Date Wednesday, August 8th, 2260

  Slightly more than a day ter.

  Now that Alice's and mine's birthdays are out of the way for another year, I get back t and furthering progress towards my goals again. And since I've already covered rogress I've made and what I o do the day before yesterday, it's about time I begin preparing the plethora of items and gear I'm going to require for my wastend adveo get things started, I'll first o have that discussion with my family today.

  Pnning on talking with my parents and grandparents, I got my butt up from my bed and headed for the bathroom. After quickly ing up, I set off in the dire of where my parents usually were in the m, the living room.

  Leaving the hallway behind, I saw them and in their usual spots, thus I greeted them as I did every m. "M Dad, m Mom."

  "M son." Dad responded, looking up from his tablet that he was obviously reading something on.

  "Good m sweety, how'd you sleep?" Mom followed in her usual bubbly and upbeat voice.

  "Pretty good, you?"

  "Slept like a rock."

  Following that, we went through ur routine of chatting for a bit while they had their m caffeine of either coffee or tea. Whewo of them were finished drinking their drinks, we got up and proceeded to the kit, where Mom took over the kit as per usual. I offered to help, but she deed my offer and said she had everything under trol.

  Mom, not needing my help, I took a seat at the kit table along with Dad as she began preparing breakfast for the three of us. A time ter, everything repared and as soon as it was all brought over, we started digging into my mom's delicious cooking.

  As we were ing upon the end of the meal, I broached the subject I've been needing to. "Mom, Dad, I have something important I would like to talk to you two about."

  "Oh, and what's that son?" Dad asked whilst mom looked on curiously.

  "Well, it's ing my progress as of te as well as what I would like to do iure. But before I bring up what I want to discuss, Grandma and both Grandpa Henry and Grandpa Joho be here for this." I answered him.

  "Yeah, that does sound like a pretty important topic. Hun, you call your dad and my parents ahem to e on over?" He unicated with me and my mother.

  "Sure, honey, but your dad just retired retly and has been enjoying his free time. So I don't think he'll be over in time before we o go to work…" Mom responded, insinuating my grandpa was busy.

  "My old man has been taking advantage of his retirement by sleeping in quite a lot retly, the lucky bastard." Dad said enviously, going into his thinking mode.

  …

  Moments ter, a devious grin made its way onto his face.

  "Ohh, I know just what to do. Tell them there's an emergency regarding their grandson. That'll be sure to make them race over." My dad said joyfully after ing up with something that would ruin Grandpa Henry's extra sleep.

  Mom released a sigh at my dad's antics prior to going into the other room to give my grandparents a call. After about 10 minutes, my grandparents were hurrying through the front door, ing towards us in the living room. As soon as they stepped foot into the living room, the three of them had questioning looks on their faces, not uanding what was going on, while my dad had a very pleased expression pstered on his face.

  With the three of them here now, I got down to business and expihe situation to them and threw my dear old dad right uhe bus, where they proceeded to give him death stares and an ear full.

  My dad, obviously knowing there would be repercussions for his as at a ter date if he didn't do anything, was quick to sincerely apologize to Grandma Emelia and Grandpa John. As frandpa Henry, his apology to him was btantly insincere, pissing off my grandpa even further.

  Before the two of them could start fighting, I opened up my mouth and said. "I apologize for my dad, grandpa."

  A few seds passed befrandpa Henry's anger cated somewhat and when it was, I tinued. "Dad's method of getting you all here may have been insiderate, but it's a good thing he did, sihere is something really important I o discuss with you all."

  "And that would be?" Grandpa Henry inquired.

  "That would be the step I o take." I responded, grabbing hold of everyone's attention.

  "I'm sure all of you are well aware of the amount of reading I do and the sort of memory I have."

  "We are." My mom Jane replied, for everyone.

  "Well, I'm nearing the limit of what I learn from reading, so it's time I take the step and start creating and researg my own things."

  "You've gotten that far already." Grandma Emelia said, clearly surprised.

  There was a bit of bad forth with everyone when my gramps, John turo me and asked me what I needed. "So what do you need, Dom?"

  "We don't really have the space at home for the activities I would be doing, so I'm thinking I'm going to need a rge warehouse-like space that aodate manufacturing and research. The only pces I know that have that kind of space avaible around here would be oher side of the uy." I answered him.

  "Yeah, there aren't many properties like that around here, if any. Despite that, there should be few retively close to home." Dad ented.

  "There should be some. However, I would much prefer a p between the mines and the manufacturing area so I gather resoury own and don't have to rely on you guys 100% of the time." I responded.

  "Oh nonsense, kid, that's the whole point of family. You're supposed to rely on us." Gramps said before the rest of the family piped in saying simir things.

  …

  "So, do you have a property in mind?" Mom asked me after we were fialking about a bunch of the other miseous things I'd need for the pce.

  "No idea, so we'll have to go check out some properties to figure out which of them will suit my he best." I answered.

  "Well, why don't we go property searg today? I don't have anything going on, now that I'm up." Grandpa Henry said while staring daggers at my dad from across the living room and receiving a mog face from him.

  As my father was direg a mog expression at his father further riling him up, gramps said. "I got nothing I have to take care of, so I'll e too."

  "I'll be ing as well. I have to make sure my grandsos a good deal." Grandma Emelia followed up.

  "Unfortunately, we have work, so we'll be leaving it up to you guys to find what he needs." Mom said, sad at the fact that she couldn't join us in my property search.

  "I mean yeah we have work, but with me being hahe pany by my old man, I'm sure it won't be an issue if we take a day off or two to join our son in his search, you don't have a problem with that, right old man?" My dad, Robert suggested before turning and asking my grandad.

  "The pany isn't going to fall apart in a day, so e along." Grandpa Henry responded, holding back his ahat he will clearly take out on his son at some poioday.

  With my mom and dad now joining us in my search for the right pce, they first called up whoever they o at the pany and made arras. Ohat was settled, we collectively headed for the garage to pile into Dad's SUV so we could make our way to the uy real estate office, but on our way there, the doorbell rang.

  "Let me go see who's at the door." I said, already having a premonition of who will be there.

  The moment I neared close enough to the front door with my perception field for me to detect who was at it and low and behold, it was Alice, just like I thought it would be.

  Guess we'll be adding another person troup trip. We're running out of spa the car, but we'll make it work.

  As soon as I got to the front door, I ope up and was immediately greeted by an Alice missile that tched on to me with surprising speed.

  "As excited as ever to see me, huh, Alice?" I said while she was attached to my front.

  "Nnn, of course." She replied before she buried her fa my chest again.

  "Okay, Alice, that's enough ging for now. You'll have plenty of time to do that in the car ride." I piped up after letting her g to me for a short bit.

  "A car ride. We don't usually do that, so where are we going?" She inquired after releasing me, curious about where we were headed.

  "Walk with me. I'll tell you on the way to the garage." I told her while presenting my hand that she happily held onto prior to us moving to the garage.

  As we were walking to the garage, I started off by saying. "As you know, I've been reag the limit of what I learn from the many books I have and the uy web."

  "Yeah, you did tell me about that." She responded waiting for me to tinue.

  "With me nearing that limit and my dream revolving around quering the wastend, it's time I start preparing all the items I'll be needing to make that happen. To do that, I'll require a very rge space to aodate all the equipment I'll be using, thus our destination today is the main uy real estate office that will help me find the space I'm looking for." I expined.

  From there, I tinued inf her about the rest of the details as we tinued our brief jouro the garage. The moment the two of us arrived, Alice greeted everyone before we all loaded up into the SUV as the garage was in the process of opening.

  "And we're on our way." Dad said aloud as he began driving off in the dire of the real estate office with the garage closing shut behind us.