Sliding Glass

We have an old sliding glass door that connects the kitchen to the patio outside. These days we do not use the door. The inside portion of it is obstructed by a large shelf and our full size freezer in the kitchen. The door has double pane glass. The outside glass pane got cracked a few years ago.

I meant to get it fixed. However my handyman said he could not repair it. He could only replace it for some big bucks. He recommended I have a glass company replace the glass in the door. That's what I did. Had the local glass and mirror shop order the window. It was a non-standard size. The glass came in this week.

Had some trouble with the scheduling of the install. The guy called me yesterday. I told him I would be available today. He promised to call me back. However when he called me back, he forgot about our conversation yesterday. We set up a time for the installer to come by. Then he calls me back 10 minutes later and tries to switch up the times. No can do.

The installer arrived at the set time. I needed to prepare by taking everything out of the big shelf. Also needed to move the shelf and freezer out of the way. That exposed a nasty back wall that had to be cleaned. Then I cleared the stuff off the patio that obstructed access from the outside.

The guy who came was optomistic that he could finish the job in an hour. I continued to work on my computer while he did his business. The sliding door was taken off and moved outside to work. The kitchen started to heat up as there was a huge open door to the patio. Flies also decided to come in the house.

I heard some groans outside. Guess this was harder than the installer thought. Later he told me it was difficult to remove the glass from the old window. It was wedged between the frame of the door. Ha. I had the same problem when I tried to remove most of the broken glass before someone got hurt. I compensated by putting up duct tape to cover the exposed jagged glass.

Now that the sliding glass door is fixed, I need to move onto the stoop just outside the door. It has been sinking since we bought the house. I just saw an ad where they can deal with such problems by jacking up the concrete and filling the space below. Maybe I will give them a call.

The Real Test

It is 1:30am. Momoko and the kids have gone to bed. I have done my laundry. I have just paid the bills. I want to go to bed. It would be nice to sleep on our soft pillow top bed. But that would be the easy route. It is time to push through the fatigue and study for my college class.

Nelly says that now is the time to demonstrate the heart of a champion. It is when nobody else is looking. You are in pain. You got a choice to make. Are you going to take the easy route and quit? Or are you going to push through the pain to train? Only champions make the sacrifice and choose the pain.

Sing it Nelly: Easy work is worthless. My work habit is not a habit man. I do it on purpose. I push myself to my limit so my talent is surfaced...

Checking out the Lake

I wanted to go bike riding with my friend. So we decided to meet half way between both our houses at the lake. To tell the truth, I had not been to the lake in about 20 years. Momoko said it was still there. In fact, the area around it was built up some more.

Little Kat and I scoped the place out today. I packed my truck up with two bikes. Gave Little Kat the directions and he navigated me to the lake. As we approached the lake town, Little Kat declared that the place did not look too good.

Sure. We had to cross an industrial area to get to the lake. And the lake is in an old part of town. Things were looking up as soon as we rode our bikes out of the parking lot and past the gated entrance to the lake.

I felt the burn in my legs as we rode up a long hill beside the lake. Little Kat complained. We passed a walked and then Little Kat said we should take a break. I was disappointed that we lost momentum. But I gave in. Eventually the walker started to catch up with us. Time to get back to moving.

Half way down the lake, we rode across a bridge as a short cut to the other side. Luckily the path did not have much of an incline over on the other side. We rode back to the car and packed up. This was just a scouting mission.

Little Kat kept talking about restaurants where he could get a big drink on the way home. He helped me scope out the lake. So I stopped by McDonald's to get him a large sweet tea. It was only a dollar. I wonder how my next trip to the lake will go.

Unexpected Air

I visited dad's house today. Worked in his basement during the morning. Then I went out to pick up some Chinese for lunch. I took the long way around to get to the Chinese food place. It was already crowded early, maybe becuase it was Friday.

After getting my meal, I started to head home. Normally I jump on the expressway and get off after one exit to return to dad's. However I have found that the expressway jams up with traffic even at lunch time. Instead I decided to take the back way home to dad's.

There was just one problem. Coming out of the Chinese restaurant parking lot, I would need to make a left turn on a busy road. Sure enough there were cars lined up on the road. I spotted any opening between two cars. There was traffic on the other side of the road I needed to dodge. I spotted an opening both ways and I punched it to make the left.

I was doing a fist pump in my car as I accelerated hard into the left to make sure oncoming traffic would not come up on my too fast. Then I noticed something wrong. The far right side of the road I was driving on had some trouble. The pavement was buckled up forming a launch ramp. I was going fast right towards it.

For a second I contemplated hitting the brakes. But that may have caused more harm than good. So I braced for impact. The car launched into the air. I knew I caught air because I felt and heard the contents in the back of the car go airborn and land back down with a thud. The car survived. I just don't want to do any more Dukes of Hazzard impersonations like that any more.

Lot on my Mind

This morning I came out and found the trash cans put away. I figured Kit Kat got up early and brought the cans back in from the curb. Good for her. Something was bugging me though. Something in the back of my mind. I inspected the trash cans and found them still full of trash.

Then I figured it out. I must not have even put the cans out on the curb the night before. That is not like me. We have lived in the house 10 years or so. I don't think I have ever missed a trash day. This is a reflection on my state of mind this week, or more specifically yesterday.

Yesterday I was trying to finish up a big job at work. Lot of details to attend to. I also mowed the lawn at lunch. That was taxing because it was hot outside. Then after work I ran to night school, where I spent a few hours in class. This was the first day of the fall semester. The class ran late. Guess with all the commotion I forgot to take out the trash.

No harm. The trash is collected twice a week here. I think I just need a mental break to get my mind and life back on track. Vacation time maybe?

Last Minute School Prep

Momoko informed me that Little Kat needed a new hoodie for school. This is a bit late. Little Kat and I spent a few weeks purchasing clothes for the start of school. I ended up cutting my brother's weekly visit short so Little Kat and I could go shopping.

We were going to go to Walmart, where I like the low prices. Little Kat said he preferred Target. He drove us to the local Target. We found a hoodie that he liked. It was gray and black. On the way back home, I screamed for Little Kat to stop the car. He was headed straight or another car that had the right of way. Little Kat was slow to stop. We almost bit it.

Momoko also found out late that Little Kat wanted a new type of backpack. In fact, he wanted a messenger bag. He searched and chose what he called the largest messenger back available on Amazon. It got delivered the day before school started. Unfortuantely it was a tiny bag. I call it a satchel. It is the same size as a medium woman's purse.

Yesterday I went down the list of action items for Little Kat to get ready for school. I told him to put his ID and laniard by his bag. Little Kat assured me he could hang it on his door. He explained that it was his natural routine to take it off the door when he got dressed each morning. Of course the slacker forget his ID today. Next time I will make sure Little Kat does what I say. Time to stop entertaining ideas from the cheap seats.

Guitar Hero

I have been woring with a friend from school all summer to produce a video game. Well it is just a retro arcade game from the eighties. But there was value in developing it. To celebrate, I asked my friend to come over my house. She came this weekend with her sister.

My brother always comes over my house on the weekends. So the four of us (my brother, my friend, and her sister) went to pick up some take up. We used the GPS to find a Filipino store close to Momoko's school. Turns out it is located next door to the karate dojo that Kit Kat and Little Kat attended when they were young.

We brought a couple dishes home. Some foods were tame like an Asian pasta. Other foods were weird like the one that is called blood. I skipped that one. Then there were an assortment of weird desserts. I tried a few of them. None were as delicious as the Chinese doughnuts I love to eat.

After dinner, my friend broke out her guitar. She had metioned going to the guitar store to buy a new one. I thought she meant an acoustic guitar. Nope. She produced an eletric one complete with amplifier. I made her take it downstairs so she would not blow out our gerbils on the main level.

My friend had a whole song book for me to choose from. I opted for the old school "All Out of Love" by Air Supply. I also chose some other pop song by Avril Lavigne. My friend's sister strung the guitar and tuned it. I did not expect much, but my friend was actually pretty good at guitar.