Vanity Details

My handyman is coming tomorrow to rennovate Momoko's study to turn it into her man cave. Or you could say she will be getting her personal woman cave. One item she needed me to buy was a new vanity. Momoko chose a few. Today we narrowed it down to one, mainly due to size.

The manufacturer had a lot of disclaimers regarding delivery of the vanity. Apparently their delivery company wants you to sign a receipt which states in small print that everything arrived in good condition. Guess I will have to be very careful when signing that receipt. I am allowed to write additional info on the receipt (such as the box was damaged, or the delivery guy did not give me time to check out the contents).

I was pleased with the price on the vanity. It cost a little over $200. However I found an online coupon for 10% off. If this thing arrives in good condition, this will have been a nice value. The shipping was free of charge.

Passing the Test

I have been largely out of the stock market for a while. By out I mean I have not been actively trading stocks. I have made money in the market before. However almost all of my speculative high risk investments have lost me money. So much so that I decided I had better retire from losing money in risky stocks.

The other day I spied on a stock that had fallen in the past. I was somewhat interested in it. After the fall is rose back up a bit. I figured I was too late to get in on that rise. Then the stock tanked even lower. This seemed like a steal. I usually talk my stock moves over with Momoko. But she was not around. I sweated it a bit.

In the end, I decided to pass on this "opportunity". We got a lot of big items to buy. That was one of the reasons I figured I could used some extra stock profits right now. However this is also the worst time to be losing money in the markets. The best course of action would be to forget about this speculative stock - at least for now.

Maybe I will do some value investing. That means invest is some solid stocks that have little downside. Sure they will not make me rich. But they may turn a little bit of profit. I guess I can take that. Just means we might not be buying any new cars for a few years. Oh well.

Timber

We have been having some serious storms come through the area. It might be the effect of hurricane season. Normally I just run around the yard and pick up the sticks that fell off the trees. That is quite a taxing job.

Last week I found that a big branch had fallen down in our back yard. Branch does not do this justice. It was as big as a tree by itself. I broke out the hand saw and cut off six garbage cans of small limbs. That was just the start.

There is a weekly yard clippings pickup. I think our taxes pay for it. They emptied my six garbage cans. I am sure I will have six more cans for them next week. Some branches were too big for the pickup. These things are huge - maybe eight inches in diameter.

I need to make a run to the dump. Got to load up the truck with all the huge branches. I have not been to my county's dump yet. Last time I went, I lived in a different county and went to a different dump. I think they charge by the ton if I haul it with my truck. Got to be a lot chepaer than paying someone else to haul off these branches.

TV Check

Momoko is going to get her own personal man cave. In her case, we should call it the woman cave. One thing she wants is a TV mounted on the wall. She thought a TV the same size as the ones in the kids' rooms would be good. We purchased a 32 inch Samsung TV for her about a week ago.

Since then we have finished clearing out her study to turn it into a man cave. I have been trying to get in touch with my handyman. He is going to get rid of the wallpaper and chair molding in her room. Then he is going to paint it in a mint green color that Momoko chose.

For now I wanted to make sure the TV was operational. I got 30 days to return it to the store for a refund. So I brought the TV over to the cable feed in the basement where Little Kat plays XBox. Yep. TV works fine. Had to adjust the video settings to maximize screen usage with cable. But it looked good.

Next I decided to bring the TV into my own study. Luckily I have a cable feed in there as well. Now I can work on my computer and watch TV at the same time.Well at least I have this setup until the handyman can come and work on Momoko's room. Who knows? Maybe I will buy a TV for myself too.

Fridge Cleaning Tips

I have access to a fridge where I keep my sodas for work. The thing initially stank. Some old contents were left in there way too long. It was time to fix this nasty smell.

I started by tossing out all the old stuff. Then I used paper towels and 409 to wipe down the entire inside of the fridge. Someone added an Arm & Hammer baking soda box. That was a good start.

Just read up on some more techniques to keep the fridge smelling better"
1. Put activated charcoal from a fish store in an old sock in there
2. Put vanilla extract on cotton balls, and place them in a shallow dish in there
3. Try the same method as #2, substituting orange extract for the vanilla
4. Crumple brown paper bags in the bins for two days and throw the bags out

I'd say it was time to try some of all of these extra tricks in getting this fridge smelling better.

Wireless Woes

We used to use our wireless router in the config it came from the factory. Default SSID and no security or password. The kids thought people were stealing our bandwidth. So we setup a secure protocol and added a password. The kids swore it made out Internet faster.

This past week the router seemed to be reset to original factory state. That's a problem because all our printers were configured to work with the new security. I lived with it for a bit. Set up one of the printers to work with the factory default wireless state.

Momoko said she could not print to any of her printers. It was time to fix the problem. I set the router back up with a different name, with security, and our password. Could not connect to any printers. Rebooted my computer. Setup that one printer to work with the new settings. I could print.

Momoko's printers were harder. I had to reset the security to use an older security protocol. Also had to reset the SSID to use all capital letters. Momoko could now print to two printers. Kit Kat could not print to any. I had her set up our newest printer. When she tried a test print, the printer went crazy and kept printing out weird text until it ran out of paper.

I had Kit Kat install the printer drivers from the DVD that came with the printer. Now she can print and scan. That's an upgrade. Momoko cannot print to her personal laser printer. That's okay by me. We have a family laser printer that is better. She can print to that one. Let's hope the router does not get reset back to factory defaults again.

Sink Trouble

I came home from work yesterday to hear that there was trouble with our kitchen sink. The pipe leading down to the drain got disconnected from the garbage disposal. I built a makeshift prop to keep the pipe connected. But we need this fixed.

Momoko tried to schedule a plumber. For some reason they would not come out unless I authorized them to do so. Might be time for a new plumber. I searched my records and found that this plumber repaired the pipe late last year. Might be a warranty situation.

Kit Kat bought us a bunch of meats and rolls for sandwiches since we do not want to create dishes by cooking anything. Good thing because I had a meeting scheduled for lunch today. The meeting was supposed to be late in the afternoon. However World Cup finals trump lunch it seems. I grabbed an early sandwich and went to my meeting.

After my meeting I went upstairs. Something strange was going on out in the living room. Apparently Kit Kat had lost a gerbil. I came in the room, and a little gerbil ran from underneath one couch to another. The gerbil was not too bad. She ran to Kit Kat who scooped her up. These kids are always losing the gerbils...