Introdution to Tannerite

Kit Kat and Little Kat spent two days with their dad on vacation. We thought they would be back late Thursday. As we were driving to lunch on Thursday, they called and said they returned home early. Momoko and I drove with her sister's family to visit a restaurant known for their pies. They were closing in a few days. The line was out the door.

We instead went to a breakfast place. It was supposed to be good cooking. I ordered a monster 5 egg omelet. The English muffins were not toasted correctly. The hash browns were weak. My soda glass was empty most of the time. And I did was not the one with the worst problems at our table. The service sucked. At least the eggs were tasty.

In the afternoon, Little Kat's uncle picked me and Little Kat up. We wanted to go gun shooting at the outdoor range. Little Kat's uncle had not paid his dues in a while. So we went to get him current and the gun range owner's house. The we headed to a store to pick up some ammo. The most interesting purchase was a Tannerite kit. It was basically some chemicals you mix and shoot at for an explosion.

I shot some 22 caliber pistols. The rifle jammed up on me. Little Kat and his uncle talked me into shooting the 40 caliber handgun once. I also unloaded an assault rifle of its 30 bullets. It was not hard to hit the big targets at 50 yards. The smaller ones at 100 yards proved to be too difficult.

As the sun set, we mixed the Tannerite and set them out at 50 and 75 yards. The targets were small and I thought there was not much chance to hit them. Little Kat led the charge and blew a couple up. His uncle got the other one. We packed up and came home late for dinner. We ended up going out for a late night Mexican cheap dinner.

The vacation begins

The day before we were to depart on vacation, I printed out our boarding passes. We got somewhere in the middle of the queue. The flight was overbooked. Luckily, we got the last empty row in the plane. "We" means Momoko, Kit Kat, and Little Kat. I had to sit one row in front of them with strangers. It was not a comfortable flight.

Our destination airport moved all the rental car companies out of the airport. We loaded our many suitcases onto a shuttle that took us out to the rental car building. The rep for the rental company said all they had to rent me was a Chevy Trax and a Chevy Captiva. They said the Trax was less damaged. They forgot to tell me that it was tiny.

Before even getting into the rental, I ran back and switched to the Captiva. On the way to Momoko's parents' house we got some Sonic fast food to eat. Delicious. Little Kat spent most nights sleeping over at his uncle's house. Kit Kat got a grand queen size bed. I slept in a pull out trundle, while Momoko got a small bed.

Our vacation had begun...

Manual Transmission Lessons with Little Kat

Every afternoon at 2:30pm, Little Kat and I go out to practice manual transmission driving in my 2014 Nissan Versa Note. Little Kat is always asking to postpone the sessions. Nope. Postponing has got us nowhere. Now that the fall semester is essentially at its end, time to buckle up and learn.

On one of the initial session, Little Kat did pretty good. He did not stall the car. He had no trouble getting the car into 4th gear. He thought we would be done with the lessons in a week. Premature celebration. We have run into problems like stalling and rough downshifting.

I think it is just a matter of time until Little Kat gets good at 3rd and 4th gear driving. Then we will switch to highway driving in 5th gear. Finally we will tackle driving in traffic and dealing with more stress on the road with a manual transmission.

When we are done, I plan to sell the Nissan Versa and get an automatic transmission car for me to drive. I hate riding with the manual in heavy traffic. Might want to get myself a Fiat 500 coupe. If I get the cash, I will go for the upscale Abarth edition with the Turbo charged engine.

Closet Rennovation

I noticed that my brother was not making good use of the kitchenette in his bedroom. He had some problems with the shelf above the counter. It was not sturdy enough for his heavy items. My brother never used the sink or microwave in his room. Time for a renovation.

My handyman came in and demolished the kitchenette. He framed a wide closet to stand in its place. My handyman had the idea to install two rows of rods, effectively doubling the amount of clothes that could be hung up.

I needed to go into the office a few times this week. The handyman team needed four days to complete the closet. I gave them the code to get into the house by themselves when I was not here. Towards the end, they painted the trim and left it to dry in the carport. Of course Momoko backed into it, damaging some trim and her car. It's all good though.

Now my brother has good closet space. Time to call the carpet guys to finish off the bottom of the closet. I already checked with them. They can get the same carpet we used to redo my brother's room earlier this year.

Certifications

I am nearing the end of my college course which is supposed to prepare you to take the CompTIA Security+ certification exam. So far, I feel like I have not learned enough in the course. I just don't have that deep knowledge that I usually attain when I study hard for a class.

My company gave me some money to buy materials and pay for the certification exam. I bought a study guide from Amazon. The first thing in the guide was a pre-test. You need to get 83% correct on the real test to pass. I got an 83% right in the pre-test. Maybe I have learned a thing or two this semester.

I plan to rigorously study this exam guide over the next two months. If I can get up to a 93% or higher in the post-test, I think I will be ready to ace the test. While getting the certification is an important milestone, the real goal is to understand the topic. Nobody really cares if you hold a certificate. they just want you to know your stuff.

In other news, I had recommended that Little Kat might want to look into CompTIA A+ certification training. That would assist him in figuring out why his desktop computer sometimes does not work.

Dry Ships Stock Has Tanked

I am always looking for a good deal in the stock market. Shippers of dry goods were extremely volatile in the past few weeks. Their stocks jumped off the charts two weeks ago. Who knows why? Rumors are that Donald Trump won the election, and his policies would bolster the shipping business.

Then the bottom fell out. The stocks crashed hard. Those that rose the most fell the hardest. I spied on a stock I liked. It had gapped up to $70 or so. I think it might have traded North of $100. Then it fell down to $11. I wanted in.

The next day I tried to buy some at the open. It had jumped back up to $21. Too high. Then it fell back to $11. I saw it bounce back up to $14. When it sank back below $11, I knew I had to go in. I picked a ton up at $9 per share. Figured I could sell it if it jumped to $21 or $14. Could make a pretty penny.

Oops. The stock continued to fall. Went down to $7. Now it is $5 and changes. Ouch. That has got to hurt. I have not sold yet. But if I did, I would lose all the gains I have been making in the stock market for the last few months. And then some.

I am hoping the price will rise so that I can exit this position. I have been in this situation before with another stock. That one turned out to be a happy ending after much pain in between. Maybe I can get a repeat on this latest stock?

Sold This Old House

Today I stopped work an hour early. My brother and I drove out to the title company office to sell dad's house. We took the back roads because we were travelling during rush hour. It took a while to find the building. It was tough to get to the entrance. We circled around, and made some U-turns before locating the entrance.

Then we needed to get some dinner. My brother took the main road for a while, but there was nothing in site. I directed him to the closest strip. Immediately we say Popeyes Chicken, Arbys Roast Beef, and Chik-Fil-A. We stopped for some Chik-Fil-A. They bring your meal out to your table. We had a quick bite to eat.

Even though we found the building once, it was harder once it was dark. We get there and all the doors are locked. I tried called security, but they said we were not on the list. Our processor came down and let us in. The buyers were waiting outside too.

The main buyer did not speak English at all. His agent was bilingual, but he left his reading glasses at home. Somehow we struggled through the forms. I opted to have the sale proceeds wired to my dad's account. There was a surprise wire fee at the last minute. But that was water under the bridge.

The buyer did complain that one door in the house did not open. I would have obliged him, but the time for inspections and notice of defects had long passed. So I just told him it had been 40 years since that door was open. Now this chapter of our lives is finished. Maybe we will drive by the old neighborhood next summer.

Rent Me

Momoko needed to put her car in the shop. We did not know when we would get the car back. She needed to drive on Monday. So we decided to get her a rental. I brought her to the last place I rented my car.

Thought we would start at the cheapest rental available. Turns out the standard vehicle in that class is the Chevy Spark. Nope. Kit Kat and I test drove one before. Way too small, even in the front seat. The rental car rep told us she could rent us a Fiat 500 for even less money. Bingo.

We got a red Fiat 500 to go. Momoko followed me home. I encouraged her to drive a lot yesterday. And I went with her everywhere. We even had a test run with Kit Kat. I grabbed two pillow, sat across both tiny seats in the back, and we drove around our town.

I should have put my name as a driver for the rental. Then I would have had fun without Momoko having to drive me around everywhere. Maybe I might add my name to the rental so I can have some fun tomorrow.

Rock the Vote

Momoko had the day off because her school is used for election voting. She was getting ready to leave to go vote when the lines were short. I got some time off work and joined her. We drove the short distance to the local school. There was no parking.

I advised Momoko to just park by the curb. It is not illegal. She decided instead to leave the school and go park out in the neighborhood. We walked from her car to the school, noticing a house that had a front door which seemed oddly higher than the stair that lead up to it.

Inside the school, pandemonium, was starting. First we had to go to the far end of the room to check in. Then we were told to stand in the middle line. I saw no middle. But eventually I found a table that represented where the middle lines should start.

We got in another line to vote. It was easy to fill out the ballot. We knew all the questions ahead of time. This year they had paper ballots where you used a pen to fill in an oval. Then we got in yet another line to scan our ballots.

Afterwards we picked up some Chinese food. At home, Little Kat arrived shortly after us. He had voted already too. He got to park in the school parking lot. He was jealous that we got delicious food, but he did not get any.

Car Types to Survive Accidents

I was thinking about buying a new car. The Fiat 500 Abarth to be specific. It is a small two door hatch back. Got a supercharged 4 cylinder engine. They say it sounds like a race car when you drive it. Very exciting little car. I figure it will be easy to park in tight spots too.

Today I heard the details of a bad car crash from a student I go to school with. She stopped due to traffic on a highway and was rear ended. Then another car struck the car behind her causing a chain reaction. She got messed up due to the accident. Back got hurt. Can't feel some toes in her legs. Etc.

The thing that I took away was that she lived to tell and walk because she had a big SUV. That made me wonder what I would look like in that type of accident if I was in a Fiat 500. Could have been mashed up real bad. Or even killed. Is it time to switch plans and get a Nissan Rogue?

Perhaps the Soul of the World has warned me.

Work Attire for Kit Kat

Kit Kat's job provides shirts to wear from the company. However employees are expected to purchase their own pants. They are supposed to be black slacks. Kit Kat had initially got two pairs of pants when she started. Now she is working a lot and needs some replacements.

We had scheduled to visit her old clothing stores that she worked at today. Left the house around 11:00am. When we got there, the doors were locked. They don't open until noon on Sundays. Doh! Well we returned home, and came back around 12:15pm. The doors were still locked.

Kit Kat peeked inside. There were people there. I tried calling the store on the phone. Eventually a customer inside the store left and let us in. The store was open. There was just a problem with the front doors not being unlocked.

Turns out Kit Kat found some pants she liked. At least one of them had pockets that come in handy. Not all women's slack have them. They had a buy one get one half off offer going on. Turned out to be a successful shopping trip.

Unprepared

My car has been complaining about tire pressure problems for a week or two. I have been trying to ignore it, as the car is sensitive when the temperature changes. Yeah I might have a tire that is a few pounds of pressure low. So what.

The nagging got me to drop by the gas station today. I went there after lunch. Did not have my little pad to kneel on the concrete with me. But I keep my digital tire pressure gauge in the car. Somebody had just pulled out of the space next to the air machine.

The air machine was still running. So I tried to hurry up to use some of the free air from the last guy. I used my gauge to try to determine the current pressure in my driver's side front tire. Had trouble getting the gauge on the valve on the tire. Maybe it was because I was standing and did not have my knee pad to get closer.

Eventually the pressure gauge broke, and the free air from the machine expired. That's when I figured I was doing this all wrong. The right way was to first measure all the tires at home so I know what I am dealing with. Also I need to bring all the tools that I need with me. Then I will be prepared to fill up the tires with ease.

Luckily I have a backup tire pressure gauge at home. I will go back there and regroup.

Goodbye xB

I have been looking at buying a new car. Today I took my first step. I had Momoko drive me to the car dealership. Got my Scion xB appraised. They offered a price that was fair. I sold the car. It was a quick transaction. Now I got a check, and a car to replace.

While we were waiting for the appraisal, Momoko and I had the sales guy show us some vehicles. Sat in a four door Fiat 500L. The back seat was roomy. Then I sat in a Dodge Challenger. Even though it had a sunroof, the headroom was adequate.

Then we got to the Mercedes GLK350. At first there was not enough headroom in the driver's seat. I had the sales guy turn on the car so I could adjust the power seats. That gave me the room I wanted. We took it for a test drive. The acceleration was decent, but not mind blowing. The price was high.

I transferred all the stuff in my car to Momoko's car. Signed over my title. Then I got my check and we were are our way. Now the real hard part comes. I need to decide on a new car. I know I want navigation built into the dash. I would like a Benz. Might settle for a two door Fiat 500.

Chair Shopping

Little Kat and I had scheduled to go chair shopping. He has a nice chair in his room for this computer desk. But the bolt broke on the lower side. So he cannot lean backward. There is no support. also the faux leather is starting to rip in places.

I had Little Kat drive us with the Scion xB to an Office Depot store that is closing. They did not have much selection yet. So we left without a chair. We briefly stopped at Best Buy to determine they do not sell chair.s

We came back to our own town to hit up Staples. This was the jackpot. They had lots of chairs. Little Kat saw his own chair on display. He tried a weird memory foam chair. I sat in a red leather chair. Little Kat found a chair with high arms, high back support, locking back, and black in color. Mission accomplish.

As I got ready to pay for the chair, I could not find my go to credit card. I had some backups. So I used one of them. After getting the chair, we headed to the restaurant that Momoko and I ate lunch at. I told them my name plus the color and type of my credit card. After showing some ID, they gave me the card that got left there. Whew.

Offer on Dad's House

Today my realtor told me that someone had made an offer on dad's house. They came in at 10% under the asking price. However they did not request any help with settlement funds. Plus they were doing a conventional loan, planning to put down 20%.

I went back and forth with my realtor until I just asked her to forward the offer to me. There were about 20 pages in the main offer, plus 10 pages full of addendums. I discussed the offer with my brother. We decided not to accept the offer as is. Instead we plan to counter with a reasonable offer.

The good part of this plan is that we can settle by the end of the year. I would like to be done with this house. My brother would too, as he maintains the landscaping. Getting this home ready for sale was a real chore. We spent most of the year doing that. Although we did hire professionals to help with the renovation, managing them was a lot of work.

Flying the Friendly Skies

Last time Little Kat took a plane trip, he flew on American Airlines. He was impressed because each seat had a video monitor that showed a movie during the flight. He plugged in his earphones and enjoyed the entertainment. Little Kat requested that we fly American for our next family trip.


I do see some advantage with American. They have reserved seating. Plus they have first class seats available (for a price). So I went to their web site to see if I could get some tickets for the family. The first thing I saw was that tickets were almost double what I was planning to pay. The real trouble was that they had no non-stop flights to where we want to go. Best they could do was one stopover. Nope.


Maybe Little Kat and I can take a small trip somewhere using American. Maybe a weekend trip to New York? That could be a short trip. Hopefully American can hook us up with a direct flight. I will be bringing my headphones for the movie.

How the Rich Dine Out

I went out to eat dinner with my buddy from college. We regularly meet twice a month to keep in touch. Today he said a new restaurant opened up by his house. So we went to check it out. They had valet parking. But we ended up parking across the street from the place ourselves.


When we got in, we did not know what to expect. The guys in front of us had made reservations. It took a while for the hosts to figure out where to put us. The booth had tall privacy curtains if we wanted to use them. We did not.


My buddy opted for a bundled meal. It limited his choices, but also capped the costs. This place was expensive. I had just sold off some stock for a nice profit. So I figured I would not go crazy, but I would also not hold back.


I ordered an 11 ounce filet for my main course. I started with a wedge salad. And I opted to add some sautéed mushrooms on the side. My drink was a coke. Dessert was a raspberry sorbet. By the time I added taxes and tip, my share of the bill was $100. I told my buddy we would not be making this a regular dining choice until we became richer.


This place does have some appeal. The rich rappers talk about dining there. I think famous sports stars eat there too. I was surprised that the place was crowded, especially since it opened recently. All the food was delicious. A bit fancy for my tastes though.

Two for Twelve at Subway

We have been going out to eat on Saturday nights recently. Momoko goes shopping Saturday afternoons. Since Kit Kat is in the dorm, and Little Kat is busy with work and school, Momoko does our Target shopping and grocery shopping. So she is tired by Saturday night.


This week Momoko did not want to dine out. We needed to decided on some take out. Chipotle was no good because my brother did not like it. Little Kat shot down Jerry's Subs and Pizza. We all agreed upon Subway for subs. I told the family they could order whatever they want and I would pay for it.


Kit Kat had to go to work Saturday night. However I asked her if she needed a sub for after work. Indeed she did. So I got her a tuna sub with a lot of vegetables on it. We went to the Subway next to my favorite Chinese food restaurant.


Prices for subs seemed to have gone up there. Subs were like $8. What happened to the five dollar foot long? I did have a surprise at checkout when I paid. They had some two for twelve promotion going on. Two foot long subs costs $12. That's a good deal.


Momoko tried to get a bunch of cookies. But all they had left were some weak leftover ones. So we passed. Little Kat did buy some weird bag of chips. The rest of us just had subs. Momoko and I noticed that the person putting on the toppings accidently put some hot pepper sauce on Kit Kat's sub. Let's hope it did not adversely affect her dining.

Surprise at the Bank

I finally got around to going to the back today. Wanted to cash some checks. The teller told me that she could not cash the one from Little Kat. I asked why not? She said for privacy reasons she could not explain. However she said that Little Kat would know the answer.


I got home and luckily Little Kat had come home from college for lunch. He told me he bought a bunch of computer parts to make his desktop computer operational. In essence, he spent my money. Turns out he just always looks at his current balance to determine how much money he has. He does not account for checks he wrote in the past. Not good.


Hopefully the check did not actually bounce, causing any fees to be assessed against us. Luckily Little Kat and I bank at the same institution. Plus I think the teller gave us a break and just did not push the transaction through. That check would have bounced. Now I have to wait until Little Kat gets paid from work before I can get my money.


Let's hope Little Kat learns his lesson and comes up with a scheme to track his money more accurately.

The Last of the Gerbils

Today the family was scheduled to go out to eat. Little Kat had class late. Momoko needed to work late after school. There was no time for anyone to prepare dinner. That's okay. We have rediscovered a local Italian restaurant. We dine in. The waiter we like has the same initials as me.


I had to work late today too. So when everyone was finally home, I finished up work and thought we would run to dinner. Unfortunately Momoko discovered that our last gerbil had died. She was aged past her prime. She was the last of the four in her litter to go. We could tell she was getting old.


Last night I saw her wanting to come out of the cage. She had trouble jumping up on top of the little house in her cage to signal her desire to come out of the cage. Momoko did bring her out and hand fed her some food. We knew to not let the kids handle her too roughly. She lived a good long life.

Mouse Trapped

I got a hunger right before I went to sleep. So I came downstairs and heated up some mini-burgers in the microwave. I spotted a mouse running across the floor in the library. How did that little guy get in there? No matter. Time to get him out.

I went to my closet downstairs and pulled out the trusty mouse trap. They are disposable. Put on my big garden gloves. Put a piece of cheese on the end and pulled the trap open. I used a grabber tool to set the trap down in the library under the coat rack.

I was startled when the trap went off as I put it on the floor. No trouble. I was holding it with the grabber tool. Pulled the trap back open while the big gloves were on my hands. I texted the family to ensure the gerbil was kept in the cage until the trap had been sprung.

The next morning I got up at 5am. Sure enough, the mouse was caught in the trap. I wrapped it up with 5 or 6 pages of newspaper. Then I wrapped the newspaper up in a couple plastic grocery bags. Finally I put the grocery bags in the trash bag from the trash can and took it outside.

Let's hope this mouse snuck in while the side door was open. I am pegging it a one time occurrence.

Delay of Baseball Game

Some guys at work wanted to see a baseball game together. Sounded good to me. One guy got the tickets. He said he would meet us outside the stadium. This is a relatively new baseball team. I have not seen them live yet. I planned for heavy traffic due to the rain. Took me an hour and a half to get to the stadium.


There was a variety of parking options. All of them were expensive. I chose the cheapest option. That meant I had to walk eight blocks to get to the stadium. I went to the gate that was closest to our seats and waited. The guy who got the tickets was 30 minutes late. But it did not matter. The game start was delayed due to rain.


I had done some research on the food available at the stadium. I told the boys I was going to get a cheesesteak gyro. My ticket gave me five bucks off the exorbitant food prices. It was like getting a free Coke. I headed up to the seats with my meal. I brought a trash bag to sit on to keep the water away from me. I chowed down on the cheesesteak as the sauce dripped down on my good shirt.


The guys never showed up. The game started an hour and 45 minutes late. I checked my phone and found a bunch of messages from the guys. They were too cold and wet to watch the game. They took off. I called them up and said I was staying to watch the game. There was a bunch of people behind me speaking Japanese. I recognized their language. They lasted for three innings.


The visiting team scored four unanswered runs early on. But somewhere in the middle of the game, our team got two home runs back to back. They also scored two other runs that inning to tie the game. Eventually the other team gained the lead. At the seventh inning I decided to call it quits. The rain had got me wet and it was indeed cold. My GPS took me through a bunch of back streets with stop signs.


I got home to find that Kit Kat had already got off work and beat me home.

Yahoo for Email

We finally settled our team for the group project last night in my college class. There were initially three people on our team. But one girl became missing in action. The instructor moved another girl into our team to round out the numbers.


One of our first assignments was to exchange contact information with each other. The kids on my team seemed shocked that I still used Yahoo for email. I asked them what they used. Gmail. They thought I might not even be able to get a job if people found out I still used Yahoo.


Calm down children. Grandpa might use Yahoo for email, but he has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to be valuable for employers.

Cujo Calls

My real estate agent took one look at the circuit breaker at dad's house and declared it dangerous. The circuit breakers sometimes refuse to flip. That's a potential fire hazard. So even though the cost was high, I decided to have an electrician redo the electric service.


The guys put a new breaker box in the basement workshop. Then they went outside to install a new meter. Unfortunately the dogs next door got riled up and were ready to jump the fence. The electricians fled and said they could not return unless the dog situation was resolved.


I asked my brother to talk with the neighbors to see if they could put the dogs indoors. He said he would take care of that on the weekend. Unfortunately I got sick on the weekend. And then my brother said he could not find the neighbors. Must be on vacation.


So here we were the day before the electricians were to arrive. Dogs were still outside. I was still very sick. But I had to power through to get this resolved. I asked my brother to take off the rest of the day from work. We piled a bunch of supplies in the back of his truck and went to dad's house.


After surveying the situation, I figured we could just use some 4x4 lumber and 4x8 plywood to erect a massive barrier where the fence was too low. Of course Cujo was there barking while we were at work. Luckily I had my brother hold up the barrier and we installed they rest of it. Let's hope these electricians do their job on time now.

Cujo Calls

My real estate agent took one look at the circuit breaker at dad's house and declared it dangerous. The circuit breakers sometimes refuse to flip. That's a potential fire hazard. So even though the cost was high, I decided to have an electrician redo the electric service.


The guys put a new breaker box in the basement workshop. Then they went outside to install a new meter. Unfortunately the dogs next door got riled up and were ready to jump the fence. The electricians fled and said they could not return unless the dog situation was resolved.


I asked my brother to talk with the neighbors to see if they could put the dogs indoors. He said he would take care of that on the weekend. Unfortunately I got sick on the weekend. And then my brother said he could not find the neighbors. Must be on vacation.


So here we were the day before the electricians were to arrive. Dogs were still outside. I was still very sick. But I had to power through to get this resolved. I asked my brother to take off the rest of the day from work. We piled a bunch of supplies in the back of his truck and went to dad's house.


After surveying the situation, I figured we could just use some 4x4 lumber and 4x8 plywood to erect a massive barrier where the fence was too low. Of course Cujo was there barking while we were at work. Luckily I had my brother hold up the barrier and we installed they rest of it. Let's hope these electricians do their job on time now.

Toilet Paper Arbitrage

I noticed the toilet paper supplies at home were getting low. Low as in we had two twelve packs left. Momoko gets worried when we do not have a large supply of toilet paper. She complained that the prices were getting out of control. So I took over purchasing.


Now I love to get stuff delivered from Amazon. Same deal with toilet paper. I always look for free shipping. Even better if it is two day shipping. Last time I bought from Amazon, the box came from Walmart. That seemed strange. Why would Walmart use the Amazon storefront? They have their own web site.


This time around, the box came from Walmart again. I looked at the receipt. The cost was a couple bucks cheaper than I remember paying. I looked up my order. Sure enough, the actual price to me was higher. Then I figured it out. Someone is taking advantage of arbitrage here...


So a guy sees that he can buy toilet paper from Walmart for seven bucks. He lists is on sale at Amazon for ten bucks. When someone like me orders from Amazon, he places the same order with Walmart using my address as the shipping address. He pockets the difference in price. Arbitrage.


I thought about this for a second. Could I get the same deal from Walmart? No. I don't qualify for free shipping at Walmart. That would cost extra. So in effect, I am paying a couple extra dollars to make use of some other guy's shipping subscription. I get my toilet paper at the price I agreed upon.


As long as Walmart and Amazon are happy, getting their cuts of the transaction, there should be no losers here. I would think that Walmart might get suspicious if a dude has a free shipping subscription, and keeps changing his destination address. But hey. If Walmart if okay, I am okay. This is business.

Triple Cheeseburger Surprise

I did some shopping for dad's house at lunch. Got a basket strainer, which is the part of the kitchen sink that meets the drain. Also returned some wrong items to Lowes. That took a while. Was busy at work. Wanted to do some more shopping. Just no time.


I finished work a little late. Needed to rush to get to school tonight. But I was set on visiting McDonald's to try the triple cheeseburger sandwich that had returned. Also ordered a small French fries for the road.


Was surprised at the pay window. They told me some guy ahead of me had paid extra money for my meal. No charge for me. It was only 4 or 5 bucks. But still, I was pumped. The triple cheeseburger was delicious too.

Grass Clippings

In the old days, I used to bag up my grass clippings in black hefty plastic trash bags. Then I would put the bags out for trash collection. These days we generate a lot of other trash. That means there is not a lot of room for bags of grass in there.


So I turned to setting the grass out for yard clippings collections which comes once a week. The yard clippings service is free in our county. They now requires that you put grass clippings in paper bags. I started doing that. The problem is when I cut the grass early. The grass ferments and gets nasty. The paper bags can't contain the grass for long.


I tried to put the grass temporarily in plastic trash bags, then transfer it over to paper bags just before yard clippings pickup. That did not work either. The grass got nasty in the plastic bags, and the nastiness came out when I tried to transfer the grass to the required paper bags.


This week I started trying a new technique. I cut the grass and dump it out at the back of my property. I let it air out. I spread the grass around the back of the property. My intention is to rake it all up right before yard clippings collection. I hope the open air and spread out grass will prevent the nastiness before I get rid of the grass.


This should not be this hard. Maybe I should use the mulching option in the mower and just let the grass clipping stay on the lawn. That's what my brother used to do and it seems like it worked.

Robo-Ticket

I got a citation in the mail this week. It was a speeding ticket. Darn the luck. Then I looked closer. They provided pictures that the speeding camera took. It was of a Nissan Titan truck. But my car is a Nissan Versa hatchback. WTF?


Then I looked at the close-up picture of the license plate. The tow hitch on the back of the truck covered up part of the license plate. The numbers that were visible matched my license plate. But you could not see the whole license plate in the picture. What did they do? Randomly ticket everyone with a close match license plate?


Oh hell no. Time to fight this ticket. Especially since Big Brother took a picture of me. I figured I would have to go to court. While I was at it, I might as well request that the officer who used the automated system come to court as well. More fun for all.


Then saner minds prevailed. Nobody has time to go to traffic court. I still did not want to pay the fine. I don't give into extortion so easily. Instead I called up the city that issued the ticket to me. I tried to stick to the fact: license plate obscured, different vehicle model, and a request for dismissal of the charges.


The city agreed with me. All right. The battle is almost won. Now time to craft a letter documenting my phone call with the city, and send it to the city via registered mail. If they screwed up and sent the wrong guy the ticket, what is to say that the do not dismiss the ticket in the end?

Riding on the Metro

My boss called an all hands meeting yesterday. We were to report downtown to one of our buildings to meet. At first I thought I would just wake up early and drive there. But once I saw the directions from MapQuest, I changed my mind. Lots of streets were one way. I figured it would be near impossible to navigate during rush hour. So I took the train.


Prior to arriving at the train station, I dropped by my dad's house. Switched my manual transmission Nissan out for my automatic transmission Scion xB. Then I drove to the train station. I had a train card. Just had not used it in a long time. I had looked up the cost to take the train to the office and back. Now I needed to ensure I had enough money on my train card.


I slide the train card into the slot like I would a credit card. No response. Ended up asking a train stop employee for help. It seems I needed to way my train card in front of the machine. With money added on the card, I went through to the train. It was not that crowded even though it was rush hour. I read my Kindle for part of the way.


When I reached the stop closest to my company building, I got out and figured which exit from the station to take. I knew I was close to the company. I asked a guy with a security uniform if he knew where my company was. He thought it was right behind him. Nope. Wrong address. As I walked down the street, the guy called out to me. I had to go across the square to the other side. Mission accomplished.

Crushed Rock that Blocks

My brother and I continue to work on the yard at my dad's house. Got to spruce it up to sell. We hired a landscaping guy to do a lot of the work. But the last 10 percent is taking a while for us to do ourselves.


Previously we had revamped the mulch work. Had to lay down lots of weed preventing fabric. Covered it up with mulch. We did this in some of the smaller areas this weekend. One tough spot was the front corner of the yard because it was on a hill.


Next up we needed to address the white crushed rock around the shed. The rock looked good. However one of the shed doors would not open. Duh. We removed the white rock, dug down quite a bit, then put the rock back in at a lower height. Problem solved.


Still need to deal with the rear fence gate not opening due to the crushed rock. Then I hope we can move indoors to put some finishing touches in the rooms such as new light switch covers.

Weed Prevention

I woke up extra early on Sunday. My brother drove me to dad's house. He proceeded to go to church. I did a bit of clean up behind the back yard fence in the woods. The last yard contractors left a lot of trash back there. Then I got down to business.


The yard contractors put down mulch in the front and side of the house. Whatever they did was no good. Weed were growing up in the mulch at an alarming rate. We had to redo the work. I thought we could just spray some weed killer, roll out weed prevention fabric, and top it off with new mulch.


I had the fabric spread on about two thirds of the mulch when my brother came back. We proceeded to put mulch in the long garden in front of the house. I made sure I was the one to spread the mulch around the edges. Had to cover the excess fabric with mulch to make it look good. By the time we got to the big section, we were out of mulch.


Ran over to the local Lowes with the truck to get 22 extra bags of black strip wood mulch. We started on the big section. The combination of hard work, sun, and getting up early took its toll on me. I could not work any more. I reluctantly turned the job over to my brother. I had a bad feeling about it.


My brother proceeded to try to put the mulch around the edges. The mulch was falling over onto the sidewalk. At the end, I tried to take a broom to brush the mulch on top of the border back into the mulched areas. However this exposed the weed prevention fabric. It was a big fail. I knew this edging needed expertise, but I was just too tired to do it.


I decided to leave it as is, finish up watering the grass, and return the next weekend. There is no good lesson here other than it is tough work doing landscaping. And you need a certain expertise to get it done right. Even the professional guy were hired screwed it up.

Missing Flight

Little Kat took a vacation to visit his dad. He arranged to get time off from work. He also arranged to get his own plane tickets (with an assist from his dad). To save some money, he did not fly on our normal airline. He went with Spirit. To save even more, he flew to an airport 4 hours south of his dad's place.


Today Little Kat was supposed to fly home. He got to the airport one hour before departure. Little Kat missed his flight. The airline must have felt bad. They gave him a free ticket for the next day. But what was he supposed to do at night? Sleep in the terminal? I thought he should try to catch another flight today. Might require going to another airline and paying more money. But he needs to be home.


Guess the TSA has it right. You are supposed to arrive at least three hours before departure to make sure you can get through all the lines and board your plane with time to spare. Tough lesson to learn. Good luck on your flight back Little Kat. We will be waiting for you at the airport.

Curse of the Cheap Trash Bag

We have found the perfect kitchen trash bags. They are the Glad 13 gallon handle tie trash bags. They are very sturdy. They are also tall to perfectly fit in our trash can. I can stuff a lot of trash into them. The only drawback is that they are expensive and sometimes out of stock. I try to preserve them by using a different bag to double wrap the bag before putting them out for pickup.


Momoko recently bought a knock off brand of trash bag from Target. They were a disaster. First off them are thin and cheaply made. They are the wrong size. So if you put something heavy in the trash can, the bag falls down to the bottom. Then additional trash goes in the can and not the bag.


These cheap bags do not hold as much trash. So I am taking out the trash a lot more often. When I do take out the trash, these bags cannot hold the extra trash I normally top the bags off with. What a nightmare. And we had a ton of these cheap bags. No more. Momoko has to get the good Hefty kind, even if she needs to shop on Amazon or goes to multiple stores.

Hauling Junk Ourselves

I informed my boss that I was leaving work early on Friday. He told me to finish up my current task. So I punched it on the job and finished early. I had Momoko drive me to the local U-Haul rental office. I picked up the box truck that I had reserved. The air conditioning in it was ice cold.


My brother was off work when I brought the truck home. We drove it to my dad's house. Had to get the landscape guy to move his truck out of the way. First we attacked the sleeper sofa from the living room. It was tough because the sleeper kept sliding out until I secured it with rope.


Then we loaded the rest of the couches and some long construction debris. We finished up at dad's house by loading in chairs and other objects that were not long. They were put as far back in the truck as possible.


My brother called ahead and had Momoko and Kit Kat move the cars out of the driveway. I had spent the morning moving all the trash bags from behind the back fence to the driveway. My brother I and loaded them into the truck. The back door barely closed.


The next morning, we drove down to the county dump. Got there 10 minutes before opening. There was already a line of 10 to 15 cars ahead of us. We got sent to a single site. Trash bags got loaded into a dumpster. Most furniture and wood went into a pile. My bro ran the metal to the other pile.


I gassed up back near dad's. Picked up a bunch of items that we needed to transport to my house. There was a surprise when I turned the truck in. They charged me $1.29 a mile, versus the $1.00 that the rep quoted me when I reserved the truck. I was too tired to fight this injustice, but I won't be going back to that store.

Paint Job Sticker Shock

We just about got my dad's house cleaned out. Now it is time to fix it up to get it ready to sell. Landscape changes are coming along. Time to paint the walls. I had my real estate agent line up a painting company to give me a quote.


Showed the company rep what I needed done: all the walls on the main level, most ceilings on the mail level, and the whole basement rec room. Also want one side exterior wall painted, as well as the outdoor hand railing.


There were two rooms that had wallpaper. The estimator said they could not provide a firm fixed price for them based on the varying time it takes to remove wallpaper. The quote came it quick and high. Estimated $13,000+ for the job. Could be more based on the wallpaper situation.


Well I think it is clear we are not hiring this company. Tomorrow I meet with an estimator for another company. Good luck to us.

Search for a Concrete Contractor

I have been searching for a new concrete contractor. Found one rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau. And they are located just down the street. I called them up and scheduled an estimator to come by. A guy named Elvis was supposed to arrive Friday night.


The estimator never showed up. Fail. Later I found that he sent me an email right before the appointment. Hello? Ever heard of the phone. I called him back and eventually got in touch with him. He came over today to see what I needed done.


Elvis said my job was going to be expensive. He kept trying to get me to give him my budget. I told him to tell me his quote, then I would tell him if he was in budget. Turns out he was over budget. Way over budget. His quote was twice the amount of the last contractor.


Next.

Trash Management

One of the last areas I need to clean out of my dad's house is his shed. It is actually a double shed packed with all kinds of things. Going to throw most of it out. So earlier this week, I brought some of my own home's trash cans to help with the effort. I filled up a whopping 5 trash cans and left them out for the collector.


Then I returned on the day of trash collection. Had worked some extra hours at work, so I left early and headed to my dad's house. I found that the trash had not been collected yet. That's okay. I took advantage and bagged up 5 trash bags worth of trash from the sheds and topped off the cans.


Normally I choose not to bag anything because some neighbors go through the trash cans. They tear up the bags and make a mess. However with the trash collection imminent, I decided I was safe. The hard part of the day was figuring out what to do with all the supplies. There were heavy containers I needed to dump out.


Most items I just emptied onto the compost pile. They were bio-degradable. But there was a lot of concrete mix. I decided to make a small drainage wall with the excess. Not sure if the mix was any good. We shall see when I return.


Eventually the trash man came. I filled up the 5 containers once again. Between that and the concrete wall construction, I was beat. I came with a 20 ounce cup of ice water. I refilled it with another 20 ounce bottle of water. Then I chased it with an Orange Crush. I wanted to cut up the recyclables, but I was just too tired. Four to five hours work in the hot and humid weather was enough. I headed home.

Violetta Season 2

Momoko and I have been hooked on this new TV series called Violetta. We powered through season 1 on Netflix. There were a whopping 80 episodes! Each espisode is 45 minutes long. This is a really good show.


The end of season one had Violetta declaring that she did not want to date either Thomas or Leon. We found out that Thomas was returning to Spain. Jade and Mattias got kicked out of Herman's house. And Violetta came clean and told her dad she has been taking music lessons at Studio 21.


Season 2 has introduced us to Diego, who wants to be Violetta's new love. So far Violetta is having none of that. Romalo has returned to work for Herman. A new teacher has arrived at the school. Pablo is long time friends with her, and might be attraced to her.


Gregorio has been dismissed for trying to sabotage a show last season. He is still hiding in the vents in the school. Night janitors and Andrei hear noises and think the school is haunted with ghosts.

Chance at Hamilton

Kit Kat and her friend are heading to New York City to see if they can see the smash hit Broadway musical Hamilton. This show is off the charts and nobody can get tickets (unless you are willing to spend $1000+ on the second hand market). However Kit Kat seems to have found some contest where they are giving away tickets.


Now the odds are slim. Estimates are a 1 in 1000 chance of getting a ticket. But hey. The chance is better than zero. In case they do not get tickets, they will catch another show. This is going to be an all day affair. Kit Kat needs to drive North for about an hour, catch a bus, and be in New York by the late morning. She returns home late at night.


Hamilton seems to be helping the Broadway community. People are going out to see shows, trying to find the next Hamilton. As it stands now, it is nearly impossible to get tickets for the show. The demand is too great. Originally I think tickets were pricey at a couple hundred dollars each. Now they have skyrocketed to a couple thousand.


Personally I imagine the show is good, but not that good. Why not see another Broadway, or even off-Broadway show? Heck

Shady Concrete Contractors

With my brother moving into the house, we need more room to park cars. He has two vehicles. Momoko and I have a couple each as well. So I called the guys that extended my driveway previously. I also figured that I would finally get my sad patio redone at the same time.


I explained what I needed to the estimator that came out. He arrived at a price around $11k. Was a hefty sum. But we would be getting rid of our nasty patio. And we would be getting the driveway room that we needed. So I signed their proposal. Later I called to get my work scheduled.


Some guy from the company called to say he wanted to see in person what they were doing for me. I had him come over and I told him what was contracted. The guy said that the driveway work was okay, but was adamant about not removing my old patio. He just wanted to build a new patio on top of the old.


I told the guy that such a change would lessen the work and materials that they needed to do. So I could only agree to that if there was a price reduction. The guy left without us finalizing the price modification. I called the estimator who initially came out and told him to re-cost the effort. Both guys came back out to discuss this with me.


Apparently they did not want to lower the price. That was fine I told them, as long as we could revert back to the details in our original contract. The second guy who came out did not agree with this plan. He said they could not guarantee the work if they proceeded according to their contract. The wrong time to be making such changes is before we agree on a price and enter into a contract.


Now I find myself having to look for a new concrete contractor. This is a pain because I had made plans and did work around these guys finishing the driveway and patio this week. I now will probably have to get a lawyer to respond to these noobs to protect my interests. Typical shady business practices. Time for a call to the Better Business Bureau.


Maybe I got lucky and avoided a patio fail with this latest revelation.

Shorts Bargains

I have been trying to go shorts shopping with Little Kat for a while. We made it happen yesterday afternoon. Traffic was heavy after work. The light at the first major intersection was out. It should have been easy to navigate since Little Kat was making a right turn. I had to tell him to step on the gas to accelerate in the on ramp.


We arrived at the mall a half hour later. Little Kat parked close to the men's clothing entrance of JC Penny. They seemed to be having some sort of father's day sale. The checkout lines were not too long. We made a direct line towards the big and tall section.


I asked Little Kat if he wanted to try on some Addidas shorts. He said he was boycotting the company. He tried on some Nike and Foundry shorts instead. I thought he might need a 2XL size. ?He said the 1XL fit fine. Little Kat grabbed three from the Foundy, and we proceeded to check out.


I came with two coupons. So I gave Little Kat one of the shorts and some cash to pay with it. I took the other two shorts. The MSRP of the shorts was something ridiculous like $50 a pair. With my coupon, I got them for $15 per pair. The real steal came when Little Kat said he only had to pay $5 for his. Must have been some sort of bank error in our favor.


We hurried home for some cheese nachos for dinner.

Photos of Dad

I found a bunch of 8x11 pictures going through my dad's belongings. They were pictures taken when he received assorted awards on the job. The awards are probably of no consequence any more. But these pictures are good. They are probably from back when dad was in his forties or early fifties at the latest.


These pictures deserved to be hung up. I found some two sided tape that I had. I hung all the pictures in a row above my diplomas in my study. Since dad was in the Army, the awards were presented by military guys. Dad is smiling pretty good in most of the pictures.


While standing up on my desk chair, affixing the pictures to the wall, I was reminded of an earlier time. When I was in high school, I used to hang magazine pictures on my bedroom wall. I think I might have used two sided tape back then too. Guess some habits stick with you.

Water Leakage

We had some trouble when all the family visited for Little Kat's graduation. Water was dripping down into the kitchen from above. We had trouble like this before when water splashed out of the shower. This time it turned out to be a leaky toilet.


Water was dripping out from the back of the toilet in the kids bathroom. A Tupperware placed behind the toilet helped some. But we struggled to keep up with emptying it. Too late and the water would drip down to the kitchen again. I am sure we have some damaged wood between the floors.


A plumber tried to tighter some bolts to stem the flow of water. No dice. We needed a new toilet. Little Kat and I took the shelf that hangs over top of the toilet out of the bathroom. That was tricky because it had to be partially disassembled to get out of the bathroom.


Today I had a busy schedule. Went to dad's house to take in the trash cans. Visited the customer site to get back my badge and turn in my laptop for an upgrade. Hurried home to meet the plumber at the house. We did get that new toilet. It has a funky handle to flush the thing. But it looks very clean.

Yard Work Fatigue

Today is the day I normally do yard work. I had to wait until after our family scheduling meeting to start. Had some bags left over from last week that I needed to deal with. They had become nasty because the county did not collect yard clippings last week. So I re-bagged them.


I struggled to get the front yard grass cut. Every time I had to empty the grass catcher on the lawn mover, I needed to take a break. Think I am still suffering from my illness of the last few weeks. I needed to get all the grass cut.


So I took frequent breaks. Sometimes I went into the house to cool down. Once I put the cool water from the hose over my head. I drank a lot of iced fluids. Good thing I powered through though. The rain came down hard just about when I was finishing. I got soaked but finished my work.


I hope I get my strength back. I used to have no problems spending a couple hours out in the yard doing work. Sure I would be tired. But I would not have to take breaks and get winded so easily.

Little Kat Graduates

Had to wake up extra early. Little Kat's graduation commencement was an early one. Kit Kat had spent the night at her dad's hotel to drive him to the ceremony. I had to drive some of Momoko's family. My brother took the day off work to celebrate.


Momoko found out traffic was bad on the highways. So we took the back roads. Momoko parked in handicap parking. We found a lot to park in as well. It was empty, but the sign said it was for the ceremony. We walked up a steep hill to meet Momoko at the entrance she was near.


We decided to walk in and get the closest seats to the entrance. They were high up in the air. We could see Kit Kat across the massive auditorium. I saw banners from prior basketball stars at the college. Little Kat was on the big screen as he walked to the great hall.


Some family came and sat right next to me. They had a small kid that was flailing around. We are all the way up in the cheap seats alone, and someone sits directly next to me? A member of the board of education gave a short commencement speech. A classmate of Little Kat that survived cancer was chosen to share her story as well.


Little Kat sent us a selfie. We were amazed at how many students were graduating too. So many rows of students. I heard Little Kat's last name. But it was not him. The recipients were a bit out of alphabetical order. It was easy to see Little Kat because he was so tall.


Afterwards we all met at the house, then went to the Grande Buffet. There were tour buses full of other folks at the buffet. We charged on and got a big table to sit at. I had printed out some coupons for discount buffet it we buy a drink. Little Kat had his sushi and a strange flavored mousse.


I needed to go to my doctor. So I missed the opening of Little Kat's gifts. I gave him some shot glasses that looked like bullets. Also gave him a pistol crossbow. Afterwards, Little Kat and Kit Kat left the house to spend a couple days with their dad while he was in town.

Printer Problems

Our printer started having problems this week. The printer would either jam up while printing, or get confused thinking that some paper jammed. Either way the thing was unreliable. I figured the best thing to do would be to replace it.


This printer has been a workhorse. Lasted four years. We print often. The black and white toner is not too expensive if I buy off brand. It also scans if you set it up correctly. At first I thought I would just purchase the same model.


After some research, I found out that the company updated the printer and has a new model. I was going to purchase one from Amazon. However due to the holiday weekend, it would take four days to get here.


Instead I decided to pick one up from the local Staples store. The Internet site said they had one unit in stock in my local store. I went by today and found it. Was a bit suspicious because the box was taped up with store tape. I bought it anyway.


It got more suspicious when I opened the box and found that somebody took the toner cartridge out of the plastic wrap and installed it in the printer. They also installed some printer paper and left it in there. Felt like a refurbished unit.


However I did not let that get in the way. If it worked, I would be happy. The software install and configuration was not straightforward. But I got it working on my laptop and on the family computer. Now we need the rest of the family to gain the ability to print and scan to it.


After this relatively positive experience, I might upgrade our other black and white laser printer. It is always good to have a strong working backup.

Up Early for Serviceman

I had to wake up really early today. Had an appoint for a final inspection on our gas oven install. The inspector could show up any time, as early as 7:30am. I also had arranged for a technician to come out to figure out why our air conditioning was not working. He was scheduled to come out in the afternoon.


Watched Pawn Stars on cable while waiting for the guys to arrive. The A/C guy called up and asked if he could come by early. I said come on. He diagnosed the problem from the outdoor unit. It had blown some fuses. While he was here, he also topped off my Freon.


The A/C guy said my unit was 22 years old. He said the normal life expectancy for such units is 15 years. Going to be time to replace that bad boy soon. Estimated cost starts at $4000. I was just happy that the A/C was working again in our house. Had not got a good night sleep for a few days due to the heat.


The inspector for our oven came later in the morning. Everything was good and we passed. After he left, I mailed a check to my handyman for the gas line and stove install. Now I need to get our master bedroom window unit replaced. It is just not cooling our room that well any more. Already purchased a window unit with 50% more BTU.

Steakhouse Super Fail

Momoko did a marathon shopping spree at Sam's Club with her mom and dad. So she was tired at dinnertime. I proposed we eat out at places I liked such as the all you can eat Chinese place, or maybe Roy Rogers. Momoko decided we should go to the local steakhouse.


The steakhouse used to be an Outback. But they moved out and another chain moved in. Initially they were similar to Outback. They had some reasonable prices. First thing we noticed was that they changed the menu. Everything was pricier. At least I had a coupon.


Momoko ordered a steak salad. Everyone else's food arrived. Momoko's was missing. She ate dinner rolls. Pretty much everyone finished their meals. Still no sign of Momoko's salad. When it eventually came a half hour later, she asked them to wrap it up to go.


Momoko's dad complained about this and a host of other problems. A manager said she would take care of it. They did not charge us for the salad. And they gave us an additional 25% off. Still not sure if we are going to return there. Bad service is a no-no in my book. No excuse really. Because although we were a large party, the restaurant was almost empty.


Might be time to return to the Outback.

Working While Sick

I have been sick for almost two weeks. I am getting better. Last week, I could not even work. Had to take the whole week off. The rain has not stopped while I was sick. Thus the grass is growing like crazy. When the grass gets tall, it is doubly hard to mow. You got to stop frequently to dump the grass catching bag.


Yesterday I decided I needed to step up and do some mowing. At lunch I went outside with the best intentions. I was barely able to get the front yard done. Only did a little weed trimming. Had to take several breaks as I just could not keep going. I was near the breaking point when I was done.


Since I was sweating profusely, I needed to take a shower. But I was beat. Almost too tired to even shower. I decided to take a really quick shower before I passed out. The hard part was that I could not go to sleep. Needed to get back to my job. At least the house was cool. I grabbed an A&W soda and got back to the computer.


Next up, I need to tackle the back yard. It is even bigger than the front yard. And it needs a lot more weed trimming work. Might have to break that task down into multiple days. We shall see.