Breaking Dawn

Kit Kat wanted to see the final installment of the Twilight movies when it came out. However for once she did not go to the movies with her friends. They don't take Twilight seriously. Momoko capitalized on this and scheduled for the family to go to the movies today.

We like to go to the theater at the mall. But it is so crowded and expensive. The way to beat the crowds is to go early. The family was scheduled to see the 10:00am show. Ouch. I have been busy the last couple days and wanted to finally sleep in. I planned to pass on this movie.

To save even more money, Momoko suggested that the family eat breakfast before going to the theater. The theater food is terribly expensive. A departure time for breakfast was set at 8:45am. I noticed that Momoko was still asleep at 8:20am. So I woke her up. For some reason, she blamed me for oversleeping. Little Kat was still asleep as well.

Since I was up, Momoko talked me into going to the movies with the family. We hardly ever have time for all of us to see movies together. So I went. There was some delay in getting out of the house. Kit Kat and I were in the car waiting for the rest of the family to get out.

We went to Chick-fil-a for breakfast. Their drive through line was long but quick. I had never been to breakfast there before. I learned that their hash browns are actually has rounds (or cicrular tater tots). I ate in the car on the ride over to the theater. So I got out and purchased the tickets as Momoko and Kit Kat finished their food in the car.

Once we were all in the building and entering our theater, I noticed that I had lost my new iPhone 5. Ouch. Kit Kat let me borrow the keys to the car. Luckily my phone had fallen down on the car floor. Whew. All I can say about the movie is that there was a trick near the ending that had the whole theater gasping. No spoilers here though.

The iPhone 5

I am on vacation this week. So I finally had a chance to set up my new iPhone 5 phone. It has been a few years since I got my previous iPhone. That one was the iPhone 3GS. Although it was a few models behind the latest iPhone 5, it seemed to do the job fine. I got the new phone mainly because we pay a high monthly cell phone fee. Built into that fee is the ability to upgrade to a new phone every 2 years at a highly discounted rate. It was time to take advantage of the discount.

First I connected my old iPhone to the computer. The iTunes software automatically recognized it and started syncing the data. I saw my new apps fly by. I figured they must have been automatically transferred to my computer. Great. Next I tried to activate the new iPhone. That required some contact info from Momoko that I did not have. Luckily I was able to track down Momoko and get the secret info.

I rebooted the iPhone 5. Then I had to wait a while as they registered my service with the new phone. After a short wait, I could make calls with the new phone. I tested out Dragonvale, my favorite iPhone app. It seemed to be zippier with the new phone. Gave movement was much more responsive. Then I tried to launch my new favorite game Gizmonauts. But I could not find it. In fact, all of the new apps I recently installed were missing from the iPhone 5. But I synced it with my PC.

That's when it hit me. The darn iTunes must not have synced up the recent apps to my computer. Darn you Apple. Luckily I only download free apps for my phone. I only had to download Gizmonauts to my new iPhone 5. There were a bunch of other new apps that did not make it over to the new phone as well. I will have to deal with them later. Time to enjoy Gizmonauts on the new iPhone 5.

Introducing the iPad Mini

Yesterday I was in the middle of a business phone call at work. I head someone knocking on the front door. I had to ignore whoever was knocking. Business comes first. And when I am home working on my job, that is the top priority. Later I came up and saw a note from the Fed-Ex guy. Guess we had a package that required signing.

I told Momoko that I missed the Fed-Ex guy. She said this was most likely her iPad Mini in the mail. I gave her the slip from the Fed-Ex guy. She signed it, stating that she wanted the package left at the door even if nobody was home. Today I heard some noise upstairs. No knock or doorbell ringing. It was just a weird noise.

I came up immediately. In the distance, I saw the Fex-Ex guy driving away. There was a small box tucked inside our screen door. This turned out to be Momoko's iPad Mini delivery. The thing seems bigger than I thought it would be. Appears larger than a Kindle from Amazon. However it feels very light. Maybe that is because it is so thin.

Momoko immediately plugged the device in for charging. She set up the Internet connection, downloaded all her apps onto it, and was good to go. Now every night there is an iPhone, iPad, and iPad Mini on Momoko's night stand. Let's just hope the thing doesn't make any noise and wake me up before it is time.

Goal Achieved

Little Kat asked whether we would get him a GameFly membership. GameFly is kind of like the Netflix for video games. You go online and put games you like in your queue. Then they will send you a game. You keep it as long as you want. When you return your game, they will choose another from your queue, and mail it to you.

I really like Netflix. We watch a lot of movies from Netflix. I figured GameFly might be a good idea. However it does cost a minimum of $16 a month. Little Kat does not get that such a bonus for nothing. It needs to be earned. So I told Little Kat that I would get him the basic GameFly membership if he got at least a 3.0 GPA on his report card. I also told him that he could get a better membership if he gets a 3.5 GPA on his report card.

Today Little Kat presented me with a paper copy of his report card for the first quarter. The guy actually got better than a 3.0 GPA. I credit Momomoko making Little Kat do all this work in the last 2 weeks of the first quarter. However a deal is a deal. I had Little Kat bring down his laptop. And we signed him up for GameFly.

We set it up so the games comes addressed to Little Kat in the mail, but the bills come to me. Little Kat is now loading up his queue with all these cool games. He also has to order the games in his queue to ensure the best ones come first. Ahhh. The fun of having a game membership. This is timely since Little Kat just started complaining about not having new games to play.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake

Kit Kat and Little Kat are responsible for our grocery shopping. They normally visit the grocery store on Sunday afternoons. If anyone from the family needs something specific, we put it on the grocery list on the fridge. Momoko had just one request this week. She wanted some cake.

I knew we were in trouble when the kids came back from grocery shopping. They forgot the cake. Momoko tried to make do by eating some pound cake we had. But it was not the same. She really had her heart set on some coconut and/or chocolate cake. Then yesterday Little Kat exclaimed that we had run out of dishwashing detergent. That was just the thing Momoko needed to make the kids return to the grocery store and get that cake.

In other news, I have had my ancienct iPhone 3GS for a long time. Finally the phone company said I was eligible for an upgrade. I feel like they cheated me our of 6 months (you are supposed to be eligible for an upgrade every 2 years). However I did not argue. The iPhone 5 just came out. I ordered one and received it last week.

I charged up my new iPhone 5. But I have not switched over to it yet. Been too busy. Did not want there to be a problem and find myself without a cell phone. I need this thing for work and my college class. Perhaps I can slip the switch over in sometime this week.

Disposal Failure

Little Kat had dish duty today. He came and told us that the garbage disposal was not working. That was suspicious. Kit Kat and Little Kat just cleaned out one of our fish tanks. They have a tendency to let small pebbles from the fish tank go down the disposal and clog it up. Momoko interrogated Kit Kat. She said that the disposal stopped working. Her excuse was that she was going to bring it up during family meeting night.

First we directed Little Kat to clean out the disposal. He was worried that the disposal would turn on as soon as he got removed item blocking it. We told Little Kat to go downstairs to cut the power to the disposal. He did not know which circuit breaker switch killed the power to the disposal. This was an easy problem to solve. I told Little Kat to kill main power switch to the house.

Little Kat brought down our most powerful flashlight. Then he flipped the main switch. All the lights went out in the house. We could hear the gerbils running around alarmed that it got dark. The power supply to our Internet hardware was beeping because no electricity was being fed to it. Little Kat tried to clear the disposal. He failed.

Kit Kat had to get in there. The problem was compounded because Little Kat tried to put all the food down the drain, expecting the disposal to chop it up. That food got extracted first. Then the kids got a partial pebble out from the disposal. They should have done that long ago. Unfortunately the disposal was still not functional.

I had the kids climb under the sink and check the dispoal for any reset buttons. Sometimes devices like this have a switch which pops like one on a GFE power outlet. Little Kat found a red switch on the bottom of the disposal. When he pressed it, the disposal came on. $200 service call avoided.

Kit Kat's Night Out

It is hard to keep up with Kit Kat. She is always on the go with her friends on the weekends. Today Kit Kat and two girlfriends went to see the movie Wreck-It-Ralph. One of her friends brought her little sister. Another acquiantance of Kit Kat's tagged along too.

Kit Kat returned home in time for our weekly scheduling meeting. The family goes over the schedule for the whole week on Saturday's at 8pm. We figure out who is cooking each night, and what they are cooking. We also figure out all the activities for the whole family during the week.

We had to hurry up our meeting. We started late because I was stuck watching a long DVD before the meeting. I felt rushed because Kit Kat planned to go out again at night. She was tagging along with a friend and an acquintance to go duckpin bowling.

Kit Kat said she owned the duckpin bowling lanes, winning most of the games during the night. A guy in the group tried to talk Kit Kat into joining his duckpin bowling league. Silly boy. Kit Kat is way to busy for such diversions. She politely declined him.