The Flight Home

We needed to print our return flight boarding passes a day before the flight. The only problem was that we would be in a movie when the boarding passes became available. We wanted to get low number passes to get good seats on the plane. Grandpa volunteered to stay home and print out our passes.

The night before our flight, we packed our bags. It took an extra trip over to the kids' uncle's house to collect their belongings. The kids' cousin spent the night to say goodbye. I used the GPS to get us to the air port. Drove all the way to the back of the garage to find my rental car company return.

Inside the airport, I followed the signs to get to our gate. The family did not follow me. I came back and they told me we had to check our bags first. Duh. The line to check bags was short. I worried that Momoko's big bag may have weighed too much. It didn't.

My boading pass was first. I entered the plane and found a window seat. Unfortunately I was in front of a little kid who kicked me seat a lot. At least his parents were on guard to scream at the kid to tell him to stop kicking. Little Kat and Kit Kat say next to each other. Even though the captain said we had a full flight, Momoko got lucky and sat in a row with one empty seat.

After landing, we collected our bags quick. Took a crowded bus to the satellite parking. Kit Kat wandered the satellite lot searching for the exit. They charged us eight and a half days for parking. Kit Kat drove us home and proceeded to fall asleep in bed before dinner. We all missed our premium beds and mattresses we have at home.

Dollar Movie Theater

Gradma's town allegedly had a dollar theater. I am all for good deals like that. Sure it was probably some broke down old theater. But you can't beat the price. Plus they featured old but good movies such as Ender's Game.

I scheduled us to watch the movie Carrie. Kit Kat had previously wanted to see it on the big screen. So she was in. Her cousin came too. Little Kat completed our group. I drove the rental with the kids to the theater. I used my GPS to get us there. As soon as we turned onto the access road, Kit Kat and I recalled the route.

There was one girl handling tickets and concessions. Turns out that Tuesday movies were $2, but all other days cost $3. Still a good deal for the movie. There were $1 hot dogs. However we all opted for popcorn/nachos. Those concessions were expensive like they are at normal theaters.

Carrie was not too scary. The bottom of the film was clipped. The film aspect ratio was also off, causing people to appear too skinny. The next time we opted to go to the modern theater where admission was full price, but grandma's membership got us discounted popcorn and drinks.

The Gun Range

Little Kat and I drove the rental car over to Little Kat's uncle's house. We backed the car up to his garage. Then we loaded up a bunch of guns into the back of the car. We packed the bag of ammo I bought. We supplemented that with ammo from Little Kat's uncle's stash.

We took a long drive to the outdoor gun range. On the way there, we passed sites like the circular barn and soda store which had a huge soda bottle decoration outside. They sell cans of soda from all over the world. The last leg of the journey was a dirt road.

There were other people at the range when we arrived. An older guy shot long range targets with a loud rifle. A couple younger guys were doing skeet shooting, launching clay targets in the air and hitting them with shotgun fire.

I fired some 22 caliber ammo using revolvers like the 357 magnum. That was fun. I could actually hit targets at close and medium range. The pistols I tried had too much recoil for my taste. The rifles hurt my shoulder and would not hit the targets I aimed at.

Little Kat had decent aim. He liked the pistols and rifles more than me. We stayed later than the other people at the range. When we left, Little Kat locked the property entrance gate behind us.

Search for 22 Caliber

Once we arrived at grandmas's house, we brought in all our luggage. Grandma thought the boys could share one bedroom, and the girls could share another. Both kids complained as they figured the adult in their bedroom would snore and keep them awake. Thus I ended up sleeping with Momoko in her old bedroom.

Little Kat planned to go shooting at the gun range with his uncle. I asked to go along. Grandpa wanted in on the action too. Little Kat's uncle worried we would use up all his ammunition. We decided the I would buy new ammo for our outing.

The problem was that 22 caliber bullets were in high demand here. So instead I bought a bunch of 38 caliber bullets for uncle's weapons, and a bit of 45 caliber bullets for grandpa's handgun. Later we went to a gun shop that had small quantities of 12 caliber bullets for sale.

In all, I bought a two hundred bucks worth of ammo. We now plan to go to an outdoor shooting range with Little Kat's uncle. Then we will visit an indoor range with grandpa. Back home I am thinking I might need a gun of my own, maybe a revolver.

To Grandma's House

I printed airline boarding passes the day before our flight. We still boarded somewhere around the middle of the crowd. Momoko sat with Little Kat. I was with Kit Kat. Luckily we got our own rows of seats on the plane, with an empty seat between us. I read my Kindle book for most of the flight. Picked up a Chevy Traverse rental car. It was very roomy for all our luggage.

I plugged my GPS into the rental car. The thing would not stay attached to the windshield. It also seemed to want to want to take the long way. Therefore I relied on Momoko to guide me to her parents' house.We stopped by Sonic for some dinner first. I love the taste of their tots.

Grandma's dogs barked as we entered the house. A child gate prevented them from entering the dining room and running out the front door. I noticed that grandma had a new Chevy SUV like my rental. It looked to be the same color too.

Grumpy Cat 2014

I am a bit late in ordering a wall calendar for 2014. Usually I just pick up whatever is cheap from the stores or Amazon. This year I looked for a calendar that I would love to look at all year. That's when I saw it. There is a Grumpy Cat calendar for 2014.

Bad news. The calendar is on backorder at Amazon. I need a calendar. Don't know when I should wait for this one. There is a backup plan. Amazon has a Walking Dead calendar ready to ship now. I might pull the trigger on that one. Ha ha. No pun intended, really.

While looking at all thing Grumpy Cat on Amazon, I found that Grumpy Cat has his own book. Oh yes. This might be as good or even better than a calendar. How can I not purchase this book for myself? Things are already looking up for 2014. Thank you Grumpy Cat for being so mean but lovable.

Christmas Delivery

I had meant to give my friend a gift for Christmas. But I just did not have my act together the last time I saw him. Now I have a busy week at work. Turns out I just am not going to be able to see him before Christmas. What's a busy guy to do? Use the Post Office.

I had this DVD of the first season of Breaking Bad to give him. The package was a bit larger than a normal DVD. I wrote my buddy a note and headed to the post office after lunch. There were a lot of cars in the parking lot. I guess things get busy there around Christmas time.

I found a small priority mail shipping box that just about fix my DVD box set. It was a bit too small. But I jammed it in there anyway. A postal employee helped me tape the thing shut. It costs five bucks to send this package to my friend. I figure that's a good deal because they provide the box. Plus the get it to him the very next day. Handy.

Now I got to wrap the rest of the gifts I plan to give this Christmas. Busy busy.

Digging out of the Snow

Tonight I have my final exam for my college class. So I thought I had better clear the snow off my car. I went out early in the morning. Wanted to be prepared to drive off to get some lunch.

The hard part was that there was freezing rain after the snow. So the top of the snow was solid. I used my little ice scraper and scraped off the snow from the windows. There was still ice on the glass surface.

I decided to start up my car and blast the defrost with hot air. That helped a bit after a while. I still had to work at getting that ice off the windshield. At lunch time, I drove to get a sub. Tons of snow and ice fell off the roof once I stopped at the first stop light.

I used the windshield wiper to get most of the falling snow and ice off the windshield. Too bad for the folks behind me. I tried to speed up a bit so the snow and ice would not hit their cars. Next time I had better clean off the snow a lot earlier.

A Day in the Life

This weekend we had some bad weather. My car is still iced over. Luckily I made Little Kat drive in the snow this weekend. So my other car is cleared off. This morning I rushed at work to complete the initial part of a project that is due today. I handed it off by lunch time.

Ran some errands at lunch. I was so hungry though. Therefore I used a coupon to get a large french fries from McDonalds. Headed to the bank to cash a check. Went to the store to puchase a couple more bags of rock salt for the driveway.

On the way home, I dropped by my favorite Chinese restaurant and picked up some carry out. I love their daily specials. When I came home, Kit Kat had returned from school. She skipped work today due to it being exams weeks and there being bad weather.

I thought I would be smart and transport the huge bags of rock salt from my car to the shed using the wheel barrel. Bad move. The tire on the wheel barrel is flat. Plus I could not get enough traction to get up the ramp into the shed. I hate the cold weather. At least we can keep the ice melted with the salt.

Robbed

My brother came over late this past Saturday. I had a busy day. We planeed to watch a movie and grab some dinner. At first we just took care of some family business. Then we watched the previews and started the movie. After around 20 minutes, we went out to pick up some Mcdonalds.

I was not that hungry. So I used a coupone to grab a snack. My brother got a full meal. We watched the whole movie. It was not that long. This was the "Killing Season" starring DeNiro and Travolta. No deep plot lines here. A simple battle between two ex-military guys. It was maybe a 3 out of 5.

As my brother was preparing to return home, he could not find his jacket. He had hung it up on our coat rack. He found another jacket that looked similar. However his was nowhere to be found. I asked him if maybe he brought it downstairs. No.

I heard a commotion from the other room. Apparently Little Kat overheard our conversation. He had taken my brother's jacket. I guess he thought it was his. Little Kat's excuse was that the jacket was hung in his section of the coat rack. Fail. No real harm done. Got to protect my bro's jacket in the future from thieves.

Pregnancy Fears

Half way through my school semester, I realized the girl who sits next to me was pregnant. I should have known something was up. She was very slender. However her face started to get round. And she started wearing baggier clothes.

The older guys in the class and the instructor were concerned last week that she was still coming to class. I wondered what the worry was about. This girl was not that big in her stomach. She should have plenty of time to finish up the semester and deliver sometime over winter break.

Ooops. Two days after that class she had her baby. She didn't come to class after that. Luckily we only have one more class which is the final. Maybe she might have to petition the school to get an incomplete in her classes. Funny how the wiser guys were able to discern that it was time.

If I were smart, I would have asked her when her expected due date was. Luckily there was no labor going on in class.

Too Lazy for Homework

Little Kat missed some school. It was an excused absense because he had to visit the doctor or something similar. His teachers had given him some zeros on assignments he missed. One teach gave him some make up work. Momoko and I told him to get it done over his long Thanksgiving break. Come Sunday night we asked if it was done. Little Kat said yes.

I have found that Little Kat says yes to anything. We need proof. So I told Little Kat to show me the work. Oooops. Turns out the work was not done. Momoko and I told him to get busy. We all had a meeting at Little Kat's school to talk to counseling and some other staff that are responsible for Little Kat. I took detailed notes.

One of the action items was for Little Kat to turn in that make up assignment. I emailed Little Kat an ordered list of seven action items from the meeting. These were seven tasks he needed to get done. I told Little Kat to get busy and knock them out in priority order. Late at night Momoko asked me to check on Little Kat's progress. He did not do any of the action items.

Okay enough slacking is enough. Little Kat's answer to why he is not doing his work is that he is lazy. That is an understatement. It is time to enforce our rule that Little Kat gets hard labor out in the yard when he receives a zero on any assignment and does not resolve the problem. Looks like I will be getting some good help out in the yard this weekend.

I got a lot of hard work to accomplish in the yard. Sounds like I am going to be playing the foreman role as Little Kat gets his handy dirty out there. No slacking allowed.

New Boyfriend

I had to work the day after Thanksgiving. Had a project due. There were some security access problems on the network. I was working hard right up until quitting time. I had to finish on time. The family was waiting for me. So was Kit Kat's friend who came by the house early to meet the family.

Kit Kat had met the guy on some online dating site. He goes to the university that Kit Kat wants to get her Bachelors degree from. They had gone out on a date before. Now things were starting to get real.

Momoko was supposed to pick us up some tacos. However something went wrong with that plan. I recommended we just go out to our favorite Mexican place. The whole family piled into two vehicles. We had quite a time listening to Kit Kat's new guy talk about life. He gravitated toward very techinical subjects.

After dinner we returned home to play some board games. Then I retired to the bedroom. The rest of the family played video games with Kat Kat and her guy. Later Kit Kat and her man went out with Kit Kat's friends for a movie and a late night snack. Kit Kat came home real late. Her guy was even later getting home.

Introducing Kit Kat's new boyfriend. Woo hoo.

Thanksgiving Cook

Momoko wanted to purchase a premade Thanksgiving dinner this year. Kit Kat and I agreed. However Little Kat protested. He said we should cook our own meal. He volunteered to do all the cooking. Momoko said she would help out a bit. It was all on Little Kat.

I worked the day before Thanksgiving. So at the end of the night I went to sleep promptly. The kids stayed up with Momoko. They stayed up really late. Bad move. Little Kat was tired Thanksgiving morning. The boy was cranky. It showed when he went to cook the meal.

I knew we were in trouble when Momoko reminded Little Kat that the turkey preparation involved some flour. He said we were out of flour. That was just crazy talk. I tried to toast myself a bagel in the morning. I was diturbed to find cooking oil all over the kitchen floor.

Later Momoko inquired on how Little Kat's cooking of the corn was progressing. He said he did not know how to cook corn. More craziness. I think this is the last time we let Little Kat cook us a holiday dinner. Either that or an adult needs to police his bed time the night before. Surprisingly, the dinner turned out okay.

Subzero Work

Momoko and the kids woke up early on the weekend to go to the movies. I could not join them because I had too much work to do. Normally Momoko gets me some breakfast on the weekend. But it had to be cancelled because their movie started really early. They save Catching Fire at the good theater.

My main job was to pick up the leaves in the back yard. Wouldn't you know it? A severe cold front came into town. It was below freezing outside. Great. My gloves and ear protection are stored in the outdoor shed. They were freezing when I brought them out.

I decided to bring them into the house and place them on top of the heating system vents. Took about 30 minutes for them to warm up nicely. During that time, I did some work that did not require ear protection. It was still very cold handling the cols tools without gloves.

I thought I might sneak out in the middle of my yard work to get a bite to eat. Then I realized that would cause me to lose my momentum. Instead I let my hunger drive me on. It was cold outside. But I kept moving as I did my work. It took over three hours to get the work done.

Afterwards I bolted to Jerry's subs and pizza. Got myself a peperjack cheesesteak meal. I guzzled down some coke without any ice. The cheese on the steak was spicy. I added hot pepper paste to my fries. I went home to shower. Could not fall into a deep sleep. It was time for my weekly visit to see my sick mom...

Bulking Up

I stayed up late last night studying for class. I was really tired. Took a long time to write code to program simple things. The bad news is that I had to wake up early today. Needed to report to my customer's site to turn in my laptop. Getting an upgrade to Windows 7. By lunch time I was very tired.

Luckily I drove home at lunch time and took a nap. Since I did not have my work computer any more, I had some free time on my hands. I collected the leaves in the front of the yard. I thought about taking care of the back yard too, but that was too large of a task for a weekday. Instead I came in.

Kit Kat was tasked with bringing some large items to school for Momoko. They were going to stay late working on chores for Momoko. That meant that today we would eat take out. We had tacos for a Taco Tuesday. Before dinner arrived, Little Kat and I went outside to haul our bulky trash to the curb for a pickup tomorrow.

I did not feel bad asking Little Kat to help. Most of the big stuff came from his room. We paired up for the really heavy stuff. Nothing was nasty since I covered up our trash with a tarp. The only mishap was that the weight from the bottom of one of our lamp feel out and crakced over top of our driveway. I cleaned that up. And we should be good to go.

Emissions Time

I was scheduled to take the day off today to look after Kit Kat. She was supposed to get her wisdom teeth removed yesterday. However she was sick and could not get the dentistry work done. I worked some extra hours earlier this week. Therefore I decided to take a half day at work.

At lunch time I ran over to Roy Rogers. I brought my truck, because afterwards I headed to the emissions testing center. It is always a guess as to whether my truck will pass emissions testing. The truck is over 20 years old. The think runs okay. But it is from an earlier era. Luckily I got a pass today.

I checked in with the office after lunch. Nobody had time to talk to me. Fine by me. I left for the day. Then began the lengthy task of collecting leaves. First I used the leave blower to move the leaves off the big driveway. I raked the leaves off the curb in the street. Used the lawn mower to collect the leaves. Bagged them up. Later I went to our large back yard. The whole affair took around four hours. Ouch.

Food Drive

I was busy at work this morning. Did not get to lunch until late. A late lunch on my school days always messes up my schedule. Oh well. I was busy at work in the afternoon today too. Could not stop at quitting time. That is a problem since I need to go to school in the evening.

Finally I busted out of work. Only had a few minutes to grab a snack. I heated up some banana bread from my mom. It tasted good with butter on top. Then I remembered that my college was having a food drive this week. I printed out the flier and searched for the type of food they asked for.

I quickly found some pasta plus sauce. Then I grabbed a jar of peanut butter. Took a while, but I also located two boxes of mac-n-cheese. It was the good kind too. I wrapped it up in a bag, and placed the bag in my backpack. Then I drove off to school.

As soon as I turned onto the highway, I knew I was doomed. The cars were all backed up onto the onramp. My trip to school usually takes 20 minutes. Today it took over an hour. Sure enough, one of the lanes was closed due to an accident. I got to school late. Before class, I did spend a minute to locate the food drive dropoff. Priorities. Hope someone enjoys this premium mac-n-cheese.

Goodbye GameFly

Previously I had paid for a GameFly account for Little Kat. It is like Netflix for video games. Little Kat put a list of his favorite games on the GameFly web site. Then they send him the games one at a time. The game comes in the mail. They are returned by mail too. As soon as one game is returned, the next one from his list is sent to him.

The goal of this GameFly reward for Little Kat was to do well in school. I set up two level of grades that I thought should be rewarded with GameFly privileges. The higher the grades, the more games Little Kat could check out at any given time. For a long while, Little Kat has earned the one game at a time service level.

This semester Little Kat had some problems with his grades at school. That was nothing new. However Little Kat did not come back and get the grades corrected prior to report card time. Today I got a copy of his report card. We already knew the results. So I had to cancel his GameFly membership. Let's hope his grades improve next quarter.

Little Kat Surgery

Little Kat got his wisdom teeth extracted this week. Momoko took a day off to bring him to the dentist. She then got him his medicine, and stayed with him at home. Unfortunately she needed to return to work the next day. I volunteered to take a day off to watch Little Kat the day after the surgery.

The night before, some manager asked me to work on that day. I told him I had arranged to take the day off. Then on the day of my vacation, I got a call from my team leader. I reminded him I was off from work, and would talk with him when I returned. That's just how I roll. I don't work on holidays and vacation days.

I woke Little Kat up and got him some breakfast. All he wanted was a chocolate shake. I told him to come down from his bedroom. We watched the first espisode from season 1 of The Walking Dead. Now I understand some of the humor on the Internet related to that show. Later in the afternoon, I got us some Chinese food.

When Momoko came home, I was responsible for getting her dinner too. I was too tired to go out to eat. So I picked up some takeout from The Outback Steakhouse. Late at night, Little Kat complained about being hungry. We went to Arbys where they have a beef sandwich you can dip in some juice. Little Kat said it made the sandwich soft enough to eat.

I think Little Kat is on the road to recovery. He is talking about going to the movies with his friend in a few days.

Mattress Shopping

I sent Momoko and Little Kat matress shopping. Little Kat needs a new twin extra long matress. I told them both that a good matress should cost around $500. Also directed them to come up with a set up Little Kat's top choices. They returns with a short list of four matresses, ranging from $250 to $650. Little Kat liked the $500 one the best.

I went to the matress store to talk details. They guy told me the matress Little Kat wanted would cost me $750. I told him, "Come on.". He then lowered the price to $650. I told him I wanted to walk out paying a total of $500 (which, with tax, would be around $470). They guy said $550 was the best he could do. I told him I would think about it.

I returned the next day. My salesman had the day off. So I started again with another salesman. He said he could sell me the matress for $899. I told him that I wanted to pay $500. He called his boss, and came down to $769. His final offer was to sell it to me for $650. No go. No sale.

Returned one last time to speak with my original salesman. He was still firm at $550. Now $550 might be a fare price for all. I was just anchored to the original $500 quote he gave Momoko. Since I did try all the matresses Little Kat pointed out, I found this $550 to be the best value. I placed an order for it.

To ensure the only extra charge I paid for was tax, I opted to pick up the matress myself with my truck at the store. We take possession of Little Kat's new matress on Wednesday. The moral of the story is that nobody pays retail for matresses. The original list price was $1200. Online the best price was $899. I might have been able to shave another $50 off the $550 price, but I was satisfied with the deal.

The Bed Arrives

Little Kat and Momoko had picked out a new extra long bed for Little Kat. I ordered it around a month and a half ago. It got delivered yesterday. I opted for curbside delivery because the delivery cost was already expensive. I had the delivery boys wheel the bed into the carport.

When Little Kat came home, we cut the bed off the palette it come on. Then I brought out the old bed prototype that I built. Little Kat and I practiced one more time how we were going to bring the bed upstairs. It was a tight fit. Having the mock bed prototype gave us the edge we needed.

Little Kat bravely volunteered to be the guy on the bottom pushing the bed up the stairs. We got it past the trickiest part of the stairs. Once we got it into his room, we pulled off the protective plastic and cardboard wrap. Doh! Turns out we brought it into his room backwards. Took us a while to move it back out the room, down the hall, and into a bigger room to flip around.

Now the only remaining task is to buy Little Kat an extra long matress. Little Kat and Momoko went to my favorite matress store to check out mattresses. Little Kat came up with a short list of four matresses he liked. I went back to the store to check out his top choice. The salesman was not willing to work out a good deal for me to purchase the bed. Next step is to find another salesman.

Toothbrush Trouble

My dentist told me to start using a different toothbrush around a year ago. This one had longer bristles on the end. I had to special order replacements from Amazon. The brush is easy enough to use. The problem is that it has a weird shaped handle. The thing did not fit in our standard tooth brush holder.

Momoko bought a free standing toothbrush holder. It seemed to be made to fit wide handle brushes like my own. It was a good purchase, until the problems started popping up. The holder is essentially a big cup with custom holder in the top to hold toothbrushes. The problem is that the water sits in the bottom of the cup.

Sitting water is a recipe for disaster. The bottom of this cup started looking like a petri dish. Yeah I could bleach the thing out. But with the standing water, the nasty moldy bottom kept coming back. This got old really quick. I bought a new standard toothbrush holder to experiment with.

The project got put on hold for a long time. Eventually I got back to it. Used a pair of pliers and a long screwdriver to widen the mouth of the holes that hold the toothbrushes. What do you know? It worked. I mounted the modified holder on the bathroom wall. Now we should be good to go.

Router Rollover

Some time ago, Little Kat complained about the Internet speeds he was receiving. He proposed that we replace our wireless router. The new router cost about $50. I figured that would be a good investment. Unfortunately, I did not determine the true costs of the upgrade. Turns out Little Kat did not know how to set up all our printers to work with the new router.

This caused Momoko to not be able to print from her study. After over a month of Little Kat failing, I had to step in. Spent a few hours getting the first printer working with the new router. Then last night I spent a few more hours getting the other two printers working with the new router.

Now this work was not just switching the printers over to a new secure router. I also had to make sure Little Kat could print and scan from his new Windows 8 laptop. If I would have known it would take this long and this much of my time for the router upgrade, I would have halted it.

In the future, I need to ask a whole lot more questions when the kids get some great ideas. The main question should be to figure out how much of my time will be required to clean up whatever messes they get us in. Lesson learned.

Stick Shift

I have been spending the last few weekend with Kit Kat. She has been driving my manual transmission Saturn Vue in the local elementary school parking lot. Things have been looking good. She can get it into first gear from a stopped position, even when the car is on an include. She can get the car moving backwards. She can shift between first and second gears.

Last time I pushed Kit Kat to learn automatic transmission rapidly, she had an adverse reaction. That resulted in Momoko having to take over the instruction. This time around I am trying to be a little more patient and gentle. However we cannot drive in the parking lot forever. There is only so fast we can go and so many gears we can get into.

Today I had Kit Kat try to drive over to her friend's house with the manual transmission. There was one steep hill to start the car on. There was also a relatively major road where she needed to get into third gear for higher speeds. She nevered stalled. There was one point where she tried to get it from third to second gear. She missed the gear and was stuck in neutral. We made it though.

I am hoping now that the initial drive in traffic is over, we can proceed on the roads instead of a parking lot. Things are more hectic with a manual transmission. But that is the point. Once you can drive a manual in traffic, you can drive it anywhere. The goal is to have Kit Kat be proficient with the stick shift before she leaves the house for a college dorn in less than one year.

Job Satisfaction

I like eating lunch at Roy Rogers. However so does everyone else. I need to get there early in order to get a seat in the place. My work often keeps me busy until late in the lunch hour. So I have to find food somewhere else. When that happens, I head over to Jerry's subs and pizza.

Jerry's is usually pretty empty. I think that is because the food is expensive. I bring a coupon along almost every day. And my meal still runs me $9.00. Sure I get fries and a drink. This is still quite a steep cost. The good news is that there are always many tables to sit at.

Today as I parked my car, I saw the delivery guy heading out towards the road. He was waving at me to say hi. He was leading a new guy out to stand on the street. The new guy's goal was to drum up business for lunch. The poor guy had to wear a Jerry's sub-to-go box as a costume. Oh man that was bad. It did seem to bring in a few extra customers.

There are a lot of stressful parts to my job. I got to deal with crazy managers. Then there are some slackers on my team. Often times the customer is not happy because of some software problems. The list goes on.

I get paid a lot of money to write computer software. The programming part is very fun. The paycheck is even more fun. I get to work from home. Seeing the poor Jerry's advertising guy reminded me that I got it made doing computer programming for a living.

Postal Problem

We have a lot of vehicles in the family. Momoko owns two. I own three. This is one vehicle for every member of the family, plus a truck for the occasional haul. You can imagine it gets pretty hectic when friends with cars come to visit.

This is one of the reasons that I widened our driveway. It is three cars wide in the back, and two cars wide where it meets the street. We can park a lot of cars in the driveway. However we only park four cars in there. The truck can stay in the back blocked in. But the other cars need to come and go.

That leaves one car left over that I park in the street. Our US Mail carrier has been trying to talk me into moving that last car into the driveway too. Sheesh. These rural Postal workers have it good. They drive up to all the mailboxes. Not like the old days in the city where the Postal carriers would walk from house to house.

This week I got a note from my carrier. She said that unless I moved my car into my driveway, she would not deliver my mail. I got out and measured over 15 feet from my car to my mailbox. Plenty of room to drive up and drop the mail off right from her vehicle. What kind of craziness is this? Time to talk with the Postmaster of my city.

New Router Project

Little Kat complained that our Internet speeds were slow. He said the cause was that we opened up our wireless router to anyone. I told him to put a password on the network access. He could not. Then he proposed I buy an expensive new router.

I looked at the specs of the new router. They were impressive. But they were overkill. I only pay for a certain low bandwidth from our Internet Service Provider (ISP). Higher speed access to our router will only get jammed up in the pipe to the ISP. I did agree to buy a new cheaper router that Little Kat could lock down.

The router came quick. Little Kat added encryption that required a password. That way nobody could use the wireless connections without knowing the secret password. Next step was to update all the devices in the house to use the new router. Easier said than done.

I gave Little Kat the CD-ROM that came with Momoko's laser printer. He tried and tried but could not get it to work with the new router. Momoko was inconvenienced because now she could not print to her printer. I told Little Kat that he needed to get that printer to work before messing up any of the other printers.

Eventually Momoko could not take it any more. So I had to help Little Kat. We reset the settings on the Momoko's printer to factory defaults. We were able to verify that you could print to it if you connected your computer to it directly. None of the normal install programs allowed us to set up the wireless access.

We decided to connect the printer directly to the new router with a cable. Then I used an optional utility from the manufacturer to spy on the printer network settings. I also tried a back door I knew about, and we got lucky. We were able to set up the printer using a browser.

Had to figure out things such as the printers internal password. We also needed to recall what the security settings for our new router were. But now we can print wirelessly to Momoko's printer using the new router. Next I plan to let Little Kat set up the other printers in the house. Hopefully we can then move all the other devices over to the new router, and retire the old router.

The Call to Work

I have been working on a large project at work. Somebody messed up and set the schedule too short. I brought the issue up. The resolution was that I was going to get another guy to help me with the task. That guy is quitting the company today. So I have been hustling to try to get the project done on time.

Another group on my project had been asking for help. They were trying to test out some software that the guy who is quitting wrote. They were having major problems. I told them I was behind schedule, and could not help them unless my due date was shifted.

I got a manager on the phone. He told me this other team's work was priority. He said I could have more time on my large task. That's all I needed to hear. I figured out their problem and went back to my own job. Then this other team encountered more problems. I told them the same thing as before - I did not have time to help.

So I called up the manager and asked whether I should continue to help this other team. He gave me the go ahead. Yesterday after leaving work, I got a call from the manager. He was wondering how long it would take to resolve their latest problem. I said a couple days. He told me they needed it done in one day to meet their deadliness.

Nomrally I do not work hard to meet a deadline unless I was consulted in the first place to set the schedule. But sometimes you need to be a bit flexible. I told the manager that I would come in early today to try to get things accelerated. I start work at 4am, cut some corners, and got the team rolling again.

I do work early or late from time to time. But when I do, I don't work overtime. I just leave early as well. Therefore at lunch time today, I am declaring it the weekend for me.

Exam Time

I stayed up late last night. Watched a bunch of Breaking Bad espisodes. Wrote some code to practice for my college class midterm exam. This morning I woke up early. Had to be ready for my handymen to come by to work on the house. They replaced two windows upstairs. I have identified those windows as our escape routes if there is a fire in the house and we need to escape by window.

I ordered casement style window replacements. These are where the window is the size of the opening, and the whole window hinges out leaving the full window space open to climb out. During the day I had a number of people at work asking for help. I gave them some time, but I needed to work on my own task. The guy I am working with is leaving the company this week. I need to complete his work and mine. Not sure if I will make it on time.

My plan was to eat a small lunch, then grab an early dinner before going to class this afternoon. Had an Italian sub for lunch. Maybe I should have skilled the oil on the sub. My stomach did not feel well near the end of work. I left work an hour early to lay down a bit. The family was worried I would oversleep and miss my exam.

I set an alarm to be safe. I turned on the wrong alarm on my clock though. Luckily I did not oversleep. My midterm exam had two parts. I finished the first part in no time. The test was auto-graded. Got a 100% on that one. It boosted my confidence. Then we had to write a couple programs for the second part of the exam. Ha ha. The instructor just chose exercises from our textbook. I do all the exercises on my own. Easy A.

Got My Desk

Little Kat comes down to my study every day after school to do his homework. This seems to be the only way to make sure homework gets done on time. The problem is that he took over the table upon which I had my home computers. I got one main computer that I do most of my work on. I also have an older Windows 8 computer that I write apps on. With Little Kat in my study, I had nowhere to put my laptops.

I thought I found a solution a few weeks back. Was shopping for a new chair for Little Kat's room. I spotted a nice L-shapred desk for cheap in the office store. Unfortunately it was sold out. Not just in the store. The thing wasn't even available for order. Just this weekend I saw the desk on super sale again. Woo hoo.

Today I decided to drive my truck to lunch. Kit Kat's morning class got cancelled. So I had to move her car out of the way to drive my truck out of the driveway. Had a cold cut sub to eat for lunch. Afterwards I went to the office store. Sure enough, they had one of my desks in the back warehouse. It was priced really low.

I backed the truck up and got myself a desk. I was not able to connect the two sides of the desk to form an "L" shape. There is not enough room in my study for that and the table Little Kat uses for his homework. That's okay. My L-shapred desk is just in two pieces. Each piece holds one of my home laptops. I am good to go.

More Breaking Bad

I have been binge watching Breaking Bad episodes. Season one went by too quick. I guess it was a half of a season. It only had 6 or 7 episode. Season two had around 12 episodes. I just finished watching Season three.

Near the end of the season three shows, I realized that I had seen some of these episodes before. Guess I must have been switching channels late night and ended up on the AMC channel. Of course I had no idea what the show was about when I jumped right into a season three episode. Now I have the whole back story.

This series just keeps getting better and better. Got two more seasons to go to get to the series finale. I believe all the episodes are available on Netflix, where I download and watch them. My bro advised me to check out the Vampire Diaries next. Good stuff.

Phone Switch

My bro is an Android phone owner. Well actually he was an Android phone owner. He somehow lost his phone last week. It was a Galazy Samsung one. That is one of the more popular Android phones. That was too bad. I think it was his first really good smart phone. I figured he would just replace it with another Samsung Galaxy.

Today my bro came over to watch some movies with me. He told me he bought an iPhone 5c. He got one in white. He showed it to me. I have seen a lot of iPhones before. So I was not that excited. My brother said he had trouble downloading the YouTube app. I guess that is the killer app for the iPhone.

My brother then started trying to download the YouTube app to his phone. He was walking around trying to multitask, attempting some kind of app install. That is not like him. He told me a couple times that he would have to go back to the store where he got the phone to help get the app installed.

Then I figured out what this show was about. I asked my bro if he needed assistance getting YouTube installed. He jumped up and screamed yes. Again, this is not like my bro at all. He normally never gets excited. We spent some time getting him a Gmail account for email. You need an email account to get an Apple account. Weird huh? Then we had to set up and verify his new Apple account.

We struggled for a bit. But I have learned to keep at it until you get the job done. We got the app installed after about 20 minutes. The rest of the apps should be easy to install now that he is set up. My bro played some test video on the phone to be sure YouTube worked. It looked sharp.

The main take away from today was that my bro is not like the family in my household. In my house, everyone is taught to ask for what you want. Otherwise you don't. My bro just does not have that style of communication down yet. A shame. But I guess that means I need to listen more carefully and ask questions to drive the conversation he is trying to have.

Truck Repairs

Last week I had my mechanic check out my newly acquired Saturn Vue SUV. When I went to pick it up, I dropped off my pickup truck. Had my mechanic change the oil. Also asked him to look into fixing my air conditioning. It turned out it needed more freon. Unfortunately, it uses an old uncommon type of freon. My mechanic said next year I should get the A/C switched over to use the modern freon type.

As soon as I got my pickup truck from the mechanic, I drove it over to the tire store. The front passenger tire was always low on air. I figured it must be a leak. I asked the tire guys to patch it. An hour or so later, I got a call from the tire guys. They said the tire was rotted and could not be fixed. They also said all the other tires were rotted as well and should be replaced. I told them no thank you.

The tire guys gave me a long list of items they thought needed maintenance on the truck: front rotors worked, bearings repacked, idle arm repaired, air filter replacement, preventative maintenance flush of fluids, and a serpentine belt replacement. I thanked them for the info. But I said I was not ready for any of that work. I asked if I owed them anything since they could not patch my tire. I got put on hold.

The tire guy came back on the phone and said my tire was low because it had a nail in it. Turns out they could patch the tire after all. Crooks. Hey. I had my truck there. So I decided I would let the crooks patch the tire. The moral of the story is to say no to the upsell. Then even some unscrupulous mechanics might agree to only perform the minimal maintenance you request.

Breaking Bad

I have been hearing a lot about this cable TV show called Breaking Bad. I guess the hoopla was because the series finale recently showed on air. The show had been going on for five seasons I think. The basic premise is that a chemistry teacher goes into the crystal meth business. What's the big deal?

Today I watched the first episode of season 1. Now I think I have a taste of what the draw is. The crystal meth business is just the backdrop. This seems to be the story about a meek chemistry teacher who comes out of his shell.

I have a good feeling about this series. It almost reminds me of The Sopranos. The lead actor seems strong. The story also seems superior. I am anxious to find out what more this chemistry teacher can show me. Not about drug manufacturing, but about being a bad ass.

Party Time

Little Kat hosted a party at our house this weekend. The format of the party was his friends coming over to play our video game consoles. It also doubled as a birthday party for Little Kat. I had previously worked with Little Kat to order some party platters from the supermarket.

Around 45 minutes before the party, I went to the supermarket. I had requested that the platters be ready early. When I got them, the contents were cold. The deli lady told me they came that way and were to be served cold. WTF? We had items like mozarella sticks and jalpeno poppers. Those things need to be warm.

I called Little Kat and told him to heat up the over. When I got home, we piled the platter contents onto some baking sheets and stuck the contents in the oven. I had to run to pick up Little Kat's best friend from his house as he could not arrange a ride.

Luckily the snacks turned out good once warmed. Unfortunately I needed to give Kit Kat a ride to her friend's down. Kit Kat hates driving on her friend's campus. I volunteered to take her there. I like when Kit Kat spends time on campus at a real university.

By the time I got back home, I found the kids playing all our consoles. I thought they would play XBox 360 and Wii. Turns out they also loved the Playstation 2 with out retro games. I took a nap before having to drive Little Kat's friend home after the party. Actually I sat in the passenger seat as Little Kat drove him home. This was a party well done.

Low on Energy

Recently I have been tired a lot. Maybe it is because I am studying hard every night for my college class. But it might be more than that. I thought I needed a vacation. There is no time for that right now. I am hot on a project at work that lasts at least one more month. What is a tired cat to do?

Well I tried going to bed early. I got a good night's sleep. However it did not cure my sluggishness. Today I tried hitting the exercise equipment. Earlier this year I was exercising a lot. Then I got real busy with my Windows 8 app development projects. Exercise got cancelled. Ouch.

Today I did the normal routine. Five minutes each on the treadmill, elliptical, and stationary bike. In between those workouts, I did some curls with Little Kat's barbell. Now I will see how this affects me. I should try to get back on the exercise routine. Strange that you might get more energy by working out. You would think a workout would make you more tired.

Birthday Surprise

Little Kat came home as usual today. He came down to my study for homework. When I got off the phone with my work, I wished him a happy birthday. Soon after, Kit Kat came home. She told me to keep Little Kat at bay because she was wrapping his gift. That was not a problem. He was with me until quitting time.

Turns out Kit Kat had wrapped a mega roll of bubble wrap for Little Kat. Me I had purchased a custom card for him a long time ago. It had pictures of him and I from long ago. I also wrapped a token gift. It was some military game for an old console. I told Little Kat that his real gift was some party platters I am buying him for his party this weekend. Little Kat thought that was not a good gift, since Momoko was requiring him to have the party. Ha. Imagine that. Ungrateful, especially given the trouble I had to go through to order these platters.

The big hit so far was Momoko's gift to Little Kat. She gave him a card that said his gift was delayed due to government shutdown. WTF right? The card instructed Little Kat to go upstairs and take a look at Momoko's computer screen for a picture of his intended gift. This was a ruse. There was no picture up there. Only instructions to locate his real gift. Momoko purchased a new laptop for Little Kat. He had been asking for one. He also needed once since his is getting broke down. This made Little Kat very excited.

One of the funny ploys this birthday was when Little Kat needed cash for his trip to the Renaissance Faire. Momoko made him call grandma to see if he could get an advance on his gift if it was monetary. Now grandma planned to get Little Kat a gift card of some sorts. However since Little Kat needed cash, he got cash instead. And it came early. It worked out good. He bought a wooden sword with the proceeds. I was impressed at how heavy the small sword weighed.

Failure Scare

I have been keeping an eye on my fuel gauge in my newly acquired Saturn Vue SUV. The thing seemed to be below half a tank. Today is seemed to hover at a quarter tank. I figured I better fill the thing up.

Went to my local gas station. Pay for $20 worth of gas. You get a discount for paying cash. Almost as soon as I started fueling up, the gas cut off. What? I tried squeezing the pump to force more gas in. I had only put in a gallon or so.

Eventually the gas overflowed out of the side of the gas opening. Ouch. I went home and contemplated what to do. I called up the dealership and asked if this was covered under warranty. Usually they are pretty lean on used car warranties. But I just bought this thing!

I scheduled a service visit next week. That was the first available time. At least they let you drop off your car at your convenience. They have a night drop system. I was still peeved that I had to put the car in the shop so soon. I had flashbacks of the Volkswagen Beetle.

On the way to school, I set up a trip meter to measure how far I had travelled since my last tank fill up. On the way to school, something must have been working overtime in my mind. I determined that I had been looking at the oil pressure gauge by mistake. The fuel gauge is over on the right, and it correctly shows a full tank. Whew.

Now with that scare out of the way, it is time to schedule some manual transmission practice with Kit Kat.

Home Networking

The family thought it would be best to put a password on our wireless router. Otherwise anybody can use our Internet. The family thinks this slows us down as other people are leeching onto our Internet access. Maybe they are right. Maybe they are not. I told the family it would be fine by me to put on the password.

The problem was that we have an old wireless router. The software to control it does not work on any of our computers. Little Kat thought we should buy a newer and more modern wireless router. He came with a printout of a bandwidth anaylsis he got online. To him, this proved that the wireless router was the problem.

This made for a good engineering case study. I drew some pictures. Showed the devices in our house, our wireless router, our cable mode, the cable, and the cable company. Then I showed Little Kat what bandwidth rate we were paying our Internet Service Provider for. I also showed him the documentation for the wireless router. It was educational.

The bottleneck is surely not the wireless router. However I did purchase a new router that works with all modern operating systems. Now Little Kat is working to get that new router working. He tells me he thinks it is much faster. We are going to teach this cat some network analysis some day.

Got Another Car

I have been looking to purchase a manual transmission car to teach Kit Kat how to drive it. Previously I had bought a Volkswagon Beetle that did not work out. I had my eye on a 2007 Saturn Vue SUV. When the dealership dropped the price by a few thousand, I jumped at the opportunity.

Unfortunately the car was in Kansas. Yeah out in the middle of nowhere. I paid a bunch of non-refundable money to have the car transferred to my local dealership. The dealer called me this week to say the car came in. This morning Momoko drove me to the dealership. I took it for a spin. The thing shifted nicely. It was easy to get it into first gear. The shifter almost snapped into position. This was a much better experience than the last car I test drove.

I asked a few questions to the sales guy. Then I decided to buy the car. The salesman was worried that my check would bounce. I told him I had a bunch of bank statements from the past year. He still wanted me to log in online to show him my checking account balance. I told him I am old school. I don't do online banking. I was able to call up my bank, and they confirmed my balance.

Directly after purchasing the vehicle, I drove it straight to my mechanic. I want to have him check the car out and make sure it was a good purchase. I can always return the car for a full refund in the next week. I really hope everything checks out. I spent months researching the car market to find this baby. It will be my next daily driver. Woo hoo.

Action Item Fail

Little Kat was off from school today. He is going to a festival tomorrow and needed cash. He arranged to help Momoko in her classroom. I was to drive him to Momoko's school at lunch time. He needed to first finish a list of chores, most of which were his homework assignments.

Little Kat slept in this morning. I figured he was going to skip working in Momoko's classroom. However Momoko called him up and woke him. I asked Little Kat if he finished all the items on his list. He said yes.

We swung by Subway to pick up some lunch for Little Kat (I had already eaten). They have five dollar foot longs. Then I dropped off Little Kat. Momoko later informed me that he spent almost two hours eating his sub and watching videos. That was a small fail.

Later Momoko called a meeting at home. Apparently Little Kat did not finish his list of items that needed to be done before working in Momoko's classroom. In fact he barely even started that list. The real fail was that he lied to me about finishing the items.

I had previously told Little Kat that he best not lie to me. Otherwise he gets manual labor in the yard on the weekend with me. Hey at least I get a little helper out there. I am also imposing a penatly of having Little Kat forfeit the money he earned in Momoko's classroom, as well as making him pay me back for the Subway lunch I bought him as a reward for finishing his tasks.

Let's hope Little Kat learns his lesson. If I were to make the call, I would say the festival for this weekend should also be cancelled.

Uprooted

I went to lunch today. Was going to get a buy one get one free Chicken sandwich. Then I saw a double stacker meal for the same price. Might as well get fries and a drink. When the cashier rung up the total, it was wrong. I asked why the amount was wrong. The cashier told me I ordered the medium meal which costs thirty cents more. No. I wanted the meal for the displayed price. Plus her math was wrong. Got that corrected really quick. Hey who cares about 60 cents? Not me. But I do care about the principle of sales. Don't try to secretly upcharge me and think it will be okay.

I got home to find a green pot, and small plant, and a whole lot of dirt on the dining and family room floors. WTF? The thing must have fallen down. It seemed like the dirt went on forever. I ate my meal and watched an anime. Dang it. The Netflix could not connect to the Internet. Was having a bad day all around. I rebooted our router and watched my darn anime. Wouldn't you know it? Netflix disconnects in the middle of the show.

After lunch, I went in search of cleaning machines. I saw Little Kat struggle with the carpet cleaner last time around. Skipped that broke down machine. I went for the spot cleaning machine, which the kids also said is broken. It took a while to figure out how to work the thing. It is not obvious how to dettach the water source and the dirty water containers. I figured it out. Took a lot of dumping dirty water out and rerunning the machine before the carpets looked any better. This is a hard knock life.

Luckily these are first world problems. I mean in the big scheme of things, life is good. Got the hot meal of my choice without doing any cooking. Drank as much cold soda as I wanted since we have a stocked fridge. Had machines to assist with cleaning. Dumped the dirty water into working sewer systems. Oh yeah. Hot clean water was available at the turn of the knob. I guess it is all a matter of perspective. Things might not be looking so bad as I type this blog into one of the four laptops spread out over my desks.

Homework and Illness Woes

Yesterday Momoko and I went to Little Kat's school in the afternoon. We met with all his teachers after school to discuss his grades and other matters. Little Kat has some bad grades due to missed or incomplete assignments. That is the worst excuse for a bad grade. So today Little Kat said he did not have time to practice driving.

At lunch time I saw that Kit Kat was still home sleeping in her bed. She was in the same position after lunch. What was strange was that her bedroom door was open. She usually closes it when she sleeps. I guess she was really sick today and could not bother to even close the door. She missed her college classes and work.

Kit Kat was scheduled to cook us some meatloaf tonight. She called Momoko and arranged for Momoko to pick up dinner instead. Earlier in the day I worked out in the yard after a quick bite to eat at lunch. After work I was really tired. Decided to take a nap before dinner. Just as I was getting to sleep, Little Kat told me Mokoko needed to talk with me.

I called Momoko up at work. She asked if Little Kat and I could pick up dinner. Little Kat was still doing homework. Therefore it was up to me to provide dinner. I ordered us some BBQ. Well dinner came from a BBQ joint. Nobody ate any BBQ. Momoko got catfish. I got a sausage sub. And Little Kat got a burger. At least this time around I remembered to bring my coupon to get a discount at the BBQ house.

Declaring a Successful Drive

Momoko wanted Little Kat to invite over some friends for a birthday party. She printed out some invitations that Little Kat needed to hand out. He did so at school. But there was one friend from elementary school that attends a different high school. Little Kat and I made plans to dfive over to this friend's house this afternoon.

I was running a bit late working out in the yard because Momoko wanted to discuss Little Kat's grades in school with me. I hurried up and Little KAt and I were off. I let Little Kat drive for practice's sake. He told me he knew how to get to his friend's house.

Little Kat took a strange turn. I asked him where he was going. He did not know. So I directed him back on track. We made it to the friend's house. Then we started to head home. Some guy was backing out of the a driveway and did not see us. I told Little Kat to stop so we would not get hit. Little Kat did not stop. I told him to stop again. No stop. I reached over and blasted the horn in the car. The other car heard it and stopped.

Whew. My Scion xB vehicle was saved. Then Little Kat got onto the highway. He had to merge from the ramp onto the rightmost lane. There was a dude one lane over that tried to merge into the lane Little Kat was trying to merge to. I told Little Kat to delay the merge so we would not collide. This time he obeyed me. We made it home and Little Kat declared the trip a success. He told me we attained the main objective, which was to deliver the party invitation, plus we did not die. Ha. Little Kat has low standards for success.

Bed Prototype

Little Kat has decided on a replacement for his bunk bed. This one will have drawers in the side of it. Momoko and Little Kat found the exact bed he wants online. They can ship it to us in one piece. The manufacturer warns you to make sure the thing will fit in your house. You can pay extra to have them ship it in a couple pieces. But who wants to do bed assembly if you can get it in one piece?

So Little Kat and I went to the hardware store about bought some cheap pieces of pines wood. They were not even 2x4 inches. It was a 2x3 or maybe even a 2x2. That's fine. The wood is lighter. I cut these pieces of wood down into the exact dimensions of the bed. Then I used screws to connect the pieces together. Now I have a 3D box that is the same size as Little Kat's bed.

When Little Kat comes home, we shall pretend like we are the delivery men. We shall bring the bed into the house through the front door. Then we will see if we can carry it up the stairs and into his room. This will also serve as a double check for the measuring that Momoko and Little Kat did. The thing has to fit in his bedroom.

If this test of the bed prototype goes well, I am going to order his bed online. Of course we will also have to separately go out and buy a matress. I figure Little Kat will be sleeping on this matress for a long time. So I might let him splurge and buy something expensive such as memory form or some type of pillowtop like I sleep on. These are exciting times for Little Kat.

Taking One for the Team

Today, like most weekdays, I had to work until 5pm. This is the one day of the week I attend college class after work. But before I could go, I needed to take Litle Kat driving. He needs the practice. This duty has fallen upon me because Momoko is too scared to go driving with Little Kat.

Little Kat does have some scary driving tendencies. He seems to drive too close to parked cars. And he heads towards the curb a lot. He drifts over the lines on fast roads. Yeah. It is plain disturbia. However these are the signs that the guy need a lot of practice. So I had Little Kat drive me to the gas station today.

The first gas station we hit was too crowded. So I had him take me to the expensive gas station. I ran in and grabbed a turkey sandwich. With the limited time, I needed to eat dinner in the car while teaching Little Kat how to drive. Now Little Kat is going to learn how to drive whether we skip practice on my school nights or not. What I am trying to teach him is that when you have a goal, you go all out to achieve it.

It if were up to Little Kat, he would use the excuse of my college class to skip driving. He has tried that one a few times. But here is the problem. He finds an excuse every time. I am hoping some ambition rubs off on Little Kat. I always say you need to teach by example. And Little Kat and I are going strong towards the driving practice, even if it means we suffer a few near misses of disaster each time we go out.

Stunning Software Price

Little Kat told Momoko that he would love to have the Adobe Photoshop software he uses at school. The instructor said they use Adobe Photoshop Extended 5.5 However they are moving to version 6 really soon. Little Kat is hungry for version 6. Of course Momoko asked me whether we could buy it. When she says "we" she means me.

I told Momoko that we might be able to purchase a copy. If it runs for $100, it is a no brainer. Buy. If it costs $200, then I would have to think about it, but it would probably also be a buy. Little Kat did some research. Photoshop costs a whopping $700 to buy. Doh! That is way too much.

I Googled around. Turns out this software is just really expensive. I found a few sites that would discount the price down to maybe $350. Still felt like way too much money. What the heck is this software going to do? There should be some way to get an educational/student copy for around 100 bucks. Got to do more research or something.

Bedroom Planning

Little Kat complained that his bed was not long enough. That does not surprise me. He must have grown about a foot in height over the last year. Little Kat wanted to hang on to his bunk bed. He uses the top bunk as storage. Plus it is a place for friends to sleep if the spend the night. But it is time for it to go.

Momoko and Little Kat found an extra long twin size bed online. It had some drawers where the box spring and frame normally go. That sounded like a nice bed replacement. The bed normally ships as a full unit. They warn you to make sure the whole thing can fit in your house. Little Kat and I are going shopping tonight for some cheap wood to build a bed prototype. It will be the same size as his assembled bed. We will then run a test, bringing this prototype up the stairs to his room. If that works, I am ordering the bed in one piece.

I also am contracting my handyman to disasseble Little Kat's bed (the bunk bed is pretty big and complex), and move it out of the room. I am also hiring my handymand to build some shelved above Little Kat's bed for storage. This should work out quite well. Then Little Kat can have a good night's sleep. We will finish it off by purchasing some really nice extra long matress to put on the top. Maybe a memory foam matress, or a pillow top one.

Finding the Friends

Kit Kat needed to go to the bank early this morning before they closed. Momoko and I planned to eat lunch in the same shopping center. Unfortunately Kit Kat could not wait for us. Momoko and I brought Little Kat along because we needed to pick up his friend after lunch. I made Little Kat drive us to lunch.

Kit Kat decided to stick around the shopping center to eat with us. Since she was waiting, I told Little Kat to take the highway there. Little Kat started complaining that he did not agree to drive on the highway today. I informed him that we did not need his approval to tell him where to drive. We got there fine. Kit Kat was parked in the front row of the parking lot.

We all ate at our favorite Mexican restaurant where they always treat us well. The kids got mini chimichangas. So they were a bit hungry after the meal. They talked me into getting sopapias for dessert. Then the group split up. Kit Kat drove Momoko home. Little Kat drove us to his friend's house. We used my GPS to get there. This was the first time I met this friend of Little Kat's. He came over our house to play Wii games this afternoon.