i watered the backyard again this morning. my one umbrella plant sitting in a particularly sunny corner of my backyard deck has scorch marks on its leaves from the sun. i moved it to a shadier spot, as well as the hanging prayer plant. elsewhere, solomon seals, lily of the valley, and rhododendrons all have signs of heat scalding. the only plant that seems to be happy is the hydrangea. afterwards i went to the community garden to water. there was one butterfly pea flower but i left it alone, hopefully to get some seeds. when i left somebody that thrown out a large zucchini on top of the trash can. i grabbed it and put it in my bag as i left for the cafe.

approaching the cafe, i found a manual juicer. nothing fancy, it's well designed, and i found the matching model on amazon for only $8. add it to my collection of single purpose kitchen tools.

i went out again, this time to the fresh pond mall. i went to staples to return the weber ash tray. i never returned an amazon purchase at staples before, which is weird, because a few stores down is a whole foods with a dedicated amazon return department. there was only a single person working the desk and i had to wait for an old lady to finish up paying and stop talking before the clerk could process my amazon return. i asked if this was new, but she said they were handling amazon returns ever since she worked there.

afterwards i went to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers and edamame, before returning to the cafe.

we had few customers in the morning but that was it in terms of profit. it was shaping to be another very slow day. the customers who came on tuesday-wednesday-thursday - where they did they go? wasn't like today was any hotter, but maybe they finally got sick of the heat and decided not to go out for food. we were saved by our evening spike, had enough customers to pull us above our daily average.

my father and i looked for a solar-powered drip irrigation system for our sawhorse trellis luffas and other grow bag potted plants. a lot of them have cheap manual controls but we found a few with digital displays that can be easier adjusted. we found one in particular that also included wifi and we'll probably get it tomorrow during the MA tax free holiday.

my aunt came by the afternoon. my mother gave her some more luffas and some scallion bread. i didn't know the bread was for her because i ended up eating a bunch. my mother made a bitter melon with salted duck egg stifry and another chinese eggplant with basil stirfry. my father made a dish with shredded chicken and sichuan peppercorn oil. i ended up going home with some of that leftovers.

i inspected the backyard after i put away my bike. i noticed some more sun-damaged plants. i've been toying with the idea of installing a sun shade in the backyard to give the plants some protection from the intense heat and sunlight. some sensitive shade plants will need to be this autumn, to parts of the backyard that doesn't get so much sunlight.

i turned on the AC as soon as i got home. it was 84 degrees inside the house. after a shower i had dinner. i listened to the new york times podcast about AIPAC and how it alienated the democratic base that it once supported.

i got ready early this morning so i'd have time to water my backyard as well as my community garden plot. with the large oak tree missing, the backyard needed watering more than ever. i noticed the trilliums had scorch mark on the leaves, don't know if they're going to survive. on the other side of the yard i saw some browning ferns. up in a nearby tree, a squirrel was twitching its tail in distress. it must've relied on the acorns the oak tree provided, now gone forever. hopefully it can find other sources of food. not just humans who mourn the loss of the oak tree.

after watering around my house, i biked to the community garden to water my plot. now that i know consistent daily watering is key to eliminating bottom blossom rot, i'm going to be more vigilant about watering. it looked like jen was in the garden but i didn't see her. however by the time i was leaving i saw her watering some of the common beds.

it was so hot and humid today it felt unbearable to be outside. it was the first of many days where we'll be in the 90's. combined with the humidity (my weather station said 83%) it easily felt like 100 degrees or more. we didn't even bother setting up the patio furniture, no sane person would want to sit outside. two passion flowers today. the city road crew was finally paving concord avenue.

my father was setting up the deep fryer when i got to the cafe. i helped him fry a new batch of salt & pepper chicken. we kept the kitchen door closed to keep the fry smell from permeating to the rest of the cafe. i set up a fan on a table to blow out the fry oil smell.

once the frying was done, i made a new batch of tea eggs. we actually ran out of tea eggs and had to start using the batch i just made. once that happened, i made yet another new batch of tea eggs. i also made a new batch of black soy noodles and roasted a new batch of chinese sausages. my mother made some scallion bread and a new batch of sour mustard greens and pickled cucumbers. seems like everyone had something to do.

it was one of those days where it didn't seem like it'd be too busy. but every hour got progressively busier, hitting a peak between 1-3pm, when it got super busy for some reason as customers kept coming in one after another. my personal theory is they had a meeting at the astrophysics center that ran late, and everyone was coming late to our cafe for lunch.

my sister took off by 2pm. she was going to the BTS concert at gillette stadium and was dropping off esmei at her friend's house, with instructions for my parents to pick up esmei after work. my sister isn't expected to get back home until late, and will swing by my parents' place to grab her dog. this concert was long planned months ago. she even bought a glowing BTS wand that can sync up with concert events as well as getting a new pair of pentax 8x25 binoculars which she paid $180 (even though we have binoculars she could borrow).

after 3pm we barely had any customers. close to the end of the day we had a few delivery orders, that's about it. every day this week we've made about the same (above our daily average), with today being the highest of the three days profit-wise. kind of surprisingly, i figured with the heat customers would stay away.

after work, my mother gave me some leftover rice and a fishy-smelling luffa and pork dish my father created earlier. but i wasn't going home, but instead heading to belmont to personally spearhead some upgrades to our grow bags to make them perform better.

there are many benefits to using grow bags. plants grow denser roots and don't get root bound because of air pruning. grow bags also don't get as hot since heat can easily escape the porous fabric and plants never get root rot because of excellent drainage. but what we didn't take into account were some of the disadvantages, the two being grow bags dry out super fast and because of the excellent drainage a lot of nutrients get leached out. that's why my father's been noticing for many weeks now that ground-grown luffas seem healthier. yes they grow slowly, but they don't experience the drying or the nutrient leaching. the grow bag luffas grow great initially, and started to fruit as soon as they reached the trellis (only 2-1/2 feet), but over time, the drying and leaching takes a toll.

leaching we can counteract by fertilizing weekly, that's not a problem. the drying out is more difficult to solve, especially given how dry it's been this summer (take a look at our yellow lawn if you need proof). grow bags need frequent watering, which we can't do when we're at work. my father has been researching solar irrigation solutions, but i don't know how well they work. another trick is to bunch the grow bags closer together, so they shield one another from drying out too quickly. we can't do that because the luffas are already entwined to the trellis and can't be moved anymore. the only thing left to try is to put some mulch around the plants, the idea being it keeps the soil from evaporating from the top (though it can still evaporate through the porous sides). we happen to have a large used bundle of commercial straw in the garage. i added about 2 layers of straw before my father watered the grow bags. we'll see how this will work out.

my parents went to go pick up esmei. my father let her into the backyard. she wasn't at all surprised to see me, but instead ran across the lawn chasing after a rabbit. i also picked more than a dozen butterfly pea flowers. i didn't pick the old ones - the blossoms had already faded - some of which have already turned into seed pods.

our bean trellises in the raised beds are growing super well. my father has been diligently pruning the tips to increase side shoot and pruning the bottom leaves to provide more air circulation. the leaves themselves are huge, bigger than my outstretched hand. i still haven't seen any long bean flowers (which only bloom in the morning), but today i saw more spent flowers, which will now develop into long beans.

i returned home by 7:30pm. it was starting to get dark (sunset now at 7:58pm) and i didn't put on my bike lights even though i had them (the trek allant also features some dazzling spoke lights which look especially cool). even though i was riding a manual bike, it felt like i was still traveling pretty fast. i think all my training with smaller 26" mountain bike wheels have prepared me well for the 700c wheels upgrade. manual bikes are also lighter, it's easy to maintain a fast speed once i reach it. approaching home, i rode on the newly paved garfield street - black and smooth like glass - what a pleasure to ride on.

i turned on the AC when i got home - i'm not a masochist. i hopped in the shower to wash off the fryer smell from this morning. i didn't have dinner until almost 9pm. i had some cherries afterwards, and some vanilla bean ice cream.

this was my first full day being at home with the backyard oak tree now gone. the thing i noticed right away was just how bright it was now with no shade. there was no construction today, not sure when that's going to start. the original schedule was for a year of construction, with most of the noisy parts happening in the first few months.

i went out for a run and immediately regret the decision as it was both hot and humid today. i did little running, just basically walked down to the river, ran 1-1/2 miles around the river (abbreviated route as part of the river path is closed for construction), then walked back. at least they paved garfield street, must've happened yesterday, i didn't see it because i've been going out of my way to avoid that street.

i stopped by the community garden to water. i harvested a few small tomatoes. one of them had bottom rot. i've always thought it was a disease issue, but it's actually a calcium deficiency. plants need calcium to build strong cell walls. inconsistent watering also contribute to blossom-end rot. the quickest fix is to apply a foliar spray that contains calcium.

i got back home a bit after 11am. i was looking to see if jeff and michelle had left the house. the webcam didn't pick up any activity but i didn't hear any upstairs noises so they must've left while i was out.

for lunch i ate a can of sweet corn.

around 1:30pm i went out to run errands. i was going to return an weber ash pan ($30) but for some reason amazon didn't let me take it to a whole foods but instead told me to go to staples instead. another thing i had to do was get gas for the motorcycle. this shows you how little i've been riding it this season, but i believe this is my first time getting gasoline for the bike this year. naturally i wanted until gas prices were at their most expensive. but first i stopped at the porter square star market to get some cherries on sale and some häagen-dazs ice cream. only then did i go get gas. i could've run some other errands but i didn't want my ice cream to melt on such a hot day, so i returned home.

i switched the motorcycle for the bicycle and went out again. i stopped by the community garden a second time to harvest some butterfly pea flowers i saw this morning but didn't have a container to hold them. i then went to harvard vanguard to pick up a bunch of prescriptions for my parents. finally i went to market basket to get some groceries. it was so hot, i could feel my skin baking while i panted like a dog to keep cool.

i didn't go out again after that. today is the first day of a week-long heatwave (though official the temperature here in cambridge only reached 89 degrees). it was warm inside the house, but not as hot outside. it was also dry, but the indoor humidity slowly crept up. i didn't have to turn on the air conditioner today but i probably will tomorrow. i kept the windows closed to keep the cool air from escaping. without the backyard shade trade, i wonder how hot it'll be inside the house now, especially since nobody is living upstairs for the next few months, so it'll only get hotter upstairs. one good thing is all that new sun exposure will make it warmer during the winter.

i feasted on a bag of hazelnut chocolate wafer cookies as i watched disclosure day on my computer. other than that, i didn't do anything else the rest of the day. it's kind of scary how fast time goes by on my one day off. periodically i'd check the cafe profit, to gauge how busy they were. we were actually busier today than yesterday, but with one fewer sale (34 versus 33). i have some bike projects i need to work on but too hot to be out in the backyard. there was also photos that needed cataloging, but i totally blew that off (like i've been blowing it off for always 2 years now).

i got a little sleepy but never went to sleep. for some reason i ate very late - close to 10pm - cooked some annie's pasta shells with cheese.

around 11pm i gathered my camera equipment and climbed the deck to my neighbor's 2nd floor, now that i have the whole house to myself. i wanted to try taking some slow shutter photos with my dSLR and try to get some stars. from the 2nd floor deck i had an expansive view into the backyard neighbor's property and beyond. in the sky, nothing but stars through the thick city light pollution. earlier i looked up the settings for my camera: manual 1600 ISO 10mm f/3.5 30 seconds shutter speed. while that was happening, i also had my pixel phone set on my light stand to take photos using the astrophotography function - which takes 2-4 minutes photos. the backyard neighbor had already turned off their lights, but at one point he went into the backyard and toggled through his light settings before finally turning them off. i don't know if he saw me. i must've looked super creepy, with my two cameras pointing into his backyard. i did get some star photos, but unfortunately my constellation recognition skills are very rusty, and i wasn't sure what i was looking at. despite the light pollution, i think it'd be awesome to set up a telescope on a clear night, a lot of things to see. the perseid meteor shower is next week, i'm hoping to do some shooting star watching from the backyard deck.

the developer wasted no time: at exactly 8am i heard the sounds of chainsaw cutting down the backyard oak tree. i didn't even have enough time to set up my gopro to shoot a time lapse then run outside to launch my drone into the air to take some photos. i was imagining loggers climbing the tree, cutting it branch by branch, but that wasn't the case. instead, a large crane with an articulating claw grabbed ahold of a branch before a chainsaw attachment swung out to cut it off. it was surprisingly efficient and low risk. they managed to cut down the tree in just a matter of hours.

my neighbor pike caught my outside while i was flying the drone. he seemed impressed, i told him he could get one to inspect his solar panels. jen came out of her house and i chatted with her. she sent a bunch of neighbors a group text informing us the tree removal was happening. i revealed to her i was the one who left a pilea plant in her backyard when i watered for a week. the drone was starting to run low on battery and came back home on its own.

because i was trying to document the tree removal, i arrived late to the cafe, but still not before we opened.

my father made another luffa soup with some tofu and okra leaves. he saw somewhere that okra leaves are edible so added some to the soup. if they are edible they're just barely. the leaves are tough - like chewing paper - and the stems are even tougher, like chewing something fibrous.

5 passion flower blossoms today. the weather was warm but dry, good enough to open the patio umbrella, but we didn't bother setting it up because we didn't have too many customers in the afternoon. that meant the passion flowers got another day of full sun exposure. because of the rain that fell yesterday, the soil was still wet and i didn't bother watering. some cypress vine flowers have also bloomed, tiny red stars.

i set up an old wyze webcam on my backyard patio so i could monitor the tree cutting. through grainy image i could see by 1pm the tree was gone. something that i can easily imagine was close to 100 years old destroyed in just a few hours. and for what? to make way for new houses. i curse those developers and i curse the people who will eventually move in.

my father was busy cutting up all the pork butts we bought yesterday to make charsiu pork. some pork from costco, some pork from market basket. we left it to marinate before packaging them up in food safe boxes and freezing them. the few leftover pieces i roasted in our air fryer oven. there was a strong smell of burning rubber that we couldn't figure out where it was coming from. the most likely culprit was the oven, but when i opened it up i didn't smell anything unusual. nevertheless the smell persisted, until we noticed smoke coming from the oven. turns out it wasn't the oven exactly, but the cord. it was connected to a short extension cord, and the plug had melted, leaving scorched plastic residue on the wall. we quickly shut everything down. the extension cord itself was cool to the touch, as well as the wall outlet. whatever happened was concentrated at the plug. my father thinks maybe some water dripped on the contacts (from rinsed out plastic pitchers we store above the plug), and instead of short circuiting, it just melted the plug. what was unusual was the breaker didn't trip. the plug was so fused to the extension cord, we had to cut it off. fortunately we have a spare air fryer in the basement which i brought up. everything was back to normal after that. the old oven still works, we just need to replace the plug end.

my father deep fried some trimmed off pork skin to make some crispy salty snacks. my mother made a soup with some smoked ham hock she got yesterday along with some daikon radish. she added some barley as well. i had a bowl and took some home after work for dinner.

it was starting to look like another slow day. we'd be lucky to reach our daily average. the day went fast though, and when 5pm approached, we would soon be going home. plus normally we get an uptick in the evening. what happened for the next 1-1/2 hours was more than an uptick. we got several large orders - including one over the phone. we went from a slow day to suddenly a pretty good day profit wise. we even had to turn down a customer, a guy called asking for a tamago but that's a custom item and would take at least 10 minutes to make. my father told him we were closing and try next time.

i was afraid to go home, afraid to see backyard without the shade of the large oak tree canopy. it felt weird to see so much sky when i used to see nothing but branches and leaves. there was sawdust everywhere and a few small branches had landed in our yard. i threw them over the fence. i climbed to the second landing to retrieve my gopro, still recording since this morning. a perk of not having a giant oak tree in the backyard is for the first time ever i could launch my drone from the comfort of home without worrying about hitting tree branches. i sent my drone in the air and took some photos and a few videos. the tree trunk was massive, the size of a round dining table. it'd be cool to count the rings, figure out how it was. it's going to take a long time to get used to the new backyard view.

i decompressed with a shower before heating up the leftover ham hock soup. i also boiled some rice noodles. i was sweating like crazy while i ate.

later in the evening i took out the trash. i went to the backyard to take a look. for the first time ever, i had a clear view of the southern sky. i could actually do some stargazing from my patio! i used the astrophotography feature on my pixel phone (attached to a tripod) to take 2-4 minutes long exposures. it's still too bright in the city, but i did photography some faint stars i'd never seen before. i might try catching the perseid meteor showers from the topmost deck next week (got the whole house to myself starting tomorrow).

the meteorologists were all wrong. the forecast for today was rain in the early morning before anyone wakes up, then a little more in the early afternoon. the clouds must've shifted because it rained practically the entire day, from morning all the way into the early evening. that of course ruined my plan to bike to my parents' place for a monday supply run. i figured we could pivot, go to the everett costco closer to where i live followed by the somerville market basket. but my mother still wanted to visit the waltham costco/market basket, so my father ended up coming to pick me up around 10:20am. we passed by the cafe, where starting this morning around 7am, sewer contractors were digging up the sidewalk in order to fix the water main leak, which the city is making us pay to repair for $9000.

i had a chance to take a peek in the backyard before we left for our supply run. the plants seemed happy with all this rain. i even saw formerly dead and dried areas of grass growing new seedlings. because it was early and a grey day, i was hoping to see some long bean flowers, but there were none. potential flower buds, just no flowers. my father has been cutting the tips off the bean shoots, which he says promotes side branching and more flowering. the blue beans are definitely flowering.

we went to the waltham costco first. despite the pouring rain, it was still busy. we bought pork butts for our charsiu pork. we also stocked up on vegetable oil. they sell these 4-1/2 gallon tubs of soybean oil which is slightly cheaper. we've never used soybean oil before, apparently it has a higher smoke point (450 degrees). but later i learned that vegetable oil is soybean oil. they also carry canola oil which we don't use. i've always heard it's healthier, and it's what i use at home. there was downpours by the time we left, so my father went to get the car and drive up to the entrance so we could load our supplies.

next we went to market basket. it too was busy. my father dropped us off at the entrance before circling the parking lot to find a spot. i had a trash bag full of seltzer cans to deposit, but unfortunately the deposit machines were broken. i was hoping to flag down my father so i could put the cans back in the car but he drove off before i could do that. in ended up bringing the empty cans inside like a hobo. it didn't seem like we needed much but we still filled the shopping cart with groceries. one thing i saw that i didn't notice before was they carried 4 oz. angostura aromatic bitters for cocktails ($7.99). two bottles on amazon sells for nearly $30.

we returned to cambridge via the highway. i was worried because of the rain and reduced visibility, sort of braced myself for a potential crash that never happened. passing through fresh pond we stopped at trader joe's to get a few more things. every time i got out of the car or left the store, my glasses would fog up due to the temperature/humidity change.

we didn't get to the cafe until after 1pm. the contractors were finished, but we didn't bother checking their work. it's all underground anyway, not much to see. despite all the rain, 3 passion flowers managed to blossom. the rain seemed to make them open up even more, maybe all that vibration from the rain drops. we didn't leave the cafe until after 1:30pm.

for lunch we heated up some dean's sausage and egg breakfast sandwiches in the microwave.

usually when it rains the weather turns cooler, but it wasn't the case today. it was actually still very hot and humid, like walking into a sauna whenever we went outside. there wasn't much to do in the backyard. my father and i picked a luffa gourd for preserving, so it could mature and we can collect the seeds for next season.

i learned something about the butterfly pea flowers: when they get wet, they start losing their pigment. i touched one of the flowers to get a better photo, and all the rain water on my fingertips were stained blue. that's why you harvest the flowers the day they bloom, either in the morning or later in the day. leave them on the vine, they begin to lose their natural blue coloring. the were already a few old flowers turning in pea pods (seeds for next year).

the rain finally stopped in the late afternoon/early evening, with one final band of rain showers supposedly passing through the boston area around 6:30pm (once again the meteorologists were wrong). how much rain did we get? so it rained on wednesday as well, but a bucket that was left outside underneath a canopy of luffa leaves had about 4-5" of rain. we are still in a moderate drought as of last tuesday, but i'm curious to see the new drought map for this week. hopefully we can put a significant dent in all that dryness.

dinner featured all vegetables from our garden: luffa stirfry, swiss chard stirfry, and a chicken stirfry with sweet basil and spicy longhorn peppers. my parents have also been harvesting the okras and ate them previously when i wasn't around. okras are best when breaded and fried. they said the okras were also a little tough which isn't surprisingly, our okras are gigantic, longer than our bitter melons. the only other thing we didn't eat were bitter melons, but i had some last night. in a few weeks we can look forward to some long broad (blue) beans as well. as for tomatoes, my father has been pruning them back so severely (after watching a tiktok video) they don't have enough leaves to produce fruits. something is also eating them, probably chipmunks. it's gotten to the point where i don't know if i want to grow any tomatoes next season. we also have japanese eggplants i forgot, but they're not mature yet.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i went inside to grab some CR2016 watch batteries for him (i ordered them by mistake, amazon gave me a refund and said i could keep them), he wants to start wearing his old casio watches after the nth xiaomi fitness band died on him.

i spent the evening playing with the BSD date function on macos, learning how to format the date just the way i like it (e.g. 260803-1). GNU date is easier to use (doesn't require esoteric flags to do anything), but alas macos is BSD linux. once i sort of figured that out, i plugged that formatting code into a script google AI search wrote for me that would automatically scan a list of files by creation date and sort them into folders. i had to tweak the code a little bit. it was also adding the invisible desktop file into a folder, before i asked it to ignore invisible files. i also made it check to see if the folder existed, otherwise create it.

an early version of the script didn't work and i kept getting a "bad interpreter: operation not permitted" error. i thought it had something to do with the file privileges (like the script not being executable) but all the privileges were set correctly. turns out the problem was a macos quarantine issue, since i created the script using bbedit, the system flagged it as a potential threat. i fixed it by using the xattr command to remove the quarantine flag on the script. it worked after that. my first version (bash shell) would output in terminal where it moved the file; my second version (using zsh shell) worked behind the scene, did all the sorting before i realized it. this script is going to save me some time the next time i do a batch photo download and need to sort them into date folders.

i purposely staged myself in the backyard this morning, hoping to bump into jeff so we could have a chat. at the very least i wanted to know why he had to suddenly leave. i swept the flagstones, weeded the garden, and pruned some overgrown ivy. it was starting to get late, i was getting ready to pack up and go, when i looked outside my living room window and saw jeff coming home with groceries. i poked my head outside, told him if he wanted to chatted i was in the backyard, he said yes as long as i didn't mind him eating breakfast.

he came door with a bowl of yogurt-granola-blueberries. i made sure the thermacell was on to give us some mosquito protection.

so the reason why jeff had to abruptly leave was because the biotech company he worked for went under. they were working on an oral pill to treat sickle cell anemia (by increasing fetal hemoglobin). it looked very promising, and at a recent conference at the start of the year, they were the hot new drug. unfortunately they discovered in animal testing that a small percentage would develop blood cancer. a french company targeting a similar PRC2 complex to treat cancer voluntarily pulled their drug off the market because a percentage of patients had developed blood cancer leading to their deaths. the FDA voiced concerns, which basically doomed this new sickle cell drug. since that was their only product, it essentially killed the company, as they laid off most of their staff in june. jeff said they're working to merge with another company: one that has a potential new drug but doesn't have the money, while jeff's company has the money and the public listing, just not the drug. he said these mergers are pretty common with biotech companies.

the company will continue to pay for jeff's lease of the house, but they asked him to make an effort to find potential renters. that's not a realistic option, so it looks like the house will be empty until steve and paul come back in october/november. they actually asked jeff (before the layoff) if he was interested in renting the place for the winter, as steve and paul were looking to do some winter traveling. jeff's currently has two potential job offers - one in boston, one in the bay area - if he gets the boston job, he still might be able to stay here.

i asked about his recent vermont trip - his very first time visiting - and they stayed with a friend of a friend who had remote cabins in bethel. they did some hiking and confirmed my feeling that vermonters have a west coast vibe.

i also asked about the world cup, when his whole family came to visit. he and his english son-in-law actually went to the scotland-iraq game, and also hung out with some fans in local bars. they all had a good time.

they leave for the vineyard on wednesday, so they'll be here to see the tree removal. i asked if i could set up a gopro from the upper patio, he said that was fine. he doesn't think it can be done in one day. i think there's a high chance branches will fall on our property because of the large canopy. i guess we'll find out tuesday. i also wouldn't be surprised if there was another delay.

they'll be back on the 15th, but taking a flight the next morning back to california. jeff said he'll come back at least one more time to tie up loose ends.

it was already noontime by the time we finished chatting. i finished with the backyard cleaning. i coiled the found garden hose i found and put it in the back of my ebike basket (i'd already wheeled out the ebike earlier). i gathered my things and left. i stopped at the cafe to water the plants and to put away the tea eggs. it was almost 1pm before i got to belmont.

walking over the lawn, i noticed the sedges were turning yellow, a good sign that sedge hammer was working. i gave the garden hose to my father who was out in the backyard. he thought it was a brand new hose, too good for us to cut up (despite a few kinks), could probably use as a backup hose. the backyard beans are flowering. the blue beans more than the long beans. blue beans have just a single pink flower that stays active for the day while the long beans have double flowers that wilt by midday. there were also a bunch of luffas in various state of development.

not sure if my parents were waiting for me, but they made zhajiang noodles for lunch. i added both laoganma chili crisps and my own homemade hot sauce.

i helped my mother order some eye vitamins on amazon. one benefit of their health insurance is every quarter they get $75 each to spend on health products. normally they go through the affiliated website, but there's a lot of generic brands and everything seems to be 2-3x more expensive than elsewhere. their OTC network benefit recently made a change where customers can now order on amazon. so we tried it out today. first they don't make it easy to find what's eligible. there's no easy to identify badge, just some tiny print. even when we purchased, it still required a credit card in case the benefit card is declined. afterwards, i wasn't sure if it took the money from the credit card or the benefit card. i only found out when i logged ito the OTC network website and it said the card how had $0.

my sister visited in the afternoon. she was too lazy to take esmei out, so she texted us she was outside, and if wanted to see esmei we could come out and greet her from the car window.

my father's been wanting to make an anker F3800 battery plug so he can take advantage of the faster amperage charging (170A output, 75A input) on our anker solix C2000 gen 2. this kind of charging is not officially sanctioned by anker so it's pretty much a hack. a hack with live currents and voltages that could set the house on fire. you can't just buy the plug, you have to make it. the cheapest way is to 3D print the plug housing. i know the cambridge library has a 3D printer anyone can use, as long as they take a safety course and a 3D printing course. there are also online printing options, but they can be expensive. while browsing the web, i came across the belmont public library and how they have a 3D printing service for library patrons. you basically pay for the material - 10¢/gram - the object can't exceded a certain size, you can't choose the color, and must be printable in under 6 hours. so i submitted the stl file and waiting for them to contact us when it's done.

i used up one of my thermacell butane cartridges. i brought it back to belmont so i could modify it and refill it with my own butane. that involved removing the dispenser plug (i pried off the rubber o-ring before pulling i off with a pair of end cutting pliers) then inserting a screw into the one-way valve plug and pulling it out. once the valve is removed, the cartridge can be refilled.

my mother made fried rice with all the leftover rice from saturday. we also had a bitter melon stirfry, the first of the season.

the sky was a crazy mix of clouds as i returned home. rain is expected early tomorrow morning, and a bit more in the afternoon, before we're in the clear. tomorrow looks to be a waltham-cambridge supply run (costco-market basket-trader joe's).

i watched a baseball game tonight, between the red sox and dodgers in LA. boston ended up sweeping them in the 3-game series, which isn't an easy thing to do, beating the consecutive world series champions. it's also super weird seeing so many red sox players in dodger uniforms: manager dave roberts, mookie betts, kike hernandez. i've got no idea who's on the red sox roster. the only two people i recognize are jarren duran and connor wong. who else is good on the team? just a team of regulars, yet they continue to win. with the red sox on a hot streak, i kind of wish i could see more games, but NESN isn't available on youtube tv (dropped in october 2020, i haven't watched NESN for half a decade now). i could always find some illegal online stream, which i might end up doing if the red sox continue to be this hot.

i woke up at 9am this morning. i went to the garden to water my plants before heading to market basket to get a few things. primarily for grabbing some frozen chicken wings on sale (normally $6.99/bag, sale price $3.99), but i also got some orange gatorade and some squash seeds for my mother. i went directly to the cafe afterwards.

5 new passion flower blossoms greeted us this morning. my father was there making some chinese dumplings with my mother. i also asked him to help me cut the red onion so i could make some more pickled onion slices for the salmon bento. he left soon afterwards, back home to fertilize our plants with miracle-gro before refilling our barbecue propane tanks at the waltham VFW hall parking lot.

we had some business around noontime but that was pretty much it for the rest of the day. we were so busy yesterday, i figured it'd continue into this new month of august, but for some reason all the customers were gone today. good thing i didn't make any new batches of black soy noodles or tea eggs. i did cook some new dumplings, none of which we sold. i don't mind not being busy, i just wish we could've known in advance some how. instead we just waited for that occasional saturday rush which never came. i mixed some miracle-gro solution and fertilized our outdoor potted plants as well as the indoor boston fern. my father came around closing time to pick up my mother and drop off my 2nd aunt.

coming back home, i found a lamp somebody had left out on the curb. after a shower, i finished the rest of my smoked gouda cheese. my upstairs neighbors sent everyone an e-mail today from the developer, telling us they're going to cut down the oak tree on tuesday. they mentioned something about trying to find a buyer to keep the house a single family but the person dropped out at the last minute. who knows if it's true or not.

around 7pm i went outside and repotted my scroll plants. it's a long time coming, meant to do it late spring but always got too lazy. i had the thermacell on but the mosquitoes were too aggressive and i got a few bites on the back of my legs.

i then bikes to the community garden to sprinkle some slug/snail bait/poison. i've been noticing something's been slowly eating away at my eggplant leaves. the direction said to apply in the evening after first watering the soil that's why i waited until now to do it. there were two people sitting on one of the garden benches. aren't they afraid of mosquitoes?

when i came back, i went to manoa poke to get some takeout. i wanted to eat out tonight. this is only my third time eating there (2017, 2019), first time in 7 years. the place wasn't too busy, two tables filled with young customers, otherwise it was empty. i got the mix plate which is the basic poke. i should've came earlier, because much of their selection had already sold out, taped over on their menu board. i ended up getting the ahi shoyu tuna and the shiyake salmon. i had no idea what some of those words mean, i just kind of picked randomly. as a fellow restauranteur, i'm always sizing up other businesses. they had 5 people working. stainless steel equipment made it easier to clean, and one of the employees was doing just that (the cleaning is neverending). i only had to wait a few minutes before my order was ready. the cashier asked if i wanted a bag, i said no, i live nearby. outside somebody had put out a bunch of unwanted stuff. i grabbed a glass teapot filled with trinkets.

manoa poke's presentation is impeccable. the food looks fresh and delicious, worthy of phototaking. i took the poke into the kitchen and turned on my softbox lights so i could document my food with the dSLR.

the ahi shoyu tuna was cubes of raw tuna. if i could pick again, i'd probably pick something else. it wasn't fishy, but i prefer my meats cooked. the shiyake salmon looked like crumbled tuna fish with more flavoring. there was also two scoops of rice, some pickles, macaroni, and an underlayer of salad. the whole thing tasted pretty good and i felt healthy afterwards.

a few days ago i used quicktime on my M3 max macbook pro to quickly convert a bunch of puerto rico parade photos into a movie. the M3 chip made the work super fast, something that would probably take hours on my core i7 computer only took 2-3 minutes with the M3. however it had problems with vertical photos, it simply cropped them instead of resizing to fit. so i did a search for "macos script for converting photos to movie with resizing" and it gave me all the steps - including the shell script code - to do it. i first had to install home brew, followed by ffmpeg. ffmpeg is a powerful command-line tool that can do all sorts of video tricks. it took a bit of trial and error, but i finally made a new video with properly resized vertical photos. this could be a new way of display my photos, especially for events where i take several thousand. it helps that i like shooting multiple shots, they're essentially just frames. the next step would be to add some background sounds.

i got some tums from market basket this morning. i started to get those chest pains again so i took two chewable tablets. that seemed to have some effect? but only time will tell.

the city finally got around to milling a section of concord avenue, after nearly 2 weeks of repeatedly updated no parking signs. i ended up riding on the sidewalk for a stretch before i could get to the cafe.

our friday regular wanted to sit out on the patio deck this morning so we set it up for him. he felt guilty, but we were going to do it anyway for other customers. turn out, he was the only one who used the deck, nobody else did the rest of the day. we get so few customers sitting outside, makes me wonder why we even bother. it costs us $500 each time for the handyman to come install the deck in the spring and tear it back down come fall.

a food delivery truck dropping off supplies for the restaurant across the street dropped a carton of half & half and just left it there on the street next to our parking lot. it spilled everywhere. i had to rinse it with the hose and scrub the diary stains from the sidewalk. the only good that came out of it is they also left the milk crate. i took it and added it to my collection.

the passion flowers that opened yesterday didn't close today because it was so overcast on thursday. they stayed for much of today friday, only closing by late afternoon. we did get two new flowers today.

my father went to market basket this morning before we opened. he bought a bunch of ground pork for making new batches of zhajiang noodle sauce and minced pork sauce. he also bought some goat meat, which he made into a stew with onions, carrots, and radishes. it rendered so much, there was hardly any liquid left. i had some later in the afternoon over some rice served with some homemade sauerkraut. the goat was gamey and a bit on the sweet side. the sauerkraut added some sourness and crunch with improved it.

today looked like another slow day, the third consecutive slow day this week. however, starting from 1pm, we got super busy. a few big online orders came in on top of walk-in customers. we had another spike at 3pm, and a final spike after 5pm. it was the second busiest day this month. a fit conclusion for the month of july. we were able to match our profit from july of last year, but we were only off by a little bit. we sold over 2 dozen bentos today, and i had to make a new batch of tea eggs. i had to cook black soy noodles three times (maybe four? can't remember).

we waited for a customer to come pick up her order before we could close. i was tempted to text her a reminder, or maybe just put her order outside. because the streets were still milled, i ended up riding on the sidewalk for a bit to get back home.

i paid a visit to the community garden. i hadn't been there since monday. there were two butterfly pea flowers to harvest. most of the plants seemed fine, with the exception of the tomato, its soil felt a little dry. i watered then left.

even though i have to work tomorrow saturday, friday night still feels special because i can sleep a little late. i wasn't particularly hungry, so after a shower i ate a can of corn for dinner before having a slice of peach cake. i also had some smoke gouda on table crackers.

i finished watching the bootleg of the odyssey i found online. it was okay, had its moments, but not great. i feel the return (2024) with ralph fiennes was a much better odysseus revenge story, more satisfying, despite its weird low budget euro casting. fiennes was also a more imposing odysseus, particularly when he stripped down revealing a lean and muscular frame. matt damon played a bulkier odysseus, muscular in the arms, but still carried a dad bod that wasn't revealed too much beneath either armor or rags.

there was some faint drizzle when i went to the cafe this morning. i wore my rain jacket but there was barely any precipitation. yesterday because of the rain was a slow day at the cafe, so they didn't use up too much supplies. today looked to be much the same, with just a slow yet steady trickle of customers throughout the day. my parents portioned out some zhajiang noodle sauce and made a new batch of veggy buns in the late afternoon. my father made some handcut noodles for lunch, served with some zhajiang sauce and laoganma chili crisps.

my father and i spent the morning moving boxes and furniture in the basement, so the plumber can get access to the water main. we moved everything into the small storage room that my sister hired guys last year to clean up the mold and whitewash the walls and ceiling. city of cambridge said we had a leak in our water main. the plumber didn't see it at first, but when he checked again he could dripping inside the wall. if the leak is out on the sidewalk the city will fix it; if it's inside the building we have to fix it. some city guys came as well, my sister went to go deal with them. when she came back, she said the city determined the leak is our issue and we have to pay $9000 to get it fixed.

the same city guys who came today also did some work elsewhere on the street. i didn't see what it was because i was too distracted by a real weird ebike parked right outside the cafe. i'd never seen anything like it, very industrial, like a frame made out of a steel i-beam with bike components attached to it. closer inspection revealed it wasn't actually an ebike but an electronic motorcycle. i did some research and it's a cake ösa modular electric utility motorcycle. it originally cost upwards of $12,000, but the swedish manufacturer went bankrupt, and an american liquidator called EMOTO (based on florida) but up all the remaining motorcycles and now selling them for half the price. even at half price they're expensive, but the motorcycle is so weird looking, it doesn't even look lik a real vehicle. this one was a two seater, with a belt drive, and a large 3.5kWh battery (50.4V 70Ah). i thought maybe it belonged to one of the contractors and was hoping to run into the owner. unfortunately they left before i could catch them.

it was supposed to rain today, and the weather was overcast for the most part, but we only got a few passing showers at best, nothing torrential or substantial. by the time we closed, it started to rain again, a light drizzle. once more i put on my rain jacket. they still haven't fixed garfield street - still milled - so i ended up riding on the sidewalk.

i made korean rice cake for dinner again. there was nothing good to watch on television, so i streamed next stop wonderland (1998), a romantic comedy set in boston. it's got a wonderful cast, filled with actors i've seen before. hope davis, philip seymour hoffman, holland taylor, robert klein, roger rees, just to name a few. it's also fun seeing the various greater boston landmarks. unfortunately i couldn't quite get into the movie. it moved at such a slow pace, i got bored.

the weather forecast last night said it wouldn't start raining until 11am-12pm. that gave me a window to bike to my 9am MGH appointment and back, and i wouldn't have to take the slow red line replacement shuttle bus. i left the house around 8:30am, taking the trek allant. i brought my rain gear just in case, for the trip back if the forecast changes and it's pouring rain.

the ride was a little cool with the temperature dip but no rain. there were other cyclists, and i even managed to pass a few on the faster allant. approaching kendall square, i had to once again pause for a train crossing, second time in as many days. i didn't see any red line shuttle buses until i got to the longfellow bridge. there was a convoy of about half a dozen, slowly making their way outbound. i made the right decision taking the bike.

i got to mass general hospital with more than 10 minutes to spare. i only waited a few minutes before a nurse took me back to take vitals: height, weight, temperature, oxygen, and blood pressure. my pressure was low - 117/78 - probably because i biked over and my heart was still beating fast (pulse rate high).

they placed me in one of the windowless exam rooms. i don't know what the rules are when i comes to exam room assignments. do you get the window room if it's an annual physical? or is it completely random?

my doctor saw me a short time later. he asked how i was, i said okay. i told him i biked here, i asked him how he got to the hospital today. he said he took the red line shuttle buses yesterday. they were comfortable, plenty of buses, but because they driving on regular roads, they're very slow due to traffic. it took him about an hour to go from alewife to MGH/charles. he said he wouldn't do that again, and had his wife drop him off at medford where he took the commuter rail to north station. that was something i considered, grabbing the commuter from porter square. but the trains only arrive every hour and the schedule wouldn't work out. he said two patients actually cancelled their appointment today because they were worried about the rain.

my doctor asked if he could take notes on his phone. i said sure, i wasn't adverse to technology. that got us talking about AI, which seems to be a hot topic these days. he told me something shocking: in 5-10 years there won't be any general practitioner doctors like him anymore. a nurse can just as easily see patients, guided by AI treatment plans. he showed me an AI search engine called open evidence. it's for medical professionals only, but it pulls data from reputable medical journals, conference transcripts, etc. and collates everything into an easy to digest summary. this is something a normal doctor could do on their own, scouring the data, but this saves them time. he did a demonstration where he searched for "asian male 50+ hypertension treatment options" and it quickly gave him a comprehensive summary that was almost a near match to the treatment he's giving me.

he's seeing the AI revolution first hand and he's worried about his job. he can imagine the hospital easily reducing their doctor staff and resorting to AI instead. his wife writes medical reviews for drug companies, kind of an audit before they submit the drug for FDA approval. it involves pouring over the data and writing up summaries, very objective reporting that AI excels at. he warned her that her job could be in danger, and that she should use AI to help her research. her answer: "we get paid by the hour, so the longer it takes, the more i make." but the danger is some other company might undercut them, offer cheaper service thanks to AI.

i've always thought the medical profession was safe from AI intrusion, because who would trust a computer to diagnosis their problems? but apparently that's not the case. even surgeons - who can replace them? - are in danger. imagine AI robot surgeons that can work more efficiently with zero mistakes, knocking out surgeries like a conveyer belt assembly line factory.

the final thing my doctor told me was the proliferation of patients coming in with independent full body scans/tests. apparently there's a burgeoning industry where rich people pay out of pocket to get a full checkup. this is done to catch diseases - cancer is a big example - that a routine physical might miss.

finally we got to why i was there in the first place, my biannual followup. i showed him my blood pressure data from the past two days. he didn't see anything that seemed troubling, so no change in my medication. the one thing he could do would be to up my thiazide dosage, flush out more salts from my body. if that doesn't work, he might put m on chlorthalidone, which an even stronger prescription diuretic, but i would also have to take potassium supplements.

i had three questions for my doctor. first question, i have these mysterious chest pains that come and goes. there's no pattern to it. i spoke with my doctor before, and i had a full scan of my heart a while back but they found no abnormalities. my doctor suggested i try popping an antacid tablet whenever i get these pains. it might not do anything, but at least we can rule out heartburn. second question was my itchy feet. i don't see any signs of athlete's foot, yet they continue to itch intermittently, and never in the same place. i asked if it was some kind of drug interaction, or a nerve issue. he said it has to be athlete's foot, which is the most common reason for foot itch. he told me to use the foot cream for 3 weeks not just 1 week and see what happens. my third and last question is what are my options regarding my thinning hair. my insurance wouldn't cover it, but my doctor would be more than happy to prescribe something. the two most common treatment is rogaine and finasteride. rogaine comes in a cream but also a pill form. it will regrow hair, but you basically have to take it forever, since once you stop, your hair starts falling out again. rogaine has an added benefit in that it was originally designed to lower blood pressure, so it might help with my HBP issue. finasteride works by inhibiting testosterone. common side effects are low libido issues. i told my doctor i'd think about my options.

my doctor did a quick checkup, listening to my lungs with a stethoscope and looking inside my ears. he noticed a bit of earwax in my right ear and asked if i wanted one of the nurses to flush it out for me. i said sure. with that i bid my doctor good bye and waited for the nurse to show up.

ear irrigation basically involved me holding a container below my ear while the nurse gently squirted some warm water with hydrogen peroxide into my earhole. a tiny bit of wax came out, but there was still some blockage. she ended up using a long tweezer to carefully pry out the earwax.

i went to reception to book my next appointment 6 months out. the receptionist kept telling me it couldn't be done, and that they'd just send me a reminder next year to make the appointment. she kept telling me they can't book appointments a year in advance. i had to tell her it was for 6 months a few more times before she snapped out of her trance and finally gave me my next appointment for february.

i went down to the 5th floor to get my blood drawn. usually the place is crowded, but maybe they just opened, because there was only one person ahead of me in the waiting area. my phlebotomist was named fatima, she's never taken my blood before. it was quick and easy, i left after a few minutes.

by the time i left the hospital a little after 10am, there was some very light rain, felt more like a mist. i got on my bike and quickly pedaled home.

back at home, i took a shower and had lunch in the form of a blueberry croissant cheesecake my sister bought from costco.

i spent the rest of the day sorting my photos. that involved downloading them off of my dSLR camera and phone, fixing the dates (they get messed up during the transfer), then sorting them into dated folders. the sorting part could probably be done using a script of some sort, but i was afraid something might go wrong and the photos disappear in the process. it's safer when i do it manually even though it takes a long time.

when the rain finally fell, it wasn't too bad. there we puddles on the roads but the street didn't flood like last time. i even had my living room window open to let in the cool breeze.

my blood work results came back, everything seem to be normal, at least within normal parameters. my doctor wrote me a letter soon afterwards, explaining the results. he said my numbers were very good. thyroid function norma, prostate cancer screening normal, kidneys, electrolytes and liver normal. my A1C is 5.1%, which is also in the normal range (thanks to the two cholesterol drugs i'm taking, atorvastatin and ezetimibe). he said my cholesterol numbers are excellent with an LDL of 66. the only stray number was my fasting glucose which was 105, outside of the 99 cutoff. between 100-125 is prediabetes, but since all my other numbers are good, it's probably an anomaly but something to keep any eye on.

my sister contacted me in the early afternoon. asked if she could drop off esmei at my place around 3:30pm, and then come back and pick her up by 7pm. i would feed esmei her dinner while my sister go out for some brazilian barbecue at the burlington mall with the chinese grad student living above her. i wasn't sure at first, but esmei would probably be sleeping most of the time, so i agreed to do it.

i cleaned up my house a bit, put away any food esmei might be able to get ahold of. i waited and waited but my sister didn't show up until after 4pm. esmei spent some time exploring the house, sniffing all the new smells. i pulled out a sofa chair so she could sit on it and look outside, which she did for a while before she got bored. she slept on the floor, then in the foyer (the mailman dropped some letters on her head), finally on the couch. i had all her toys out but she wasn't in a playful mood.

at 6pm i fed esmei. unlike our old dog hailey who seemed to have a clock, esmei has no idea when it's dinnertime. in fact, she doesn't seem the least bit hungry, and i had to wake her up so she could eat.

my sister texted me around 7pm, said they were still eating. i kind of had a feeling she wasn't going to keep her promise. knowing that somebody taking care of esmei, she felt no rush to get home early. i was hoping for esmei to leave before i started dinner but i had no choice but to start cooking. esmei was sleeping but followed me into the kitchen to watch me cook before falling asleep on the kitchen floor.

i had korean rice cake for dinner. quick and easy, really hit the spot on a damp night. esmei slept on the couch while i ate. she's not one of those dogs that watch you eat and guilt-trip you into sharing some food with her. i felt kind of guilty because it's been more than 4 hours and i wonder if esmei needed to use the bathroom. but she wasn't making any fuss, just quietly slept.

my sister didn't show up until almost 9pm. instead of scolding her, i quickly gave her all of esmei's stuff she they could leave. she gave me a present she bought at the LEGO store, i asked her if she could return it because the last thing i want is to see her spending more money.

i vacuumed the living room rug and sofa, getting rid of some dog hair.