Car Shopping

The family went to eat lunch together as usual on Saturday. However Kit Kat had to meet her friends afterwards to go to the movies. Momoko, Little Kat, and I headed to the local car dealership to do car research. They sell a lot of used cars. This let us consider many manufacturers and models at the same place.

I was surprised how many back seats in cars did not provide adequate headroom for a tall guy like me. Some small cars such as the Nissan Sentra and Mercedes C class were obviously too small. However I was hoping others such as the Honda Accord, Kia Optima, Chevy Malibu, or Nissan Altima would suffice. Nope. Too small. A couple larger cars really surprised me like the Toyota Avalon. Even some SUVs were too small like the Suzuki Vitara and Scion xD.

Little Kat would like to drive a sedan. The only sedan that had tons of head room in the rear seat was the Buick Lucerne. We found one from 2011 that had almost 70k miles on it. It was a bit expensive. But it had a lot of toys like heated leather seats, remote start, and parking assistance. The thing had a V-6 with 227 horsepower. I took it out for a test drive and the accerleration did not disappoint.

We wanted to test drive a Dodge Caliber, which also had headroom to spare in the back seat. This car had 107k miles on it but was cheap. Unfortunately the car would not start. Dead battery? Whatever the cause, that was a sign to leave the car in the lot. Now we need to regroup and maybe try out some other large American sedans such as the Chrysler Grand Marquis or Lincoln Towncar. The only problem is that Little Kat would like to drive a small sedan. The only other alternative is to go with an SUV. But I already own an SUV, so we might be going nowhere.

Christmas Surprise

I slept in Christmas morning. I had worked Christmas Eve. And I have to work the day after Christmas. So I was taking it easy. After waking up, I took a nice hot shower. However the lights started flickering as I was showering. Then the power went out.

I did not hear any electrical storms in the area. Maybe somebody hit a power line with a car. I came downstairs to find that Momoko was in the middle of baking our Christmas apple pie. Luckily the oven will stay warm and hopefully finish the pie.

Now we have a change in plans. We were going to have an early Christmas dinner. But our electrical stove cannot cook anything without power. Luckily a couple local restaurants stay open for Christmas. Momoko reported the power outage to the power company. They say the will fix it in a couple hours. Doubtful.

Who knows? If the power stays off all day, we might have to go out and see a movie. We shall see how I feel. Tomorrow I go to work. I hope the power is working there.

Trash Trouble

I visit my dad twice a week. When I come over, I work in his basement and eat lunch with dad. There is one thing that is very disturbing about dad's neighborhood. There is trash all over the place.

Mostly I see trash strewn about in the street. This is a bad sign. The neighborhood has gone down hill. Crime is surely to follow this trend. I know a guy bought the house next door to my dad. He finally decided to sell and move to another country. The trash piling up in his yard from being blown from other yards was too much for him.

I think that the people might be getting desensitized to it. However I am still shocked by the level of trash in the street. Today I saw a lot of trash directly in front of my dad's house. So I decide to pick it up and throw it away. Then I noticed that a lot of that trash had blown into my dad's front yard. Had to pick that up too.

Doesn't anybody care about the neighborhood around here? I know the guy that started the local civic association in the neighborhood has retired and long since moved away to the country. Most of the other neighbors I knew retired as well and moved away. Now there are a bunch of rentals. What a fail.

Saturday Night Dinner

My brother usually comes over my house on Saturdays to hang out. We used to eat McDonald's for dinner. However I introduced my brother to Chik-Fil-A. He likes it. So do I. Therefore we are starting to eat Chik-Fil-A for dinner instead.

Momoko, Kit Kat, and Little Kat usually eat Chik-Fil-A for dinner on Saturdays. Last week I spied on Kit Kat trying to sneak out of the house. I asked her where she was going. She confessed she was getting some Chik-Fil-A. I added orders for my brother and myself to her list. She groaned.

Later Kit Kat complained about having to get our dinner. I ended up paying for everyone's dinner. However she said she had to go into the store for the large order instead of just going through the driver through.

Today at dinner time, I went and got everyone's order. Then my brother and I went to Chik-Fil-A. The girl at the drive through window was unsure about our drinks. Then she said I should not worry about it. No way. I handed her back all the drinks and told her to give them back to me when she was sure.

Turns out the drinks were okay. Somebody gave her a small drink, when we ordered all large drinks. But she got it right. After getting the massive amount of food, I parked in the parking lot. There was no way I was going to drive home to find out we were short changed.

I got confused by the fact that there was an additional box of chicken strips in our bag. But I do not kind getting extra food. I cannot allow there to be missing items. Back at home, Momoko was pleasantly surprised by the large number of sauces I came home with. Usually Kit Kat is stingy with the sauces she brings Momoko for dinner.

Christmas Photos

Momoko wanted new photos of the kids. So she thought she could go to Walmart. Turns out they don't do family photos. Instead Momoko found a place that would do around 40 pictures for twenty bucks. Sounded like a good deal. Unfortunately they needed to drive to the other side of town for it.

We have been trying to see this Steven Hawking film together as a family for a while. It had been rescheduled for this morning. However Momoko was able to get a photo appointment today. That bumped the movie to another time.

I went out early and worked in the yard. The kids grabbed a snack and drove a long way to get their photos taken. Momoko made them dress up and wear matching clothes. Right before their photo shoot, Momoko took the kids to eat home pho. That is Vietmamese noodles.

Momoko was only going to buy the pictures that came with the special. However there were some extra shots of Little Kat that she just had to pay a bit extra for. Now I got a couple recent photos to put in my photo ablum. It is funny. When friends come over and see the kids for the first time, they always comment on how big they are. I guess my only other pictures of them are as small kids.

He Did It

Yesterday Momoko took off from work. She went with Little Kat so he could take his driver's license test again. Last time he disobeyed the instructions of the tester. This time he succeeded. It is official. Little Kat is a licensed driver.

Momoko had previously bought Kit Kat a car. Momoko is still making the monthly payments on that thing. So I decided to let Little Kat drive my old Toyota (Scion xB). As soon as I heard Little Kat passed his test, I called my insurance company.

Bad news. My insurance will more than double if I put Little Kat on my policy. Oh well. The guy has to drive. I signed up for six months of full coverage. The only good news is that Little Kat is now authorized and insured to drive any of my vehicles. That insludes my truck and my new Nissan.

Today Little Kat took the car to school. He tried to apply for a parking pass at his school. However they need money, parent signatures, and a justification to assign one of their precious few spaces. After having gone through the trouble and money of getting Little Kat licensed, we will be getting one of those spaces.

Little Kat told me he has some problems with my Scion xB. It does not accelerate well into traffic. He also said he would prefer to have a sedan to hide stuff in the trunk. Sounds legit. We will have to start the long process of looking for a replacement car. If we can buy a used one, it should not cost that much more as the Scion has held its value. But we might go new for reliability reasons...

You Get What You Pay For

I have been going through our large trash bags quickly since the leaves keep on falling from the trees. It was time to order another big box of bags. I usually order them 160 or 240 at a time. Previously I had chosen Hefty bags because I like the way the tops tied nicely. Then I could not find them anymore.

Next I used Glad bags for a long time. The tops did not tie as easily as Hefty. But the bag were strong, really strong. Recently I tried to order them from Amazon. The price had gone up. Plus they were no longer available as a free shipping item. What is a guy to do?

I tried another off brand. They were so thin I could not put the leaves in there. Used the bags for some other purposes. Had to go back to Glad. Once again the price was high, so I tried another brand. They were thick enough. But the things kept coming apart at the seams. I have learned my lesson. Stick with quality no matter the price.

Function Over Fashion

Today was the last day of my class for the semester at school. I told my boss at work that I needed to leave early. Good thing I did that because things were busy at work today. I even had to delay lunch a bit. I did eat a hearty meal because I would not be able to get dinner until after my final exam.

The instructor gave us a little surprise at the start of class. He told us we needed to demo our final projects before we took the exam. I was happy that I decided to bring my laptop to class that had my final project in demo form.

The other guys in class had what looked like impressive projects. Their graphics were hot and they had a lot of bells and whistles in their web sites. However I noticed they did not get down to business and implement the required parts of the assignment. The instructor noticed it too. LOL. These guys got some scrambling to do after the exam to get their projects in order.

I was done the exam in no time. Part of the test was auto-graded. I got marked wrong on one answer I was sure was correct. So I decided to email the instructor when I got home. Luckily he figured out the auto-grade problem while I was driving home and fixed the answer. I knew that answer was correct.

The class I took this semester centered around learning a web tool. Personally I like doing custom programming. This class had minimal coding to it. That was strange given that a prerequisite for the course was a hard programming class. I did not apply myself this semester. It was not a complte waste. I can use the stuff I learned to stand up web sites. But I hope to get more programming in during next semester at school.

New Coat for the Weather

Little Kat said he had outgrown his old coat. The weather is getting chilly. So we scheduled a trip to the local coat factory. Unfortunately Little Kat overslept and had to grill up some dinner during our shopping time. The shopping trip got rescheduled.

Next time around, I got stuck picking up leaves outside. That's okay. The kids needed to put up some Christmas light anyway. Then I was ready to go. However Little Kat needed to grill up dinner while there was still light outside. Doh.

After grilling (and some eating), Little Kat drove me to the coat factory. I had not been to the redesigned mall. It is now an outdoor town center. The coat factory store was big. However we could not find the men's coats.

I asked a store employee who pointed us in the direction of the coats. It seems the coat factory had repurposed itself as a clothes store. There were a couple racks of jackets that fit Little Kat. He wanted one that was the right size. He needed something heavy for the cold weather. He also wanted one made of cotton.

We found a couple jackets that met all the requirements. I bought him the one that seemed best. Little Kat threw out his old jacket that was too small and damaged. He should now be good to go. I liked that the factory had good prices.