Finals Week

It is time for final exams for Little Kat at school. This is the semester where he has a lot of oversight from Momoko. He has to. Last semester he has to sit out of school because he was suspended due to poor grades. Time to make up for past failures.

Film class has been giving Little Kat the most trouble. People he knew allegedly said film was an easy class. They must have had a different instructor. Momoko was on top of things, forcing Little Kat to start his final project for film early. It still required an assist from Kit Kat to get her friend to star in Little Kat's final project story.

Today Little Kat took his final exam in film. He is treading water, trying to maintain a B average. He is barely hanging in there. Last week he was at an overall grade of C. The final project helped some. But a lot of points rides on this exam. Little Kat came down to us multiple times during the exam complaining about difficult questions. Not a good sign.

Robinhood Stock Trading

I had made a ton of stock option trades with my traditional broker. The problem is that they charge a commission per contract. Sometimes I want to buy a boatload of contracts. This has cost me as high as $300 in fees. And that is just on the buy. You got to sell and pay again as well.

So I am wondering about this company called Robinhood. They claim to offer stock trades with no commission costs. Sounds too good to be true. Of course they have to make money somehow. I am thinking they might not give me the best trade execution price.

My broker always tries to get my the best price when I buy or sell. That saves me money, especially when a lot of shares are at stake. So I just got to make sure I put in the right limit prices with Robinhood. Then in theory, I should be able to spend less money in transaction costs. That should result in bigger gains.

The only drawback is to get the free trades, you got to accept electronic confirmations of your trades. I like getting paper confirmations in the mail. It is not that Robinhood won't provide you with those. You just got to pay. That defeats the whole purpose of trading for free.

Webtoons

I read an article about Korean webtoons taking over the manga world. This is surprising as Japan has be the dominant player in manga. The webtoons are online versions of manga. They are always in color. And they are read vertically so as to make reading on a mobile phone or tablet much easier.

So I checked out a popular webtoon called True Beauty. The main character is a girl who things she is ugly. This leads to her not being popular at school. She learns to use makeup to maximize her look. All of a sudden, she gets friends and starts to gain attention with the boys.

I read through 39 episodes of True Beauty. The graphics were good. Story and character development were on point. Only problem is now I have to wait for new episodes that are only released once a week on Wednesdays.

Celebrating Kit Kat's Birthday

Kit Kat wanted to go to an all you can eat buffet for her birthday. On her actual birthday, she went to a concert. So we went this weekend instead. There was some question about who was going to drive there. Needed 2 cars because the whole family went. Little Kat said if he had to drive, he would not go. What a punk. Me and my bro ended up driving.

We tried to each pay our own way (with Momoko covering Kit Kat's bill). Got a round table so we could all see each other. Initially I could not find the pot stickers. I did discover a big container of white rice. The Chinese food seemed cold. However the sesame balls were awesome. I thought the egg rolls were pretty good for a buffet.

A bus pulled up and dropped off a mob for the buffet. I hurried up and got my last plate. The fried shrimp here was just okay. Tried some buffalo wings. Also just okay. They did have Chinese donuts covered in sugar. Lots of delicious sautéed mushrooms too. We really don't go here that much due to the high price.

Back Home

Momoko and I returned home from our spring break trip. My brother picked us up at the airport. We took a secret exit from the gate to get to luggage pickup. My brother parked in a weird section of the garage. We had to walk a long way to get there. Back at home, a lot of the weeds had grown due to the rain.

I cut the grass with the lawn mower. Used up all the gas. Since it was only weeds rampantly growing, it all fit into one lawn clippings bag. By dusk, the county had not come to pick up my bag. As I was putting away my tools, some car was honking his horn from the street. I presumed he had a package to deliver. I motioned for him to get the heck out of his car and deliver the package. Slacker thought I would come to him. Do your job already.

The top piece of plywood on my outdoor work bench had rotted through. I had a good sized piece of plywood from my dad's house that I planned to use to repair the bench. After I pulled off the top piece of thin plywood, I found the sheet underneath it was rotted as well. I had to spray all the ants. Then I removed the middle beam in the bench. Cut the new piece of plywood as good as I could (the bench is crooked). Moved the bench out a bit. Added a backsplash to prevent wood from falling behind the bench.

Next outdoor project is to build up a platform outside the sliding glass doors to hold all the trash cans and yard clippings bags during the week. I have two sets of platforms from my dad's that I plan to use for this. Just need to level out the ground on the hill.

On the Road Again

Kit Kat and I dropped off Momoko's car at the collision center. Some fool crashed into the back of Momoko's new car and smashed the bumper. Kit Kat and Little Kat took a road trip in my new Chevy Spark to see their dad. The Apple car play app in my car allowed them to use their phones to display navigation on the big car screen.


Momoko and I flew out to see her dad. The plane was 100% full. Luckily a little kid sat between Momoko and I. Momoko was able to drive the car I bought to leave at her dad's house. Sometimes I took the wheel when Momoko was tired. I could not locate the registration slip anywhere. So we visited the tag agency and purchased another copy so we could drive legitimately.


We were going to see a Japanese anime at the theater. But severe storms were anticipated. We tried another day, but Momoko's neice was too tired from work. We visited Arby's a couple times to eat. The second time I got two roast beef gyros for $6, complete with fixings and cucumber sauce on the side.

Erecting a Birdhouse

I had previously bought a bird feeder pole to mount the birdhouse I gave Momoko. It seemed too difficult. So today I borrowed my brother's truck and went to Lowe's. Momoko accompanied me. The parking lot there was very full. Momoko thought we should turn around and go home. I charged on.

There were no flat bed carts available. Instead I got a lumber cart. First I picked up some drainage gravel. Then I got some quick dry cement. They had no Quick-Crete. Had to settle for Sak-Crete. Finally I picked up a 10 foot treated 4x4 piece of lumber.

I dug a deep hole on our hill. Filled the bottom with draining rock. I mounted the birdhouse on a ledge. Then I nailed the ledge to the 4x4. Stood the 4x4 up in the hole. Poured in water one-third of the way down. Then dumped in concrete.

We can now view the birdhouse from our bay window. I hope some birds come to live there. Before throwing it out, I read the directions for the birdhouse. It said not to create a ledge. Oops. Other birds like ledges. But bluebirds don't need them.