Fingernail Fail

Kit Kat usually paints Momoko's fingernails. She draws all kinds of interesting things on there. Her skill has improved, especially since she got some tools for finer drawing. Kit Kat gets some ideas from fingernail polish videos on YouTube. This week Kit Kat dropped one of the polish bottles as she was finishing up.

Kit Kat tried to use Resolve to get the polish out of our white carpet in the family room. She failed. Momoko asked me when we planned to get new carpet. I told her we could get new carpet as soon as Kit Kat stops painting her nails in that room. Why buy new carpet just to have Kit Kat mess up the carpet again.

Momoko told Little Kat that she would pay him if her could remove the polish from the carpet. Little Kat was motivated. He researched some home brew carpet cleaner on the Internet. He used it to scrub out the colors. Then he washed the carpet out with some water. He tried to use our broken carpet cleaner to suck up the execess water. That did not work. He resorted instead to drying the carpet with old towels.

In other news, Little Kat planned to serve up some chicken from the new propane grill last night. It was raining and there was lightning outside. Little Kat was not about to grill anything up in that weather. Momoko decided we should have some BBQ take out. So Little Kat drove us to the restaurant, and we carried out some delicious dinner. Kit Kat missed out because she has late college classes on Thursdays.

Manual Transmission Win

I have been keeping my eye on manual transmission cars for a while. Need one to teach Kit Kat how to drive stick shift. The prior car I bought just did not work out. There was a 2007 Saturn Vue for sale. It had 58k miles on it. The cost was $11,600. The only downside was that it was located in another state. Required a $750 transfer fee.

While keeping the Saturn Vue in the back of my mind, the cost went down to $11,000. That was an interesting development. Then the cost really dropped down to $9,000. I called up the store the next day. They had someone go out and check out the car. Still was in the same shape as all the pictures show online. They also verified that there were no strange smells in the car.

I bit the bullet and paid for the car to be transferred to my local store. It was good to see the car disappear from the online inventory. My associate at the store provided me with a confirmation email that the car is going to be shipped from me.

I had rented a Saturn Vue once before. It was nice except it felt cheap. Some items did not seem to be well made and were falling apart. I guess that's part of the reason why this car was being sold for cheap. I am hoping to teach Kit Kat how to drive manual transmission in it. I also hope to pass my current Scion xB over to Little Kat, who we hope will have a license in the upcoming year.

Chair Shopping

Kit Kat had complained that the desk chair in her room was no good. I told her that she could find a chair and propose it to me. If it seemed reasonable, I would buy her the chair. She found one on Amazon that was not too expensive. So I ordered it. It should be delivered today according to Amazon.

Little Kat got jealous. He thought it was not right that he had to buy his own desk chair. I told him if he thought he needed a chair, he should find one and propose it. Little Kat looked through the Sunday newspaper ads. He found some good deals at Staples. We scheduled a trip for us to visit the store so he could sit down in the chairs.

Yesterday at the appointed time, I told Little Kat it was time to go chair shopping. He was a bit whiny. I told him this whole trip was for his benefit. I didn't want to spend my afternoon/evening chair shopping for him. I am a busy guy. Little Kat decided to man up and drive us to Staples.

While at Staples, I found a good desk for my computers. Right now I am using a card table to prop them up. Unfortunately the desk was not in stock. Need to order that desk. It was a great deal. Little Kat sat in almost all the desk chairs in the store. He found one he liked, and luckily it was in stock.

The Staples associate who helped us put the chair on a dolly. We pulled the car up to the store, and loaded the chair in the back seat. We drove home and dropped off the chair. Momoko and Kit Kat were busy at Momoko's school doing work. Little Kat and I were supposed to go out to dinner together. I told him to drive us to the next town over so we could get good service at the good restaurant. Then Little Kat started whining about not agreeing to drive on highways...

Top Rap Songs

I somehow found a web site that ranked the Top 100 rap songs of all time. Went through all 100 songs. There were many I never even heard of. Perhaps if I actually listened to the song it would ring a bell. I did find quite a few gems in the list. Here were the top songs I chose from the Top 100:

1. Slick Rick & Doug E Fresh - "La di da di"
2. N.W.A. - "Straight Outta Compton"
3. Pete Rock & CL Smooth - "They Reminisce Over You"
4. Fabolous - "Breathe"
5. Snoop Dogg - "Gin and Juice"
6. LL Cool J - "Mama Said Knock You Out"
7. Naughty By Nature - "OPP"
8. Salt-N-Pepa - "Push It"

Sorry to say. But Macklemore did not make the list. I didn't even know people categorized him as a rapper. Let's give him some time.

Something Smelly

I went to visit my mom today. Was detained at home because the shower was moldy. So I first had to bleach out our shower. That is always a painful ordeal. Then I grabbed some lunch. Had a coupon to get a discount on a steak and cheese combo. It was delicious.

For some strange reason, there was actually parking near my mom's house. Usually one of the rentals across the street jams up the entire street with 10+ cars from people who rent there. I was lucky to park directly across the street from mom's house.

When I returned to my own house, I smelled something stinky in the kitchen. I thought there was some sort of natural gas leak. The stove was turned off. Plus the stove is electric. Kit Kat checked the new propane grill. Then she figured it out. It did not smell like gas. It smelled like burned plastic.

Little Kat loaded something wrong in the dishwasher. It got melted during the clean cycle. Thus we had a stinky kitchen. I was relieved that it was not a gas leak. After that disaster was averted, Little Kat and I went to Lowe's to shop for stuff. We got the most important item - a new garbage disposal. Our's has had too many problems recently. The plumber is coming Tuesday to replace it.

College Classmates from the Military

I am in the second week of my fall college semester. The class I am taking is a full one. People taking the class are mostly dudes. This is a computer programming class. Everyone introduced themselves at the beginning of the class. I was surprised at the number of ex-military guys who were in the class. They were taking advantage of the GI bill to pay for classes.

During the break, I spoke to one of the older guys from the military. He retired after 20 years of service. He told me he had served on a number of tours. The worst situation was in Fallujah. In case you do not know, Fallujah is located in central Iraq, relatively close to Bagdad. A lot of Saddam Hussein supporters lived there. If you study popular accounts of skirmishes in Fallujah, you don't see too high a death toll count. My classmate said that the reason why he hated Fallujah was the number of dead bodies he needed to retrieve there.

If that was not gruesome enough, I was introduced to another classmate. Apparently he had seen much more dangerous duty. He told me not too long ago, he was stationed overseas. I think this was his Iraq tour. He was there with another buddy, who had some type of projectile hit him squarely in the chest. The guy's head flew off, rolling past my class mate. My class mate said he dropped all the equipment he was carrying, and ran towards a secure gunner on our side. Very disturbing.

This second classmate told me that he had to deal with enemy trying to figure out where our troops were to get us bombed by mortars. My classmate needed to take these enemy out. By that I mean he needed to shoot and kill them. I am not sure if this guy is a sharp shooter. But apparently his shots seemed to hit their mark often. Unfortunately this guy and my other classmate are damaged by their duty overseas. They have some trouble just doing normal things like shopping out in the mall. Yikes.

At least these guys made it home in one piece. One of the guys looks like he belonds in the military. He looks like Rambo. Maybe I will help these dudes out if they need assistance with development. Got to give the guys that served a little break. I think I shall continue to hang out with these guys before and after class.

Back to School

Today was Little Kat's back to school night. That is when parents are supposed to go meet the kid's teachers. Momoko could not attend because you need to walk to all of Little Kat's classes. That feels like miles of running up and down stairs, and across the huge high school campus.

We were going to send Kit Kat to meet Little Kat's teachers. However Momoko went over Little Kat's grades and found a number of problems. That, combines with some suspicious comments from Little Kat, meant that I needed to attend. I cut out of work a bit early today. Little Kat drove us to Chipoltle for dinner. He was nervous about the crowded parking lot. I told him he could park out in the middle of the lot where there were no other cars.

Good thing we went early. Chipoltle was very crowded and slow. The line went all the way back to the far side of the restaurant. I tried their chicken burrito for the first time based on Little Kat's recommendation. I was not disappoited. Afterwards I drove us to Little Kat's school. We heard his principal speak. He was an excellent public speaker. So it was enjoyable.

I accomplished a lot at back to school night. Found out that Little Kat had the wrong email address for most of his teachers. No wonder the random people he was emailing would not respond to him. Also questions all teachers on a number of policy issues on communication and grading.

I was most impressed with Little Kat's cooking class teacher. The class was actually called International Cuisine. She seemed the most interested in teaching the children. The kids seemed to like her. I met Little Kat's best friend from school in that class, as well as that friend's mom. I have around 10 pages of notes from the whole night. Need to share a summary of the important stuff with Momoko and Little Kat.