i finally got a chance to ride the trek hybrid. the top tube just sits below my crotch, the saddle about 5 inches higher. the saddle was actually too low, i couldn't fully extend my legs while pedaling. the bike is pretty barebones. it doesn't have fenders, or rear rack, or even a kickstand. i also found out it's missing a bell as well. the front headset has a little play, i don't know how to adjust it just yet, i'll find some youtube video to watch. what the bike does have are toe clips. i've toyed around with them myself, but they end up being more hassle than they're worth. if i don't use them, i occasionally hear them scraping against the ground.

when i come to a stop, i can put my foot down if i tip the bike on its side slightly. the bike itself is super light with an all aluminum frame, about 27 lbs., which is nothing compared to my ebike which is 50 lbs. easily. i don't like the straight handlebars, makes me ride in a forward leaning posture when i prefer a more laid back upright sitting posture. because the top tube is so high, it takes some work dismounting, i have to lean the bike and swing a leg over the seat.

so another reason i was riding the trek hybrid today was to see just how much faster it is compared to riding my trek utility bike. traveling a distance of 2.93 miles, my average speed was 10mph. my total moving time was 17-1/2 minutes, total travel time 19-1/2 minutes. so actually no difference. i figured with the large 700c wheels i would be moving faster, but it's pretty much the same compared to my utility bike.

temperature today was in the 40's and a mix of clouds and sun. it was also very windy so it felt much colder. my mother made wonton soup again for lunch. my parents waited for me to finish so we could do a waltham supply run. while trying to fully extend the insta360 selfie stick, i managed to pull the stick apart into two pieces. we couldn't figure out how to put it back together again so i ended up buying a replacement stick on amazon, to be delivered later in the afternoon.

outside was a robin sitting on the sidewalk. it might've been a window strike but it was far away from the house. it was just sitting there with its eyes closed.

we headed to the waltham costco first. from the highway we could already see the parking lot filled with cars. it was super busy today, everyone seemed to have come out today since costco was closed yesterday sunday for easter. we didn't need much, i just wanted to go there to get more soil. all they had were potting soil, no raised bed soil. we ended up buying 3 bags.

next we went to the waltham market basket. we only got enough supplies for the week, since we'll be closed the following week while my parents are on vacation. i had to ask a taller customer for help to get some drinks down from the high shelf. do tall people like it when shorter people ask them for help to reach items?

my mother took a quick trip to nearby marshalls while my father and i loaded the groceries in the car. i ran to the market basket liquor store and grabbed a case of assorted woodchuck hard cider and a bottle of baijiu. my mother bought a windbreaker jacket for my father.

instead of returning via the highway, we came back via waltham main street, so we could stop by mulan and pick up some lunch specials as well as some smoked duck. we got the salt & pepper porkchop and spicy chicken. my mother couldn't believe how expensive everything has become. eating out is okay, but we'd only ever get takeouts, since we couldn't afford to sit down and pay the additional 20% in tips.

since we didn't stop by the cafe, we had to pile all the refrigerated and frozen stuff in the fridge. we then had a second lunch. the salt & pepper porkchop was cooked well, but not salty enough, a little too sweet. and definitely not spicy. likewise with the chicken, though every once in a while you might eat into a bit of hot pepper. the duck wasn't too salt but had a strong smokey flavor.

around 4pm i went down to the basement to water the plants. 2 weeks ago i didn't water, and last week i watered with a very diluted 1 tsp of gnatrol powder. i shouldn't have gotten lazy with the regimen because there was definitely an uptick of fungus gnats today, when i thought i had everything under control. so now i'm back to square one, added 3 tsp of gnatrol to 5 gallons of water. while watering the orchids i noticed one of them was growing two flower spikes.

my father was experimenting with the insta360 camera. he shoot a quick video outside and i connected it to the computer so he could watch it on the larger screen. a few minutes later the computer lost the connection to the camera, said it was suddenly disconnected. when i tried to remount the camera the mac didn't recognize it and wanted to reformat the memory card. the camera itself wouldn't recognize the card either. i had no choice but to reformat. i'd never seen that error before, but makes me a little worried. one thing to lose a video file, but to corrupt the entire 500GB memory card? that's a little dangerous. we weren't even doing anything, just replaying the video.

when 6pm came around my mother said she wasn't very hungry. she told me i could have the leftover pizza from last night for dinner, so i started packing up my things. i was hoping to wait for the insta360 selfie stick to arrive, but i accidentally sent it to my house instead of belmont. what did arrive was the selfie stick wrist strap and a replacing pump spray wand.

it's been a while since i manually biked to belmont and back. i like it, gives me a decent workout, build up a little bit of sweat. it's also nice traveling slow for a change, feels safer. i also don't feel obnoxious as i sometimes do riding the ebike.

i didn't reheat the pizza slices until 8pm. i used the stovetop technique where i reheat the pizza on medium-low heat for a few minutes to crisp up the crust, then i add some water into the pan and put the lid on to steam the pizza and melt the cheese.

while i was doing that, i noticed my little seed starter tray of stevia seeds have sprouted! kind of surprised, because the seeds were so tiny, i honestly didn't think they'd do anything. now i just need to nurse them to full seedling stage. my other seeds - tomatoes and peppers and eggplants - have yet to germinate. and no action in luffa gourds in wet napkin. if anything, i think some of the seeds have gone moldy. i'll have to check my notes and figure out how i germinated those seeds. i think i put them on top of the warm led lights once i get my grow closet set up?

i tried going to bed early last night, managed to sleep 7-1/2 hours, but i still need more sleep. i really ought to be going to bed by midnight at the latest if i plan on waking up 8-9am. i learned last night that the rain will will arrive in the early afternoon and stop by 7-8pm. that meant i could ride there and back. so instead of riding the trek hybrid i repaired yesterday - it doesn't have any fenders - i opted for the velotric ebike instead. i left pretty early, around 9:30am. i brought my rain pants just in case the rain doesn't let up when i return in the evening.

passing through the observatory hill, the parking lot was full from people going to easter mass at the catholic church next door. cars after cars what i thought were minivans were actually SUV's. i don't believe americans prefer SUV's, i think it's the US car companies that want people to believe they want SUV's because they can sell them at a higher cost than sedan and smaller vehicles. every car seems obnoxious, so big that drivers have to climb into their vehicle.

i got to belmont by 10am. it wasn't raining yet, but there was already a fine mist, like a fog, and i arrived slightly damp. i was hoping i could get some backyard work before the rain, but it looks to be too late. today would've been a nice day for a supply run, but market basket is closed on easter.

i brought my insta360 camera and showed my father how to use it when they're on vacation turkey. after he familiarize himself with the physical buttons and how to start and stop a recording, i installed insta360 studio on his computer and showed him how to edit a 360 movie. it's a different way of shooting, not so much angles (since the camera captures everything), but more like the position of the camera itself in 3D space. we then installed the insta360 app on his phone so he could remote monitor a recording. i think he finally understood how the 360 camera works when i moving the camera around on the selfie stick and the footage didn't change, even though i was rotating the camera in different directions. it stayed perfectly balanced, perfectly stabilized, like a magic trick.

as we got closer to lunch, my mother made wonton soup. i made some popcorn as a snack using the carbon steel wok.

elias from prince painting called me. he was supposed to call at 10am this morning, but he said he accidentally forgot. he was apologetic for calling on easter. we scheduled to meet wednesday afternoon so he can take a look at the house (replacing some shingles and some touchup painting).

my sister burst into the house with esmei later in the afternoon. esmei was super soft after my sister washed her recently, almost like a stuffed animal. esmei ran around the house, even got some zoomies. later she poked her head against the sunroom door, wanted to go outside. since it was still raining, she'd only get dirty, so we didn't let her out, but she started whimpering. that meant she wanted to use the bathroom. my sister knew this and was preparing to take her outside for a walk but waited another 30 minutes before finally leaving, after i shouted at her that esmei needed to use the bathroom.

my mother said she wasn't cooking tonight, so whatever we had for dinner had to be ordered out. most western restaurants were closed - pizza shops, greek deli, those were all off limits. the only reliable options were fast food joints, so we decided to get some domino's pizza even though it was still only 4:30pm. they had a special deal this weekend, $10 for any large pizza with up to 7 toppings. we ordered two pizzas: NY style with bacon, sausage, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and banana peppers, and another NY style with alfredo sauce, chicken, mushrooms, spinach, garlic, feta cheese, and shedded asiago parmesan. if we paid original price, it would've been $55; with coupon, it was just $20. how do they even make any profit at those prices?

my father and i went out to pick up the pizzas. my mother said this was the best pizza she's had in a while. normally it's very greasy, but tonight the pizza was baked to perfection, not even any grease stains in the box. my mother ate three slices but got drunk on her gin and tonic and was struggling to stay upright. i myself had 4 slices, three of the bacon-sausage, and one of the chicken-spinach.

i biked home around 6:30pm, it'd stopped raining for about an hour already. even though the ebike has fenders, i was traveling so fast on wet roads that the residual spray still dampened by pant legs. i stashed the ebike in the basement, thinking about taking the trek hybrid tomorrow instead.

no cyberpunk tonight. instead i spent the evening looking through aliexpress, trying to figure out what else i wanted to buy for this latest shipment. i got a bunch of stainless steel screws: M5 6mm (for the handlebar bottle cage), M4 10mm (for the velotric LCD screen), and M5 12mm (bike frame attachment spares). i also got some tree swing straps, a 7 inch speed square, and replacement canon dSLR rubber eye cups. i wanted to get a stainless steel replacement spray wand, but i didn't know if any of the aliexpress ones would fit on my portable sprayer, so i decided to pay a little more and get it from amazon instead. if it doesn't fit at least it'd be easy to return.

i woke up at 8am and rode the ebike to my parents' place so my father and i could assemble a replacement raised bed (for RB3). it was either do it this morning or tomorrow morning (before it rains). i figured do it today so we have time tomorrow to tackle other garden projects. it's the last weekend before my parents leave for vacation, so whatever i need my father's help to do i need to do it within the next couple of days.

the weather was surprisingly warm. temperature was in the 60's and sunny. hard to imagine it would later drop into the 40's and overcast.

we first removed the old raised bed. it wasn't hard, the old wood had mostly disintegrated. we just had to remove the 3 inch deck screws so we don't accidentally step on them. the screws themselves were in pretty good shape considering they've been out in the elements for a decade and a half. this old raised bed was installed back in april 2011. instead of pressure treated wood, we went with a more natural approach by treating them with linseed oil first.

i shoveled dirt from the edges of the borderless raised bed to make room for the new frame. my father was busy cutting up the wood with our circular saw. the blade wasn't long enough to go through the 4x4 rectangular post, so my father had to make each cut twice, top and bottom. 8ft long post gave us 8 1ft long corner pieces. next we cut one of the 2x10 8ft planks in half. these planks had been sitting outside since last summer so they've been properly weathered. we use pressure treated wood, which nowadays are copper-based (instead of arsenic and chromium) and much safer.

we attached the corners to the 8ft planks first. it involved drilling some pilot holes before attaching 3" deck screws. once that was down, we moved the wood onto the lawn and pieces them together. since the lawn isn't completely flat, we laid the pieces onto 2 long wood boards for support. we then assembled the frame, drilled pilot holes, and finally drilled in the deck screws. the frame requires two people to lift and put into place. we could see which areas were elevated and dug out those areas until the frame dropped into place.

i left by 10:30am, went to the cafe to start my saturday shift. my mother was already there, having walked from home. it was already 11:10am and my 2nd aunt still hadn't shown up yet. i checked the map and saw that she was in medford. did she forget she had to work today? then my mother remembered: my 2nd aunt told her she was going to a friend's funeral. so it was just my mother and i today.

we hoped it wouldn't be busy but the opposite happened, as we were suddenly bombarded with customers. our only saving grace was my father was going to show up and bring some food to the accountant whom he was visiting. it was harrowing 30 minutes before my father finally showed up just as we were wrapping up all the orders. once he showed up, it suddenly wasn't very busy anymore.

my father left for the accountant. once he came back, he stuck around until we closed.

i noticed it earlier, but the lcd screen on my ebike was crooked. i took a closer look and discovered one of the retaining screws had fallen out. whoever assembled this bike did a poor job. first the rubber foot on my kickstand fell off; now a retaining screw for the screen.

because it's going to start rain tomorrow afternoon, i'll probably take the bus to belmont in the morning. however, i could take one of my many bikes and just leave it there in the garage. i decided to take the trek hybrid jeff gave me. but first it needed a tune-up. for one thing, the seat height was too high, i dropped it to the lowest level. the front wheel was also missing a quick release skewer spring, which i added. i took it for a quick test ride, seems to work okay, but there was no braking powder. i brought the bike back inside and replaced both front and rear brakes. now the brakes were working. i took it on another test ride, it works perfectly. can't wait to ride it tomorrow.

i brought home some leftover beef noodle soup which i had for dinner. i didn't eat unil 9pm. there was so much i thought i was going to burst.

it was cold and wet this morning, temperature in the upper 30's, but promise of a warm up later in the day. the morning started slow, there was time for me to make some salmon spread bagel sandwiches. it looked to be another slow day like yesterday, but then we suddenly got slammed between 2-3pm. it was a perfect storm of walk-in orders combined with a large group of noisy children who had good friday off and came in for their boba fix. my aunt happened to show up during that time.

my mother's ipad air started acting up again, the screen wouldn't display anything. she meant to replace it but it'll start working intermittently. there's nothing wrong with the device other than the fact that occasionally it will just display a blank screen. apps are still running fine in the background, you just can't see anything.

by late afternoon the clouds parted, and the weather became sunny and warm. my mother made century egg rice porridge with salted pork for an early dinner. after she finished eating, she left the cafe early around 6pm, walking home. my father and i manned the store but there was no customers by that point. for some reason my sister made my father take esmei to belmont. she was buckled in the backseat, patiently waiting to be chauffeured to my parents' house.

i didn't have any of that rice porridge because i had my own porridge at home to finish. after a shower, i warmed up my leftovers and ate dinner while watching the celtics-bucks game. a boston loss tonight would guarantee the pistons get the number one seed in the eastern conference playoffs. celtics didn't get the memo thought because they dominated the bucks. milwaukee never once led this game. granted, they didn't have giannis or bobby portis, and since they've been eliminated from the playoffs weeks ago, they didn't have much to play for besides pride. boston won 133-101. with just 5 more games left in the regular season and still behind the pistons by 4, chance of the celtics securing the number one seed are slim. it looks like the number two seed it is then, with the eastern conference going through the pistons.

i played a bit of cyberpunk during the game. i participated in one of the drag races, won $10,000. i drove the muckmobile - one of the fastest cars in the game - and used my quickhacks to blow up a few cars to thin out the competition. i drove terribly, crashing often, but i still managed to win the race.

i promised myself i would do my 2nd aunt's taxes tonight so i can give it to her tomorrow. her taxes are easy, with very simple and basic finances, with no payments or refunds to be bad. i filed her federal return online, then printed out her state return to be filed by mail. i also did preliminary taxes for my sister, she's basically paying the same amount she paid last year. i tried finessing my taxes a bit more, trying to eke out some deductions. real estate taxes made zero impact. i still need to put in numbers for home office and IRA deductions. i think in the end it won't make much difference.

it was raining this morning, so i put on my rain gear before leaving for the cafe. pretty much the whole day was wet and cold. when i got to the cafe, i found the pussy willow catkins i brought over yesterday had all wilted. i picked the best i could find and put them in vases with a little water.

big news this morning was the firing of attorney general pam bondi. this after homeland security secretary kristi noem was fired just last month. i was surprised when i found out bondi's age: 60 years old. i'd thought she was in her 40's. getting fired probably saved her career, as trump was making her do more and more illegal things on his behalf to the point where she risked getting disbarred. i heard national intelligence director tulsi gabbard will be fired next. kind of weird that only women in his administration are getting axed.

a container of dark soy noodle had gone slightly bad. instead of throwing it out, my mother made some stirfry noodles for lunch. next with some homemade hot sauce, it was pretty tasty.

we filtered the 5L jar of sona masoori rice that we added jiuniang yeast and makgeolli lees. this was from march 19th, with rice that wasn't cooked properly and still mostly hard grains. we gave it a taste test, bitter from the strong alcohol, a little bit sour, but no sweetness. after we strained it, my father added some sugar. it tasted okay, but i think it needs even more sugar to bring out the other flavors, strangely enough. just like when we made suanmeitang, too little sugar it tastes bland, but once you add just enough, you can suddenly taste the complexity of flavors.

esmei showed up in the late afternoon. my father gave her a treat, she put it in her mouth before spitting it out, after realizing she was getting an egg from my mother. esmei loves hard-boiled eggs, can't get enough. she started crying as she grew impatient. maybe a normal dog would bark, but she just whimpers. after she got her egg she wouldn't leave, hoping for another egg.

after the supposed lunchtime rush, we barely made $100. it was starting to look like another slow day. the jewish school across the street was because of passover. however things picked up close to evening time. longtime customer crystal showed up with a big order, and we had another big online order. that combined with a few ubereats delivery and cash put us above our normal daily average, so not a bad day considering the foul weather.

we made a new batch of beef noodle soup. there should be plenty enough to last us for another week, before my parents leave for vacation. using the pot-in-pot method to lower the temperature, i got it down to the upper 60's. that was too low as the oils in the soup started to clump together, making it harder to scoop into individual servings.

it wasn't raining anymore by the time i went home. i put on my rain gear anyway just to stay warm. for dinner i reheated some leftover congee from last night. there was nothing good on television, so i went back to cyberpunk. i'm basically scratching the bottom of the barrel at this point, with no new gigs or missions left to do. i did return skippy to regina jones.

i managed to do everything today except finish my taxes and go for a run. in the morning i went outside and took a few photos to send to reliable fence so they could give me an estimate. i never really took a close look at our gate, but it's actually kind of complicated. there are in fact 3 posts, all cemented to the ground. the gate itself is reinforced with diagonal boards. it also sits direct next to our neighbor's electricity meters. the more i look, the more it seems that around $2000 is a reasonable price.

in the late morning i went to market basket to get some groceries, mostly for the cafe. temperature today almost reached the 70's and was surprisingly humid. i decided i was going to make century egg pork bone congee for dinner, and i had all the ingredients except scallions which i'll get from the cafe. i returned home to drop off a few things before switching to my ebike and heading to the cafe.

i brought along the aliexpress order my mother had made on her own using my account but accidentally shipped to my house. it included traveling pants and an inflatable foot rest that she said may or may not be allowed on airplanes due to safety concerns.

i went to the mt.auburn star market to look for easter ham on sale. my own nearby star market is a mess, i visited twice, no ham on sale, but they put out the full price hams in the sale display, which is kind of shady business practice. the mt.auturn store did have ham on sale but not a lot (99¢/lbs). i picked two of the smallest ones.

i continued to my parents' house via belmont street. i made a quick stop to our backyard neighbors to drop off some letters letting them know we're replacing the fence in 2 weeks. the house directly behind us, the owners seem to be gone, replaced with contractors. i hope they're moving, a family of entitled assholes. the chopped down a perfectly healthy pine tree in their backyard because they saw a hawk sitting on a branch watching their chickens (back when they had chickens). they also piled a bunch of soil against the fence which resulted in it buckling and toppling over.

my primary reason for coming to belmont was to clear away any obstructions against the soon-to-be-replaced fence. that included two piles of dried wood that we've saved up from tree cutting over the decades. when i got to the backyard, i realized there were still a bunch of pussy willow catkins that needed to be cut and saved. however in just 2 days time, most of the fuzzy catkins have turned into flowers. i cut them anyway, maybe they can still be used as cut flowers. i was collecting buckets of catkin-covered branches before i noticed some scale insects. after that i was more selective with my cuttings. i found out it wasn't just a little bit of scales, but a massive infestation. whole branches were covered with scale insects that you couldn't even see the bark. this could probably be treated with horticultural oil had we decided to keep the tree, but the infestation was so high up in the branches, we probably would've never noticed. i believe they're oystershell scales (Lepidosaphes ulmi). something else i noticed about the pussy willow is rabbits will feed on the catkins. those on lower branches were defoliated.

i started moving all the old wood piles. these make great firewood, very dry and light, properly dried after all these years.

since it was still early (around 2pm), i decided to drive to home depot to see if they restocked their 2x10-8ft pressure treated wood planks. the sky was very overcast and looked like it'd rain at any moment, but the doppler radar only showed rain clouds to our south, no immediate danger. home depot didn't have the wood i wanted. instead i got a bundle of furring strips and some seeds: radish, sweet basil, and cherry tomatoes.

after returning home and dropping off the furring strips, i made my way back to the cafe with a bucket of pussy willow catkins. that must've been quite a sight, my barreling down the street in my ebike, with an explosion of fuzzy yellow catkins in my rear basket.

esmei was outside, she came up to me when i parked my bike. she was interested in the pussy willow but smart enough not to eat it. it was just something she'd never seen before and was curious. i brought to give out to customers, and to use as decorations. esmei didn't want to leave, so used to getting treats whenever she visited, she wanted to stick around and wait for more free food.

i got back home by 3:30pm. the weather had changed by then. this morning was warm and humid (so much so that my bathroom started to smell again due to faulty pipes); now it was cold and some sprinkles. i was in no mood to go running.

i finished copying all my insta360 video files onto an external hard drive. there's something like 600GB worth of data that i started copying this morning and was finally finished by the afternoon.

i didn't start making my congee until 7pm. this morning i'd already defrosted a frozen package of bone-in spare ribs. not sure how old it was. i hadn't made this recipe in more than a year. not even during the winter, where this would be the perfect easy comfort food.

while the congee was cooking in the pressure cooker, i filled 4 cups with potting soil and planted 4 cherry tomato seeds. we don't have enough space in the raised beds for all these plants. i may look into building a few upside down planters to grow the tomatoes.

the congee was ready to eat by 9pm. i filled a large bowl with the rice porridge and ate while watching the second half of the heat-celtics game. this was a fun game to watch. celtics went from trailing midway in the first quarter to leading by 20 points by the end of the quarter. it was a 3-point onslaught. but large point swings are common in the NBA, and by the 4th quarter it became a regular game again with the heat down by only single digits. that didn't last long though, celtics got through scoring groove back again, and finished the game with a win 147-129.

i got to the cafe a little late this morning as i first went to star market to get some sweet potatoes on sale before heading to harvard vanguard to pick up a prescription for my father. temperature was in the 50's and i heard it might be in the 60's later, so i just wore a hooded sweatshirt.

we filtered out the wine from one of the 1-quart mason jar. this one was the properly cooked sona masoori combined with crushed jiuniang yeast powder and makgeolli lees from march 20th. the lees made it ferment something fierce, as it started bubbling almost immediately. the fermented rice had a nice smell, fruity, alcohol. tastewise it was very dry, a bitterness from the alcohol, no sweetness, no sourness. we poured the content into a nut milk bag and squeezed out the liquid. it tasted like very dry champagne. we added a few spoonful of sugar to make it more palatable, but it was missing that sour component characteristic of good fermented rice wine. drinkable yes, but not as good as makgeolli, or the jiuniang wine we collected last week.

there were barely an customers around lunchtime, so we had our own lunch. i had some leftover lamb pilaf my mother made over the weekend. business picked up starting around 1pm, and we were mildly busy until around 3pm. we missed making our daily average, but that's not including the 3 ubereats delivery orders we got earlier in the day. we closed out march making almost the same amount we made last march 2025.

reliable fence contacted me today with a tentative installation time: the week that my parents will be on vacation. that's actually perfect time, since i won't be working that week, so i can supervise the fence work. i also called them to make an appointment for them to come and check out my alley fencegate. they're so busy, the earliest they can schedule someone to come out won't be until the end of april. after describing the project, the woman i spoke with said i could send them a few photos and they can give me an estimate based on that.

i went to trader joe's to pick up a few things for the cafe. i stopped briefly at whole foods looking for bean sprouts but they didn't have any today. i bought a bag of herbs & spices popcorn that's surprisingly addictive, must be the yeast extract they added.

close to closing time, my mother and i went to the upstairs apartment to take away several bags of beddings and towels. esmei was there, happily greeting us when typically she's more aloof when we meet her around the cafe. i think she rarely gets visitors, so gets excited when people come over. my mother accidentally hit her head on the corner of a cupboard door, so we quickly went back to the cafe.

my parents stayed to eat some steamed red fish while i went home.

final day of march and i was determined to plant some garden seedlings. but first i had to melt draining holes in all my 16 oz. plastic cups. i bought a bunch a few days ago from the dollar store, but didn't realize i had a bunch already from last season. it took me a little over 20 minutes to make all the holes. it would've been faster, but some cups got stuck together when the melted plastic fused together and i had to use a knife to surgically separate them. i got a chance to check out the stevia seeds. they're so tiny, it'd be easy to mistake them for plant chaff. so small in fact the static electricity in the plastic bag them came it made them stick to the inside and hard to get out.

for dinner i cooked up the ichiran ramen my parents brought back from japan. the secret is the broth packet full of savory flavors. i didn't have any scallions but added an egg and some pickled radishes. it was pretty good, i drank the entire broth, something i wouldn't normally do with instant noodles.

i played an hour of cyberpunk, until 10pm. in went in search of easter eggs. i went to the columbarium and found evelyn parker and alex xenakis' niches. i went to the top of the advocet hotel and saw the roy batty easter egg. i got a call from nele springer to meet her back in dogtown. that ended up being a biotechnica trap as i was ambushed by a bunch of mercenaries. i was trying to kill them with skippy but switched to erebus when things got serious.

i wasn't going to plant anything until tomorrow, but i was struck with some sudden gardening inspiration and went to the kitchen to plant something at least. i started with the stevia seeds, planted in starter cells. the seeds were so tiny, i had to use a tweezer to gently place a seed into each cell. even the simple act of watering them might risk washing them away, so i had to be extra careful. i then filled two trays with cups - 12 each. to each cup i added some potting soil before watering them from the bottom in the sink. i then planted the following: 4 goat horn hot pepper, 4 long thin cayenne peppers, 4 serrano peppers, 4 corkscrew peppers, 4 fourth of july hybrid tomatoes, and 4 chinese long eggplants. i actually planted 2 seeds per container, as an insurance, but if they all germinate, i might end up with double the seedlings (not a bad problem to have). i didn't finish until almost midnight.

i stopped by the cafe in the late morning to defrost some foods we'll need for tomorrow. i also checked on the progress of our makgeolli. it now has the classic 3-layer separation: floating rice upper layer, liquid middle layer, and dissolved rice bottom layer.

i made it to belmont before noontime. my mother made hunter sausage & egg sandwiches for lunch. as soon as i finished eating, my father and i were out in the backyard. today was slightly overcast, with temperature in the upper 60's. warm enough to work in a t-shirt. the warm temperature seemed to be cooking the chicken manure in the raised beds and it smelled something fierce.

we were outside cutting down our pussy willow tree. it's one of the original trees that came with the house when my parents bought it back in 1984. actually, the original tree probably died a while back, but a sucker sprouted in its place, and over time became a full grown tree. the problem is the tree sits right on our property line, and overhangs into the neighbor's backyard. the pussy willow catkins are too high up to collect, and most importantly, our new fence installation would run through the tree. we've been meaning to cut it down for a while so this was the perfect opportunity.

earlier my father had already dug around the trunk so there'd be enough space for our corded 14" electric chainsaw to cut horizontally across the trunk. the trunk itself isn't too big, around 6 inches, but the root flare near the base of the tree expands outwards and would need to but cleared out as well. while we worked on the tree, my mother went out for a walk by herself. she came back with an assortment of pinecones.

we started by removing branches, making it easier to eventually cut down the trunk. i climbed a platform ladder and stood on a stack of collapsible ladders our backyard neighbors had pilled behind the fence on their side of the property line. using a combination of pruning bypass lopper and chainsaw, we managed to take apart the tree branch by branch. a few times we even resorted to a pruning saw, when the chainsaw couldn't reach, and it needed more cutting power than a lopper could provide. eventually all that was left was a tall naked trunk with branches. we cut it down in segments until we finally reached the bottom. counting the growth rings indicated the tree itself wasn't too old just 15-20 years. there was some rot on the inside, so eventually the tree was just going to topple on its own if we didn't do anything.

it took us 1-1/2 hours to cut down the tree. it'd take us another 1-1/2 hours to cut the stump so it was flush with the ground. my father formulated the strategy where we'd cut the stump into squares, then using a heavy mallet to knock the pieces off. the part of the tree buried underground was a gnarly piece of wood about 1-1/2 feet long tangled in roots. it was also sitting on the original tree, which had disintegrated but was still intact and quite solid. fortunately we just needed to cut the stump flush to the ground, we didn't need to uproot the entire root section of the tree. eventually over time we managed to clear away most of the stump. we shoveled the dirt back into the hole, you couldn't even tell there was a tree there before.

with the willow tree gone, that area of the yard is going to be very sunny this season. it used to be quite shady, and that's where we had our orchids and pileas that prefer dabbled sunlight. we'll need to find a new place for them now. we didn't have time to collect any of the pussy willow catkins, i'll do that wednesday when i come back to do some more yardwork.

the other project we'd planned was to piece together a replacement raised bed. by that point it was already 3:30pm and we'd been working on tree for a good solid 3 hours, so we decided to call it a day. we cleaned up, put away the tools. i moved out all the osmanthus cuttings from the sunroom as well as the lemon verbena. we thought it died because it'd lost all its leaves, but my father pointed out there new leaves were developing from the hardwood.

i went down to the basement to water the plants in the grow room. last week i barely watered, just the orchids and pennyworts. this week i watered everything, and added 1 teaspoon of gnatrol powder to 5 gallons of water as a preventative (normally i use 3 tsp per 5 gallons). the yellow sticky traps don't seem to be capturing anymore new gnats which is a good sign, but alas, i did see one or two more gnats flying around, so we are still not 100% rid of them.

while my parents were busy making dinner (my father red roasted a fish while my mother mad a spicy stirfry with salted pork), i went back outside with some silicone and recaulked all the spigots on the rain barrels. not all of them needed it: the red barrels in the front yard used brass bulkhead fittings that are watertight and leakfree. but all other barrels got a new caulk sealing.

digsafe came by our place today, courtesy of reliable fence. we have no underground pipes or cables in our backyard, but they did mark up the sidewalk where the water main comes into the house. it looked pretty awful, this neon glue graffiti, but i read the paint they use is water soluble and disappeared after a few weeks to a few months.

after dinner i returned home via ebike. as much as i enjoy the speed of the ebike, it still can't compare to the speed of a motorcycle. i felt that tonight, when a car easily overtook me while i pedaled in my bike lane, despite going pretty fast for a bike. if i was on a motorcycle this would never happen. however, with gas prices so high right now ($4/gallon), an ebike is not a bad alternative.

i took a shower when i got home, then spent 5 minutes moisturizing with the aveeno eczema therapy cream. my skin has been pretty good for a while ever since i started using the aveeno, to the point where i didn't bother anymore, though i was cured of my dry skin. but the past few days my skin has started to hurt from the dry cracking and now it's started to itch. last night i had to moisturize before bed, felt a little sticky under the covers.

there was a celtics-hawks game tonight. boston was without jayson tatum. the game was tightly matched for the first half, multiple lead chances, no team leading more than 6 points. but the hawks broke it open in the second half, and pushed it to a 20 point lead midway in the 4th quarter. celtics didn't quit though, and got close to within single digits with just minutes left in the game. but they couldn't overcome the deficit, hawks win 102-112. at least detroit lost as well tonight, against the thunder, also a close game. i was kind of rooting for the pistons, even though had they won that would widen their lead in the eastern conference standings against the celtics. as of now boston is still just 4 games behind detroit.

instead of planting my seeds, or making a batch of jiuniang, or backing up my photos, i went back to cyberpunk for just a few hours. i'm hoping there are some hidden gigs i hadn't finished yet. like the skippy AI-gun gig. i need to kill 100 people with that gun before it'll give me a mission to return it to its rightful owner. i also explored dog town, climbed the cargo container city (it must have a name), felt a little anxious a few times being up so high. i went back to kerry eurodyne's mansion up in the hills when it looked like on the map it was another one of my apartments. apparently i can sleep there, even though it's not an official apartment. kerry was there, i chatted with him for a little bit.

i finished watching send help last night before bed. when i first learned that sam raimi was directly, i knew it was something i wanted to watch. though billed as a thriller, the movie still shows strong horror pedigree. it stars rachel mcadams and dylan o'brien as two coworkers stranded on a deserted island. this film gives me a lot of similar drag me to hell vibe, flawed characters faced with difficult moral choices which often delves into horror. i hope raimi continues to make these R-rated horrors, they're instant genre classics.

my parents went to costco on an early morning supply run. i seemed to have forgotten because around 11am i stopped by the cafe to put stuff away, not realizing my parents had already been there. so i continued to belmont on my ebike. temperature was in the 50's but still a bit chilly.

my mother made homemade wonton soup for lunch. after we finished eating, my parents and i went out for a walk. my mother has been walking more the past few weeks, since the weather had improved, but also to prime herself for walking when they go on their turkish vacation. she forced my father to walk to, to build up some endurance.

we walked down to mt.auburn street in watertown where we visited arax market. my mother got some carambola, a yogurt drink, and an assortment of other foods. sevan baker and massis bakery are both closed on sundays, but roksana market was still open. we didn't want to go and leave empty handed, so i got a bottle of turkish fresa fresher sparkling apple flavored drink ($3). it tasted very similar to taiwanese apple sidra soda.

the whole trip took 1-1/2 hours. when we got back home, we also tried some persian lavashak, in various flavors: sour cherry, plum, apple, pomegranate, and apricot. they tasted pretty good - like bite-size fruit rollups - and most importantly, all natural ingredients.

later my father and i drove to the watertown home depot. we were looking for 2x10-8ft pressure treated lumber to build another replacement raised bed ($16.28 a plank), but they were all sold out. we still have enough wood back at home to make one raised bed, so it was urgent that we get more. we did get a 4x4-8ft post that we'll cut up to make the corners of our raised beds. i got a replacement accordion gutter downspout, and we got a combo outlet switch and a metal cover plate, as well as two shelving brackets. home depot was surprising empty for a sunday. maybe it's still too early for people to be working on their home improvement projects. the outdoor garden department is still mostly empty, outdoor spring plants haven't arrived yet (though there were plenty of indoor plants inside).

passing by the watertown mall, there seemed to be a gathering of car enthusiasts. they seemed to be ricer cars, and the fact that the owners were entirely asian seem to bear that out. most were economy cars, outfitted with spoilers, or personalized license plates.

by the time we got home it was already 4pm, too late to do any serious yard work, which we decided to save for tomorrow (when the weather will also be 10 degrees warmer).

we had a little bit of time to rest before my mother made xinjiang-inspired lamb stir fried rice. it was pretty good, some variety compared to what we normally eat. i finished first and drank some first batch makgeolli. after several weeks of fermentation, it had a slightly bitter flavor of high alcohol content. it was still sweet, which disguised how boozy it was. i felt like sleeping after a few sips.

i got home before dark, didn't even need lights. i replaced the gutter downspout before going inside. the previous one got crushed in the snow.

i caught the end of the celtics game against the hornets. other than the first half of the first quarter, the celtics dominated this game. boston was without jaylen brown and derrick white, but all they really needed was jayson tatum scored his first 30+ points game with 32. payton pritchard was no slouch either, with 28 points, many in the paint. celtics won 114-99. with just 8 more games left in the regular season, it seems doubtful boston will catch up to the no.1 pistons, despite detroit missing cade cunningham for the remaining season from a collapsed lung.

i finished the cyberpunk mission where i save songbird. it involved taking her to the space terminal where she had a ticket to escape to the moon. it culminated in a massive shootout against the station security as well as black ops from the NUSA there to recapture songbird. right before putting her onto the spaceship, reed shows us to take songbird away. i ended up dying about half a dozen times before i finally got the drop on reed and shot him dead. this time i stuck around to watch the ending credits for phantom liberty which reminded me of a 007 movie intro.

as much as i enjoy sleeping, as much as i need more of it, i still find myself waking up early, and have to force myself to sleep longer. i was up around 5am, just in time to hear my upstairs neighbors waking up and making noises. i woke up again at 7am, took a peek at the clock to see i needed 2 more hours of sleep to achieve a total of 8 hours.

it was cold in the house when i finally got out of bed at 9am. because i fiddled with the heating schedule last weekend, it messed up the temperature. i didn't bother fixing it since i was leaving soon anyway.

i went to walgreens to pick up a prescription before heading to market basket for some groceries. i was looking for white fish salad, they still don't have it. instead i got some smoked salmon spread. while paying for my food, the bagger boy got really angry with me when i pushed down some of the grocery items so they'd be easier for him to reach. "please don't touch, it's very rude," he exclaimed. i looked at the cashier and the woman behind me, does that make any sense?

i didn't have time to go home, i went straight to the cafe. i did stop to rummage through a box of discarded kitchenware on one of the side streets. so it begins! i picked up a mug, a qing-dynasty replica porcelain spoon, a glass bottle, and an 8oz. mason jar with lid.

my mother had walked to the cafe again, but my father got there ahead of her to deep fry a new batch of salt & pepper chicken. my mother said she was hungry so i started making some smoked salmon spread bagel sandwiches. i knew it wasn't going to end well because we soon started to get busy and i wasn't able to eat my sandwich until 2pm.

so we were busy today. not as busy as last saturday, and we didn't even make our daily average, but on a cold day, with another no king rally in boston, we'll take it. some drama: a woman left behind her very expensive APC purse. there was no contact info, but a chanel wallet with driver license and credit cards and cash. i told my sister to do a search for the woman's name and her home address, which brought up a phone number. she answered, grateful we called, after they've been searching for her lost purse all day. her husband came to pick it up soon afterwards.

then the bakery owner backed her car into the mercedes that belong to the assistant chef of the chinese restaurant. she called my sister immediately, told her what happened. there was barely any damage, just some very light scratches that could probably be buffed out. my sister said we wouldn't say anything unless the restaurant guy complained. sure enough, when i was outside, he asked if our security camera was working. this guy who has never spoken to me before much less said hello was now all buddy buddy with me because he wanted something. the only reason he knew about the accident was his car sent him a message that a collision event had occurred around noontime. i said i'd check, and then he came back before we closed to ask again. my mother told him the bakery owner said she did it, and that he should go talk with her tomorrow.

in the late afternoon an asian girl came in asking about the bakery, which had closed early since they were sold out. she spoke with my mother. she told her she talked to the owner about buying the place. she works in IT but her dream is to have her own bakery and cafe and have been saving up money to do so. the owner told her she was already in the process of selling the business, and offered the girl some advice, saying she should continue doing pop-ups for a few more years to gain experience. my mother was able to find out the asking price though, something the owner didn't even tell my sister: $130k.

after work i went home. my sister called me back, chewing me out for telling the restaurant worker what happened. it was barely a scratch, but now he's looking for money to fix something he probably wouldn't even have noticed if his car didn't have an alert system. i told my sister it wasn't my problem, and said she was going to call my mother and chew her out as well.

i went to star market to get some oranges. i also looked for some easter ham on sale but they didn't have any. after that i went to the dollar store to get some plastic cups for making pots. not only are there fewer cups in a package, but they cost $1.50 now.

coming back, i saw a woman standing on my doorstep. i thought maybe it was a solicitor trying to sell me something, but when i got close i saw it was my neighbor renee. she even called as my phone started ringing. i thought maybe she had news about hr noisy heat pump condenser. unfortunately it was for more selfish reasons: she was having iphone issue and uses me as her free beck and call IT support. she couldn't receive calls from her tax accountant (via a 1-800 number), but everyone else could phone in just fine. i'd never seen this issue before and couldn't fix the problem. the whole time she was talking to me, i was getting sprayed with spit. i wanted to bring up the heat pump noise but decided i didn't want to get bombarded with more spittle.

i checked out some boston no king rally photos. turnout wasn't as large as i'd anticipated. maybe the cold weather (30's) turned people away? i'm glad i didn't go. i went to the last rally which was enough for me. if there was a protest march though, i definitely would've gone, easier to take photos of that.

i delved back into cyberpunk, trying to finish the game where i help songbird and betray reed. knowing how the story goes gives me a chance to try different things. i bought an iconic weapon from herold lowe that i didn't have in the first playthrough: the NDI osprey power sniper rifle. it can be found naturally in alex's safe house but i missed it when i played through that mission.

for dinner - lacking any motivation to actually make something - i just heated up a bunch of pizza rolls instead. there was nothing good on television. i resorted to pluto.tv and discovered jack ryan: shadow recruit (2014) on one of the movie channels. i'd never seen the film before, mostly because it came out when i was working in chongqing, so it completely fell off my radar. i was surprised the movie was director by kenneth branagh, and he also played a russian bad guy, something he'd do again in tenet (2020). shadow recruit wasn't bad, although the russian plot to destroy america's economy was a little far-fetched. who knew that the US economy can be easily destroyed if americans simply elect a pedophile narcissist liar as president. it stars chris pine as jack ryan (the 4th actor to play this character), kevi costner, and keira knightley.