Too Much Snow

The weathermen predicted snow. For once they were right. Momoko thought we got around 25 inches. I figure we may have had more. People I talked with from work said they had more like 30 inches.


The family rallied to clear our large driveway. Luckily my brother moved in already and could help. He is physically fit and experienced at shoveling. It took us three rounds to clear out the driveway.


A snow plow came half way down our street and then took off. The boy across the street had an industrial strength snow blower. He blew a path from his house to where the plow gave up. The family went out this afternoon and dug a path from our driveway to the snow blower path.


My brother, Little Kat, and I took a drive in my bro's 4 wheel drive vehicle. The streets were plowed narrowly. At the end of my street, some dingbat was shoveling snow in the middle of the street and listening to music. On the way home we had to beep the horn to get her out of the way.


After wrapping up work, I went with my bro to his old house to clear the path for the mailman. That was light work. We figure there was around 18 inches of snow there. Some truck got stuck in front of my brother's street and it took 30 minutes for him to get out. Amateurs.

Family Computer

Little Kat seems to have bad luck with computers. He drop laptops. His friends seem to get his laptops banged up. Water gets into his system. And the machine quits working. Momoko asked if we could get a family computer. I saw an ad for a Dell desktop computer with Windows 7. I went for it.


This desktop is powerful. It has 8GB of RAM. And 1 TB of disk space. Inside there is a an Intel i3 processor. It might be more powerful than any PC we have in the household. I just need to put Microsoft Office on it, set up the printers, and we are off to the races.


The key for longevity will be to keep it on Momoko's desk. Everyone can use it. I hope by not handling it over to Little Kat that it lasts longer than a year or so.

Carpet Install Issues

Installers came to put new carpet in my basement today. They said they needed to remove the shoe molding. This is a 1/4 inch wood at the bottom of the molding just off the floor. Removing it was fine by me. But then the carpet guys said they could not put the molding back in when they were done.


I ended up calling the owner of the carpet store where I purchased the carpet. This is really quite simple. They got to install carpet. They can remove anything in their way as long as they put it back when they are done. Haven't these guys ever heard the Boy Scout motto? Leave the place the same or better as how you found it.


Luckily the carpet store owner decided pay the installers to put the shoe molding back after the install. That this even came up is pretty astonishing to me. This job should have been an easy one. I moved all the furniture out of the room prior to them arriving.

Bob's Discount Furniture

Last year I bought a couch with built-in recliners for our living room. We chose one that had power recliners on each end. Momoko initially complained that her side had problems coming back from the reclined position. A service tech came out but could not fully fix the problem. We ended up getting a replacement couch.


The replacement was worse than the original. First the center cushion caved in. Then Kit Kat's side of the couch would not come out of the reclined position. Two service techs came out but the couch is still a big failure.


On the most recent visit, I spoke on the phone with a rep from the company. She said the center cushion issue was a normal wear and tear problem, and there was nothing that could be done. Now I know wear and tear. This was certainly not it. This was a manufacturing defect no doubt. I told the rep this was unacceptable. I needed to speak to management.


Later in the week I did get a call back from management. I explained how the cushion could not be wear and tear by any stretch of the imagination. I also told them I was tired of having techs come out and patch a couch that continues to have severe problems.


The result of that conversation is that we are getting store credit to choose another couch. Let's hope it is not a lemon too.

Steep Hills

I had my brother's truck over my house. It was here because we had just visited the motor vehicles administration and transferred the title to my brother's name. I told my brother I would drop it off at his house on the weekend.

Little Kat and I took the truck to my brother's house. We parked it in front and then switched to my Nissan Versa. I showed Little Kat the neighborhood while driving around. Then I went to my elementary school parking lot and we switched places.

Little Kat took the wheel and started to drive around. He was nervous because it was a new environment. Previously we had only been driving in our own neighborhood. Also there were a bunch of steep hills and speed bumps all over the place.

One time someone came behind us. Little Kat took a right turn to evade the chaser. We ended up on a steep cul de sac. Little Kat stalled at the top of the hill as he tried to switch gears. He got the car started, but misjudged the space he had to turn around. He was in trouble.

Little Kat tried to back the car up. But we were on a steep hill. I had him put on the emergency brake. I took the wheel and got him out of the jam. Then I went back up the cul de sac and showed him where he made his mistakes.

It was a rough but productive thirty minutes of Little Kat driving my manual transmission Nissan. After driving practice, we visited my brother where we started cleaning up the place. We filled a 30 gallon heft bag worth of trash and took it away. This might be out new Sunday tradition.