Thai Food Thwarted

Kit Kat declared that Momoko and I have not seen her cats in a long time. So we scheduled a visit for today. Kit Kat ate brunch with her friends in the morning. Thus we planned a mid afternoon visit to her apartment. Previously she had ate Thai food with her friends. I wanted her to show us her favorite Thai food place.

Momoko and I came to Kit Kat's after she said she came home. We went up and her cats were as friendly as always. There was a bunch of meowing. Momoko played with them using a wooden stick to get their attention. Kit Kat seemed hungry even after eating brunch. She drove us to an upscale strip mall nearby. There were many people walking around. But there was little parking.

We went to the Thai restaurant. The hostess said they were very busy. It would be a 45 minute wait to be seated. We left without dining in. I called up a backup Mexican restaurant. They said they had seating available. When we arrived at the Mexican joint, there was hardly anybody there. Kit Kat and I had chimichangas. Momoko had enchiladas.

Afterwards, Momoko talked me into driving by McDonald's to get soft server ice cream. When we got home, we smelled some delicious cooking. Little Kat had cooked one of Kit Kat's every plate meals.

Couch Shopping Again

Momoko had complained that our couch was giving her little to no support. I braced under the seat cushions with lumber and plywood. This provided more than enough support. But the seat cushions kept popping out now. It was getting out of hand.

I decided we needed to go couch shopping. We went back to the place where we bought our current couch. The shopping center has an Amish market that is crazy busy. We waited until Sunday when the Amish market was closed.

Momoko was worried about bad weather on Sunday. I said we could postpone shopping for a week. In the end, we headed our before the worst of the weather came our way. We were surprised with the number of cars in the parking lot. Turns out the space next to the furniture store was some sort of church. We heard the music from the church in the store.

The store looked different than when we last purchased a couch. Momoko sat on maybe 10 couches. I sat on the top 5 she thought would do. I asked the sales guy if they delivered and would take away the old couch. He said $130 for delivery. $60 to take away an old couch.

Momoko narrows the top 5 down to two couches. Both had good support. I liked the arm rests on one. It was listed at a sales price of $1400 for couch plus love seat. The sales guy previously said he could beat the sales price a bit. I asked him how much for just the couch. When he said $600, I told him let's wrap up the deal and I would pay for delivery.

These guys are just a reseller for Ashley Furniture for this specific couch. He said they could deliver it to us next week. I will be happy when the deal is done. I spent this afternoon pulling out the supporting lumber and plywood. Momoko is vacuuming around the old couch to prep for the new one.

Chevy Acquired by Momoko

Momoko used a third party web site to search the area for cars. She found what seemed like a gem of a Chevy Trailblazer. It had remote start and heated mirrors. All Chevy's have Apple CarPlay. It did not have all wheel drive. The price seemed pretty good at $2200+ under MSRP.

I called the dealership. There was some accounting tricks of double billing freight. However the actual discount off MSRP was over $2200. It was late in the day. We decided to go to the dealership the next day, even though the salesman we talked to was not going to be in the office.

Before heading over, I called the dealership again. Confirmed the pricing. Later asked if Momoko could qualify for a $500 educator discount. She could. She could also qualify for 3.9% 36-month financing. Momoko test drove the car without a license plate. We spent a long time trying to sign up to get the educator discount.

We also spent forever waiting for the lone finance person to see us. Once we got in, finance took all of 10 minutes. I talked Momoko into taking the 3.9% 36-month special financing. I had transferred a sizable down payment amount to our joint checking account. Momoko had sold her car. So she would be in for a windfall soon. I just floated her a loan.

They had trouble getting wireless Apple CarPlay to work. I brought over my USB cord, and CarPlay worked whether the phone was physically connected. We spent 30 minutes in the new car waiting for the insurance company to pick up the phone to confirm we were covered in the new car. Momoko took the back road home in her new car.

Car Hunt for Momoko

Momoko started having problems with her Honda HRV. The brakes did not stop the car properly a few times. The trunk hatch would not open. Our mechanic could not figure those problems out. Time to sell. CarMax opened at 9:00am. We got there by 9:30. It was already crowded.

The CarMax people detected the paint job from a prior accident. Estimates for the trade in were between $13k and $16k. They offered us $15k. Momoko decided to sell. I had to drive the car into their service bay. I could not get the car to reverse. Eventually I restarted the car and it worked. Sold just in time.

We went to a local Chevy dealer. It was a ghost town. Momoko wanted to look at the Trax and Trailblazer. The Trax door frames were too small for me to get in. The Trailblazer had good head room in the front and back. Both had a 3 cylinder engine with turbo. I felt the engine working hard pulling out of the lot. The car sat high. The MSRP was at the top of Momoko's budget. 

This dealer added a dent package and appearance package, both at $699. So we will probably not buy from this dealer. The car was only front wheel drive. Remote start was an extra $599. They could not add heated mirrors. Most other SUV options were more expensive. We might be stuck for a new car.

TurboTax Failure

Momoko and I alternate who buys our tax preparation software each year. This time around it is Momoko's responsibility. She complained that TurboTax no longer offers a CD/DVD to install their software. Apparently you can only download the program online. I did not like this at all.

To actually obtain some product in hand, Momoko went to Staples and purchased TurboTax Deluxe federal and state. It just comes with an online license code. I was the first to file taxes this year. So I tried to download the software. The download failure over 10 times. The whole experience was an epic fail. Time to write the CEO of Intuit Software. Next year I am in charge. We might have to switch to H&R Block TaxCut software.

There were additional trials. TurboTax does not work on my Windows 7 Desktop. We have a family computer in the library that has Windows 10 or 11 on it. However it is seldom used. I had to clear out the area. Tried using the wireless mouse. It was covered in gunk that would not scrub off with either Formula 409 nor Dawn dish detergent. Luckily I had backup wireless mice that could be swapped in.

Low Tire Pressure in the Cold

I got a report from OnStars that my tires were inflated at around 27 PSI. That is low as the recommended pressure is 35 PSI. Then my car started complaining about the rear passenger tire. It was down to 26 PSI. I tried to use my portable air compressor. It was going haywire when I tried to fill up my tire.

Tried to warm up the compressor by bringing it indoors for a few hours. The thing was still broke. I uses Momoko's air compressor. It filled up the rear tire. But the plastic part that unclamps the hose from my tire snapped up. I was able to get the hose off my tire. But the compressor was now unusable.

Momoko purchased another air compressor. This time she chose a new brand. I was able to fill up my 3 other car tires with it. I then ordered myself one of these from Amazon.

Buying Bleach from Amazon

I was running low on bleach I use to keep the basement drain flowing. So I ordered a six pack from Amazon. I just chose the low price third party seller. After a while, the seller declared the item delivered. I waited two days. Still no bleach. I called up Amazon. They said they needed to give the seller two days to respond.

Amazon did give me a $10 credit for my trouble. I just had to order items sold by Amazon. I had a certification book on my list for a while. It costs $9.99. So I got the book for free.

The bleach did arrive after the complaint. Inside the box were three heavy duty plastic bags with two bleach bottles each. The bleach was leaking in the plastic bags. What a crock. I had to do a hazmat clean up.

Moral of the story is to only order from third party sellers with good ratings. The seller I chose had like a 50% approval rating. Terrible. I blasted them with a review having the lowest score.

Rock Salt Restock

Momoko checked the rock salt in our carport shed. It had just about been depleted. She got help from my brother to move bags of it from our back yard big shed to the easily accessible carport shed. She only mentioned this to me in passing.

I asked her how many bags were left in the big shed. We need to keep stocked up. She thought there were five. I had her double check. There were only two. When it snows heavy like it did a week ago, all the rock salt in the region sells out.

While driving past a hardware store, we saw a sign that they had restocked winter supplies. I doubted  they had any rock salt available. If anything, they would have one or two overpriced small bags of ice melt. I checked online. Our local Lowes was sold out of everything - rock salt, ice melt, etc.

I decided to check around online. A store a couple cities north of us said they had everything. I also doubted it. But I swung by. There was nothing in front of the store. There was a box of overpriced ice melt in a front aisle. Another guy and I quizzed a store employee. He told us a couple places where rock salt might be.

I grabbed a heavy duty dolly. The other guy went to the outdoor area. I went to aisle 28. Bingo. There were two sections of rock salt. I asked the employee if there was a limit to how much I could buy. He had no clue. I decided to load up 10 bags at under $12 each. The checkout girl did not care how much I had.

Put four bags in the carport shed (it had already been drained down to half a bag in there). Moved my brother's SUV out of the way. Then I backed my SUV into the corner of our driveway. I carried six bags of 50 pound rock salt into our big shed. It was tricky as the snow was high and the ramp up the shed had packed slippery snow on it.

Momoko said the true snow-mageddon is coming this upcoming weekend. Could be as much as 14 inches at a time. Multiple snowfalls are expected. At least we are prepared in the rock salr department,

Let It Snow

Momoko had a whopping two weeks of Christmas and New Year's vacation. But she felt like it was not enough. Especially because I had those two weeks, and got another week for training. Momoko wished it would snow and give her a few more days off.

Ask and you shall receive. Snowmageddon came. Her school closed Monday. Decision was made Sunday afternoon. My brother parked his 4-wheel drive SUV at the end of the driveway so he would not have to shovel his way out on the way to work.

Little Kat and I parked our cars on the old broke part of our driveway that is hard to shovel snow off of. Our plans was to dig out Little Kat's car and my car when the snowfall stopped. We dug out in front of Little Kat's car. He drifted to the street where he cleaned off his car. I cleared my brother's space so Little Kat could part in it.

Our plan was to then dig out my car, roll it to the street, and clean it off. We were too tired from the earlier shoveling. It is still snowing. We plan to regroup when my brother comes home and dig out my car. It is scheduled to snow again this afternoon and tonight. We may have to repeat this tomorrow.

Sagging Couch Repair

Momoko complained about our living room couch. We were going to go shopping to find a replacement. I recalled the last time we bought one. It was rough taking out the old couch and bringing in the new one. So I asked Momoko what the specific issue was. She said the seat area was too low. She was sinking in.

We took off the gerbil couch cover. Then we removed the seat cushions. The seat area had minimal support. I cut a 2x4 piece of lumber. Tried to brace it across the couch for support. Had a rough time getting in in past the arm rests.

After that, we had a single 2x4 lumber diagonally on the seat area. I got smaller length 2x4 lumber to brace the other areas. Momoko said there was support, but she felt like the seat was leaning her forward. I added a 1x4 board across on the front of the couch. For now the thing is working.

Eventually we will need a new couch. Maybe then I can pay somebody to deliver and remove the old one.