Wooden Platform

I work out in the yard and generate a lot of yard clippings. Also collect a ton of leaves in the fall. I bundle all this stuff up into tall 30 gallon paper bags. The county comes to pick them up once a week. While I am waiting on the county, I keep the bags behind my house.

Initially I put together a makeshift platform to store the bags on top of. This was placed under the overhang from the house, just outside our sliding glass door. It was a bit tough as the hill slopes down there. So I piled up some 4x4 wood to level a piece of plywood. This was only 2 feet deep. So not a lot of room for anything.

My makeshift platform was in place for a surprisingly long time. This past weekend I decided to put in the permanent replacement. I got a couple of cinder blocks to level out the slop on the hill. Then I nailed together two halves of a platform I saved from my dad's house. This used to be the platform that Christmas decorations would be displayed on top of. It is repurposed now.

Finals Week

It is time for final exams for Little Kat at school. This is the semester where he has a lot of oversight from Momoko. He has to. Last semester he has to sit out of school because he was suspended due to poor grades. Time to make up for past failures.

Film class has been giving Little Kat the most trouble. People he knew allegedly said film was an easy class. They must have had a different instructor. Momoko was on top of things, forcing Little Kat to start his final project for film early. It still required an assist from Kit Kat to get her friend to star in Little Kat's final project story.

Today Little Kat took his final exam in film. He is treading water, trying to maintain a B average. He is barely hanging in there. Last week he was at an overall grade of C. The final project helped some. But a lot of points rides on this exam. Little Kat came down to us multiple times during the exam complaining about difficult questions. Not a good sign.

Robinhood Stock Trading

I had made a ton of stock option trades with my traditional broker. The problem is that they charge a commission per contract. Sometimes I want to buy a boatload of contracts. This has cost me as high as $300 in fees. And that is just on the buy. You got to sell and pay again as well.

So I am wondering about this company called Robinhood. They claim to offer stock trades with no commission costs. Sounds too good to be true. Of course they have to make money somehow. I am thinking they might not give me the best trade execution price.

My broker always tries to get my the best price when I buy or sell. That saves me money, especially when a lot of shares are at stake. So I just got to make sure I put in the right limit prices with Robinhood. Then in theory, I should be able to spend less money in transaction costs. That should result in bigger gains.

The only drawback is to get the free trades, you got to accept electronic confirmations of your trades. I like getting paper confirmations in the mail. It is not that Robinhood won't provide you with those. You just got to pay. That defeats the whole purpose of trading for free.

Webtoons

I read an article about Korean webtoons taking over the manga world. This is surprising as Japan has be the dominant player in manga. The webtoons are online versions of manga. They are always in color. And they are read vertically so as to make reading on a mobile phone or tablet much easier.

So I checked out a popular webtoon called True Beauty. The main character is a girl who things she is ugly. This leads to her not being popular at school. She learns to use makeup to maximize her look. All of a sudden, she gets friends and starts to gain attention with the boys.

I read through 39 episodes of True Beauty. The graphics were good. Story and character development were on point. Only problem is now I have to wait for new episodes that are only released once a week on Wednesdays.