i'm not sure if my clients were working today, but i was fully committed to the idea of not doing anything constructive on martin luther king jr. day. besides, there was a presidential inauguration to watch. the first thing i did this morning was to go upstairs to my neighbor's place one last time and empty the water bucket.

i caught a bit of the inauguration, which wasn't hard since it seemed all the major networks were covering it. i heard my neighbors stomping back into their house close to noontime. with a snowstorm arriving later tonight, i wanted to make a trip to the supermarket in case i'm snowed in for the next few days.

coming back i noticed the cable on my front brake had pulled off so i only had my rear brakes. fortunately i wasn't traveling very fast, and most back roads anyway, so there was no real danger. i re-tightened the brake cable when i got back home. i also tried mounting my ZS20 camera to the handlebar with a mini gorilla pod. the 3 articulating legs hold well when the bike is stationary, but has a tendency to rotate when the bike is moving. i'll need to get a better bike camera mount. i do have a velcro mount with a metal plate, but that thing is a pain to install and remove.

my parents were going to chinatown on a supply run and asked me if i wanted to come along. i sat in the backseat, snapping photos with the ZS20. while i don't think the panasonic lumix is as responsive as my canon 60D, i do like its zoom range, [35mm equivalent of] 24mm to 480mm. i had the camera set to 5fps continuous focus; it's a little challenging because although it does show you the images being taken, they're only displayed for a split second, so basically i was just winging it, hoping maybe some of the photos taken from a moving car would be clear.

we went to ming's market, which was crowded. they had all the chinese new year food by the entrance, but that's still 2+ weeks away, so it still wouldn't explain why it was so busy. maybe a lot of other people had the day off and were just out grocery shopping. i smuggled in my ZS20 to take some photos but i only snapped a few. what i really wanted to do was just hang out in the seafood department and take photos of all the weird stuff, but i knew i'd get yelled at if i did. what i need is a spotter, next time i'll get one of my parents to stand next to me while i secretly shot some photos.

my parents stopped at the cafe to drop off the supplies before going to belmont.

after dinner i got a ride back to cambridge. it'd already been snowing by late afternoon. the temperature was cold enough that the snow came down as fine dust particles that were easily swept away by the winds. originally i thought we'd see 4-8", but the latest projection show we may just have a dusting, with isolated areas of deep snow along the north shore and the cape. not to fear though, another snowstorm arrives friday night.