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.