanted to resume the reading project. I had purchased a Kindle version of The Giver by Lois Lowry for Little Kat. And I bought Momoko the deluxe print edition that had all kinds of pictures with it. They were supposed to start reading the book together. But Momoko needed some extra help. She bought an extra electronic copy for her iPad on iBooks.

I went to the library to see if I could check out a print copy of The Giver. No luck. So I went to the local boostore and picked up a copy. It was a small paperback copy. I liked it because it cost $6.99. The family was all supposed to read the book at the same time. Somehow it was decided that we would all read the book aloud, taking turns at reading.

This was eye opening. Little Kat often skips words while he reads. He also pronounces the words wrong, seeing one word but saying another. Ouch. Maybe it is a good thing we are reading aloud. When Little Kat's reading mistakes get too crazy, Momoko corrects him as he reads.

So far we have found out that the characters live in some sort of utopian society. They live in communities with a lot of rules. Everyone is given a job that they accept as professions. If you break the laws 3 times, you get "released". One would think that means you get kicked out of the community. But I think that means you get killed. We shall see.

Black Friday Shopping

Once again the family went shopping during the Black Friday sale. Personally I stay out of the fray because I have never been a Black Friday fan. However Momoko and the kids just can't stay away from the sales. Little Kat proposed that I buy some lighted lawn ornaments this year. He picked out a lighted penguin for the lawn.

I tried to order the penguin online. But it was an in-store only item at Walmart. Kit Kat wanted to buy herself some luggage at Kohls. That turned out to be the first stop on the trip. Momoko drove the kids to Kohls and they got in line. They appreciated the fact that Kohls security ensured an orderly entry into the store. Line jumpers were forced to the end of the line.

Kit Kat said she could not find her luggage in the luggage aisle. She asked an employee, who directed her to an obscure location in the store. She got her 5-piece plaid luggage set for a cool $50. Momoko then dropped the kids off at Walmart to see if they could get a lawn ornament. They fought the chaos, but were informed the ornaments were not on sale until 5:00am.

The family came home. Momoko and Kit Kat took a nap. Little Kat played his new Dishonored video game he rented from GameFly. I was asleep when the family left again for the 5:00am sales. They said Walmart was desserted by then (the masses came Thursday night). They bought two lawn ornaments, including a snowman that Momoko wanted.

Kit Kat picked up a couple pairs of boots at Kohls. She also bought a wireless color printer at Staples. There were a lot of other deals that the family took part in. Some of them may be secret for Christmas so I will not list them all here.

Breaking Dawn

Kit Kat wanted to see the final installment of the Twilight movies when it came out. However for once she did not go to the movies with her friends. They don't take Twilight seriously. Momoko capitalized on this and scheduled for the family to go to the movies today.

We like to go to the theater at the mall. But it is so crowded and expensive. The way to beat the crowds is to go early. The family was scheduled to see the 10:00am show. Ouch. I have been busy the last couple days and wanted to finally sleep in. I planned to pass on this movie.

To save even more money, Momoko suggested that the family eat breakfast before going to the theater. The theater food is terribly expensive. A departure time for breakfast was set at 8:45am. I noticed that Momoko was still asleep at 8:20am. So I woke her up. For some reason, she blamed me for oversleeping. Little Kat was still asleep as well.

Since I was up, Momoko talked me into going to the movies with the family. We hardly ever have time for all of us to see movies together. So I went. There was some delay in getting out of the house. Kit Kat and I were in the car waiting for the rest of the family to get out.

We went to Chick-fil-a for breakfast. Their drive through line was long but quick. I had never been to breakfast there before. I learned that their hash browns are actually has rounds (or cicrular tater tots). I ate in the car on the ride over to the theater. So I got out and purchased the tickets as Momoko and Kit Kat finished their food in the car.

Once we were all in the building and entering our theater, I noticed that I had lost my new iPhone 5. Ouch. Kit Kat let me borrow the keys to the car. Luckily my phone had fallen down on the car floor. Whew. All I can say about the movie is that there was a trick near the ending that had the whole theater gasping. No spoilers here though.

The iPhone 5

I am on vacation this week. So I finally had a chance to set up my new iPhone 5 phone. It has been a few years since I got my previous iPhone. That one was the iPhone 3GS. Although it was a few models behind the latest iPhone 5, it seemed to do the job fine. I got the new phone mainly because we pay a high monthly cell phone fee. Built into that fee is the ability to upgrade to a new phone every 2 years at a highly discounted rate. It was time to take advantage of the discount.

First I connected my old iPhone to the computer. The iTunes software automatically recognized it and started syncing the data. I saw my new apps fly by. I figured they must have been automatically transferred to my computer. Great. Next I tried to activate the new iPhone. That required some contact info from Momoko that I did not have. Luckily I was able to track down Momoko and get the secret info.

I rebooted the iPhone 5. Then I had to wait a while as they registered my service with the new phone. After a short wait, I could make calls with the new phone. I tested out Dragonvale, my favorite iPhone app. It seemed to be zippier with the new phone. Gave movement was much more responsive. Then I tried to launch my new favorite game Gizmonauts. But I could not find it. In fact, all of the new apps I recently installed were missing from the iPhone 5. But I synced it with my PC.

That's when it hit me. The darn iTunes must not have synced up the recent apps to my computer. Darn you Apple. Luckily I only download free apps for my phone. I only had to download Gizmonauts to my new iPhone 5. There were a bunch of other new apps that did not make it over to the new phone as well. I will have to deal with them later. Time to enjoy Gizmonauts on the new iPhone 5.

Introducing the iPad Mini

Yesterday I was in the middle of a business phone call at work. I head someone knocking on the front door. I had to ignore whoever was knocking. Business comes first. And when I am home working on my job, that is the top priority. Later I came up and saw a note from the Fed-Ex guy. Guess we had a package that required signing.

I told Momoko that I missed the Fed-Ex guy. She said this was most likely her iPad Mini in the mail. I gave her the slip from the Fed-Ex guy. She signed it, stating that she wanted the package left at the door even if nobody was home. Today I heard some noise upstairs. No knock or doorbell ringing. It was just a weird noise.

I came up immediately. In the distance, I saw the Fex-Ex guy driving away. There was a small box tucked inside our screen door. This turned out to be Momoko's iPad Mini delivery. The thing seems bigger than I thought it would be. Appears larger than a Kindle from Amazon. However it feels very light. Maybe that is because it is so thin.

Momoko immediately plugged the device in for charging. She set up the Internet connection, downloaded all her apps onto it, and was good to go. Now every night there is an iPhone, iPad, and iPad Mini on Momoko's night stand. Let's just hope the thing doesn't make any noise and wake me up before it is time.

Goal Achieved

Little Kat asked whether we would get him a GameFly membership. GameFly is kind of like the Netflix for video games. You go online and put games you like in your queue. Then they will send you a game. You keep it as long as you want. When you return your game, they will choose another from your queue, and mail it to you.

I really like Netflix. We watch a lot of movies from Netflix. I figured GameFly might be a good idea. However it does cost a minimum of $16 a month. Little Kat does not get that such a bonus for nothing. It needs to be earned. So I told Little Kat that I would get him the basic GameFly membership if he got at least a 3.0 GPA on his report card. I also told him that he could get a better membership if he gets a 3.5 GPA on his report card.

Today Little Kat presented me with a paper copy of his report card for the first quarter. The guy actually got better than a 3.0 GPA. I credit Momomoko making Little Kat do all this work in the last 2 weeks of the first quarter. However a deal is a deal. I had Little Kat bring down his laptop. And we signed him up for GameFly.

We set it up so the games comes addressed to Little Kat in the mail, but the bills come to me. Little Kat is now loading up his queue with all these cool games. He also has to order the games in his queue to ensure the best ones come first. Ahhh. The fun of having a game membership. This is timely since Little Kat just started complaining about not having new games to play.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake

Kit Kat and Little Kat are responsible for our grocery shopping. They normally visit the grocery store on Sunday afternoons. If anyone from the family needs something specific, we put it on the grocery list on the fridge. Momoko had just one request this week. She wanted some cake.

I knew we were in trouble when the kids came back from grocery shopping. They forgot the cake. Momoko tried to make do by eating some pound cake we had. But it was not the same. She really had her heart set on some coconut and/or chocolate cake. Then yesterday Little Kat exclaimed that we had run out of dishwashing detergent. That was just the thing Momoko needed to make the kids return to the grocery store and get that cake.

In other news, I have had my ancienct iPhone 3GS for a long time. Finally the phone company said I was eligible for an upgrade. I feel like they cheated me our of 6 months (you are supposed to be eligible for an upgrade every 2 years). However I did not argue. The iPhone 5 just came out. I ordered one and received it last week.

I charged up my new iPhone 5. But I have not switched over to it yet. Been too busy. Did not want there to be a problem and find myself without a cell phone. I need this thing for work and my college class. Perhaps I can slip the switch over in sometime this week.

Disposal Failure

Little Kat had dish duty today. He came and told us that the garbage disposal was not working. That was suspicious. Kit Kat and Little Kat just cleaned out one of our fish tanks. They have a tendency to let small pebbles from the fish tank go down the disposal and clog it up. Momoko interrogated Kit Kat. She said that the disposal stopped working. Her excuse was that she was going to bring it up during family meeting night.

First we directed Little Kat to clean out the disposal. He was worried that the disposal would turn on as soon as he got removed item blocking it. We told Little Kat to go downstairs to cut the power to the disposal. He did not know which circuit breaker switch killed the power to the disposal. This was an easy problem to solve. I told Little Kat to kill main power switch to the house.

Little Kat brought down our most powerful flashlight. Then he flipped the main switch. All the lights went out in the house. We could hear the gerbils running around alarmed that it got dark. The power supply to our Internet hardware was beeping because no electricity was being fed to it. Little Kat tried to clear the disposal. He failed.

Kit Kat had to get in there. The problem was compounded because Little Kat tried to put all the food down the drain, expecting the disposal to chop it up. That food got extracted first. Then the kids got a partial pebble out from the disposal. They should have done that long ago. Unfortunately the disposal was still not functional.

I had the kids climb under the sink and check the dispoal for any reset buttons. Sometimes devices like this have a switch which pops like one on a GFE power outlet. Little Kat found a red switch on the bottom of the disposal. When he pressed it, the disposal came on. $200 service call avoided.

Kit Kat's Night Out

It is hard to keep up with Kit Kat. She is always on the go with her friends on the weekends. Today Kit Kat and two girlfriends went to see the movie Wreck-It-Ralph. One of her friends brought her little sister. Another acquiantance of Kit Kat's tagged along too.

Kit Kat returned home in time for our weekly scheduling meeting. The family goes over the schedule for the whole week on Saturday's at 8pm. We figure out who is cooking each night, and what they are cooking. We also figure out all the activities for the whole family during the week.

We had to hurry up our meeting. We started late because I was stuck watching a long DVD before the meeting. I felt rushed because Kit Kat planned to go out again at night. She was tagging along with a friend and an acquintance to go duckpin bowling.

Kit Kat said she owned the duckpin bowling lanes, winning most of the games during the night. A guy in the group tried to talk Kit Kat into joining his duckpin bowling league. Silly boy. Kit Kat is way to busy for such diversions. She politely declined him.

Little Kat Math Woes

Little Kat received a "D" in his Math class last quarter. I thought he actually deserved an "F". Momoko worked with him in the last week of the quarter to bombard his Math teacher with a bunch of papers turned in at the last moment. That and a decent score on a late test pulled his grade up a bit.

So in addition to making sure Little Kat turns in his class work and homework for Math, I check him every now and then. This week I saw that he got a 30% on a Math test. That is crazy low. I figure he is still suffering from some of the Math work slacking from the first quarter.

I found the page in the Math text book where the teacher got the test questions. So I assigned some of the questions for a private quiz for Little Kat. I figured I worked with him on his homework a lot this week in Math. He had to be a bit better.

He only got a 45% on the quiz I gave him. We went over each of the problems together after he took my quiz. I taught him some new concepts, and showed him where he made his mistakes. Then I assigned him a new quiz.

Little Kat only got a 50% on the new quiz. He had some further confusion over some Math topics like fractions. That killed him. He also has trouble using a variable to represent an unknown in a word problem. I guess we will continues the quizzing tomorrow. Little Kat must learn this stuff.

Free Credit Score - Set It Off

Sometimes I really like these commercials. It seems they get some good singers to come in and do a short video. Macy's had one that I wrote about before. Now I like the one for Free Credit Score. The video is valled "Set It Off". Yeah it is a commercial. But I never get tired watching it. Here are the lyrics:

Free Credit Score dot com up in it
Haters best get to blogging
So hot right now that our designer sunglasses be foggin
This crowd is classic so we play em like Rachmaninoff
Just hooked em up with score alerts, now we're about to set it off...
Set it off like a score alert, beep beep, what!?
If you set your phone to vibrate then it might alert your butts and flies
All the girls and the guys, wanna keep that credit score high
Like a private jet Free Credit Score dotcom don't forget
*setitoff setitoff*

Getting Manual

Now that Kit Kat is a seasoned driver, I wanted to teach her how to drive a manual transmission. The hardest part about this training was scheduling a time to do it. Kit Kat and I are busy people. I figured we could do it on the weekend. But there are a lot of things going on every weekend.

Kit Kat is keeping in touch with her high school friends who went off to different colleges. She visits her friends on the weekend, sometimes spending the night at a college dorm. Or she is running around with her friends to the movies or out to eat. I watch movies with my bro every weekend. I also pay my bills and do massive yard work each weekend. Kit Kat and I were just not connecting.

I cancelled one of my commitments this weekend. Any I got Kit Kay when she was home. We headed out in my manual transmission pickup truck to learn. At first I drove and let Kit Kat switch the gears for me. We went to the local elementary school. There was nobody there. But the ground was not level. It is easiest to learn on flat ground. So we headed to the park. Too many people were there. We went back to the school.

At first Kit Kat pressed the gas too much when getting into first gear. The tires screeched and we were too fast and too furious. I had her press the gas a lot less. Then the car jerked around and wanted to stall. It is a delicate balance. Kit Kat tried about 6 to 8 times, stopping the car, starting back up again, and repeating. It was tedious because we would get to the bottom of the parking lot. Then we would switch seats, and I would drive us back up to the start of the straightaway.

It is going to take a lot of practice to teach Kit Kat the art of driving stick shift. Perhaps by next summer she will have it down. I told her she only needs to learn. After that, it is fine if she never drives manual transmission. Learning to drive it is like learning to ride a bike. Once you learn, you have the instinct and can pick it up again easily.

Close Inspection

Momoko and Little Kat had the day off for Election Day. Their school is used as a voting locaiton. I had scheduled for an electrician to come by the house. Little Kat has a funky outlet in his room. When you plug something in, the whole room loses power. We can't have that.

The electrician was scheduled to come in the afternoon. He called a few times in the morning because he was in the area. When I called him back, he said he would be over around noon. I had Little Kat man the door. Good thing I did. The guy came early.

The electrician fixed the plug, and we were good to go. Momoko wanted to take Little Kat with her to run some errands. I said that Little Kat had a lot of work to do. His room became as mess as we prepared for the electrician. We needed clear the area around the outlet.

Eventually Little Kat cleaned up the room. Then he and Momoko went errand shopping. Upon his return, I quizzed him about his homework. He said everything was done for the next couple days. I started with the stuff due tomorrow. The first paper I saw was incomplete. Fail. Then I looked at another paper. It was only 25 percent done. Double fail.

I told Little Kat that this semester was the time to get back on track at school. He definintely needs to complete all homework fully. If not, I know he will be missing the whole point of homework. Learning the material. Kit Kat and I set up a card table next to the desk in the basement where I work all day. As soon as Little Kat comes home, he needs to sit directly next to me and complete his homework.

Too Many Branches

Previously I had picked up all the leaves in the front yard. Many came down after the hurricane winds came through town. It was not too difficult of a job. I just ran the lawn mower over the leaves. That mulched them, and made it easier to bag them.

This weekend I turned to the back yard. That was not as easy. In addition to the large amount of leaves falling, many tree branches fell down as well. I ran around with my little metal grabber tool. It allows me to pick stuff off the ground without bending down. It is a life saveer.

The problem was that there were so many tree branches down. I moved the wheel barrel around the yard, filling it up as I grabbed sticks with the grabber. However when it was full, I needed to back up the branches. That slowed things down to a crawl.

In the end, I got all the branches and leaves picked up. But it took around 5 hours. I was working quickly too. Everything has been bagged. The yard actually looks quite good. I still need to take care of the leaves on the steep hills. That is a chore for next weekend.

50 Percent Times Two

Kit Kat was scheduled to go shopping with Momoko this weekend. However Little Kat needed some winter clothes. So all three of them went shopping. They went to Walmart instead of Target. There was not many items on our Target shoppig list.

Momoko found that Halloween candy was 50 percent off. She kind of thought that would be the case. She loaded up on our favorites. At the checkout register, the guy started ringing up some of the candy as full price. Good thing Momoko was keeping an eye on the prices. She informed the clerk that candy was supposed to be 50 percent off.

Momoko got the double bonus on some of the candy. The Walmart cashier just took 50 percent off all the candy prices. Turns out some of that candy was already ringing up as 50 percent off. Therefore Momoko got double the 50 percent off. If my math serves me correctly, that means she paid 25 percent off retail.

The sad part about the Walmart economics is that even when you pay 25 percent of the retail price, the store still makes a profit. Oh well. We are partying with the extra candy. By the way, Little Kat got some nice outfits. Many of them came with a shirt and cap combo.

Halloween Plans

Little Kat and Kit Kat had planned to visit the grandparents of their friend for Halloween. They have done this every year for a while. So Momoko and I made our own plans. We were going to go out to eat for Halloween. Turns out the friend's grandpa got sick. So the kids' plans got changed. They instead went out to dinner themselves.

Momoko turned out all the lights in the house. Did not want trick-or-treaters to come when nobody was home. Then I drove Momoko to the local Olive Garden. Momoko wanted to buy some special that was a "dinner for today and tomorrow". You get an entree for dinner. And you get one to go.

At first I thought it was not smart to buy some food for the next day. But Momoko pointed out that the double dinner is about the same price as regular dinner. I got the special as well. That served me fine, because I could not decide between ziti or fettucini alfredo. So I got both.

Later that night, I had to hit the books to study for my college class. The kids watched some horror movies and played with the gerbils. Momoko just seemed to nap all evening. Then when it was time for bed, Momoko could not go to bed. Too much sleep. I was tired from hours and hours of studying. So I hit the sack and was out cold.