We are PCs

Today Momoko said she saw an advertisement for a laptop. The cost was $299. She asked if that was a good price. Kit Kat and my laptops went for $279. So the one being advertised was close. Momoko decided to go for it. Her school is changing from Mac to PC. She needs the practice at home now.

I worked out in the yard cutting grass for about three hours today. It was a tough heat. By the time I came in, I was ready to pass out. Luckily I drank a lot of fluids so I did not die. I did take a nap after a nice shower. Momoko comes in and tells me she got the laptop. Good news. The price was $279. Even better than $299.

Now Momoko is setting up her laptop. We just need her to use the darn thing instead of the Mac that she is used to. Microsoft, Intel, and the PC continue to take over the world.

Breakfast Surprise

Momoko woke us up early to take advantage of the hotel hot breakfast included in the room price. They had bacon, eggs, and hash browns in a big hot plate. I was delighted to see that they had hot sauce for me to put on the hash browns. There was also all you can drink juice. I started with cranberry, then went to apple.

Kit Kat ate the hot breakfast. She also had other things like cereal, a danish, and an apple. I supplemented my hot breakfast with a bagel plus cream cheese. This was a great deal. Momoko liked that it did not cost any extra than the room price already paid. It was a good thing that Momoko got us up early. By the time we left, the breakfast area was getting crowded. Tomorrow I might check out the waffle maker.

Bearly

I hurried through my tasks at work today. We planned to take a couple hour drive to visit another college for Kit Kat. I tried to get the family to eat lunch at my favorite pizza place. I was outvoted. So Momoko treated us to Chinese food.

The traffic was not bad for the road trip. We had to pass over many mountains. The car, like others, struggled to climb the steep inclines. I got up early so I was dozing off in the car. Momoko and Kit Kat started talking about some animal on the side of the road. At first they could not identify it. Then they realized it was a young bear. It was the first bear we ever saw outside of the zoo. Whew. The bear wanted to come on the highway. But it changed its mind.

We did a dry run by campus before the tour. It felt small. You could not drive through the heart of campus. Most roads were one way. There were lots of restricted parking lots. For dinner Momoko found a Western Sizzler. I thought this was like the Sizzler restaurants we used to have. Nope. Turns out it is more like the old Ponderosa. Tomorrow we return to campus for the tour.

Getting Lucky

The permit office rejected my drawings for the driveway addition we are planning. They recommended I hire a surveyor to prepare the proper documentation. It was going to cost me around $500 to get this done. I was bummed.

I had a copy of a survey done for a previous owner. The permit office said that survey was skewed. Momoko recommended that I contact the original surveyor to get a copy of the orignal. They were on the Internet. So I called them up. For a nice $25 they would send me some copies. Yes.

I just got the docs today. Now I see what went wrong. I had a copy on a normal 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. The originals were on long 8.5 x 14 paper. Now I am ready to go back and get my permit approved.

Finances and Dorms

I told Momoko we needed to visit the financial aid booth at the University of Deleware open house. The cost for Kit Kat to live on campus, eat at the dining halls, and attend university is $40k per year. We will need muchos help to get that bill paid. It was a long walk to the financial aid booth. We took a couple breaks in the middle.

I learned a lot about the specifics of paying for college there. We need to apply to the college by December 1st for them to consider merit scholarships for Kit Kat automatically. We also need to need to fill out a FAFSA form by February 15th to see what kind of financial aid we can get. We can also look at third party scholarships online.

After financial aid, we ate some university produced ice cream. Then we took a bus back to the parking garage. The bus driver was too fast and too furious. It was still better than walking. We finished up our open house experience by visiting one of the dorms. Girls and boys live "together" in the dorms. They do not share rooms or bathrooms. But they can be living across the hall or next to each other. The room we saw was nice. It better be for $40k a year.

Heat Wave

Kit Kat's alarm did not go off on Saturday morning. Luckily Momoko had a backup alarm set. Kit Kat said she did not sleep all night. Everybody was tired. We made the drive onto campus like we practiced the night before. Then we walked to registration. The had a continental breakfast in the campus theater. An admissions guy with great public speaking skills spoke at the beginning of open house.

Next we took a walk to the building where the pre-vet department would be. Kit Kat said she was not feeling well. She was worried because the admissions guy said you needed two years of foreign language, of which sign language did not count. Kit Kat wanted to bolt.

I did not drive a couple hours and commit my weekend for us to just go home. So I brought Kit Kat to the pre-vet professor. We quizzed him on why his university was better than any other one that offered a pre-vet program. Next we were supposed to go on a tour. But Momoko and Kit Kat refused. They were too hot due to the heat wave. This trip was not going well. To be continued.

College Hunting

On Friday I rushed through work. The family planned to visit a university this weekend. It has a Pre-Vet program for Kit Kat. The university happened to be hosting an open house on Saturday. We left the house around 3:45PM on Friday. That put us in the middle of rush house traffic.

I drove Momoko's car. After traffic calmed down, I pulled over and tried to get her to take over the wheel. No luck. She only got a coke out of the trunk. We drove into the college town and found a lot of construction going on. There were also many one way streets making navigation difficult.

We made it to our hotel and checked in. The room looked nice and had a pull out sofa for Kit Kat to sleep on. Then we scoped out campus to locate the check in location for Saturday. We also figured out where we were parking. This had to be done Friday night because open house started early Saturday morning. Then we got some soup at a restaurant down town. To be continued.