Hunt for Hibachi

Today Little Kat went over his friend's house to spend the night. He actually drove over there. Before he left, we read another chapter in our book. Took us almost an hour. But we got it done.

Kit Kat has a late lab at school on Fridays. So it was going to be just Momoko and I for dinner. We planned to go out for dinner. I figured we should use this as an oppotunity to find a new Hibachi Japanese steak house.

Our prior favorite Hibachi house closed down. Momoko used Siri to find the closest Hibachi. She also used Siri to guide our drive there. Siri was pretty much a fail at navigation. She took us the long way to go down the street. Then she told us to turn around when we were right in front of the shopping center with the restaurant.

This restaurant turned out to be a fail. We wanted a dine in restaurant where the chef comes out and cooks your dinner on a grill in front of you. This new restaurant Siri found was a take-out place. We passed on that and went to an old favorite of ours.

We took a long trip to Kobe Japanese Steakhouse. It is far away. And it costs a lot of money (our meal was $100 for the two of us). But it was delicious food. Plus the chef always puts on a show. We just need to find a cheaper version of this close to home. That's a tough assignment.

Bumpy Ride

I had to visit my college before work started this morning. I needed to turn in a form to request a partial refund on a book. This is because I found out the school bookstore has a low price match guarantee. Even though I got to school very early, all the parking spaces in my normal lot were taken. So were all the spaces in the overflow lot.

I drove around to the parking garage that Kit Kat usually parks in. This one had some spaces left. But oh boy. You needed to drive around the garage over evil speed bumps. I felt like my shocks got ruined on the car by the time I found an open spot. I returned home for work before Kit Kat even left for school. I wished her luck in finding a parking spot.

After work, Little Kat and I went out to dinner. Momoko was doing something at school. Kit Kat stays late at college on Thursdays. Little Kat proposed a restaurant for us to eat at. It is only a few towns away. But it took a long time to get there in rush hour. It was worth it. The food and service were really good. Afterwards, I made Little Kat drive us home. We took the back roads so he did not have to get on the highway.

Once home, Little Kat and I jumped into the truck. We headed over to Walmart. There were found and purchased an entry level propane cooking grill. Had to pick up a separate propane tank with gas in it. Now we just need to put this thing together. Then Little Kat can grill us up some meats!

Driving Practice

Yesterday I finished work and planned to go with Little Kat. He needs to practice his driving. He told me he had a hard day. Well he got home before 3pm. It was 5:30pm. What was hard about that? He made some excuses as to why his day was difficult. I told him to be prepared to drive the next day.

Unfortunately today was the first day of school for my college fall semester. I told the boys at work that I needed to leave work early. Had to get that driving practice in. I got off work 30 minutes before Little Kat got home. I did some of his chores such as unloading and loading the dishes. I figure I do a better job scrubbing down the pans anyway.

Little Kat got dressed, put the "Student Driver" sign on the back of my car, and took off. I told him he needed to drive somewhere new. I had him take me to Food Lion. He had trouble merging into traffic on a road whose speed limit is 45 miles per hour. But he got to the store.

I figured I might as well go in and do a bit of shopping. Got myself some staples. Treated Little Kat to a pack of his favorite Kapri-Sun flavor. We got home and it was just about time for me to go to class. Near my school, there was a lot of traffic for a concert across the street. I grabbed some mini pretzel dogs at the mall. When I came out to my car, I saw I still had the Student Driver sign on the back of my car. Classic.

My Own Web site

I received some money from Microsoft for writing Windows 8 apps this summer. I promised myself I would spend some of that money on a web site to promote my apps. So it was finally time. Previously I had seen ads for a company that hosts web sites for cheap. Reviews online told me that had poor customer service. I decided to go with HostGator to serve up my web site.

I signed up for a year's worth of web hosting. Also requested that they register a domain name for me. A lot of the good names were already taken. I used a program (that I wrote) to come up with unique names for web sites. I will let you all know the name of my new web site when I get it up and running.

Initially I thought it would be a piece of cake to set up a web site. Now I find that it is a lot of work. Got to write the best copy to drive people to the Windows 8 store where my apps are on sale. If I set up my page poorly, people will just click away and I lose potential customers. Time to get busy.

Distracted

I was busy at work as usual Wednesday. This is because I am not working on any big projects. When I have a big project, I set the schedule. My work is boxed in. I am very proficient at what I do. So I knock out the job and have some breathing room during the day. Not right now though. Since I have no big project, I got to deal with a ton of little issues during the day. The phone is always ringing with people who need help. It is overwhelming. Hopefully I get a big task next month.

Kit Kat has not started her school for the fall semester yet. She normally stays up late and sleeps into the afternoon. I was happy to hear that she woke up Wednesday morning to start the crock pot. We were planning to eat Fiesta Chicken. I worked a little late. When I finished, only Little Kat was home. He told me Kit Kat went somewhere with Momoko. That sounded strange. But I was in a hurry. I went outside to mow the grass in the back yard. It took a while to complete. When I got back in, Kit Kat was still nowhere to be seen. I took a shower and took a rest.

Normally the kids come get me when dinner is ready. Nobody came on Wednesday. I got hungry and came downstairs. Little Kat had been playing some online video games with his friends all afternoon/evening. He came up. I told him this was very odd that Kit Kat would not be home in time to serve us dinner. It was her night to cook. She hadn't even started the rice and it was an hour past dinner time. Turns out Kit Kat told Little Kat to take over dinner and make the rice. Fail.

The real fail is that Little Kat tried to lie to me and trick me into thinking that Kit Kat did not do her job. The fact was that he forgot to do his work while he was busy playing video games. Sounds like we might have to put Little Kat on the chain gang doing hard manual labor our in the yard this weekend. Need some encouragement to tell the truth, even when you are to blame.

Birthday Bingo

Kit Kat was celebrating the birthday of one of her old friends. She asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate. He wanted to go play bingo. Kit Kat, along with all her friends, shot the idea down. They rejected it claiming it was not age approprite. So instead they all went ice skating.

Kit Kat told me she would not be eating dinner with us tonight. I thought she was going to leave for ice skating at 5pm. So I made sure I snuck out of work at 4:30pm to say goodbye to her. Doh. Turns out she left early. Bummer. Then around 5pm I heard someone come in the house. It was Kit Kat.

I asked her if ice skating got cancelled. No. Apparently everyone decided to meet at our house. I finished up work and got ready to go outside to do some yardwork. I saw all of Kit Kat's friends out in the driveway. I also saw one tall girl I did not recognize. Must have been one of Kit Kat's acquaintances.

I personally thought that bingo would have been fun. Oh well.

Ford Focus Slipped Away

I continue looking for a manual transmission vehicle to buy so I can teach Kit Kat how to drive it. For a while I had the plan to buy a manual transmission truck. That way I could replace my really old truck that is having some problems. However Momoko said that she wanted to only drive a truck that was automatic transmission. Truck plan cancelled.

Then I remembered that Kit Kat and I went to CarMax and sat in a couple coupes. They fit Kit Kat well. She could reach the clutch pedal. These coupes were the Hyundai Accent and the Ford Focus. Well I had my eye on this Ford Focus 2-door hatchback that CarMax had down in North Carolina. CarMax said they would transfer it to my store for free.

The Focus in question was a 2007 Ford Focus ZX3. It had 67,000 miles on it. It was reasonable priced at $9600. I finally narrowed all of my choices down to this one. Just had to go to CarMax to ask them to ship it here. Then I found that the car was off the market. Bummer. Later the car reappeared. And the price was discounted an additional $600. Woohoo. Just when I planned to visit CarMax at lunch, the car is off the market again.

I guess I just got to keep an eye out. If that car does not get sold, and is for sale again, I must drop what I am doing and go get that car. The thing has power locks and power windows. Even has a sunroof. Where else can I get something like that for $9,000? Nowhere. Wish me luck!

Hair Cuttery

My mom has been cutting my hair since I was a boy. Initially my dad tried to take me to the barber. I did not like that, even when they gave me lolli pops. So my mom learned how to cut my hair. She ended up cutting the whole family's hair for a really long time. Now she is too sick to cut anybody's hair. It was time to find my own barber.

Momoko gets her hair cut at the Hair Cuttery. She takes the kids there too. The nice thing is that the cost is low if you just need a cut. I went with Momoko and we scheduled an appointment with someone that Momoko vouched for. Momoko was running late from work today. So I met her at the hair place.

Momoko went first. It seemed to take quite a while for the cut. Then I was up next. I had a shampoo first because my barber said it would make the cutting easier. I tried to describe how my mom cut my hair. Tried to be very specific since I don't want my hair to be ruined for the next few months. Let's see how this turns out.

Watching Percy Jackson

The family planned to watch the latest Percy Jackson movie in the theaters last week. We had scheduled to do it on Thursday. However Momoko needed to go into school that day. It got rescheduled for Friday. We wanted to go to an early matinee showing to beat the crowd and save some money. So we settled on a 11:50am show time.

Kit Kat's favorite gerbil Andie was sick. Kit Kat needed to take her to the vet. This delayed our departure from 10:30am to a little later. We still made good time. We all piled into Momoko's car as I drove it to the theater. Momoko's neice was impressed by the movie theater. It is the Egyptian 24 theater. There are a lot of huge Egyptian statues around.

I dropped Momoko and her neice off at the front door. This theater is known to have a parking lot that fills up quick. Luckily we parked pretty close. Momoko had the kids buy us drinks and popcorn. The first tub of popcorn was eaten before the movie started. Little Kat went back for a refill, and tripped on the way back up to our seats.

I liked the movie. For a sequel, it was all right. Little Kat thought it did not do the book justice. There were people in the theater, but it might have only been filled to 20 percent capacity if that. Kit Kat and I picked up some free movie posters from the theater. Unfortunately they got crumped up in Momoko's car trunk.

Bringing the Tools

Momoko went into her classroom today. We were supposed to see a movie with the family. However Momoko forgot she promised some people she would be in her classroom. I got a call from her around lunch time. She asked if I would come to her classroom and remove this pencil sharpener from the wall.

I decided to bring my whole toolbox with me. You never know when you need a certain tool. And I did not want to have to come all the way back home to do it. Sure enough, when I got to school, I found the sharpener was hard to deal with. It required a flathead screw driver to remove the screws. However the hard part was that the sharpener itself was in the way of the screw.

Turns out I have a special tool to deal with situations like this. I have a screwdriver with a really long shaft. That allows the head to sneak past obstacles to get to screw heads. I thought I had won. Then Momoko asked if I could remount the pencil sharpener somewhere else. What?

Normally I need my drill to relocate large screw holes. However since I had my toolbox, I did have a manualy drill that helped me poke holes for the screws in the new location. Let's hope this new place works.

Seeing the Sights

Today the kids were supposed to take their cousin site seeing in the big city. But first they had to wake up. Momoko got up early to go work in her classroom. We essentially finished the work that required assistance yesterday. Momoko needs to go through some files, send off some emails, and put in the final preparations.

I planned to eat lunch with Momoko today. So I went by the school later in the morning. I picked Momoko up and we went to our favorite Mexican food restaurant. There were a bunch of cars in the parking lot. We also saw a lot of people walking the direction of the restaurant. It was easy. But people were heading in. They had some large parties there dining in. The restaurant was noisy.

After lunch I returned home and found the kids ready to go out. Ha ha. They slept in until around 1pm. Slackers. Me I was thinking of looking around at some cars I might want to buy. Still trying to find that perfect manual transmission car to teach Kit Kat in. My newest idea is to get a Saturn Astra XR. The thing is a nice looking coupe hatchback. It comes with some large alloy rims by default. The only problem is that I cannot find such a car locally.

Undeliverable?

I got up early this morning. Went to my communicy college. Picked up my textbook and got a student ID for the new year. Felt good about that. Then I drove home, packed up a bunch of soft drinks into the truck, and went to Momoko's school. Little Kat and I continued helping Momoko set up her classroom for the school year.

Little Kat was grumpy in the morning. He failed on his first task. Then he started getting a bit mouthy. I told him he needed to get it in gear, and fix his work. He got the message. Kit Kat had some delays and brought us lunch late. I was hungry because I had a very small breakfast. In the afternoon, it seemed like only Little Kat and I were helping Momoko. So I rallied the troops, told them to put away all electronics, and get busy finishing the tasks.

We made it out of there by around 5:30pm which wasn't bad. Just as I was heading upstairs to take a nap, Little Kat reminded me about our headset problem. Little Kat had given me a list of XBox 360 gaming console items he wanted me to purchase to make it easier for him to connect with the boys at school. I ordered everything from Amazon. One item, a Bluetooth headset, was marked "undeliverable" by Amazon. Little Kat wanted to drive to Target to pick up a replacement. I did and then fell into a deep sleep at home.

Getting Ready for School

Today Little Kat and I drove my truck to Momoko's school. We carried a lot of items to help Momoko set up her classroom. Momoko dictated a list of tasks that I wrote on the white board. We determined which tasks we should get done today. Little Kat said he did not want to do book inventory work. Now I know why. It is tedious and long.

Little Kat did get busy moving textbooks around. He also set up a bunch of computers and technology type items. He sped through the tasks as I labored on the inventory work. When I was finally done, I took a look at Little Kat's handiwork. Apparently he was eager to check things off without being diligent. I had to do some rework.

In the afternoon, Momoko got called into a long meeting with the new interim principal. Luckily we had our list of tasks. Kit Kat came by with Chinese food for lunch. She also had to do some copying for Momoko. We almost got all the items off the day one list. Near the end of the day, Little Kat got a phone call and was acting suspicious.

Turns out Little Kat decided to skip out on an anime convention that he planned to attend with his friend. When quizzed about this, Little Kat said he did not like anime conventions. Lie. Momoko and I grilled him for a while. The only other excuses he could come up with were that the conference was expensive, and that he wanted to spend time with his cousin who is in town.

Momoko volunteered to pay for the conference. And we told Little Kat he would not need to attend during the days while his cousin is in town. Looks like the guy is going to attend the anime convention after all.

Family Meeting Night

Tonight we had our weekly family meeting night. This is where we discuss issues and such. It is the first time we had Little Kat with us since he left for his dad's a month ago. We also had a guest with us - Momoko's neice. Little Kat gave a speech on his trip with his dad. He was surprisingly coherent in his speech. Maybe the practice is paying off.

Momoko's neice also volunteered to give a speech. She talked to us about Homestuck. Apparently it is some deep web comic. She was also pretty calm for being in front of the whole family. However it was hard to follow the details of her web comic topic. This is no small Sunday paper comic. Tons of characters and history. We stopped her after a while, and scheduled a second part where she will share more later in the week.

After family meeting night, the kids went to try out some Japanese treats. My mom is too sick to eat anything. However my aunt keeps sending her foods. So mom sent me home with some goodies for the family to try. Momoko and I are not adventurous enough to try Japanese desserts. The kids tried them all. The liked most of them. However there was some weird bean paste that they were not keen on.

Taking Care of Business

Today I went over to my parent's house. The outer door was locked. Had to call my bro with my cell phone to have him let me in. We also signed a medical power of attorney appointing my brother as my mom's agent in case she is too sick to make decisions. Since we were on a roll, I asked my dad to show me where he keeps his last will and testament. Usually I talk with mom when I visit because she is the sick one. She told me to go talk to my father so he did not feel left out. Dad mainly had a lot of regrets about not being able to catch mom's cancer earlier.

I am taking the next week off to help Momoko get her classroom ready for the next school year. However I think that with Little Kat's help, we can finished everything in two days. I told Little Kat that his reward for finishing the classroom would be the stack of XBox 360 games and hardware I bought him over the summer. Little Kat is now convinced we can finish up in one day if we work hard. LOL!

After returning from my parent's house, Momoko, Little Kat, and I went to the airport. We picked up Momoko's neice there. She is spending the week with us. We dropped Little Kat and his cousin off at some type of photoshoot that Kit Kat's friend was doing. Apparently they were doing a rave scene, and wanted to capture it on film. I thought it had something to do with a college project. I don't know for sure.

Momoko and I were starved, so we headed to Fuddruckers for some monster burgers. They do not disaapoint their hungry customers.

Car Shopping

Today after work, Kit Kat and I headed North looking for cars. Well we were actually looking at a specific car. Test drove a 2009 Kia Optima LX. The exterior of the car looked very nice. The rims were cool. Kit Kat said the front seat fit her well. She could reach the clutch easily.

We took the car for a test drive. From the get go, I knew we might be in trouble. I kept stalling the car. Had a lot of trouble getting it into first gear. If I have trouble, Kit Kat might have a lot more trouble. The car salesman said it was because the car was newer and the clutch was sensitive.

Not sure if I believe the salesman. But if what he says is true, we need an older car with an older clutch that is easy to use. I really think that it is something specific to the Kia Optima. Oh well. Maybe time to test drive some other cars. I got my eye on a Hyundai Accent and a Hyundai Tiburon.