5000 Books

Recently I downloaded my 5000th book to my Kindle eReader on my laptop. That's a whole lot of books. I have read over a hundred of them. Got a long way to go. Normally I read maybe a book or two a month. There are maybe another hundred or so must read books on my computer. So time to step up my game.

Most of these books were downloaded for free from Amazon. I use this web site to find the best free books available. Sometimes I get credits through Amazon Prime that allows me to download a book for free. And sometimes I just find free books on my own.

I do buy books. However those are mostly print books. Sometimes I will buy an eBook. But I usually read those as PDF files instead of a Kindle version. I was starting to get worried about all these eBooks. Suppose each eBook retails for $2,99. That would place my collection at a retail value of almost $15k. That's a lot of eMoney.

Recently I decided to back up my eBook collection to DVD. Luckily it all fit onto one DVD. Now I can get a new computer and copy my collection onto it even if my laptop hard drive crashes. I guess I could also download each title from Amazon separately. Hopefully I could do that without incurring additional costs since I already "bought" the books.

In my spare time, I plan on creating some sort of program to organize all these electronic books. Currently I am sorting them into high level ratings between 1 and 10. But I have only done that for the most recent one thousand books or so.

Invasion of the Birds

Spring is finally here. And so are the birds. Woody Woodpecker is back. Luckily he is pecking on trees and other peoples' houses for now. I thought I could finally get some good sleep.

Nope. Some other bird has moved in, either into our attic our outside our window. This is a job for superman. I spied on the situation in the back yard. Looks like there is a bird nest on the window A/C unit outside our bedroom window. Only problem is that it is two or more stories above the ground.

I put on my lumberman's jacket to protect my arms. Put on a dust mask and some goggles. Put a ball cap on my head. Then I put on some work gloves. I pack a bottle of Lysol in my pocket. I also grab a couple pieces of wood.

I secure the ladder at the base. Make sure it is high enough, almost fully extended. Then I climb up myself. Normally I should get a buddy to hold the ladder steady. But the slackers in my house cry even when they need to do the light work.

I climb up and poke around with the thick piece of wood. Good. Nobody (no birds) are home. I use the small stick to push the nest off the A/C and onto the ground. Then I liberally spray the top of the A/C with the Lysol. I need something to make the birds choose another spot. However I cannot spray anything poisonous. This is the place where the A/C air intake it. I don't want to breather any fumes.

Let's hope the birds stay away. I made sure to wrap up the nest so the birds don't just grab it and relocate somewhere else on my house.

Lunch Paid For

I usually do not eat lunch at Chipotle. The food is good. But I feel it is overpriced. However I got a gift card for my birthday. Decided to go to lunch there today.

I went for the steak. The most expensive meat. And yes I added fahita vegetables. Then I got some chips and salsa too. The chips are baked fresh and you can taste it. They got a hint of lime. I also got a soda there.

My gift card could not cover my hefty purchase. But at least I did not have to spend much out of my pocket. I went early to avoid the rush. I sat next to a cop because nobody else seemed to want to sit at his table.

Now I need to do a double exercise to shed the large amount of pounds I consumed for lunch,

Legal Drinking Age

Since Kit Kat turned 21, Momoko wanted to take her our for drinks. Oh boy. They were going to go to an upscale bar in the city to the North. However a bar opened up in our favorite shopping center. So they went there instead.

Momoko invited a friend from work who knew her alchohol. I made Little Kat stay home with me. This was girls night out. Kit Kat got a surprise drink from the waiter. Apparently it had tequila in it. She used the sugar on the rim of the glass to mask the pain.

Kit Kat wanted Mokoko and I to take her and her friends out to a fondue place for her birthday. Umm that is expensive. Somehow this motion got approved. I picked up half the tab. We had gone there for Kit Kat's 18th birthday. This time around we only got appetizers, salad, and dessert.

The cheddar cheese dip was good. I did not like the Alpine chess. It tasted like wine. The salads were good. The best part was the dessert. They serve chocolate fondue with a lot of snacks to dip into it. My favorite was the rice krispies treats. However they also had doughnuts with edible pretzel skewers.

It was good to see Kit Kat's friends again. They live in their respective college dorms. One of them had cut her long hair, and it had grown back before we saw her again. The other had dyed her hair red. I really could not tell that much of a difference. After dinner, Kit Kat went away to spend the night with one of her friends.

Ahhh. Before long, Kit Kat herself will go to her four year college and move into the dorms. How quickly the time passes. It feels like a long time since she was in high school. It also feels like she has been driving forever. I do recall teaching her how to drive a manual transmission not too long ago.

Case of the Plumber's Bread

The last time I had my heating and cooling system serviced, the plumber noticed the water pipes above my hot water heater were getting old. They had turned green in some spots. And some joints had something collecting around them. The plumber said I should get them replaced before I had a leak.

I asked my handyman team to schedule it up. It took a while for them to come by. They have a busy schedule. Today they arrived early to replaces the pipes as well as my hot water heater. The heater itself was getting old and rusty. I figure it was best to get everything new.

It was good the handyman team came by. I always have a list of things for them to do. They are doing my miscellaneous tasks, as well as taking care of the pipes and hot water heater. I was in a call for work. My handyman came and asked if I had any bread. I showed him where we kept the loaves of sandwich bread.

Later my handyman explained that water stays in the pipes. And when he tries to solder two pipes together, the water steams up and prevents the solder from sticking. He puts a piece of bread or two in the pipe. The bread soaks up the water and allows the solder to stick. He says the bread dissolves so there is nothing to clean up. Aha.

Chirping Going On

Last night the cable went out temporarily. At the same time I heard a faint chirp. Kit Kat said she had been hearing the chirp sound going off. Why didn't she investigate what it was? Well it was time to get to the bottom of this.

Initially she thought it might be the smoke detector. It chirps when the battery is low. I recently changed that battery though. I took down the smoke detector and took it apart. Nope. It was not chirping.

During the process of hunting for the sound, we found a couple strange devices on the walls of our main level hall. Weird. I think most of them may be related to the home security system the previous owners had. I had that system deactivated as soon as we moved it.

Finally Momoko called Little Kat to help us find the source of the chirp. He went downstairs because he had a hunch. He was right on track. There was another smoke detector down there whose battery was getting low. Change of battery eliminated the chirp. At least the thing is doing its job, telling us when it needed a new battery.

Big And Tall

After lunch, Little Kat complained that his T-shirts were just not long enough. Maybe they shrank. Or Little Kat had grown. Momoko asked if I would pay for some new clothes. I needed specifics. She found a big and tall sale at the local department store. Win.

Next Momoko found $10 off coupons on top of the sale. The four of us got a coupon each and headed for the mall. Just as we got there, a space close to the store opened up. The lady pulling out of the space cursed Kit Kat because her car was in the middle of the lane. Oh well.

Next there was a fire alarm in the mall. I asked Momoko whether we should go home or go in. Momoko could not decide. I was using up precious time I was supposed to be spending with my brother. So I said we should go in and assume there was no fire.

We wandered around the store a bit until we found the big and tall section. I found some nice T-shirts for myself. Tried them on and liked half of them. Little Kat found some good T-shirts too, as well as some Polo shirts.

Little Kat had some trouble on check out. We each needed our own transactions to maximize coupon usage. I had to give Little Kat some extra cash to buy his shirts. All in all, I spent about $100 for a $140 bill without coupons. The real steal was that most items were already 50% off the normal price.

Less reps. More weight.

Momoko and I bought Little Kat a weight bench and some weight a while ago. The kid used them maybe once or twice. What a waste. Then I figured I could make use of these things. So I started doing some exercise with the weights.

Initially I just put some weights on a barbell and started lifting. Then I decided I should add some more weights. I put on enough so that I could lift the bar five times. Eventually that got easy. Developing muscles? I guess so.

Then I started to lift the barbell seven times. I would do that for three sets every time I exercised. I rotated between curls, reverse curls, and pressing the weights over my head. Want to spread the muscle gain around.

Recently even seven repetitions was getting too easy. So I added some more weights. Just a bit. Another five pounds and the thing is very heavy once again. I think the trick to muscle building is to keep adding more weights. That might be hard. But Arnold says, "No pain, no gain."

Job Extended

My company does work for the government. I am always working under a contract my company has with the government. Like most things, the contract inevitably comes to an end. But the work does not. We need to keep winning the ability to do the work and profit.

Our current contract ended over a month ago. But there was no contract awarded. Oooops. I was not out of a job. We got a short extension on our project. They waited until the last minute to give us the extension. Then the extension ran out this week.

There is good news. My company won the award to service the contract. Now I don't have to go out and look for a job. I am good for a few years. Still need to think about what my next job will be after this one. It is never too early to prepare and develop the skills required.

The Last Day

On the last day of vacation, Little Kat spent the day with his uncle. Momoko and I had another Dairy Queen lunch. She got an Orange Julius to drink. We needed to print out boarding passes for the next day's flight. Grandpa volunteered to do it. He also had to sign for a delivery of compressed air. We asked if he needed us to man the door in case the air came right when he had to print the passes. He said no. We stuck around anyway. Wouldn't you know it? Seven minutes before boarding pass time, the doorbell rang and the dogs started barking. We got the passes printed though.

We met the extended family for dinner at Cici's. I like it because it is cheap and has a lot of variety. Little Kat loaded up his plate full of pizza and hardly ate any. He said he was "sick". When is this boy ever going to learn how to deal with buffets?

On the day of travel, we all got up early. Little Kat and I stacked up two beds together to save room at the grand parents' house. We filled up the minivan with gas close to the airport. At check in, I found the airline employee we met on our earlier flight set us up to pre-board again. A ticket agent paged me at the airport to confirm our plans.

It was a relatively full flight. A military man in fatigue sat next to me. Momoko had a special pass that reserved the seat next to her so she and Little Kat had more room. They just needed to sit a bit further back in the plane than me. Kit Kat picked us up at the airport. In the garage, she tripped over a raised meter and fell to the pavement. We got six dollar subway subs for dinner on the drive home. Vacation ends soon.

Poker Chip Coupon

One day for lunch, we went to Sonic. I wanted to try this chicken sandwich I saw advertised. The chef cooked me up a chicken strip sandwich. They caught the mistake before they gave us the food. However that mistake caused us to wait a while. They compensated us with some coupons for free food and drink. The drink coupons were poker chips. Little Kat wanted to take one home instead of redeeming it.

I saw some Jack in the Box restaurants while driving around. That reminded me of the ones that were by my parents' house when I was young. So we ate lunch there one day. I got a burger that did not taste the way I remembered it. They also had some weird promotion where you got a free monster taco with every purchase. I don't remember tacos at Jack in the Box either.

Little Kat complained that he was worked a lot on vacation. One of his goals was to not work. This seemed odd because he only had to do things like take out the trash or load the dishwasher. However I guess he assumed he would do absolutely no work. Slacker. Next time we will put him to work hard since he complains either way.

Community College Tour

Momoko arranged a tour of the local community college by grandpa and grandma. Little Kat wanted to live there. So we visited the college. Little Kat signed us in. I was taken aback by the lack of students on campus. However they allegedly have 8000 students enrolled. The rep was touting their cyber security program where students could earn up to 90k a year after graduation. Never heard of such a deal.

We went to an office to determine how Little Kat could qualify for in-state tuition at the college. A student tried to answer our questions. However she got corrected by someone else in her office. I suggested we meet with an expert. We signed in again, and met with the college registrar. She explained the hoops it would take for Little Kat to be in-state. That either required him to get a full time job locally and file income taxes, or be adopted by the grandparents. Ouch.

Afterwards, Momoko and I tried to get Little Kat to think about a college major. He told me I had shut down his previous ideas. Whatever. I still pressed him and he found three classes of interest: game design, game programming, and game production. We searched for a major that would allow him to use those classes. Closest thing we found was a multimedia degree.

To be honest, I liked the look of a lot of the community college classes they offered there. These easily beat the offerings we have in our home state community colleges. I know. I have attended them, and did not have the option of any of those cool classes. Really. How can I sign up for these? Kit Kat recommended online study from a distance.

For dinner we at Taco Bueno, Little Kat had the biggest meal - the whole lotta platter. Grandma had a big Mexi dip and chips. Momoko got a platter. However it was more of a snack than a meal. The rest of us ate party tacos that cost 49 cents.

Finding Del Rancho

Momoko wanted us to eat at Del Rancho. They are known for their huge fried steak sandwiches. The closest one was in the big city. We took a drive on the back roads to get there. When we arrived, I was surprised that this was a car hop. I assumed it was a restaurant. They did have indoor seating if your wanted.

We went in and all ordered some fried steak sandwiches. Momoko and Little Kat also had fried ocra, while I chose picklos. Those are deep dried pickles. On the way home, we found that grandpa did not know the code for us to get into his garage. He locked up and armed the house. We had to wait until a relative was contacted for the correct code. Ooops.

After grandpa came home, Little Kat was put to work to use a wey-dry vacuum to clean out the storm shelter. I thought they had some water down there. Nope. Grandpa needed the leaves cleaned out of there. I used the opportunity to check out the shelter. It was smaller than I imagined. There was a steep set of stairs down into it. The seats were small too.

Meeting Love's

Early in the week, we went to visit the small town where Momoko's grandfather lived. There was still some family in the area. First I got some diet coke with diet cherry at Sonic for Momoko. Also got some ear plugs at Walmart to protect the ears from gun fire.

We stopped at a gas station called Love's. I filled up the minivan. Momoko spotted a $22 fatigue jacket for Little Kat. He did not want us to buy it. At our destination, the small town had a lot of red dirt roads. Luckily they were dry. We met with Momoko's great uncle and aunt.

Great uncle led us to a shooting ridge with his 4x4. It had a flat tire so he had to fill it with air. Little Kat rode with him, and spied on all kinds of treasures in his barn when they filled up the tire. This was like a scene out of American Pickers.

Great uncle filled pumped water from a well into a large bin for cows to drink and frackers to use when mining oil. Many cows came by because great uncle fed them. However the cows avoided humans. We filled up four empty Tropicana orange juice jugs to use for target practice. I was surprised that we could hit the targets from a good distance using the 22 caliber rifle and 20 gauge shotgun.

We needed to get closer to the targets with the 45 caliber pistol. I cut my left thumb due to gun recoil when using the 45 caliber. While leaving the small town, we visited the graveyard to find elaborate headstones including pictures on them. Then we got some Diary Queen for a late lunch, followed by a long drive home.

Kit Kat Departs

Kit Kat needed to leave for home the day after we arrived on vacation. Her spring break did not coincide with everyone else's. There was only one direct flight home for her to take. It was the red eye. I woke up early and my iPad said it was 5am. It took about an hour for me to realize my iPad was on the wrong time zone. I woke up too early.

Eventually everyone else got up. I warmed up our rental. We dropped Momoko and Kit Kat at the departure lane. Grandpa and I drove the rental to the edge of the airport and waited. Momoko called maybe ten minutes later saying Kit Kat was past security. Her flight was so early that it was not full like ours.

The family went to Walmart later that day. We bought some cheap 20 gauge shotgun shells for around five bucks. Little Kat, grandpa, and I planned to go shooting early in the week. At night we got a dinner for four at the local Chinese food restaurant. It was a lot of food.

Vacation Begins

Vacation finally arrived. We arrived early at the airport. We were sitting there at the gate for over two hours. A guy from the airlines motioned for me to come over to the desk. He asked if I was with my family. I said yes. He gave me some pre-board passes to go to the front of the line during plane boarding. Sweet.

When I got on board, there were some flight attendants talking. I waited near the door of the plane. Then one of the attendants walked down the row a little bit. He spent a long time trying to get a back in the overhead. I decided to move to the next row. I could not get by him. The dude got rude and told me to wait. I said okay. After struggling for a while, he got the bag in and repeated that I needed to wait. I shrugged and said what do you want me to do? I was waiting. He then directed me to my seat.

Little Kat was disappointed that since we got the pre-board passes, we sat in the same row with him in the middle. Momoko and I liked it because we were the first people to leave the plan at our destination. When I got in the airport, I went to the rental car place because our plane was late. I was happy to find that they rented me a Toyota Sienna minivan. I thought we would only get a Dodge Caravan.

We used Little Kat's phone for navigation. At one point, the phone instructed me to turn right on the ramp. How vague. Momoko hand carried a letter that Kit Kat received back at home. Kit Kat started her vacation a week earlier. And we met her at grandma's. Kit Kat got a grant for around $4000 per year. Unfortunately that is just a dent in her expensive four year university costs each year.

Vacation Duties

Last year I tried to take Christmas week off from work. I was not allowed. At that point I declared that my next vacation would be two weeks long. And now I am on vacation. I scheduled my first week to coincide with Kit Kat's spring break. That did not do me much good because we sent her to visit grandma for spring break.

So on my week off, I am taking care of as many items on the To Do list as possible. The biggest item is the patio. The far side of the patio is falling down. The reason is the retaining wall holding it up is in disrepair. I tried to ask my handyman to work on this, but he does not do masonry. Then I called our concrete guys. They must have been too busy because they did not get back to me.

The wall is made of lots of relatively thin flagstone. Looks good. But the construction was shoddy. So I have been hauling loads of cinder block and crushed drainage rock from Lowe's to our house with my pickup truck. The only good news was that there was a layer of flagstone buried at the base of the bottom of the wall. I left that in there.

I built up cinder blocks from the base after tearing everything down. When I got to the top, I chose smaller cinder blocks and concrete slabs to even out the top. I made sure crushed rock was directly behind the wall to control water drainage. Everything is a pretty snug fit. Might need to mix some concrete to seal the deal.