Checking out the Lake

I wanted to go bike riding with my friend. So we decided to meet half way between both our houses at the lake. To tell the truth, I had not been to the lake in about 20 years. Momoko said it was still there. In fact, the area around it was built up some more.

Little Kat and I scoped the place out today. I packed my truck up with two bikes. Gave Little Kat the directions and he navigated me to the lake. As we approached the lake town, Little Kat declared that the place did not look too good.

Sure. We had to cross an industrial area to get to the lake. And the lake is in an old part of town. Things were looking up as soon as we rode our bikes out of the parking lot and past the gated entrance to the lake.

I felt the burn in my legs as we rode up a long hill beside the lake. Little Kat complained. We passed a walked and then Little Kat said we should take a break. I was disappointed that we lost momentum. But I gave in. Eventually the walker started to catch up with us. Time to get back to moving.

Half way down the lake, we rode across a bridge as a short cut to the other side. Luckily the path did not have much of an incline over on the other side. We rode back to the car and packed up. This was just a scouting mission.

Little Kat kept talking about restaurants where he could get a big drink on the way home. He helped me scope out the lake. So I stopped by McDonald's to get him a large sweet tea. It was only a dollar. I wonder how my next trip to the lake will go.

Unexpected Air

I visited dad's house today. Worked in his basement during the morning. Then I went out to pick up some Chinese for lunch. I took the long way around to get to the Chinese food place. It was already crowded early, maybe becuase it was Friday.

After getting my meal, I started to head home. Normally I jump on the expressway and get off after one exit to return to dad's. However I have found that the expressway jams up with traffic even at lunch time. Instead I decided to take the back way home to dad's.

There was just one problem. Coming out of the Chinese restaurant parking lot, I would need to make a left turn on a busy road. Sure enough there were cars lined up on the road. I spotted any opening between two cars. There was traffic on the other side of the road I needed to dodge. I spotted an opening both ways and I punched it to make the left.

I was doing a fist pump in my car as I accelerated hard into the left to make sure oncoming traffic would not come up on my too fast. Then I noticed something wrong. The far right side of the road I was driving on had some trouble. The pavement was buckled up forming a launch ramp. I was going fast right towards it.

For a second I contemplated hitting the brakes. But that may have caused more harm than good. So I braced for impact. The car launched into the air. I knew I caught air because I felt and heard the contents in the back of the car go airborn and land back down with a thud. The car survived. I just don't want to do any more Dukes of Hazzard impersonations like that any more.

Lot on my Mind

This morning I came out and found the trash cans put away. I figured Kit Kat got up early and brought the cans back in from the curb. Good for her. Something was bugging me though. Something in the back of my mind. I inspected the trash cans and found them still full of trash.

Then I figured it out. I must not have even put the cans out on the curb the night before. That is not like me. We have lived in the house 10 years or so. I don't think I have ever missed a trash day. This is a reflection on my state of mind this week, or more specifically yesterday.

Yesterday I was trying to finish up a big job at work. Lot of details to attend to. I also mowed the lawn at lunch. That was taxing because it was hot outside. Then after work I ran to night school, where I spent a few hours in class. This was the first day of the fall semester. The class ran late. Guess with all the commotion I forgot to take out the trash.

No harm. The trash is collected twice a week here. I think I just need a mental break to get my mind and life back on track. Vacation time maybe?

Last Minute School Prep

Momoko informed me that Little Kat needed a new hoodie for school. This is a bit late. Little Kat and I spent a few weeks purchasing clothes for the start of school. I ended up cutting my brother's weekly visit short so Little Kat and I could go shopping.

We were going to go to Walmart, where I like the low prices. Little Kat said he preferred Target. He drove us to the local Target. We found a hoodie that he liked. It was gray and black. On the way back home, I screamed for Little Kat to stop the car. He was headed straight or another car that had the right of way. Little Kat was slow to stop. We almost bit it.

Momoko also found out late that Little Kat wanted a new type of backpack. In fact, he wanted a messenger bag. He searched and chose what he called the largest messenger back available on Amazon. It got delivered the day before school started. Unfortuantely it was a tiny bag. I call it a satchel. It is the same size as a medium woman's purse.

Yesterday I went down the list of action items for Little Kat to get ready for school. I told him to put his ID and laniard by his bag. Little Kat assured me he could hang it on his door. He explained that it was his natural routine to take it off the door when he got dressed each morning. Of course the slacker forget his ID today. Next time I will make sure Little Kat does what I say. Time to stop entertaining ideas from the cheap seats.

Guitar Hero

I have been woring with a friend from school all summer to produce a video game. Well it is just a retro arcade game from the eighties. But there was value in developing it. To celebrate, I asked my friend to come over my house. She came this weekend with her sister.

My brother always comes over my house on the weekends. So the four of us (my brother, my friend, and her sister) went to pick up some take up. We used the GPS to find a Filipino store close to Momoko's school. Turns out it is located next door to the karate dojo that Kit Kat and Little Kat attended when they were young.

We brought a couple dishes home. Some foods were tame like an Asian pasta. Other foods were weird like the one that is called blood. I skipped that one. Then there were an assortment of weird desserts. I tried a few of them. None were as delicious as the Chinese doughnuts I love to eat.

After dinner, my friend broke out her guitar. She had metioned going to the guitar store to buy a new one. I thought she meant an acoustic guitar. Nope. She produced an eletric one complete with amplifier. I made her take it downstairs so she would not blow out our gerbils on the main level.

My friend had a whole song book for me to choose from. I opted for the old school "All Out of Love" by Air Supply. I also chose some other pop song by Avril Lavigne. My friend's sister strung the guitar and tuned it. I did not expect much, but my friend was actually pretty good at guitar.

The Extra Car

Right now I drive a Nissan Versa Note. I bought it to teach Kit Kat manual transmission driving. When I purchased the car, I held onto my old Scion xB. I figured Little Kat would be driving soon. Momoko is not going to buy him a new car. He could use my old car.

This week one morning Kit Kat started up her car. The air conditioning would not come on. The fan did not blow any air out unless it was on the highest setting. Even then, some stinky air blew out of the vents. She called the dealership. Wouldn't you know it? The car warranty had expired. The bums wanted $140 to just look at the car. Nope.

Kit Kat then called my handy mechanic. He diagnosed the problem and said he would fix it for around $140. Whew. This is not a good time for extra bills. Momoko is a teacher and does not work in the summer. Therefore she does not get paid all summer long.

Kit Kat still needed to go to work every day. She also starts school next week. Luckily my xB is not getting much use. I called up my insurance company because I recently switched to a new company. They told me Kit Kat is covered under my policy. So I am "renting" the car to her for a while, no charge of course because she is family.

Air Conditioning Trouble

I noticed water coming out the side of the air conditioning blower in the basement. Recently I changed the disposable filter. I wondered if this problem was a result of that. I had jammed extra cardboard into the space to force all the air to go through the filter.

Our unit has an electronic filter. But that filter is really hard to clean. So I pulled out the big metal blades and replaced them with a normal disposable filter. The filter really does not fit the electronic space. That's why I tried to jam some cardboard in there to make it fit.

Yesterday I scheduled an A/C guy to come out and look at our problem. Since I requested next day service, they could not say when exactly the guy would come out. Therefore I had to wake up early Saturday and man the phones. The A/C guy will call before he comes over. If nobody answers, he skips our house.

Normally I like to sleep into until noon on Saturday. Not today. I usually also do a lot of things on Saturdays. Now I need to get someone to stand in for me to man the phones while I am out. Hey. I guess cool air all summer is worth one days of hanging by the phone.

Back to School

Momoko return to school next week. Therefore she scheduled to have the family come to school to set up her classroom one day this week. We were scheduled to leave home at 10am. Little Kat could not get out of bed. So we were delayed.

Luckily I had packed up the truck in the days leading up to school day. The back of my truck was stuffed with items Momoko needed us to bring. Momoko did her homework. She came up with a list of tasks she wanted us to do. She also created a floor plan for the student desks.

Unfortunately, the desks just did not fit the way Momoko had envisioned. We spent a lot of time at the beginning getting the design right. Kit Kat wanted to leave to see her friend who recently returns to the country from studying abroad. We needed her though.

Once thing that worked right was that we ordered pizza to be delivered. Last time we sent Kit Kat out to pick up take out, and that act caused us to lose all our momentum. We worked until 4 or 5 pm. Kit Kat hurried home and was picked up by her friends.

I unpacked the truck when I got home. Then I took care of a bunch of errands. Finally I was ready to take a break and rest. Momoko then came home and was hungry. She wanted to move dinner up an hour or two. Ouch. We went out with Little Kat and chowed down at our favorite mexican restaurant.

Vanity Fail

Momoko needed a vanity to be the finishing touch to her new improved study. I am talking about the vanity that you put your makeup on in front of. She located an online store based out of California to sell us one. The price was inexpensive. We were hoping for a good deal.

The vanity arrived on schedule. The delivery guy tried to give me a package for the next street over instead of my vanity. Good thing I opened the box up before I signed for it. Everything inside was in working order. It was just missing the mirror.

I called up the company. They said there was no place in the text description of the item that mentioned a mirror. Yeah. But they have a big picture of the vanity with mirror right on the order page. I told them I needed this thing returned. They wanted to pay for the return shipping, as well as to pay for the initial free shipping that got it to our house.

What a crock. This is a scammy company if I ever heard one. Their customer service sucked too. I just kept calling them and telling them I wanted to speak with managers. If I could have, I would have reversed the charges on my credit card and stuck them with an unpaid bill.

In the end, the company agreed to send me the mirror. Of course they screwed that delivery up a few times too. But I was on their case. I built the vanity for Momoko this week. Then I spied two warnings on the back of the vanity and mirror: "This furniture is known to cause cancer." WTF???

I told Momoko this was not worth it. I am not going to even return this cancer causing furniture. Instead I did what I should have done in the first place. I ordered a vanity from Amazon. They know how to treat the customer right.

Bike Time

I have been working on a video game project all summer. I collaborated with a student from my prior college. Making video games is not new to me. Working on a team producing a game is. We chose to make a Pacman clone. I must say that it is a smashing success. I know because I play my own game all the time.

To celebrate completion of the game this Friday, I figured I would go on a bike ride with my teammate. She said she does not currently own a bike. But she wants to get one. I asked Kit Kat if I could borrow her bike. Kit Kat agreed. So my plan is to load my truck up with the bikes and go biking on some path out there.

The bikes were in the shed and in a state of disrepair. They were not broke. All tires desperately needed air. I literally dusted off the cobwebs, then washed down the grime on the metal. Gave both bikes a test drive around the cul de sac. All systems go. Hopefully I will not take a spill as I ride around the bike paths later this week.

Car Shopping and Surprises

Little Kat is getting closer to getting his driver's license. Momoko bought a car for Kit Kat a few years ago. But she can't buy one for Little Kat. So I figured I would let Little Kat drive my old Scion xB. I don't drive it any more. The only reason I did not sell it already is that it would be a good car for Little Kat.

Now Little Kat said he does not like the look of the car. I told him I did not have any particular ties to the car. It served its purpose. I might just get another car for Little Kat. The only question is whether to buy new or used.

Little Kat would like to maximize the options on the car. He thinks he can get more bang for my buck with a used car. He has his eyes on a 2006 Lincoln Zephyr. I am not totally sure but I think that is the car that eventually became what is known as the Lincoln MKZ today.

My last couple used cars that I purchased were lemons. Some I knew were bad, and I hoped my mechanic could repair them. No such luck. I don't want to buy another junker. But I think I might go for buying a slightly used car from a reputable (Japanese) manufacturer.

There is no hurry. Little Kat does not have his license yet. And my insurance company said it would cost a fortune each year to insure the little guy. Still I need to make the final decision here. Good look to us.

Gutter Shennanigans

My brother called me up. He said that water was flowing over the edge of the gutter. It was landing down on the bottom step of the stairs I just hired some guys to restore and paint. My brother was worried the stairs would get ruined again quickly.

I drove down to my brother's house. He tried using the hose to flush out the debris. The water just gathered in the gutter and overflowed. He then wanted me to hold the ladder as he climbed up to investigate.
My brother wanted to put the base of the ladder on the stairs. That did not seem safe. I advised him to extend the ladder further, and put the foot of the ladder on the ground. He agreed. We got the ladder out and were adjusting it to reach the roof.

Dad woke up and came out to see what was going on. He kept telling us we needed to put the bottom of the ladder on the stairs. My brother and I told him we knew what we were doing and to leave us alone.

My dad went and got a cinder block to level out the stairs to use as a base. I had to yell at dad to get out of the way and let my brother and I handle this. He might have some experience in the matter. But so do I.

This is my opinion. If there is work to do, either go do it or GTFO of the way. Nobody wants a know-it-all to interfere when able bodied men are on the job. If this nonsense continues, we just might have to have a sit down and tell my dad what is up. No more craziness or nonsense please.