i woke up at 8:00 and biked to belmont by around 9:00. i took my trek allant, figured the bigger wheels could get me to my destination faster. i was surprised to see my father at home, sanding the western wall. he relocated to caulking duty while i climbed the ladder to sand some higher shingles. he left for the cafe by around 10:00, while i continued working until 1:00. it wasn't very hot today, with temperature in the 70's, downright pleasant. there was even a nice overcast (i knew it wouldn't rain, the forecast said not until late evening). by noontime the sun began to peek out again and it got a little sunny but not unpleasantly so. i could've worked a bit longer, but my arms were tired so i figured it'd be a nice time to stop (1:00). while hauling the shopvac into the garage, i saw my mother biking home.

sunday

monday

tuesday

wednesday

today

i was going to go home after my sanding work, but my mother talked me into staying, where she was making zhajiang noodles for dinner. fortunately i brought my laptop (although probably not necessary, since i could just as easily surf the web with my tandem smartphones).

there was a good chance my replacement HDTV a-board would arrive today. when i saw the box waiting on my doorstep when i got home, i was both happy and scared. happy that it arrived, but scared that it wouldn't work, and i'd have to go through the hassle of returning it and buying something else (a working TCON board perhaps) which may or may not work. i'm still sort of baffled how it broke in the first place. anyway, i nervously installed it in the HDTV, plugged in the cord, and turn it on. an image! a blank image, but an image nonetheless, which meant the HDTV was working again. i reassembled the TV and moved it back to the living room. i connected the cable box and a show popped on. not bad for a $55 fix!

the HDTV was back to normal, but i noticed something was off: the on-screen volume display graphic was different than i remembered it. at first i thought it was my imagination, but it bothered me enough that i decided to upgrade the firmware. the HDTV was running v1.140; the latest version is v1.270. i downloaded the firmware onto my computer before realizing the HDTV could download it automatically via built-in wifi. so i did that instead. there was a tense moment when the TV suddenly went blank after finishing the download. no matter how much i hit the power button, there was no response, so i was afraid i fried the system. fortunately it came back to life a short time later with an on-screen alert saying it was initializing and could take a few minutes. it went to black again but then turned on back to regular programming. the volume display had been updated to the one i'm more familiar with. all is right with the world again.

now i have a spare dead panasonic viera HDTV a-board i don't know what to do with. using information from the service manual, i could test it with a voltage meter and figure out which components are faulty and then replace them. i also thought about selling the board to the place where i bought the replacement; they could fix it and then sell it to somebody else (everybody wins).