New Lawn Mower Fail

It is leaf season. My old trusty Honda mower died with a poof. It had been on its last legs for a month. I had to gather leaves with a rake and bag them by hand. Very painful given the leaf volume in the yard.

I tried finding the same model on Amazon. No luck. I had previously purchased the last one at Home Depot. I searched for a gas self propelled mower. Wanted at least a 21" deck. Then I sorted by how fast the mower could get to me.

One could come the next day. That was a lie. Took a couple days. I thought I was buying new. The one that arrived was a return. The RMA was still in the box. The package was missing a crucial bolt that connects the handle to the base. I made due with some wire.

Eventually I called the company. They had trouble identifying the missing part. I had to get Momoko to help me email them pictures of the part and where it goes. This lawn mower is just not good. The collection bag is tiny. The pull string falls out of the loop. The wire clips do not do a good job. The back flap broke up.

At least the thing is self propelled. And it pulls up everything into the bag. It just fills up too quick due to the very small size. This ran me $400+. Felt like a total rip off.

Kit Kat Locked Out

Early this morning, I got a call from Kit Kat. She locked herself out of her apartment. She asked me to come by to let her in. I jumped up and got into my car. I had a small slow down locally due to the elementary school traffic.

When I got to Kit Kat's apartment, I did not see her in her car. I called her. She was outside her apartment door. I could not work the key to enter her apartment building. She let me in the lobby. Turns out she locked her from door without getting her apartment or car keys.

After saving Kit Kat, I drove towards home. I stopped off at Burger King. Got a large tots and zesty dipping sauce. Then I was delayed again as I entered our subdivision. There was a long wait due to construction on the main feeder to our neighborhood.

Tough Monday.

Halloween

Momoko decided to hand out candy for Hallween. She set up shop in our living room. She decided to do school work while she waited for any guests. I heard a knocking at the door and alerted her. She was behind her desk and told me to open the door.

It was some neighbors with their kids. The main girl had a white wool looking costume. I asked her if she was a sheep. She looked scared. Her mom ran up and said she was a dog. The other mom piped up and told me the baby she was carrying was a princess.

I handed both kids two pieces of candies each. In other news, Little Kat went to work dressed as Mustard. LOL wut?

Watching College Volleyball

I usually go out to eat with my buddy from college twice a month. This time around, he wanted to go see the women's volleyball from his graduate school play. He asked that I drive us there. He hurt his leg. So I thought I could drop him off in from of the venue. He told me we could walk if I parked close.

At the ticket box, my buddy tried to pay with cash. They only accept credit card. Weird. We arrived just as things were getting started. They announced each player from the home team. We sat right at the 50 yard line (where the net was). They did not let you enter the upper decks. So we were pretty close.

There are 5 sets of 25 points each (except set 5 goes to 15 points). So winner if best of 3. The opposing team from Albany won the first 2 sets. It could have been a short game. However my buddy's school came back winning the last 3 sets, and won the match.

We tried to spy on the merch store. It is not open for volleyball games. At each match point, the crowd stood up and cheered. One intermission entertainment was a bunch of pizza boxes on one side of the net. Some contestants tried to serve volleyballs from the other side and hit the box for free pizza. Three out of 25 people actually hit a box.

Little Kat has been studying for his first certification. It is CompTIA IT Fundamentals (ITF+). I had got him some study materials. He went through all 11 modules. Then he hit the practice exams. I think you need a 75% to pass. He kept retaking the practice exams until he could get at least 90%.

This weekend Little Kat drove to a local testing center. He was not sure what percentage he got. They scored him out of a total 900 points. But he did pass. This is a relatively simple entry level certification. I have not really seen any jobs that require it.

Now Little Kat is starting his job at the school with Momoko. He is going to be a computer lab instructor. This is just something to make money and get a current job on his resume. It might take him a few months to get his feet.

Once Little Kat is set in his new job, he will start studying for the CompTIA A+ certification. This one has two exams. Little Kat thought it would take at least two months of studying for each of the exams. Once he passes both and gets certified, he will start looking for a tech job again.

I have seen a few jobs Little Kat applied to that want you to have a CompTIA A+. In the end, Little Kat wants to get some specialized forensics certification. That will cost a lot of money for training. It might be worth it.

High Prices at Checkers

Momoko went out for happy hour this afternoon. So at night she got hungry. She asked if I would drive her somewhere that had a drive through. I did not want the usual McDonald's fair. So I recommended we go to Checkers.

Momoko found wings on their menu. We had ordered funnel cake fries before. They were delicious. I used to order banana milk shakes there in the old days. This was a new Checkers that came to our town. It was the first time I went.

Momoko wanted wings with BBQ sauce on the side. I got hot wings. We both got large shakes and funnel cake fries. The total ended up being $44. To top it off, we got parked for over 10 minutes. The food was good. But no where near worth $44. Will not be returning unless we win the lottery.

Keeping the Trash Can Clean

Our trash collectors are not careful when returning trash cans to the neighborhood. So the other day, I somehow got 2 trash cans. I found out one new neighbor has double. I gave him his back. Then later I found that the can I kept seemed to really stink.

I tried putting some baking soda in there to absorb the smell. It did not do much. This sucks because I used to keep my trash can fresh by double bagging trash. Today I decided to do something about it.

I got some pressure washer cleaner. Used a mop to scrub the inside of the trash can with the cleaner. Then I broke out the pressure washer to rinse the trash can out. Also ran the pressure washer over the outside of the can. Now at least the thing does not smell too bad.

Might have to rinse and repeat a few times. Now it would be a good time to label my trash can. Don't want a repeat of a stinky can.