i spent the morning packaging up a bunch of stuff my mother wanted to return. purchases she made from macy's and temu, plus i was returning a pair of merrell moab shoes to amazon. i left by 11am to drop off the packages. most of them went to the UPS store on somerville avenue while i returned the amazon purchase at the nearest whole foods.

when i came back home i decided to put up my christmas lights. depending on whether or not i feel festive at the end of the year, i will hang them around my living room bay windows. it's been a few years since i had them up. but before i do that, i decided to clean my windows first. for many years now i use rain-x on my exterior windows. it prevents water spots and dust accumulation. it also leaves the glass clear of rain drops for when i take photos. the living room windows are the only ones i clean this way, as well as the backyard french door window. i applied rain-x twice per window, then spritzed some water before a final clean with a dry paper towel.

once the windows were cleaned, i installed the christmas lights. i did that by using rubber suction cup hooks. i rinsed them in water so they'd stick to the windows better. i put 4 at each corner of the window, so the string lights can be held in place and not move around when i use the venetian blinds. i didn't have enough suction cup hooks and needed to go to belmont to get more.

for lunch i reheated the the two slices of leftover stoked pizza from last wednesday. i grilled them on low-medium heat in a large pan for 4 minutes to crisp up the crust, before adding some water and cooking for 2 minutes with the lid on with low heat to meat the cheese. the final result was like eating fresh pizza.

i set out again at 1pm, this time to belmont. originally i was going to drain the rain barrels, but only the ones facing the north side of the house really needed to be drained since they never see any sun. the ones in the backyard are all exposed to the sun for certain amount of time every day, so they don't freeze as much. the spigots of course were frozen shut again. i ended up deciding not to drain them, but instead reinstall the runoff hose so when the barrels fill up again during the rainstorm that's due to arrive tonight, the excess water will have somewhere to go. plus the weather next week will be warm again (40-50 degrees), so i can drain the barrels then.

i grabbed a can of unused spray foam along with the receipt and left for the watertown home depot to return it. after that i got some corner braces for our window fan shelf project, and an 9ft length of garage door bottom weatherseal. originally i was going to go straight home, but forgot to get the suction cup hooks, so i went back to belmont to get them.

i stopped by the cafe to drop off a temu package that came for my mother. she grabbed my aliexpress package that came this morning and brought them to the cafe. it was mostly magnetic nasal strips for my father, but there was also a black solar-powered fortune kitty and two travel pill organizers. i saw esmei before my sister took her to laundromutt to get washed before her heartworm treatment tomorrow.

i returned home around 3pm, went to star market to get some snacks (popcorn, ice cream). i put the finishing touches on my christmas light display. i also noticed that my upstairs neighbors put up wreaths on our doors again.

the two pizza slices i had for lunch wasn't enough so i ended up having an instant cup of korean noodles. i started researching christmas lights, wanted to see what kind of options are available, i might replace these ones that i have which are a little boring. some smart leds with color changing capabilities might be fun.

i had more pizza for dinner, this time eating my sister's leftover pizza. not sure where she got them, they seemed expensive. there was only one slice with meat (ham), but it also had walnuts on it and blue cheese. there were 3 slices of a potato topping pizza with scallions served over a gooey mozzarella and possibly some additional cheese blends. it was good but definitely not something i'd ever order myself.

there was a pistons-celtics game tonight. tatum and holiday didn't play. not that they were needed, boston dominated the game from beginning to end. detroit never led, the lead tracker was just a solid wall of green. pistons never quite though, battled back to reduce the lead to single digits. but there was never any doubt the celtics were going to win this one, 120-130.

it was a decent day at the cafe, not too busy, not too not busy either. it was cold this morning, i wore my wool thermal underwear along with hat and gloves. my eyes naturally teared up from the cold temperature, looked like i was crying while riding my bike.

first day back from the long thanksgiving break, there was a lot of prep work to be done. a lot of fresh ingredients left over from last wednesday - almost a week ago, the last time we were opened - had to be tossed and replaced with fresh ingredients. i cooked up another batch of tea eggs, several batches of black soy noodles, and several batches of dumplings. my father was busy all day preparing a new batch of minced pork, followed by cutting up several slabs of pork butts for making charsiu. we got the pork from the somerville market basket yesterday and they've consistently have the worst quality of pork compared to the other market baskets (waltham and chelsea).

we saw breaking news about south korea lifting martial law. we didn't think much of it, but later during the morning i saw that the korean president declared martial law overnight, in what appeared to be a coup. hours later parliament took a vote and override the martial law order. people were taking to the streets overnight demanding the resignation of the president.

i brought my new bike wheel lights and installed them. i put them wrong at first, and it seemed kind of sketchy how they'd stay on without the lights falling off. i did some research and realized the two screws actually have a hollow in the middle to allow the screw to be secured through the spokes. i couldn't wait until it got dark so i could ride home and test out these new lights.

my parents brought the leftover turkey carcass to the cafe. it'd been covered up in tin foil so they didn't realize the turkey had been frozen. the problem with the thermoelectric cooler is it takes the ambient temperature and cools it down around 30 degrees inside the cooler. what happens when the sunroom drops down to 50 degrees? the cooler turns into a freezer. compared that to our compressor DC cooler that not only uses less electricity but can maintain a temperature. my father managed to shaved off some frozen slices of turkey and heat them up so we could turkey rollups for lunch.

my sister showed up with esmei in the early evening. this is esmei's last few days before she undergoes her heartworm injection on thursday. after that she's on a strict no exertion schedule, to make sure the death heartworms inside of her don't migrate to other parts of her body (particularly the lungs). she gave my few some kisses but as always never kisses me no matter how many times i ask.

we got an ubereats order close to closing time, scheduled for pickup 6:15pm. however a driver couldn't be found until after we closed. my parents said i could leave. i saw the driver right as i was about to depart on my bicycle.

the bike lights has three settings: off, motion detection on, and always on. the problem is there's no way to know what setting it's on during the daytime, because it also has a daylight sensor to prevent the lights from turning on during the day. so the rear light was on motion detection, because as soon as i moved the bike it started flashing. the front light was off. riding with the wheel lights felt fun, except i couldn't see the patterns it was flashing because i was on the bike. i wasn't even sure if the patterns made sense, because i had a feeling i didn't install them the right way. i'll have to test them on the bike stand to see the patterns for myself.

my sister gave me her leftover pizza but my parents still packed me some pork and tofu bento my father had been stewing the last few hours (i could have the pizza tomorrow). i ate as soon as i got home. celtics weren't playing tonight, but two games would decide if boston went to the NBA cup or not. first, magic had to beat the knicks, or the knicks had to beat the magic by 37 points. second, in the bucks-pistons game, there had to be a 6 point differential. it was all very confusing. so i watched the magic-knicks game. knicks were winning so it didn't look like the magic were going to get the victory. but new york almost helped boston out by leading by 37 points (the magic number!) in the 3rd quarter. alas, orlando crawled back to lose by 15 points, which knocked the celtics out of the cup contention.

i feel a little guilty i don't have work tomorrow, so i make up for it by running errands. i've got a bunch of stuff my mother purchased to return, plus i need to run to belmont to continue draining the rain barrels. i also need to go to home depot to get a few things, then get some groceries, maybe do some laundry, maybe do some retroactive blog updating.

today was the last day i could sleep in late before starting work again tomorrow morning. i woke up at 9:30am. i left for the cafe by 10:30am, stopping by the gas station to fill up my motorcycle. electricians were upgrading the panel on the business next door and required the power to our whole building to be shut off at some point. so my father was there to keep an eye on things. he ended up having a fight with my sister over the phone when he asked her to call an electrician, because when they were doing the wiring next door, they cut the power to some of the basement lights. this meant we probably wouldn't be seeing my sister today, on her birthday no less.

i went with my father for a quick supply run at the somerville market basket. the most important thing were eggs, which we got from costco yesterday, and which he already dropped off at the cafe earlier. we got some pork butts for making charsiu pork, grounded some more pork to make zhajiang noodle sauce, and picked up some produce.

we got back to the cafe by 11:40am, dropped off the supplies, then head to belmont. my mother made wonton soup for lunch.

after eating i went outside to do some yard work. i tried emptying the rain barrels in front of the house, but most of their spigots were frozen stuck. the one i did manage to drain - the one by my old bedroom window - i released by unscrewing the spigot. ice cold water started to pour out, i tried to funnel it away with a hose, but ended up capping it back with a 4-way manifold. my father had better luck, allowing the barrels to just trickle drain onto the front lawn. it was cold enough that the water ended up freezing. not surprising, given the patches of frost on the grass, which made a crunching sound when you walk over it.

my father and i disassembled the plastic/metal picnic table and put it away in the garage. he got out the electric mower and mowed the lawn, but primarily to pulverize the maple leaves (which had all fallen off by now) for either mulch or compost. while he was doing that, i removed the wire fencing around raised beds 1 and 2 and started tilling the soil. ideally we'd till the entire beds, but there were some scallions growing so i left them alone. i did however dig up all the daikon radishes from RB2. it's getting cold enough at night that even the frost resistance daikon leaves were beginning to wilt. not as many radishes as our first harvest in late october, but we're picking them more for the leaves.

while digging in RB2, i came around my father's xiaomi mi 5 fitness band that he lost a few months ago. apparently it'd been in the garden all this time. it looked okay, there was some water seepage underneath the screen, but the fitness band is rated IP68 waterproof up to 50m for 30 minutes.

after i finished weeding, i dumped half a bag of chicken manure into each bed. my father then worked the manure into the soil. i mulched the top with shredded leaves (to keep the soil from drying oil and to mask the manure smell) before covering it up with the wire fencing panels (to prevent animals from digging in the raised beds).

now the only raised bed that still haven't been fertilized with chicken manure is RB3. that one is a little more challenging as half the bed is for growing perennial rubeckias, while the other half is dotted with foxgloves and a few hollyhocks. we still have 4 bags of manure to distribute throughout the garden.

i went back inside by 3pm. even though temperature outside was in the 30's, i worked up a sweat from toiling in the backyard and i'd already stripped off my jacket. it wasn't cold when the sun was out, but by 3pm there was just an hour left before sunset, and started getting cold. i helped my mother reschedule her colonoscopy appointment, which was next monday. but because there's a holiday event at the cafe on sunday, she couldn't fast for her appointment. the new appointment is 2 days before christmas.

my mother's new pair of cloudgo wide sneakers came today. we both thought it was makeup before i discovered it as actually her shoes. she already has a black pair. when i went to the site last week i saw this year's model was also on sale ($85) so she bought another pair. she doesn't like the white bottoms which she thinks will get dirty easily. she said maybe these can be house shoes.

monday gardening wouldn't be complete without a trip down to the basement to water the plants. i didn't want to water too much, and none of the jasmines received any water today, as the soil still looked moist. i did water the gardenia, and gave a sip of water to all the pileas. most importantly i watered the orchids. i still can't believe they're producing flower buds now. normally we don't see them until end of winter, around february-march. flowering orchids - is it a sign of productivity or a sign of stress?

we plugged in the mi fitness band i found earlier. it didn't turn on at first, but after a few seconds, the screen turned on and showed that it was recharging. these things seem to be indestructible! burying it outside in the dirt for months, dig it up, still works. too bad my father already has a replacement fitness band (mi band 7).

for dinner my mother made turkey broth noodle soup again. i didn't mind, i love noodles. couldn't really taste any turkey though. we still have leftover turkey, cooling inside the 12v thermoelectric cooler.

i went home soon afterwards, the later i leave, the colder it gets. i brought my handlebar mitts this time, which kept my hands warm at the expense of being able to see the buttons and switches on my handlebar (though i've already memorized their locations by now through muscle memory). i also wore my flannel pants which kept my legs warm. the only part that was cold was my face, and honestly, it wasn't that cold, just in the 30's, which is nothing.

i stopped by the cafe to bring out the trash but looks my sister already did it. i stopped by her place and texted to see if she was home. she was, in went inside, saw her eating pizza with esmei sitting next to her hoping to get some. my sister showed me her new astronaut ceiling light, which not only projected stars onto the ceiling, but also a moving aurora/nebula. i quickly wished her a happy birthday before leaving.

after a shower, i made some microwave movie theater popcorn and settled down to watch the heat-celtics game. both teams were undermanned. miami was without jimmy butler and kevin love, while boston was missing porzingis, holiday, horford, and hauser. the missing players should've evened the playing field, but the celtics still had the two jays, derrick white, and sixth-player-award-candidate payton pritchard. a lot of bench guys got to play and they showed they deserved to be on the team. the heat come out swinging, building up to a 7 point lead. that was the only time they saw daylight, as the celtics then suffocated them, leading by 27 at one point. the final score was 89-108.

i met my father at the cafe at 10am to clean out the grease trap. we planned on doing it yesterday (saturday), but the next door hair salon was still opened, and out of courtesy we moved it to today, since cleaning the grease trap can be a very smelly affair.

first thing we did was to take down the fan we've been using to ventilate any cooking smoke smell and to close the window. with the window open, the temperature inside the cafe dropped down to 48 degrees in the kitchen and 51 degrees out front. the temperature sensor for the basement freezers were sending me low temperature warnings this morning. at some point in the near future we'll screw in a wooden platform to hold the window fan. in the meantime we'll use our old fan, still screwed onto the ceiling.

i made a batch of tea eggs since we only have a few left, and those might not be very good since they're from last wednesday. i'll probably need to make another batch tuesday morning when we open up the cafe.

we already cleaned out the shelves on thursday when we came to get the turkey. my father prepared several buckets for storing the grease, lined with two layers of trash bags to prevent leaking. then he climbed underneath the shelves to get to the grease trap. because it's so cold in the cafe, the grease solidified into large chunks. my father said it made it harder to clean because he couldn't scoop it out like he used to, but i thought it made cleaning easier because i could just pull off the large blocks of fat with gloved hands and toss them into the trash.

i honestly thought we'd be finished in just half an hour. but cleaning out the grease trap takes time. after you get the grease trap opened, you need to remove all the solid grease. then you need to reassemble the grease trap. after that you need to clean any leftover grease. finally you put everything back onto the shelves. it ended up taking us 3 hours, from 10am to 1pm.

we replaced the foam layer around the perimeter of the grease trap lid. we also replaced all the screws, which have corroded over the years. we replaced them with 18 brand new stainless steel M6 flanged hex bolts (aliexpress) paired with stainless steel nuts (temu).

when it was all over there was still a faint grease trap smell, but it wasn't too bad, not as bad as i past years. my father thinks the cold temperature helped to control the smell, and that the grease stayed mostly solid. we left with 4 bags of grease solids to be tossed out in the next trash pickup.

my motorcycle was giving me issues starting up, but it still started in this 30's temperature. i just have to open the choke and let the cold engine run a bit before riding. when we got to belmont, my mother made us turkey broth rice noodles for lunch.

the only thing we had to do today was go to bin bin's house in weston for dinner. she invited us a few days ago. we weren't sure if we were going to go, but it'd probably be the last time we saw binbin's father before her parents return to shenyang at the end of december.

i had some time to compare the effectiveness of the various flash options: no flash, ceiling bounce flash, direct flash with built-in diffuser, macro diffuser.

i went outside and installed the EC5 charging cable to my motorcycle battery. it fit perfectly, and i even tested it with a multimeter to make sure it was in fact attached to the battery and carrying voltage (12.63V). the next time my motorcycle battery goes dead, i can use the cable with my jump starter battery pack to hopefully jump start the motorcycle.

we couldn't just go to dinner empty-handed, so we ended up leaving early around 3pm to first stop off at the waltham costco to get some presents: a box of chocolate, a box of chocolate-covered cookies, and a tin of butter pecan meltaways. costco was insanely crowded, like shopping at market basket. however when we went to go pay, there was hardly any lines. we also got some eggs for the cafe, which we kept in a cooler though probably not necessary given how cold it was today.

we made it to binbin's house exactly at 4pm. my aunt and matthew were already there. dinner at their place is good for conversation and catching up, but not so much for the food. of course they're not food people, they don't make a living making food, unlike my family. zhangyu also treated us to more baijiu. i had a sip but settled for prosecco instead, followed by apple cider.

we finally left around 8pm. not only was it dark outside, but it was also freezing, as stars twinkled overhead. it took us around 15 minutes to get back to belmont. i packed up my things and returned home, my hands freezing riding in the cold.

i thought there was a celtics game at 8pm but it actually finished by the time i made it home. probably for the best i didn't see it, celtics lost to the cavaliers in cleveland, 111-115. they were without derrick white and jaylen brown. celtics play again tomorrow night (back-to-back), when miami comes to boston.

i woke up at 9am but surfed the web and didn't get out of bed until 10am. getting ready to leave for belmont, i realized i had an order to pick up from the somerville target. so i grabbed my bike from the basement and rode to target, which took around 10 minutes. i wore the sony hearing aid this time, i believe my first time wearing them while biking. i didn't notice much difference. i was picking up some loctite superglue gel. i got back by 10:30am, grab my things, and drove to my parents' place.

today was more of yesterday, which was basically nothing, punctuated by periods of turkey eating. i thought we were nearly finished with our bird, but my mother told me there was still plenty left, enough so that my parents ended up making another batch of chunbing pancakes for the turkey. am i sick of turkey yet? not quite, i could probably eat it for a few more days.

i pieced together my macro diffuser and played around with it. i went out into the backyard looking for interesting things to photograph, but there was hardly anything. i had better luck in the grow room, and the bouquet of flowers my sister bought for thanksgiving. i realized the shape of the macro baffle looks kind of like phalaenopsis "moth" orchid.

i learned a few things about the diffuser. for one thing, it's designed for only macro photography. when you try to take a normal photo, the flash gets too diffused, washing out the image. up close in macro proximity however, you don't have that problem. i'm still not sure what setting to shoot in. i'm currently going with my default 1/125 second f/8 ISO 100. that setting is good enough for macro exposure, with the added bonus that the background becomes black.

i found out that using my canon flash built-in diffuser works just as well for macro lighting, with one of the downside being sometimes you get some harsh glares on the subject that you don't get with the macro diffuser. another way i light my subjects in the house is bouncing the flash off the ceiling. that's my goto method for food photography lighting. however i need to boost the ISO to 1600 to get proper exposure, otherwise the image is very dark.

i took a bunch of photos but didn't take proper notes so i forgot which is which. when i have time tomorrow or monday i'll do some more side-by-side testing. the one thing that macro diffuser has done is renewed my interest in macrophotography.

ann called me out of the blue. she got news that someone in the community garden might have terminal cancer and needed to tell someone about it, that someone being me.

there was nothing good on television, just some college football games. when evening came around, we had more turkey for dinner. my father ended up giving me a ride back home to cambridge, because i want to ride the motorcycle tomorrow and bring it to belmont so i can install the jumper cables for my battery.

i opened up my macbook pro to see if i could fix the stuck hinge issue on the right side of the computer. there wasn't anything that looked off, and doing some research online revealed the only way to fix it is to completely replace the screen. it's a minor annoyance that i can live with. i figured by next year i'll upgrade to a new macbook pro. this current machine is 10+ years old, it's lasted me a long time, but i figured i should at the very least get a new computer ever decade or so. as for specs, anything with an apple silicon chip, 15-16" screen, 1TB hard drive, and SD card reader port. i expect to set me back at least $2000.

i woke up at 9:30am this morning. the only thing i had to do today was go to my parents' place and eat more turkey. i even had the car, so getting there would be a breeze. driving to belmont, i saw many people outside walking. the weather was good for it, no longer raining, with temperature in the mid-40's.

i didn't get to belmont until almost noontime. it was so quiet in the house, i thought nobody was home. instead of turkey, we had sauerkraut soup instead mixed with some rice noodles.

my sister came home around 1pm. i showed the snake toy to esmei, who immediately started barking at it and ran under the table to hide. she did not like the snake. it took some coaxing to get her back out, as she went back into the kitchen to look for the snake.

we then let esmei out into the backyard so she could use the bathroom. what she did instead was graze on some grass, supposedly dogs do that when they need fiber to make themselves go to the bathroom. she then saw a rabbit and chased after it (not at all afraid of rabbits). that was followed by an intense bout of the zoomies, ask she raced from one side of the yard to the other.

my parents and sister took esmei out to the park in concord while i stayed home. by myself i took the table apart, removing two leaves. i watched the ring (american remake) on pluto tv. it's one of the scariest movies ever made. it was followed by the ring 2 which i don't remember ever watching it before, but it doesn't seem to be as good as the first one.

my parents were out for very long, coming back at 3pm. esmei waited patiently, watching my sister carve up some turkey leftovers, never crying or getting angry when she didn't get any turkey in return.

i fell asleep on the zero gravity chair while watching the raiders-chiefs football game. i woke up feeling cold, and climbed into the twin size bed while my mother watched her stories. close to 6pm i got back up to have dinner. finally i had turkey, ate 4 rollups. we also had some flan. that's when i realized all the flan in the clear glass ramekins had a burnt sugar layer, giving the flan a bitter taste. it's still edible but the flavor was off. all the guests who took home flans will be getting some bitter burnt sugar flan instead. while disassembling what's left of the turkey so it could fit inside a cooler (we didn't have enough space in the fridge), we discovered why the turkey was so tender this year: the very inner part of the bird was still a little raw. that's okay, we'll just use those parts for making the eventual turkey stock, which is what we do with the leftovers (including bones) anyway.

for the second night in a row i ended up driving home. the windshield was fogging up from the condensation, i kept the windows opened to keep them clear but it made for a cold ride home.

i brought home some superglue and taped some magnets to the back of those miniature trinkets. i also ordered some superglue online from target, i can go pick it up from the somerville store tomorrow. it's always handy to have some superglue around the house.

today was black friday yet there wasn't anything i wanted to buy. maybe a new pair of shoes, maybe a new backpack, maybe a new replacement action camera. there's no rush, i feel like i have all weekend to decide.

i finished watching all 3 episodes of season 2 of silo, the last episode i watched from bed using my phone holder neck harness. episode 1 and 2 were slow, but episode 3 things seem to be picking up. not sure if i'm going to continue watching dune: prophecy, but i did download the first episodes of last day of the jackal and the agency, those might be good. end of the year, a lot of new shows to watch!

i could already hear drew cleaning in the kitchen this morning before i got out of bed at 9am. it was a day of waiting: drew waiting to leave for his late afternoon delta flight back to pittsburgh, me waiting for thanksgiving to start. the weather outside was dreary, dark and wet. it was forecasted to rain for much of the day until the evening. during the growing season this would've been welcomed rain, but now with the season over, the rain was just annoying, though much needed to rectify the ongoing local drought.

nobody ever talks about traveling on thanksgiving day. given what i've seen of the road conditions on that day, i would've imagined it'd be pretty empty. but i could just as easily believe it'd be busy, with last minute departures and locals traveling short distances for nearby festivities. originally i was going to wait until noontime for drew to leave before leaving myself, but he wasn't leaving until 1pm (for a 3:55pm flight) so i was the first to go.

my upstairs neighbors - who were supposed to leave for portland yesterday - seem to be still at home, at least one of them. was there thanksgiving drama and one of them decided not to go? i didn't check my front door webcam to verify who it was (nor do i care honestly, just being nosey).

drew made a turkey sandwich to eat at the airport. he said he was leaving behind some foods for me to have. i left at 12pm, my father coming by to pick me up in the rain. i brought nothing, since i'd already moved everything (flan, drinks) yesterday.

we stopped at the cafe to pick up supplies, most importantly the 24+ lb. frozen turkey that'd been thawing since last saturday and marinating since tuesday. we tried calling my 2nd aunt, asking her if she needed a ride on this rainy day, but she said she'd get to belmont on her own. while my father was gathering supplies, i started cleaning the shelf space about the grease trap. saturday is when we'll come back and empty the trap, a smelly but necessary task.

we arrived at my parents' place at 1pm. while my parents made preparations in the kitchen, i was taking a second pass at cleaning the house followed by a vacuum. my tried and true strategy is to get a large box, putting everything in it, then hide it in the sunroom. we still have stuff from last year's thanksgiving still in the sunroom. because it was cold outside (45 degrees and wet), the sunroom was cold (50 degrees), which allowed us to use it as a temporary storage for refrigerated foods.

surprisingly, my big aliexpress 11-11 singles day order arrived today. aliepxress must use non-standard delivery service that still deliver on holidays. i was too busy to inspect my items, waiting until i had more time. i did fish out the EC5 rubber dust cap for my motorcycle battery jumping cable.

after preheating the convection oven, the turkey went in around 2:40pm. there were complaints that the turkey last year was too dry, so we made sure not to overcook it this time. butterball website says to cook in a convection oven at 325°F for 3-3-1/2 hours for a 22-24 lbs. bird. but the national turkey federation website says to cook in a convection oven at 350°F for 2-1/2-3 hours for a 20-25 lbs. turkey. it also says to test the turkey with a meat thermometer, and that the turkey was done once internal temperature reached 165°F. i ended up going with the turkey federation instructions because it made more sense. higher temperature, quicker roast time, and proper temperature check. i set the timer for 3 hours, but would come and check the temperature in the final 30 minutes to see if we need to cook more or less.

my father started making the chunbing (春餅) around 3pm. my parents set up a light so he could work on the stainless steel table. he cut the dough into nuggets, flattened them slightly, applied oil, flatten more, then rolling into flat pancakes.

my 2nd aunt arrived at 3:20pm. she carried a big yellow umbrella which kept her dry, but her shoes were soaked. i'm not sure if she brought anything; in the past she made sago soup with taro (西米露) but not this time (later i found out she brought a small watermelon and some guava). i wasn't sure if my sister was coming, and i didn't bother asking, although she did text me if we had ice in the house, which was a promising sign. my 2nd aunt helped my mother toast the chunbing in a pan while my father continued rolling them out.

drew texted me throughout the day, letting me know where he was. he made it to porter square in the rain, to take the subway to the airport. logan was pretty empty, but the plane to pittsburgh was surprisingly full. yesterday while he was checking in he saw delta bumped him up to first class. expecting champagne, what he got instead was complimentary water. the only advantage of first class was less people and better leg room.

as 5pm approached, i started bringing out the drinks from the 12v refrigerator and coolers. an assortment of canned polar seltzers (pomegranate, mandarin orange, strawberry melon, frosted boysenberry) and bottled polar sodas (cranberry dry, half & half, orange dry, elderflower starlight, blood orange cranberry). i also had beers. i bought a 12-pack sampler of lord hobo IPA: endless vagabond juicy, bodacious vagabond new england IPA, boom sauce double IPA, and crispy boom. and a 6-pack of angry orchard crisp imperial hard cider.

my aunt and matthew showed up at 5pm, bringing with them grilled jumbo shrimps and roasted okra. they also brought a brand new waring pro deep fryer they had at home but never used. the internals looked similar to our t-fal, but it only had a 2L capacity while our t-fal hold 3.5L. my aunt asked me if i was wearing my sony hearing aid, and told me she was wearing hers.

my sister and her godmother showed up around 5:20pm. i didn't think she'd bring anything, but she arrived with a suite of desserts (some still needed preparations and baking) along with flowers for the dining table that was already filled to capacity. by that point my parents were busy making the spring rolls that my father would fry in jack's deep fryer, while i was busy assembling the clam chowder.

as soon as the spring rolls finished frying they were served immediately. i wasn't sure if i made enough clam chowder but there was enough for everyone with a bit left over. this was a dish my aunt had asked for, ever since she tried some when our californian relatives came to visit during the summer. the chowder was hearty enough that it easily filled you up, despite the fact that there was still plenty of food to go.

i basted the turkey with the drippings every 30 minutes or so. that wasn't necessary because the skin looked crispy enough as is without basting. the turkey was a bit oversized for our aluminum turkey roasting tray, so some drippings fell to the bottom of the oven. with about half an hour left on the turkey timer, we checked the temperature with a meat thermometer. the parts of the turkey on the very top - the breasts - were 185° while the lower sections - like the drumsticks - were still 135°. we left it to continue roasting. when i came back to check on it 10-15 minutes later, all parts of the turkey was above 165°. the time was 5:20pm, it took 2 hours and 40 minutes to roast a 24+ lbs. turkey in the convection oven. instead of cutting into it right away, we left it to sit on the serving table while we continued eating.

this was the first thanksgiving with my insta360 camera. i mounted it onto a can and set it in the middle of the dining table. once people began eating, i started filming. i got about 25 minutes of footage - up to when we started having the turkey - before matthew knocked the camera over into some food. that was my cue to take down the camera as it was taking up valuable table real estate.

my aunt kept raving about how tender the turkey was compared to last year. the trick was besides using the timer, we also took temperature measurements to let us know when the turkey was ready.

i had 3 turkey roll ups, which is the typical amount despite always promising i'd eat more. with our 24 lbs. bird, each guest could have 3 lbs. of turkey. in reality though, we only go through a quarter. even after guests took home turkey leftover, we still had more than half a turkey to ourselves. i also had some sauerkraut & tofu soup before dessert. there was so much food, my mother didn't even prepare the book tripe (though the amount was so little, she was probably just saving it for post-thanksgiving).

my 2nd aunt also brought some korean alcohol: a milky makgeolli and a plum-flavored soju. everyone agreed that the soju tasted too much like water. the makgeolli was more popular, though it had the lower (8% alcohol content).

when it came time to dessert, my sister overshadowed my flan with her assortment of cakes and pastries. i was a little angry that i got upstaged, and in silent protest i didn't eat any of the stuff my sister made. after it was all over, nobody had any appetite for flan so this was the first thanksgiving where guests didn't eat my thanksgiving flan. instead they took them home. fortunately the new anchor hocking ramekins i got came with plastic lids for easier transport. my father and i did have some flan for ourselves, what was left over were the smaller portion ramekins. this year's flan had a lot of bubbles; the perfect flan doesn't have any bubbles. i must've mixed the flan mixture too much and didn't give it enough time to settle. but tastewise as decadent as ever. i also realized i forgot to have flan with drew (two more flan back at home).

guests started leaving around 8:30pm, but i totally forgot to show matthew the progress in our basement grow room. my aunt and matthew gave my 2nd aunt a ride home, while my sister took home her godmother.

i finally had a chance to check out my aliexpress package. with so many "presents," it felt like a combination of thanksgiving and christmas. everything i ordered came, including the barrier-sensing snake toy i got for esmei. it had a pretty realistic snake motion, and the coloring reminded me of a coral snake but it's actually more of a milk snake. there was one mystery package, a pink clothespin. i didn't order it, must've been some mistake, i planned to look into it when i got back home. instead of getting a ride from my father, i ended up driving home myself, since i figured there'd be plenty of parking.

i logged into my aliexpress to figure out what was missing. that clothespin? that was supposed to be a glass bulb forcing vase. i probably got scammed but i sent photo proof to aliexpress for a refund. i also ordered two rocks. they were very interesting when i first saw them, but back at home they looked better. i got some labradorite, which is one of my favorite rocks. i also got some yooperlites, which look like pieces of quartz granite, but they glow neon orange underneath UV light. i got some miniature condiment bottles that i thought were fridge magnets but they came without magnets. i was going to superglue some on, but my bottle of superglue finally died.

i woke up at 9am to fly my drone and get some photos of the long line for petsi's pie. i managed to launch from my alleyway, but it was too dangerous to try and land again, so i walked out to a clearing on the street to get a more unobstructed view of the sky. yes there was a long line but it wasn't as crazy as in year's past. most likely the busiest day was yesterday, since by late morning the line was mostly gone.

while showering this morning i also got my two plungers to drain the bath tub. it seemed to work, it started draining better after that.

back inside the house, i started making my new england clam chowder. i used 6 russet potatoes, peeled then diced them before adding to the pot on high heat. once it was boiling, i lowered it down to medium-low and cooked for 3 minutes. i the drained the potatoes and left it cool.

while the potatoes were cooling, i went to market basket to get some goceries (11am). i try not to visit any super markets the day before thanksgiving. it wasn't too bad, didn't seem like it was busier than usual, there wasn't even a police there. i got some almond and oat milk for the cafe and a spanish onion for the chowder. afterwards i went to the indian market next door to get some beers and hard cider.

back at home, i chopped the onion with a food processor just to save time. one side effect was the onion became more pungent, and i was tearing up from the fumes. i mixed in two cans of chopped clams with some salt and pepper before adding everything to a one gallon ziploc bag.

i called mass eye & ear to make a hearing test appointment. none are available at their boston location until march at the earliest. they have appointments at longwood but that's a bit of a trek for me, and another month won't make much difference. so i booked a march appointment. after the hearing test i'm also scheduled for a hearing aid fitting. i just want my insurance the cover the cost of my sony hearing aids.

i went to the cafe around noontime to borrow the car. i ran into my sister who was walking esmei in the parking lot. esmei came running up to me while i locked my bicycle but didn't give me a kiss and promptly ignored me after realizing i didn't have any treats. she poked her head into the cafe and greeted everyone, including my 2nd aunt, and my mother who haven't seen esmei in over 3 weeks.

i came back home to pick up the flan and the additional chowder making ingredients. the new anchor hocking ramekins i used came with plastic lids, which made for easier transport. i then drove to belmont to unload the thanksgiving supplies and clean the house. earlier i put two coolers from the cafe, filled them with ice cubes. i spent 1-1/2 hours cleaning. i was doing a deep clean, decluttering the sun room, putting stuff away into the garage and basement. afterwards the living room still seemed dirty, but only because this was my first pass. a second pass tomorrow will do the trick, followed by a vacuum.

i went back to the cafe around 3pm to drop off the car and bike home.

i tried the G4 led replacement bulbs for my under cabinet kitchen sink light. by design i should've known they wouldn't work, with 5 COB's facing down and 5 COB's facing up, while my old led bulbs had 15 COB's all facing down. besides being dimmer, the color of the new bulb wasn't warm white but more cool white. so just like the led halogen replacement in the bathroom, these lights were also duds.

i didn't eat anything all day so i baked 3 soft pretzels in the oven.

around 4pm i went over to bruce's place to drop off some thanksgiving flan. he said in the month of november he and jack visited the doctor more than a dozen different times for various ailments. he told me jack fell again recently, this time breaking some bones in his fingers and suffering a mild concussion.

drew came back from the boston public library around 5:20pm. i went over to bruce's place for dinner, then came back at 8pm for pizza dinner with me. we ordered online and walked down to stoked pizza to get our orders. i brought an insulated grocery bag to keep our pizzas warm. with got the meat-filled porky and the sausage & onion.

back at the house, we ate pizza while watching godfather part 2 on pluto.tv. the movie wasn't going to end up 12:45am. drew decided to go to bed during the 11pm intermission.

i finished watching the first episode of dune: prophecy. it was actually kind of boring, i'm not even sure if i want to see the second episode that came out this past weekend. i still have two episodes of season 2 of silo to watch.

back in october i discovered the 58mm UV filter on my 55-250mm telephoto lens was loose. it was a YSDIGI brand filter, ultra-slim nano coatings with schott B270 glass that i bought off of amazon in 2019 for $8. they're no longer made, so as a replacement, i bought an ARTCISE brand filter, ultra-thin 16-layer multi-coating off of temu for $5. the filter arrived a week ago, i finally got a chance to put it on. ARTCISE advertised the filter as ultra-thin, but it wasn't as thin as the YSDIGI filter. i ended up installing the new filter on my 28mm lens.

before i went to bed i remembered drew's bicycle was still parked outside. since it's going to rain tomorrow and that bike won't be used anymore, i wheeled it back in the basement.

drew was heading back to the MIT library today while i was leaving for the cafe. rain was forecasted but it wasn't supposed to start until after 10am, giving us both enough time to bike to our respective destinations. coming out of prentiss street onto mass ave, i saw a movie production crew setting up on the street corner. could this be related to the zendaya and robert pattinson movie currently filming in boston?

today was all about prepping for thanksgiving on thursday. my mother boiled about 2 dozen eggs and braised them overnight. i think i've heard this before, but my parents reuse the braising solution, the age (20 years) a source of pride. my father assembled some chinese spices in a gauze bag and heated up a pot of brine for the turkey. looking for a container big enough to fit the 24+ lb. bird, he settled on an enamel-coated steel canning pot i found earlier this year. after i gave it a thorough cleaning, we dropped the turkey (bought frozen, been thawing in the fridge since saturday) inside the pot (just the right size). my father then partially submerged the bird in the brine solution, making up the different with ice water. we then put the canning pot into the fridge, a perfect fit.

i wore the sony hearing aid to work today. i kept adjusting it depending on what i was doing. if i wanted to hear what people were saying, i'd increase the sharpness. if i was working in the kitchen and didn't want to be distracted by the background sounds (hum of the ventilation fan, hum of the induction cookers, the hiss of rain outside, the traffic noises) i'd turn down the sharpness. i still don't like the fact that i can't hear myself talk normally.

in the afternoon i heated up a mini pepperoni pizza in the microwave for lunch. outdoor temperature was in the upper 40's, and once it started raining, the humidity went up and it felt especially cold. at one point my joints started aching, not sure if i'm coming down with something.

we were busy around lunchtime but it was not a busy day. this was the same pattern last thanksgiving: not busy on tuesday, which led us to believe wednesday wouldn't be busy either, and that turned out to be wrong because it got very busy the next day. would history repeat itself? the only concern was if we had enough tea eggs. my mother asked me not to making any on saturday as any leftover tea eggs i made wouldn't get used until next week. we had 18 tea eggs today, which dwindled down to 13 by the end of today. hopefully 13 will be enough for tomorrow.

the rain stopped around sunset, the fast moving clouds a golden orange against the periwinkle sky. we weren't very busy in the final hours. i was not only cold, but sleepy as well, not getting enough slumber the past few days, sleeping late, waking early.

my mother packed me some spicy stir fry on rice in a container as i rode home. drew was hanging out with a friend on top of the prudential tower, but said he was coming back right when i got home. i could've waited for him regarding dinner plans, but i was too hungry and ate the food my mother had prepared for me.

i woke up at 7:30am to get ready. i was out the door by 8:10am. i was taking the 96 bus to medford to meet up with my parents who were getting eye exams. i did the same thing last november. but instead of catching the bus from harvard station, i realized i could catch it much closer, right off of mass ave. the bus arrived right on time. there was about a dozen people onboard. most of them got off around tufts university while i continued riding to the end.

i decided to try wearing the sony hearing aid all day today to test it out. i kept adjusting the balance (sharpness) to get the most natural audio. sitting in the back of the bus got so noisy, i kind of wish i could turn off the hearing aid, but it's always on. eventually i found the sweet spot, which is balance of -3.

i couldn't have timed it any perfectly: as soon as i stepped off the bus around 8:50am in medford square, i saw my father waiting outside the harvard vanguard building. they'd just finished their eye exams and were both wearing disposable sunglass films. it was a sunny day and the glare was too much for my father's dilated pupils, so i ended up driving.

i started to get used to the hearing aid, and setting it at -3 dampened out the natural background noises, like moving around. the one thing i'm still not used to is when i talk. it sounds unnatural through the hearing aid, muffled, like i'm speaking with a stuffed nose. i'll have to look into if that can be adjusted or not.

our first stop was ALDI in fellsway plaza. that should've been a simple straight forward route along riverside avenue, but i must've made a wrong turn and google map rerouted me to a circuitous route. at one point i even stopped to check what was going on with the map because it was asking me to drive on roads i wasn't familiar with.

even though we were just looking for baby cucumbers and scallions, we ended up getting a substantial amount of groceries from ALDI. the checkout lines were crowded, but the cashiers moved lightning fast, ringing up a whole cartload of foods in about a minute.

next we went to the 99 asian supermarket. this is the one that my aunt goes for her asian groceries needs. i've only been here a few times, the last time back in may 2024, when i drove to saugus to pick up our EGO electric mower. they do have a very good selection, but they don't have as many sale items as some of the other asian supermarkets i go to. we ended up getting a lot of thanksgiving groceries here. one thing we needed was tripe: they had it but the quality wasn't very good. while my parents were paying, i ran across the parking lot to the brazilian vitoria meat market. the name sounded promising, but the only tripe they had was a refrigerated package that was more expensive that 99.

my mother said we should visit super 88 to see if they had any tripe. after we got there, my father stayed in the car while my mother and i went inside. they did have tripe, both the honeycomb variety and the book tripe. we bought what we needed and left.

the last stop was bianco & sons for our chinese sausages. my parents stayed in the car while i went inside to get them. i then drove us back to my house where i got off while my father continued driving the rest of the way to the cafe. i grabbed my things from my house and took the motorcycle to the cafe to help unload the supplies. it was only noontime, still very early. typically a supply run would take us into the afternoon, but because we had such an early start, we saved a lot of time. the handyman must've came by this morning to disassemble the patio deck because it was completely gone. it was somewhat overdue, we haven't had any outdoor seating customers in weeks, pretty much since we changed the clocks.

it was my first time wearing the hearing aid while riding the motorcycle. i was kind of afraid it might fall out. i did hear motorcycle noises i never knew existed, like the sound of the engine or the noises it makes when i shift gear.

we all went back to my parents' place afterwards. my mother made me some wonton soup, my father added some tong ho herbs which he got from 99. afterwards i had some snow fungus soup.

my father and i took apart the presto profry deep fryer jack gave us a while back. we only used it once or twice because cleanup is such a hassle, unlike the t-fal EZ clean fryer with its patented autodrain design. we took the heating element apart to see what reset switch it used. it was the same type as our broken t-fal, but the wires were soldered onto the two leads. we put the profry back together again. but this means it's possible for us to buy a cheap used profry online and strip it for its reset switch, enabling us to repair our broken t-fal.

a nurse from MGH replied to the message i sent last night. she said my primary care doctor sent a referral to mass eye & ear general for a hearing test, i just need to call them to make an appointment. i'm kind of nervous to call because thus far i knew about my hearing loss but as long as i didn't see a professional, i would never have to know how bad it is. now if i get my hearing test, i'll know for certain and that's a little scary.

in the afternoon i went downstairs to water the plants in the grow room. a lot of our wintering hot peppers are flowering now, something i don't want it to do. i prefer to see them go into dormancy, but it's not cold enough in the basement to make them stop growing. i think i water way too much and would rather see the soils of the plants go completely dry before watering. so today i only watered the orchids and pileas, plus a few jasmines and the gardenia that looked dry. i pruned all the jasmine tendrils, not realizing one of the plants was a special gifted jasmine with a different variety of flower. my father took that one upstairs to raise in his bedroom garden along with the osmanthus.

my mother was doing laundry when she realized the laundry sink stopped draining. we plunged it a few times but it still wouldn't drain. finally my father came down to the basement. after manually scooping out as much water from the sink as possible, he opened up the trap to clear any clogs. we didn't see any large obstructions, but it might've already flushed away. the sink started draining again after that.

my merrell moab arrived today. just as i feared, they're a women size 7.5, not men. it still fit but only because i wasn't wearing socks. i'll have to return them.

for dinner my parents made a pot of sour stewed fish with tofu.

i left for home around 7pm. drew was in the kitchen on his computer. i started making my flan, but chatting with drew slowed me down so that i probably didn't actually start making it until 8:30pm.

i was making the same recipe i made last thanksgiving, even down to the serving size. 23 is the maximum number of ramekins i can fit onto two trays. i remembered i bought a dozen new glass anchor hocking ramekins that i fished out from the cupboard and used those instead. i forgot to use a fine mesh strainer to filter the flan mixture. the flan didn't finish baking until midnight. i waited another 2 hours to let them cool before putting them into the refrigerator.

there was a clippers-celtics game tonight. probably not the most exciting matchup, but it was a surprise early return for porzingis, who i didn't think would play until christmas. boston trounced LA, final score was 94-126. i didn't see the game live but afterwards rewatched the recording.

i tried the new GY6.35 LED substitute for the halogen bulb in my bathroom. it's pretty much the same length as the halogen bulb which is perfect. you can see all the circuity inside the clear housing that i originally thought was glass but accidentally touched it (which i normally avoid to prevent finger oils from getting on the bulb) and discovered it was actually a soft rubbery casing. when i installed it in the fixture above the sink though, i was immediately disappointed. supposedly the equivalent of a 50W halogen, it was nowhere close to that. advertised as warm white, it was maybe that color in the center but with a cool white halo. maybe i got a defective bulb? i have two more LED prong-type bulbs to install in the kitchen sink light, maybe those will be better.

my macro flash diffuser arrived today. it seems kind of expensive ($40) for what it is, just a few pieces of plastic that you snap together into a diffuser. the instructions were terrible (despite the photos, which were not clear), and i couldn't find any help online. i basically just had to figure it out on my own, not even sure if i assembled it correctly. i took a few test photos, it seemed to work well, proper exposure, no blowouts. wish i assembled it earlier while i was still in belmont so i could take some macro photos of our plants. now i just have to learn how to adjust my flash to do a strobe effect for macro multishots.