i woke up at 7:30am this morning to go vote, leaving the house around 8am. i was afraid there might be a line but i walked in and out fairly quickly, though a lot of the voting booths were occupied. after inserting my ballot into the automated ballot box, i received my sticker and went home. i rested for a little bit before heading to the cafe by 8:50am. i noticed several vinegar flies in my foyer. that's when i realized they were coming from the used nespresso pods i'd been tasked to return at the UPS store. so that's where they've been hiding. i put the bag of used pods outside on my backyard deck before leaving.

i was surprised that my parents were already at the cafe, getting a head start on making a fresh batch of beef noodle soup. i tuned to MSNBC intermittently throughout the day, even though the real coverage wouldn't start until the evening, when polls close.

we got two ubereats orders early in the morning. that's usually a sign that we'll be busy, as customers are already thinking about food so early. sure enough, the period between 11am to 1pm we were completely swamped with orders. for some reason fried rice was one of the most popular item, like the zeitgeist all had a craving for fried rice. i don't even think our fried rice is anything special, compared to an authentic chinese restaurant that prepare it in a wok. but we have a customer base that seems to love it.

michael called in the afternoon, said he was having an issue with his computer where he couldn't display his contacts. around 2pm when we had a lull in business, i biked down to his store to see what happened. his outlook database had a crash and couldn't be recovered. after we ran the inbox repair tool, outlook wouldn't even open after that. after manually making a copy of his corrupted files, i had no choice but revert to his last backup, which was back in june. things worked after that, but 5 months worth of customers' data was missing. i spent nearly 2 hours fixing the problem, finally leaving by 4pm. any later and it'd be dark and i didn't bring my lights. my original plan was also to visit trader joe's to get a few things, but i didn't have time, went directly back to the cafe.

i was afraid it'd be busy when i was gone and my parents would be swamped with orders, but luckily it was very quiet during my absence. during that time my parents managed to roast some charsiu pork, start a batch of boba pearls, and fry two boxes of salt & pepper chicken. my father told me the deep fryer was starting to malfunction. he had to jostle the heating element to get it to work. the issue was the fryer would stop heating before it reached the desired temperature. we tested it again, it started heating up, but turned off before it reached temperature. even when we turned it up, it wouldn't heat, and in fact the heating element seemed completely dead. t-fal doesn't seem sell replacement heating elements (not in the US anyway). i'll try calling them tomorrow to figure out a solution. in the meantime my father asked me to order another t-fal ultimate EZ clean deep fryer ($118). even though the one we had broke, in the year since we've had it, it worked very well.

we picked up some more business beginning at 5pm. our last customers didn't leave until closing time. my mother roasted some lamb earlier and packed me some for dinner while my parents at the cafe before going home. i didn't get back home until after 7pm.

i ate dinner immediately, while it was still warm, parked myself in front of the tv watching MSNBC live election coverage. as the evening progressed, results were coming in. everything seemed overwhelming in favor of trump. there was no good news for harris. iowa, a state that recently polled in favor of harris, instead went to trump. trump won his first battleground state of north carolina, with georgia a very possible second. of the remaining swing states, all of them leaned republican. it felt like 2016 all over again. i started to get that queasy feeling. at some point i turned of the tv. everything was either too close to call or too early to call. all those hopeful signs that harris would sweep seemed wishful thinking in retrospect. the michael moore prediction, the stories i read of republicans voting for harris, none of it might matter now. pennsylvania is the big prize. whichever candidate wins that state will probably take the whole thing. with 89% reporting, harris is still trailing trump by 3% or about 80,000 votes in that state. i hear democrats talking about the red mirage before the blue wave. the last glimmer of hope i suppose.

i'm not staying up to watch anymore. going to bed and pretend this whole thing never happened.

i woke up at 9am, having slept for almost 9 hours. i left around noontime, stopping by the cafe first to move some foods from the freezer to the fridge to thaw overnight. i also hung up the boston fern and restocked the drink fridge. i checked on the progress of the paperwhites, i planted them saturday, and already they've started to root. the tips are still bent though (because they germinated in the bag), i'm hoping they'll straighten out eventually.

i got to belmont minutes before my sister arrived. i let esmei out in the backyard, where she investigated the new raised bed. she also used the newly created pathway and didn't dig up the patches of grass. she saw some velcro straps on the fencing and chewed them off when i wasn't looking.

after my sister left, my father and i were back outside working on the raised bed. we dug a little bit deeper before layering the bottom with rotten logs. it took 30 minutes before the bed was finished. part of the soil had never been dug up before (the area that had previously been grass), so the dirt was very compacted and had a lot of rocks. i may end up adding some peat moss to the soil to give it some more body. all it needs now is some chicken manure if we can get our hands on it.

while grabbing the watering wand to water, i noticed it was bulging from the on/off toggle switch. the water inside must've froze last night and damaged the wand. when i turned it on, water sprayed out from the handle. this is why we can't have nice things! this happens every season, we leave the watering wand outside when the temperature gets cold, and it freezes and we need to get a new one.

afterwards i spent some time watering the plants in the grow room. i added some mosquito bits into the water. i didn't do it last weekend because i wasn't sure if i was going to do a azapro water drench treatment. instead i'm going to spray with bifenthrin. too late to do that today, i'll come back on wednesday to do that. so far i still haven't seen any signs of pests on the indoor plants. while watering the orchids, i noticed a few of them have already produced flower spikes. usually i don't see them until late winter. i also watered the plants in the sunroom, mostly holiday cactuses and wintering peppers. cold temperature will induce the cactuses to flower, but during the daytime when it's sunny out the sunroom gets pretty hot, and i think that's confusing the cactuses. i think most of them are christmas cactuses anyway, and those don't flower until late december.

my sister left in the early afternoon but came in the evening. she dropped off esmei so she and my mother could go to spring shabu shabu for dinner.

i replaced the speakers on my father's macbook pro. i don't remember how many times i've replaced the speakers, but at least once if not more. the last time i replaced them with brand new knockoffs, which worked for a while, before both speakers started losing their volume. the replacement ones i got this time were original speakers taken off of an old macbook pro. i've done it so many times now (both on my father's computer and my own) that it only took me an hour to strip the mac down to the where i removed the motherboard to access the speakers before putting everything back together again. the new speakers work great, the computer can play audio at a loud volume again.

esmei was restless and i kept an eye on her to make sure she wasn't doing something naughty. at one point she went to sleep, but only for half an hour before waking back up again. at 6pm we gave her dinner, afterwards she immediately went to her dog bed to sleep. my father and i had leftover lamb loin chops and italian sausages for dinner. when my sister and mother got back from their dinner, we were in the middle of eating ours.

my parents' electric bidet toilet seat stopped working. actually, just the heated seat part, but that's the function everyone loves the most. my mother was lamenting that she can't use the toilet anymore because the seat is icy cold. so my father and i went online to search for a new one. we checked out costco and even temu, but ended up buying one off of amazon, a ZMJH A102DS-W for $260. ZMJH has a similar round seat for cheaper, but i didn't like the design of that one. also for some unknown reason round seats cost more than elongated seats. it should arrive by wednesday, my mother only has to suffer 2 more nights without a heated toilet seat.

i didn't get back home until almost 9pm. there was nowhere to park so i had to stash my motorcycle two blocks away. there was a monday night football game between the buccaneers and chiefs. tampa bay made it interesting, was able to match kansas city point for point, sending the game into overtime. unfortunately the chiefs scored a touchdown, continuing their winning streak to 8-0. buccaneers fall to 4-5. final score was 24-30.

my alarm went off at 6:30am this morning, waking me up so i could catch the cambridge half marathon happening along the charles river. i don't remember the race starting so early - 7am - but traditionally it falls on the sunday after daylight saving time ends, so it feels like 8am. regardless, 7am, 8am, both times are early to be waking up on a sunday morning. not just any morning, but one where the temperature had dipped into the 30's overnight, and was still feeling freezing outside. fortunately i set my heat so it'd go off at 6:30am. i pulled out the two large clear plastic latch boxes from my closet which contains winter clothes to find a pair of flanel-lined pants. i also took out my black puffy winter for the first time, though i had doubts as the temperature slowly climbed into the lower 40's.

i left the house by 6:50am, armed with the 55-250mm lens, my fuji 3D camera, and a hot tumbler of cinnamon tea. i wanted to catch the race before the mile 4 mark, when the runners coming up from memorial drive run across weeks' footbridge to continue the race inside harvard stadium then down soldiers field road. i go there at 7:15am. it seemed to be a popular spot, especially since it's within walking distance from harvard student dorms. i got some photos but one of the race advisors was yelling at everyone to get off the road as the runners were soon to be coming down. that turned out to be false, as even the fastest runner would still take 30-40 minutes to run the 6 miles distance before doubling back.

the area was getting crowded anyway, so i biked up to my usual spot, along riverbend park, at the intersection of hawthorne street and memorial drive. i locked my bike along a signpost and stood with my back against a large sycamore tree. it's a perfect spot, with the morning sun shining directly on the runners as they run eastward, with a bit of dappled shade from the tree-lined boulevard. i watched a guy with a trio of children ride their bikes towards the head of the race. surprisingly, he stopped right in front of me. turns out it was michael and his kids. his wife's running the half marathon, and they were following her at several locations. they rode off to rendezvous with his wife at the next station.

the front runner passed me at 7:45am with a motorcycle police escort. on the other bank of the charles river (soldiers field road) i could see runners. slowly but surely they all made their way onto memorial drive, back to the galleria mall. i shot at f/8 aperture 1/1600th shutter speed with variable ISO, my setting of choice for parades and sports events. i didn't have a shooting strategy, just shot whatever caught my attention. if you're wearing a costume? if you're running topless? if you're can still look good despite already over 9 miles in near freezing temperature? those are all good candidates.

as i stood there photographing, it started to get cold. i put on my hat. i put on the glove on my left hand. i put it on my right hand. i took sips of hot tea. for the most part i was okay, but standing there for nearly an hour, my feet felt the coldest. next time wear wool socks. even better, put some feet warmers in the shoes.

something happened to my camera that i never experienced before, at least not recently: i almost ran out of memory. i have a 128GB SD card, which has always served me well, way more storage than i can possibly use for a photo outing. unfortunately i'm low on space on my macbook pro, so i haven't offloaded any of the photos on the memory card in months. when i was shooting the honk parade, the display on the back LCD screen actually showed something like, "11000/###", meaning there was so many photos, it couldn't display all the numbers. normally the "number of photos left" on the top LCD shows 999, which is the maximum numbers it can display. but today i noticed it was down to the 700's, meaning i could only take 700 more photos. it's been a while since i've had to conserve shots, as my normal strategy is to shoot like crazy and sort later.

michael and his kids actually doubled back, following their mom to the finish line. i finally left my spot by 8:40am, once the runners started to thin out. chances there are there probably more runners to be seen, but i'd already had my fill. i rode down memorial drive a little bit, saw a spectator with a megaphone urging the runners on. i then did a u-turn and returned home via ash street.

i got back home by 9am. it was warm in the house compared to being outdoors, but i cranked it up a few more degrees while i used the bathroom and took a shower. since it was still early, i moseyed at home for another 2 hours before leaving for the cafe to retrieve my motorcycle. would the battery be already charged? i'll find out when i get there. it was a nice 30 minute walk in late autumn, kicking through the layers of dead leaves on the sidewalk.

the battery was blinking green. it means the battery isn't fully charged, but at leat 80% and can be used. i installed it in the motorcycle. right away the dashboard display turned on so that was a good sign. the motorcycle started but sputtered off. not to worry, it was freezing last night, the engine's running cold. i pulled out the choke and restarted and the engine stayed on. i turned it back off and put back all the remaining components: battery cover, saddle, motorcycle tools, motorcycle manual, chrome toolkit cover.

i had some cafe stuff to take care off. first i killed all the vinegar flies i saw. there were none last tuesday over the weekend, but during the week they all showed up again, seemingly more than before. they're breeding somewhere, the trick is to end their life cycle. vinegar flies - unlike fruit flies - are ironically not attracted to vinegar as their namesake; instead they like the smell of fermented fruits (the two flies should really switch names). vinegar flies are slightly larger than fruit flies.

i brought out two frozen box of marinated chicken (for frying come tuesday) and a frozen box of marinated charsiu pork (for roasting), putting them inside the fridge to thaw out. tuesday is going to be pretty busy, as well also need to replenish our beef noodle soup supply, which is down to own 2 servings. i put away the new batch of cooled tea eggs. i changed the two wall clocks.

i finally left a little before noontime. the time change is weird, the day feels late but the clock says it's still early. the motorcycle was acting a little weird. not the battery (which was fine), but the wheels felt soft. when i almost arrived at my parents' place, i looked down at the front wheel and could see it slightly bulging because it was so flat. fortunately i arrived before anything bad could happen.

esmei greeted me when i got to my parents' place, pushing a plushie donut to my leg because she wanted someone to play with. we played a little big of tug before my sister took her home. for lunch i had a bowl of sweet red bean soup and a scallion bun. afterwards i went outside to inflate the motorcycle tire. why did it get flat? makes me wonder if the tire itself didn't get damaged in that collision a few months ago. but i've been riding it fine since then, so maybe it just naturally went flat and i'm noticing it now. my father turned on the compressor which made a loud noise as it filled up the tank. why are compressors so loud? is it possible to design a quiet compressor? according to honda specs, the front tire should be inflated to 29 psi, while the rear tire is 36 psi. since i was already inflating the front, i inflated the back tire as well.

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after that we started on a backyard project: expanding raised bed zero (rb0). originally rb0 lived in the corner of the backyard stairs and the sunroom. i forgot while it was moved, i wasn't here when my father moved it. i think because we needed to paint the house, and it made it difficult to work with a raised bed so close to the foundation. however when he moved it, he placed it abutting rb1, leaving no space to walk between the beds. this not only created a barrier where we needed to walk around the beds to get to the rest of the backyard, but it also made working in the beds difficult as we could easily access the ends like the other raised beds. but we learned to live with it.

as the years went on, rb0 started to disintegrate, to the point where we needed to rebuild the wood frame. this gave a chance to rectify some problems. like separating rb0 from rb1 to give up a pathway between the two beds. rb0 was also made smaller to accomodate it's original location, but we decided to expand it so it matched the size of the other raised beds (4x8 ft). we were already used to that area having a large footprint ever since we but a plant stand using wooden stair stringers. we didn't use that plant stand too much this season, as we discovered we could built plant stand platforms using 2x 8ft wood planks and sawhorses. so the same footprint, larger raised bed, bypass pathway, all things we wanted.

first step was pulling out all the remaining plants. rb0 houses some eggplants. we only got a small eggplant this season, after squirrels learned they could eat the baby eggplants. i was tempted to repot these eggplants and overwinter them like i did with the peppers, but there's a good chance we won't be growing them again next season, as they grow slow, don't make abundant fruits (unlikes tomatoes and peppers), and squirrels take the eggplants before we can even harvest them. there were some hyacinth bean vines. when i pulled one up, i noticed a bunch of small round nodules on the roots. i'm guessing these have something to do with nitrogen fixing bacterias. i pulled off the nodules and replanted them, throwing out the rest of the plant. we also uprooted some scallions, but those we grow from the leftover roots of store bought scallions, and we can grow them just as easily.

step two was to do some terraforming. we moved the soil next to rb1 to make room for the eventually pathway. on the other side of rb0, we dug up the grass, as the new raised bed would be moving into this location. i dug up the grass carefully, as we were looking to transfer it into the new pathway space. there's a good chance we'll probably mulch the pathway, in which case we may move the grass once again to fix up bare patches on the lawn. regardless, we were going to save a section of the dug up grass.

with dirt and grass properly reallocated, it was time to build the raised bed frame. my father marked an 8ft plank and cut it in half. i should've checked his work because he ended up making one piece an inch longer. we figured we'd work around this measurement error, not like we're making rocket engines. an inch off isn't a big deal. we also cut a piece of 4x4in treated square fence post into 3 foot long pieces, for the corners. we were missing one more, but the old rb0 corner posts were in surprisingly good condition considering they'd been in the front for over a decade. so we decided to reuse one of the corner posts.

next came time to assemble the raised bed frame. we propped up the corners onto some old wooden boards we had. we discovered because the box doesn't have to be a perfect rectangle with 90 degree corners, that inch difference in the end pieces would disappear once we screwed everything together. with all the pieces properly aligned we started by screwing the corner posts onto the longer 8ft planks. even though we had fresh 3in deck screws, we were able to reuse the old screws from the old rb0 as they were in surprisingly good condition. once that was done, we screwed the end pieces to the two longer boards.

we flipped over the raised bed frame and put it in position. we have to do some adjustment digging but we finally got it settled. we still need to level it off and maybe sink it into the ground another inch or two, but the hard part's done.

what we want to do with this particular raised bed is to layer the bottom with pieces of old hardwood that we have in ample supply in the backyard, from our many adventures pruning the maple, evergreen, and former apple/pear/cherry trees. this has multiple advantages. for one thing, it gives the raised bed soil some padding, so we don't have to add so much soil (quality soil can be expensive). the decomposing wood adds nutrients back into the soil. and it allows us to reuse that wood that's been just sitting outside and rotting.

we also discovered that our chicken wire fencing rectangles can fit perfectly over the bed. that means we can grow some tender greens, as long as they don't grow too tall (in which case we'll just use the fencing vertically).

afterwards my mother was aghast when she saw what my father and i had done. "you ruined the backyard!" she said. she won't be complaining too much next season when we can increase our vegetable harvest with a slightly larger raised bed.

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my father tried making some fried tofu wraps with a package of tofu that i thought was edible snacks but turned out to had to cook it first. the tough tofu "wraps" reminded me of squid meat. it came with pickled vegetables that you're supposed to put inside the wraps.

we started the barbecue around 5pm. it was already dark, but my father and i each had a headlamp. darkness wasn't the only issue, as the cold temperature (45 degrees) meant the grill had to heat longer to reach proper grilling temperature. we had a plate of lamb loin chops along with two assortment of sausages (hot italian and basil). we overcooked our lamb the last time, so this time i brought out the cooking thermometer to make sure they reached the proper internal temperature. because they were thicker cuts, my father opted to grill them 8 minutes per side. afterwards he also tried grilling more of those tofu snacks.

we ate back inside. my father was saying how the lambs were grilled to perfection with the right amount of cumin and salt seasoning. he said it might've been a little too salty, but because of their thicker cuts, you need that extra salt to flavor the interior. i only had two loin chops even though i wanted to eat more. what doomed me was eating one each of the sausages with buns. at least we'll have leftover lamb for tomorrow. as for the grilled tofu, it had a slightly crunchy texture. it was interesting, and it tasted good, but too much hassle for what little you get.

i left belmont around 7pm. temperature was now in the lower 40's, but i've riden in much colder weather than that. i was happy the engine started without issue and that the tires were still inflated.

after using the bathroom and taking a shower, i settled in for some sunday night football with a can of twisted tea. colts vs vikings, vikings won 13-21. earlier there was a lions-packers game. i'm surprised how good detroit is this season: they won 24-14. the lions have an impressive 7-1 record. the chiefs are the only team that are still undefeated. they play tomorrow night at home against the buccaneers. i'll be rooting for baker mayfield!

having woken up so early today (6:30am, felt like yesterday), i decided to go to bed earlier to recuperate. even watching the game, i was nodding off, struggling to stay awake. i was asleep by 11:30pm, one of the rare times when i go to bed before midnight.

i woke up at 8am to get ready for the cambridge household hazardous waste collection day. i left for belmont at 8:40am to rendezvous with my father. a few weeks ago when we cleaned out the garage, we'd already loaded up the car with 3 boxes of old paints, motor oil, pesticide, and unwanted batteries. went drove out to mooney street, behind the burger king, via fawcett street, by the social security administration building. that whole area is the only part of cambridge i'd never been to before. people are always talking about iggy's bread, but that was my first time seeing their store.

when we got to the collection station, there was a long line of cars leaving. later we realized that was actually the line to get in, as we looped around to get in line. it was all very organized, as we made two lines of cars, and men with clipboards waved us forward. instructions were very clear not to get out of your car (like a carwash!). i didn't bring my id, but did have a tax bill to verify my cambridge residency, but that wasn't necessary (i think anyone from any town can come and drop stuff off). once we arrived at the end, someone asked us what we had in the trunk. "old paints and motor oil," i said, as a team of workers unloaded everything out of the trunk. heading out, a lady cop flagged us down. "hold on! hold on!" she yelled, as i rolled the window down. "i see your inspection sticker has expired," she warned us as we drove back to my parents' house.

i returned home soon afterwards as i still had things to do. i raked the front sidewalk, trimming the ivy. i then raked the alleyway. since i only had one garden refuse bin, i only raked the leaves in the backyard into a big pile, to be collected sometime in the future. i cleaned up my porch, putting away all the empty pots as well as the small metal shelving unit i've been using as a makeshift garden table. i tidied the basement a little bit, not as much as i liked, but good enough to be presentable.

i finally finished by 10:30am, by which time i was supposed to be at the cafe. but i took a detour and went to the porter square star market first to collect some more polar seltzer on sale.

my mother bought my container of LECA pellets so i was finally able to set up some forced paperweight bulb vases. i filled a tall round glass vase that was able to fit 7 bulbs. i filled another square glass vase that was just big enough for one bulb. finally, i filled a round pyrex bowl, which fit 7 bulbs. i still have 10 bulbs left over, which i'll keep cooled at 45 degrees in the portable AC fridge. i'll plant those after a few more weeks, so i can stagger the paperweight blooms. i'm actually kind of excited to watch them grow, like a plant-based science experiment. if i can get my hands on some additional bulbs (preferably on late season sale), i'll do some more forced bulb experiments.

my parents also brought the large collection of dried bean pods we harvested from the backyard last weekend. most of them were blue beans, but there were also an assortment of long beans, hyacinth beans, and even some bitter melons. we have so much blue beans that my father's thinking about cooking some of them to see how they taste, since it'd be impossible to plant them all (i still have a bunch of leftover blue beans from last season).

i gave my 2nd aunt her own DIY dawn powerwash sprayer. both my parents are fully onboard the powerwash band wagon, after they were both initially hesitant. my mother was the last person to convert, it took her a while before she switched from dish soap to powerwash. prior to that, she'd yell at me every day because the spray bottle was always getting in the way.

today was very busy initially, but then it tapered off as the day wore on. we had to break into the backup batch of tea eggs, so i ended up making another 30 to serve as the new backup batch. this whole week was okay, but nothing like last week (where we made $700 more). november is traditionally our slowest month. as we get closer to thanksgiving, we start losing customers. this year might be different because t-day happens so late in the month, so we may be able to recuperate most of our profit before that happens.

going on, i couldn't find my motorcycle key. good news is that meant they were probably on the motorcycle. bad news is i had the headlight turned on for the past 6 hours, completely draining the battery. my parents had a car jump starter so i grabbed that as they give my 2nd aunt a ride home. i tried to jump start the bike using the DIY jumper wire i installed, one alligator clamp on the wire, the other clamp on the body of the bike. that didn't work at all. so i removed the seat so i could access the battery directly. the bike at least powered on, but i still couldn't jump start it. my parents swung by the cafe. i ended up removing the battery so i could recharge it in belmont, getting a ride with them.

first thing we did when we got back to belmont was to charge the motorcycle battery with the trickle charger. it was steady red, meaning the battery was very well drained.

my father and i tried the vertical dipole SDR antenna that came a few days ago, now attached to an adjustable clamp mount that was formerly used for one of my RGB camera lights. we tried 2m first, a lot of static and what appears to be communication, but we didn't know the correct settings to clean up the signal and make it intelligible. we had better luck on the FM radio band, with many stations transmitting at high power for loud and clear signals. we played with the gain, tried various filters, turned on RDS to show radio/song identification data.

my parents made chinese dumplings for dinner because we had an excess of garlic chives.

after dinner my father gave me a ride back to the cafe so i could reinstall the battery. it wasn't a good sign that the battery charger was still showing a steady red, meaning the battery wasn't fully charged yet. but i figured even a little charge might be enough to start the engine.

using an LED headlamp, i quickly put the motorcycle battery back with my father's help. the motorcycle wouldn't even power on, much less start. we realized that might've a possible outcome, so we had a contingency plan. i'd leave the battery at the cafe to fully charge overnight (we brought the charger), and then i'll come by tomorrow morning to install it back onto the motorcycle. my father tested the battery with the multimeter, it only read 8v (normal battery is 12v). after that i got a ride back home.

my upstairs neighbors returned home today. steve sent me an e-mail in the afternoon. first thing he said was he had a few water/sewer bills for me to pay. they're loud and annoying, but at least i know their routines, having lived below them for more than 20 years. in the meantime we all place nice for the sake of being neighborly.

temperature today suddenly dropped down into the 50's. it wasn't cold in the house because of all the captured heat from the last few days, but my heat still kicked in the evening, but only to warm up the house by one degree.

i wanted to wake up early this morning to either clean the basement or my garden plot, but i didn't do neither, instead choosing to sleep a bit more instead.

my mother's latest temu order arrived yesterday. included in the shipment were some replacement shoelaces for my merrell hiking shoes. i didn't realize one package included 2 pairs of shoelaces (4 laces) so i ordered too much. these temu laces are still too thin compared to my original laces. i needed to replace them because the aglets had long ago frayed off and if i removed the old laces i wouldn't be able to put them back in. i threaded the new laces, they're okay, but i may try to replace them again at some point. i did notice the laces didn't come undone during the day, which was a constant problem with my old laces.

the temu package also came with an automatic door remote. after finding a tiny screw driver, my father was able to open the remote so we could change the door code. after that the remote worked great, allowing us to automatically open the door remotely.

my sister told me about esmei's canine mouth warts a few days ago but today i managed to get a photo. it's pretty gross, reminds me of the puffy interior of a pomelo fruit, but the size of a green pea, one on each side of the inside of her mouth. you can't see them easily, that's why we never noticed, until my sister took esmei to the vet to get a rabies shot. these warts spread from dogs sharing toys or using the same drinking bowl. they normally disappear after several weeks, at which point the dog becomes immune from future warts. despite being very contagious, they only spread to other dogs, not to humans, and not to other animal species.

i went to run errands at porter exchange around 10:30am. i was returning some unused red-white-blue yarn at michael's, then to star market to pick up some sugarbee apples (97¢/lb.), polar seltzers ($2.99/case), and lamb chops ($6.97/lb.) - all on sale. the seltzers and lamb chops were exclusive to the porter square store (and only this weekend), which recently did some renovation work, moving the meat department to the back center of the store. i called my 2nd aunt afterwards to let her know about the sale, since she wanted to get some lamb chops as well.

using a ladder, i installed the small solar panel on top of patio umbrella. that's the kind of perks you get for a $500 umbrella. the solar panel recharges a battery pack that powers the built-in lights inside the umbrella frame. it's all pretty fancy, but we've only ever used the umbrella during the daytime, so we've never had a chance to experience the umbrella lights. but with the end of daylight saving time on sunday, there's going to be a few weeks where the patio umbrella will still be out when it gets dark. something to look forward to next week, when sunset will be at 4:30pm.

first day of november and it ended up being a slow day. it was busy around lunchtime, but small sales, quantity over quality. what we really like are the big orders where just one sale we can reap a significant profit. multiple small sales are tiring.

i brought the last container of spicy mexican chicken soup which i heated up for lunch. i gave my mother the biggest portion, she seemed to really like it, spicy, filling, and best of all she doesn't want to do any work.

around 2pm i started watching the dodgers parade broadcasting live from los angeles. they don't have duck boats, so they're using double decker buses instead. seems like they don't have a lot of practice with sports parades, because the vehicles seemed to be traveling too fast for fans to see all the players. the parade ended back at the stadium, where there was a paid ceremony.

i'm down to just 2 tea egg spice packet so i made a new batch. normally i make 10 at a time, but i got through them so fast (2-3 a week), i decided to double my batch, make 20 packets instead. the hardest part is weighing the ground spices to 10g, then pouring them into tea bags. can't simplify the weighing, but maybe i can get a small funnel to make pouring easier. tying up the tea bags is also a little tedious. when i run out, i might took in replacement tea bags with metal clasps for closing. or bigger sized tea bags that are easier to fill. 20 spice packets will last me to mid-december.

my aunt showed up in the late afternoon. she managed to see esmei when my sister came back from her trip. esmei seemed tired and just plopped over on the patio deck.

my parents made another smaller batch of vegetarian buns. seems like the only reason they did was because they had extra filling they needed to use up. not sure how long this latest batch will last us, probably a few weeks at least. we are however low on beef noodle soup again. and my mother thought we were out of salt & pepper chicken and made my father quickly fry a few in a deep pot filled with an inch of frying oil. later i found a small box in the fridge that contained 3 servings. we have enough for tomorrow but will need to do some frying on tuesday.

for dinner my mother packed me some scallion buns stuffed with suancai. i ate them as soon as i got home. it was another warm day, and i biked home in just a t-shirt. temperature will drop beginning tomorrow though. today we were in the 70's, while tomorrow we'll be in the 50's.

my original plan was to clean out the basement when i got back, but after working all the day, the last thing i wanted to do was more work. so i'm pushing it off until tomorrow morning. i want to tidy up the basement because my upstairs neighbors are returning tomorrow. while i'm at it i might also rake the oak leaves in the backyard. all before i need to go to work at 10:30am, plus i'm going with my father at 9am to the cambridge hazardous waste recycle event.

there was a celtics-hornets game. i watched it in the background, figured boston was going to win it one way or another. in the second half i got hungry again and finished off the three leftover drumsticks i had in the fridge.

i got a little over 6 hours of sleep last night before waking up for work. i didn't get to the cafe until 9:15am, my parents were already there opening up the store. once i started a batch of tea eggs, i went down to trader joe's to get a few things for the cafe. once i got back it started to get busy. this was the last day of october: would we be able to set a single month record? as a matter of fact, we did by $15, beating out last may as the most profitable month of all times. we didn't reach the big milestone though, shy by $40, unless you count delivery orders. we won't be as profitable november and december due to thanksgiving (where we close for 3 days) and christmas (where customers leave for the holidays).

i got some chile crackers from trader joe's, never had them before. i ate them with some leftover brie cheese. they're not too bad, and surprisingly spicy. i was also looking for some seaweed tempura chips but they were all sold out.

i brought a container of my spicy mexican chicken soup from last night. i reheated it and shared it with my parents. my mother wasn't interested until she tried it and said it was delicious and very filling.

my sister's godmother showed up at the cafe today. she wouldn't be here unless she needed something, and that was for me to create a payroll form for her. she'd ask my sister, but my sister is unreliable, and her godmother needs it in less than 2 weeks.

while my sister went to go see the foot doctor in the afternoon, i went over to her place to check up on esmei. she was in her tent, but when i turned around, she'd already made a beeline to the backyard, poking me in the butt with her snout. i played with her for a while in the backyard, tossing a flipflop that i saw my sister take form belmont that was now in tattered pieces.

we were down to our last 2 vegetarian buns before my parents made a new batch. it required running 3 separate stainless steel steamers over the induction cooktops. my mother said they needed to make another batch tomorrow as the ones we made today wasn't enough. why we only sell vegetarian buns is a mystery, since it wouldn't be hard to make meat buns as well. we do occasionally make meat buns but only for ourselves, though i imagine customers would be interested in some meat buns.

i was excited to get home to catch the halloween festivities happening around my neighborhood. thinking there'd be lots of trick or treaters all over the streets, i wore my gopro camera on a harness to capture them. i also used my neewer RGB62 video light (6W) to light the road in front of my bike. i had it set to 20% color cycle.

soon after i got home, i met bruce and jack so we could take a halloween tour. we moseyed around some local streets before finally making it to crescent. before we even arrived we could already hear the marching band playing. this year's theme was sharks. i used my pixel 7 phone to shoot some photos as well as the gopro for videos. as convenient as it is to just use a phone and an action camera, i still prefer my canon 28mm f/1.8 lens for night photography. i'll bring it back out next year.

after coming home, i reheated some leftover spicy mexican chicken soup for dinner along with some twisted tea. the only game worth watching was thursday night football on amazon prime between the texans and jets. it was an awful game that was finally won by the jets 13-21.

i went to bed last night at 3am, slept for 6-1/2 hours, woke up around 9:30am. i could've slept more on this one day where i didn't have to work, but i had things to do and needed to wake up. it rained overnight and the streets outside was still wet while the sky remained grey. temperature was climbing and it felt unusually humid. i felt compelled to go out for a run but waited until 11am to let the streets dry out a bit more.

i got home a bit after noontime. after a shower i was trying to figure out what to have for lunch, then realized i had some leftover barbecued drumsticks from yesterday. i also saw that sheri had left some beers and hard ice tea on my backyard deck. she must've left them outside yesterday because the box was soaked. she also left my a large plastic tote, and said i could keep it.

after lunch, i started making plans to run some errands. i had a list of things to do (clean the garden, clean the basement, make sauerkraut, make hot sauce, buy grass fertilizer, buy spray foam, get LECA for paperwhites), but ended up not doing most of them.

what i did do was package up the two pairs of on shoes my mother didn't want anymore and returned them to the nearby star market, where there's a fedex dropoff. afterwards i got a few groceries there before returning home to drop them off.

i got on my bike and went to whole foods. it was so warm, i changed into my short-sleeved polo, didn't think i'd wear that again this year. i went to whole foods to return a few amazon purchases (RJ12 phone splitter, gam3geaer 48-Y1 repeater controller cable). a woman was ahead of me returning a bunch of stuff at the self-service return kiosk, apologizing for making we wait so long. when she finally finished though, the machine was full, and i had to go inside to return my things. that turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because i saw from the corner of my eye some green canvas whole foods reusable grocery bags by the self-checkout station. i went and bought 3 (at $2.19 a piece).

next was market basket, where i collected some ingredients for making spicy mexican chicken soup. i had a large can of hominy i wanted to use up, and the original recipe called for hominy. while i was there, i helped a woman get down a case of seltzer from a high shelf. she was actually taller me, but the two of us worked together and managed to get the drinks down.

by the time i came home, it was almost 4pm. originally i planned on cleaning out my garden plot, but decided it was too late. i baked some frozen soft pretzels as a snack, ate them with generous squirts of yellow french mustard. i was going to do some retroactive blog work, but ended up not doing any of that either.

by 7pm i started making my spicy mexican chicken soup. i haven't made this recipe since december 2022, almost 2 years ago. like i mentioned earlier, i was using hominy this time instead of pearl couscous. i bought 3 lbs. worth of chicken breast. i didn't need that much (it was on sale) but boiled and shredded all of it, saving half for some future use. while i was waiting for everything to cook, i tried one of the twisted tea for the very first time. it kind of tasted like cheap ice tea with some alcohol (5%) added. i could probably easily make a better version using real tea and just add some vodka.

i left the soup to simmer for half an hour. i'm not sure if this step is necessary, since all the ingredients i was using were already cooked. i did this in the past to cook the pearl couscous. still, simmering it for a little while allows the flavors to blend together.

when it was all ready i scooped myself a big bowl. i added some shredded mexican cheese and chopped cilantro (i didn't have any scallions). it was okay, but the hominy had a rubbery texture and was too chewy. next time i make this recipe i'm going back to pearl couscous. they don't overwhelm the soup the way hominy does. i've made it with hominy in the past, but that was with homemade hominy that i constituted in a slow cooker for half a day. the texture of canned hominy doesn't feel the same, or maybe i simply added way too much.

i ate while watching game 5 of the world series. tonight was the last game in new york before the series go back to los angeles for the final 2 games. by the time i started watching, the yankees were already up 0-3. they added 2 more runs by the end of the 3rd inning. the dodgers were ineffective until the 5th inning. they took advantage of some yankee errors and scored 5 runs to tie the game. but the yankees came right back and scored in the next inning, bringing it up to 5-6. but the dodgers buckled down and managed 2 runs in the 8th. new york could sense that victory was about to slip through their grasps, with the dodgers needing just 6 more outs to win if the yankees don't score. and sure enough, the yankees didn't score after that. final score 7-6 dodgers win the world series!

freddie freeman won the MVP, it was the most obvious choice. watching the dodgers win felt like the red sox winning, with former red sox mookie betts, kike hernandez, joe kelly, and dave roberts on the team. wish i could go to los angeles this week to see the parade! dodgers won the world series in 2020 but with an abbreviated season and no parade. this is like their makeup world series.

even though i was late, i was still the first to arrive at the cafe this morning. it was a cold and cloudy day, so i didn't bother opening the patio umbrella or setting up the tables, figured nobody would be sitting outside today. i used up the very last packet of store bought spices to make tuesday morning's batch of tea eggs. my sister called my mother, said she got food poisoning from eating the italian sausage we gave her last night. we found that hard to believe as the sausages were grilled to well done, and none of us got sick. she ended up taking esmei to belmont because she didn't have the strength to walk her dog.

it was busy today. at one point i kept using the same pot of boiling water three times to cook noodle orders that kept coming in. probably because it was cold, taiwanese beef noodle was once again the most popular item.

my sister texted in the early afternoon, said the heating oil delivery man was in the backyard, and spilled oil all over the place, including onto the rain barrel. i saw the photos and it looked like a real mess. my sister called the heating oil company, but they only thing they said was they'd call the driver, no promise of sending someone over to clean up the oil leak. so i called them myself, and i got the same run around, "we'll contact the driver, this has never happened before, etc." i asked the guy how do i go about cleaning up the mess, he said to just use dawn detergent. since it wasn't busy anymore, i took the car and drove to belmont to clean up the spill. i used the homemade dawn powerwash, which seemed to be better at neutralizing the oil stain and the smell. afterwards i scrubbed everything down with a brush and rinsed with rain water. i could still smell some heating oil, but it was much better than before.

i played with esmei in the backyard a little bit, tossing the ball and playing tug. she chased me with a long stick she found. later i went back inside to wash my mother's bedsheets with a different detergent to figure out if she was allergic to the new detergent she bought. esmei came with me down in the basement. i showed her the grow room but she wasn't the least bit interested. we're still not sure what the bite marks on my mother's body are from bugs or allergic reaction. i'm ruling out bed bugs because her face hasn't seem to be affected, and that's usually where bed bugs bite, besides shoulders and arms.

back at the cafe, i opened up the bag of paperwhite bulbs i bought from costco yesterday. i believe they were $10 for a package of 25 bulbs. all of them had sprouted a little bit because they've been in the store for too long, but were otherwise in good healthy conditions. my father and i were trying to find suitable containers to force them. later my sister showed me a cache of leftover glass bowls that were perfect for paperwhites. she also had a box of various marbles, but i'm going to grow them over a LECA clay pebble substrate, for a more organic look. i put all the bulbs into a paper bag and put them in the DC portable fridge/freezer set to 45 degrees to stop them from growing until we're ready to plant them. this way we can stagger their bloom so we can have flowers over the course of late fall into early winter. i don't know how long they'll keep in the fridge, especially since the bulbs have already partially germinated.

i totally forgot the comcast business technician was coming over today to check our lines, until my mother called me while i was in the basement about to empty the ice machine. the technician arrived early - 3:30pm - and i didn't even get a courtesy text he was arriving. he was an animated and friendly fellow with an accent that sounded brazilian. "my friend, don't worry, i will make sure everything is working," he told me. he was looking at our cable modem setup and immediately recognized the problem: the coaxial was coming out of a splitter, and the connections on the splitter were loose. how loose? loose enough he could turn it 4 times before it tightened. i felt stupid for not seeing the issue earlier. while he was working, i asked him his name. "marci," he told me, "M-A-R-C-I". i'd never heard of that name before, and asked him if he was short for something. he said no, but told me his father's french while his mother's portuguese. he also had a very french sounding last name. "i thought you were brazilian at first," i admitted to him, before he told me he was in fact brazilian. though the two branches of his family hail from different parts of europe, they both settles in brazil, where his parents met, and where he was born and grew up.

next marci went outside to check the cable lines from the utility pole. i told him our next door neighbors were having internet issues as well. he said our connection was fine, but the neighbor's had a loose connection which he tightened up. earlier he showed me a status report on his phone showing a red X at our address. after he removed the splitter, it showed a green checkmark, and the signal strength was strong. marci told me that usually comcast charges $100 for the visit if the issue isn't related to outdoor equipment failure, but he told me he'd speak with his supervisor and have this appointment marked as free.

while i was walking him out, he asked where i was from. i told him taiwanese, and that i'd been here since 1980. he asked me to guess his age. i had a hard time, and guessed 50 years old (like me), but he was actually 58, though he could easily pass for someone in his 40's. i asked what was his secret. he told me he does a lot of cycling. i told him the bike parked by the street sign was my bike. we then started chatting about biking. marci lives out in millis, where he does a lot of speed biking. he showed me his cycle results, a typical ride for him takes 2-3 hours, and he can reach speeds upwards of 50mph on his carbon fiber $8000 cannondale bicycle. he told me his shortening his crank arms for faster speed, and how he wants to get carbon fiber spokes for his wheels but those are really expensive and his wife would divorce him. he rides alone, only during the daytime when the temperature is 60 degrees or above, and never in the rain. during the winter he rides the peloton indoors but he admits that's not the same. one of things he loves to do is pass people on his bike.

it wasn't busy the rest of the day, but we'd already made a decent profit. not as much as last tuesday, but still pretty good despite the bad weather. in the final hour we suddenly got a few more customers, including one customer who called with 10 minutes left before we closed to make an order.

my parents had already ate some black soy noodles for dinner before we closed, while i didn't eat anything so i can go home and throw a frozen lasagna in the oven. it took me a while to push out all the trash bins, which were all full from sheri's move. i also moved my motorcycle and put the cover on as it was going to rain a little bit overnight.

after a shower, i waited for my lasagna to finish baking. i ate while watching game 4 of the world series. dodgers could sweep if they beat the yankees, but the yankees finally found some offense tonight, with a final score of 4-11. new york staved off elimination, but will now need to win 3 more games in a row to win the world series, something that'd never been done before. good thing for them game 5 is tomorrow night. bad thing is game 6 and 7 are all back in los angeles.

teri garr passed away today. i know she was in movies (and some television work), but i remember her best from her frequent appearance on late night with dave letterman. their flirtatious banter was always a highlight whenever she was on.

i went on a supply run with my parents this morning. costco, super 88 malden, then bianco & sons sausage. since we passed by the somerville market basket on our way home, we stopped there as well.

it was very busy at costco, despite it being a monday. i overheard an employee singing a made-up song, "it's always crazy here, it's always crazy here." they sold pallets of 30 eggs, which meant we didn't have to go to restaurant depot to get our eggs. costco also had "beef rolls" in the freezer department, used for hot pots. seems like they have more and more ethnic asian foods, like punjabi cookies and haldiram soan cakes. i managed to find a package of paperwhite bulbs at the back of the store, but no go on the lawn fertilizer.

my mother wanted to visit the malden 99 asian supermarket, but it was out of the way, so we went to the malden 88 supermarket instead. we only needed to get a few asian vegetables for the cafe, but ended up buying more than planned. the malden 88 has an amazing fresh fish department which is very much a secret.

besides chinese sausages, we also got some hot italian sausages and basil sausages from bianco & sons.

the sky outside market basket had an undulating pattern that looked like sand dunes. these are in fact high altitude cirrus clouds interacting with gravity waves. my father waited in the car while my mother and i went in to grab a few things. my mother hasn't been to the somerville market basket in a long time. i told her all the cashiers know me because i visit so often.

my parents dropped me off at my place before heading to the cafe. i chatted with sheri briefly, who was outside loading her car, in the middle of moving to her new place, which just down the street, so not too far. i grabbed my things and headed to the cafe as well to help unload the supplies. while my parents returned home, i stayed behind o try and register the new surfboard modem that i failed to register yesterday morning. i got an american agent this time - nancy. the call took 49 minutes and we failed to register the new modem. nancy did notice that there was some bad signal on the line, which might be preventing the surfboard from registering. she set up an appointment tomorrow for a technician to come out and take a look at the line between 4-6pm.

i didn't get to my parents' place until 2:30pm. my mother made me a bowl of wonton soup. afterwards i did my weekly indoor garden maintenance. i dug up the caladium tubers from the two hanging planters. i trimmed my prayer plants and replanted them into those two same hanging planters. i finally watered all the plants in the grow room. originally i was going to add systemic insecticide powders, but i was afraid it'd kill the beneficial Bti bacteria, so i opted to hold off for the time being. i did check the foliage on the jasmines and gardenia, didn't see any pests.

i tested the rtl-sdr dongle on my father's laptop using the cross-platform sdr++ app. it worked immediately, we got a waterfall of the FM band and was able to receive clear transmissions from several stations. it didn't work so well when we tried listening to 2m and 70cm bands, but that's probably because we were just testing with a simple retrofitted baofeng radio antenna. later we tried it again using the 2m homemade rooftop antenna. we never got any clear signals, but could definitely see there was something transmitting from the waterfall display.

my sister brought esmei to my parents' place in the late afternoon. i let her into the backyard and tossed the ball with her. at one point she got the zoomies again and bolted away to the other side of the yard.

my father finally turned on the heat tonight, after the weather forecast said the temperature will drop into the 30's overnight. the furnace worked as expected. also earlier in the afternoon i called fireman's fuel to order 150 gallons of heating oil for my parents (at $2.99/gallon).

for dinner we grilled some drumsticks and italian sausages with fennel. it was cold enough - 40's - that i saw my breath as i waited by the grill for the meats to finish cooking. the finished drumsticks were a little undercooked, we forgot to grill them to doneness with a lower temperature. the sausages were cooked to perfection though, with a crispy snap to the skin, made me dream of making my own sausages one of these days.

i returned home after 7:30pm. temperature hadn't changed very much since earlier - still in the 40's - but the darkness made it feel even colder.

bunch of sports games were all happening tonight: bucks-celtics, giants-steelers, dodgers-yankees. i ended up watching the world series game as there was more at stake, though i periodically tuned in to the basketball game to check the score. when it looked like the celtics were going to beat the bucks, i could safety tune in to the baseball game. dodgers won again, 4-2. they're now up 3-0 in the world series. no team has ever come back from being down 0-3 in the world series. only the red sox has come back after being down 0-3, but that was the ALCS (against the yankees no less).

i didn't wake up until 10am, probably the only time this week i can afford to sleep in late. last night i rifled through my closet looking for that literal unused flea trap that i bought a while back when i got fleas from rob's cat. i couldn't find it, so this morning i went down to the basement to rummage through my boxes hoping to find the trap but no luck.

i wanted to take a quick trip to market basket to get a few things. i called my mother to ask if she needed anything, but she convinced me not to go since we're going there anyway tomorrow for a supply run. so i finally left around 11:30am, first to get some gas before stopping at the cafe to swap out the cable modem. a man with an accent approached me at the pump. he seemed very friendly and resembled an older looking michael. he asked my help to work the pump. the thing he didn't realize was there was a toggle by the pump that he needed to flip to choose which grade of gasoline he wanted. later i asked him where he was from that he didn't know how to work the pump. he said in spain the pumps don't work like that, and they select the fuel type from the touchscreen, not a physical toggle switch.

riding down walden street, i saw a pile of discarded kitchen items. i parked on raymond street so i could double back and take a look. i grabbed a krups waffle maker that looked to be in good condition, as well as a large heavy wooden cutting board. the surface was scarred with cut marks, but nothing that a little sanding and mineral oil can't bring back as good as new. the waffle maker i could stuff into my backpack (barely), but i didn't have my bungie netting. even if i did, the wood block was so heavy and large, it would've been difficult to strap onto the motorcycle. so i put it behind a tree, hoping i could tell my sister and we could come back for it if she wanted it.

i text my sister a text with a photo of the cutting board when i got to the cafe. she immediately came over and we drove back to raymond street to retrieve the wood block. it'd only been less than 10 minutes, but during that time, somebody else had taken the cutting board. street treasures go fast! it was for the best, i don't think we had a place for it anyway.

back at the cafe i connected the new SB6190 cable modem and called comcast business. on weekends they use a foreign call center, so my indian agent was named sean. he was polite enough, but i don't think he knew what he was doing. i ended up spending nearly 40 minutes on the phone with him as he tried to register my new cable modem. he never got it to work so i ended up switching to the netgear modem i got a few days ago, with hopes of coming back either tonight or tomorrow to try again.

that meant i didn't get to belmont until almost 1pm, when i was supposed to be there earlier to make pastrami reuben sandwiches for my parents for lunch. my father figured i was at the cafe working on the modems when he couldn't see any of the web cams. my mother made wonton soup for lunch, said we'd have sandwiches for dinner instead.

i got a chance to inspect the krups waffle maker. it sells on amazon for $68. we already have a waffle maker, but it's one of those kitchen appliances that you use a few times before never using again. that was our case, and most likely the case of the previous owner of the krups waffle maker. this one was better, featuring removable plates for easier cleaning. each plates can also make 4 waffles, while our old maker could only make two at a time. no time for waffles this weekend, but we'll definitely try out the waffle maker next weekend.

after lunch we all outside in the backyard getting to dig up the daikon radishes. we could see the radishes poking up from the soil, but had no idea how big they'd be. my mother had the honors, and wearing gloves (the leaves have tiny thorns), she easily pulled up the radishes. they were much bigger than i'd imagined, though most of them had weird shapes, kind of like ginseng roots. my sister brought esmei around that time, and we distracted esmei long enough to harvest the daikon radishes, otherwise she'd try to grab one thinking it was a chew toy. instead esmei was happy playing with an empty plastic milk container. at one point she got the zoomies and all over the yard. my sister tried making esmei wear some halloween costumes she bought. the oxen hat she didn't like at all and tried to take it off as soon as we put it on. the only costume that kind of worked was the dracula cape.

we harvested the dried long beans and blue beans, as well as the hyacinth beans. my mother went back inside while my father and i stayed out and continued working. the weather wasn't too bad, even though the temperature was only in the 50's, it felt warm in the sun. we continued harvesting dried bean pods, while ripping and cutting down all the vines. i also removed all the dead perennials using the japanese hori hori knife, which i've found to be the most useful tool in the garden: it cuts, it digs, it can also weed. i bought it off of ebay for only $6 (nisaku japanese stainless steel 5-inch mini leisure knife), and originally i thought the low price meant it was junk, but it's actually a very well made tool. now you can't buy it for less than $20. i chopped down all the goldenrods, the phloxs, irises & gladiolus leaves, faded ornamental grass, dead peony leaves, dried foxglove flower stalks, and climbing vines. my father took down a segment of the canopy fencing above the rain barrels. i removed all the hanging attachments from the maple tree, to be used next season. we finally went back inside around 3pm. one last thing i noticed today working in the backyard was zero bugs. the cold weather must've killed all the mosquitoes, which is a blessing despite the chillier temperature.

there was an early afternoon patriots same still in progress. the game was roughly tied in the first quarter with drake maye throwing against the jets, but by the time i caught it in the 4th quarter, jacoby brissett was at center. i quickly looked up what happened, apparently maye left the game after suffering what appeared to be a concussion from a helmet-to-helmet hit that was even called by the referees. the crazy part is new england ended up winning, beating aaron rodgers and company, who seem to be floundering even more after they fired their head coach robert saleh two weeks ago, and they haven't won a game since. now the jets and patriots have the same terrible 2-6 record, with the dolphins not far ahead with 2-5. only the bills are decent at 6-2. it's funny, but the only two games new england has won this season have been against the jets.

my mother got a new heating pad for her bed last week. everything seemed okay until she reported she was getting bites overnight, all over her body. so all this week we've been trying to figure out what it could be. the two leading candidates are fleas and bedbugs, with fleas being the far lesser of two evils. the bites don't seem like bedbugs (a relief) because they're more random. but why would a heating pad cause bugs to show up when they never did before? so today i vacuumed underneath her bed, which was super dusty, which could be a potential breeding place for fleas. i then tried testing out the bed with the heat turned on, using my body as bait, to see if i could draw out any potential bugs. i didn't get any bites, nor saw any critters. so the mystery remains. in the meantime my mother has become very paranoid and afraid to sleep in the bed, or use the heating pad.

i finally made pastrami reuben sandwiches for dinner. my father helped me butter the bread. instead of heating the sandwiches in a pan on the stovetop, i toasted them in the air fryer oven. my father heated his sandwich in the pan, which wasn't hot enough to melt the swiss cheese. the sandwiches were oily because of the butter. my mother only finished half her sandwich, saving the rest for later.

my father and i discovered a new radio gadget: the retevis RT97 full duplex UHF/VHF repeater ($400). apparently it's been around for a while, since we saw a youtube video about it dated 5 years ago. if money was no object, we'd buy it to realize the dream of wireless VHF communication from my house (20ft elevation surrounded by dense 3-story condos) to my parents' place in belmont (52ft elevation) using the cafe as an intermediary (36ft). i also gave my father an audio file of his HAM radio call sign in morse code form, since he doesn't like saying his callsign when antenna testing. unfortunately for some reason the surecom simplex repeater (SR-112) doesn't hear the morse code audio and won't repeat/transmit the audio.

i returned home around 8pm. the temperature by then had dropped down into the mid-40's. it was chilly but it wasn't too bad, though my legs felt cold through the thin khaki fabric of my pants.

after a shower i watched the cowboys-49ers game in the background. i found my RTL-SDR dongle and ordered a simple dipole antenna kit for it (to arrive on tuesday). i did some research on broad band discone antennas and how to properly ground a roof mounted antenna. i watched some head massage videos, which is my latest interest.