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.