i've often wondered about the building that sits on 100 properzi way. for a while i thought maybe it was a lawyer's office, with the mysterious "moshe safdie and associates" name inscribed on a sign outside. so i was pleasantly surprised when i was reading an article about the new crystal bridges museum of american art (built by philanthropist alice walton of the wal-mart dynasty) due to open in bentonville, arkansas, and saw that the architect who designed the museum was one moshe safdie, a name that i instantly recognized. i never knew that this building i've seen a thousand times is actually the headquarter for a world famous architectural firm. their list of projects is impressive, and actually includes a few places i've visited but never knew it was designed by them.

not much happened in belmont. my father somehow lost his phone and asked my sister to help him transfer his number to an older phone. he thought about getting a new one, but verizon's no longer offering free deals on flip phones, and more inclined to push customers into getting smartphones - which are free but the mandatory data plan costs extra. my sister agreed to help, but put it off so late that she left for the verizon office around dinnertime and never came back.

while petting hailey - whom my sister took into the forest earlier - i managed to find a tick crawling on the back of my hand. i thought ticks were long dead due to all the frigid nights we've been having but never underestimate these literal bloodsuckers.

the temperature today barely reached the 50's. i broke out my fleece hooded jacket and vest combo, my traditional winter outerwear. it was cold returning home, but i managed to warm up enough by the time i almost got home to take off my gloves and hat. even though halloween is over, i played zombieland and cabin in the woods for drew.

i made a new unified rewards card. i now have a total of 10, instead of 7 on my previous card. i use www.justoneclubcard.com to create them but there are a few it can't do. one is the new walgreens card, which using a 2D symbol instead of the traditional 1D UPC. the michael's card also uses a non-standard UPC, but i managed to kind of solve it by actually scanning the code with a scanner. my only fear is the scanned version is a little fuzzy, but i'm hoping it can still be read.