i set my alarm at 6:30am, so i could drive into boston around 7am (hoping to beat the rush hour traffic) to pick up my parents at the black falcon terminal at 8am. i was still lounging in bed when my phone rang at 6:45am. i knew immediately who it was. "you're here already?" i asked my mother. despite arriving earlier than scheduled, they couldn't leave the cruise ship until 8:30am, something about a staggered disembarkment so a few thousand passengers won't be clogging the terminal all at the same time.

regardless, i planned on leaving early in hopes of beating traffic. for the first time ever i was awake with cristina, since normally i'd still be asleep when she gets ready for work in the morning. she had to get to longwood by 8am and ran out the door to catch her train. since i had the car, i thought about giving her a ride to central square, but she was taking the CT2 bus from kendall, so i didn't offer. i left the house by around 7:20am, armed with my 2 smartphones and a mug of hot tea.

i took the turnpike to get into south boston. it was a challenge just getting to the turnpike entrance, cutting across the center of cambridge. construction work had already begun on beacon street, so i had to take a big detour to get around it. once i was on the turnpike, driving with so many other cars around was almost a sensory overload. i just focused on the car in front of me; it was a good thing i came via this same route before when i came with my parents to the terminal last week, so at least i still had some memory of where to go.

once i got to south boston, there wasn't very much traffic anymore. i made my way to the black falcon cell phone lot. there was hardly anyone here, just a bunch of hired sedans, a few hotel shuttles, and a fleet of tourist trolleys. everyone was waiting for the passengers to get off the ship. i had about 45 minutes to kill, and spent the time reading nathanial philbrick's bunker hill: a city, a siege, a revolution. i got bored and decided to see if i could walk down to the terminal. at a distance of a quarter mile, it was too long of a distance to walk in the early morning, with the temperature in the lower 50's and a strong ocean breeze that tossed my hair on end. i decided to retreat in the safety of the car.

at 8:37am my parents called to let me know they were finally released from the ship. it took me just a few minutes to pick them up; it would've been faster but i was behind a convoy of other cars waiting to pick up passengers. they got into the car and my father drove back to cambridge. at the turnpike exit there was a big congestion. originally we thought it was because of rush hour (around 9am), but actually it was more to do with a stuck chemical truck by a storrow drive bridge. after my parents dropped me off at my place they went to the cafe.

i came home, used the bathroom, then took a shower, before heating up a leftover "calzone" from last night for breakfast.

i tried to set up the pi zero with a static ip number. i followed the directions, but when i rebooted the pi, it couldn't recognize the wifi dongle anymore. was it because i gave the pi an ip number outside of the dhcp network? that should've worked though, because when i assign static ip's to web cameras, the numbers are always outside of the dhcp range. anyway, and even after i changed it back to the dhcp setting, the wifi dongle still didn't work. i finally managed to resuscitate the wifi with a pair of sudo ifdown wlan0 and sudo ifup wlan0 commands. i finally went with a router solution: keep the pi zero as dhcp (which i know at least works), but make the ip number static by using address reservation (i.e. pairing the MAC address with a permanent ip number). after a router reset, that solution seemed to work.

i set up some new aliases in my .bash_profile settings: a calendar command that highlights today's date and an easy shortcut to show me my local ip address. i'm currently working on updating nano on osx (using homebrew) so i can activate color syntax highlighting.

in the early afternoon i went to my parents' place to do a 2nd coat of paint on the window frame. originally i thought i could do it tomorrow afternoon, but the frame painting needed to be finished by today so my parents can reinstall the blinds that i took down. all that's left now is to repaint a bit of the wall around the window. i still have some leftover wall paint, but it's from 2007, so changes are its not good anymore. i'll need to visit the paint store to buy the smallest jar of 2069-60 benjamin moore colorbook lavender ice.

i also went into the backyard to water the garden (no rain expected until the end of next week) and fill the bird baths. if it's warm enough during the day (especially if there are no clouds) the vegetables can still grow a bit before the arrival of the killing frost.

i downloaded a copy of prizzi's honor (1985) last sunday and i've been working my way through the film, watching 10-15 minutes a day. one reason why it's taking so long is it's not really a good movie, at least not by more modern standards, despite have a very illustrious pedigree, with actors like jack nicholson, kathleen turner, and angelica huston, and directed by john huston. it's a movie i always saw at the videostore growing up as a kid in the 80's, and now i'm finally getting a chance to watch it (but more like hatewatching). hopefully it has a good ending to make up for the dull pacing and performances.

i upgraded OSX from 10.11 (el capitan) to 10.12 (sierra). there was a point during the upgrade when i seriously regretted my decision, because it looked like the installer had crashed midway. but i remained patient and the installer did eventually finish the install (20+ minutes). i don't know what's good in sierra, just that it has more iOS integration including the introduction of siri for the desktop. i was just sick and tired of apple update constantly reminding me to upgrade all the time; hopefully i'm safe until the next new OS iteration next year.

heather unruh - co-anchor of news channel 5 - abruptly quit tonight. i caught the tail end of the 6 o'clock local news, and saw they were doing a quick highlight of her career as an anchor on WCVB. it seemed unexpected, but i knew there'd be problems once they hired maria stephanos when she herself abruptly left the local FOX affiliate (WFXT). channel 5 simply had too many female anchors, along with jc monahan and a slew of morning and weekend anchors. my personal theory is unruh will be going to the new NBC affiliate once WHDH's contract with NBC ends at the end of the year. i just feel bad for the current newsreporters on WHDH, who might all be out of a job come next year.

for dinner i heated up a can of chicken soap and finished some leftover empanadas and baked sweet potatoes. i was surprised to see cristina back so soon in the evening, i figured she'd be out with coworkers celebrating her last day of work, but instead she was busy shopping, but a bunch of food items from the coolidge corner trader joe's and a few souvenir items from booksmith.