i busted out the thermal underwear for the first time this season. temperature this morning was in the upper 30's but strong winds made it feel like the 20's. i woke up early so i could go to harvard vanguard and pick up a prescription for my father before traveling down cambridge street to get to the cafe.

it was finally cold enough that we started the furnace. that meant lighting the pilot light. because of all the bakery basement construction earlier this year, there was so much dust inside the furnace that i had to vacuum clean it first. even then it wouldn't start. i had to remove the protective metal plate so i could see the pilot burner directly to make sure it was lit. after i held the pilot light button for about a minute and released it and the pilot light remained lit, i could finally turn it to the on position and use the nest thermostat upstairs to fire up the furnace.

today was busy in that we made above our daily average, but overall it was a slow day. my arm still hurts from the vaccinations, but no body aches.

i brought the two emeterm motion-sickness wristbands so both my mother and i could test them out. i sort of enjoy wearing them even if i'm not going to get motion sick because i kind of like the nerve buzzing sensation.

i spent much of the day watching zohran mamdani videos on youtube. i recently learned that besides english, he can also speak arabic, spanish, and hindi. the way he looks, he could easily pass for any of those ethnicity.

first thing i did when i got home was to prepare the two beef top rounds i got from market basket yesterday to make another batch of jerky. in total i had about 5 lbs. worth of beef (sale price $4.99/lbs.). i went online in search of "spicy jerky recipe" and the first thing that popped up was a recipe from stellanspice. it was different enough to worth trying.

i cut up the rounds, trimming off as much fat and silver skin, before further reducing them into manageable chunks before putting them in the freezer to harden. because i'm working with top rounds there's more clean up; eye rounds are easier to work with since they're normally all lean beef with hardly any trimming necessary.

after 1-1/2 hours the beef was hard enough to begin cutting. there was so much i ended up splitting them into two portions, two freezer bags.

the marinade is once again soy sause based. it also has worcestershire sauce but in a lesser amount. for it's acidic ingredient, it uses balsamic vinegar (i used rice vinegar in some of my previous marinades). i had a really old bottle - probably more than a decade old - that i managed to find in my cupboard. it also has citrus juice as an additional tenderizing agent. the recipe called for a combination of orange juice and grapefruit juice, but all i had was lemonade so i used that instead. that contributed some sweetness as well, in additional to a sizable amount of brown sugar. the recipe doesn't use honey, which is something i added to my past jerky recipes, but i wonder if that's even necessary, or a waste of perfectly good honey. it employs the classic jerky spices: garlic & onion powders, ground pepper, and red pepper flakes. for the spicy element, the original recipe calls for habanero peppers, but i only had thai chili peppers. i figured 5 thai chili equalled 1 habanero. i chopped up the chili peppers by hand and tossed them into the marinade. i tasted it, not too bad, the raw chilis definitely gives it a spicy kick, and doesn't muddle it with additional flavors, like when i use hot sauce or gochujang. i was supposed to add some curing salt but i forgot; most likely we'll finish eating this batch of jerky before it can go bad.

i didn't have dinner until 9:30pm, some frozen chinese dumplings.

after i finished eating, i was browsing reddit and saw recent local photos of the northern lights. i went out myself with my phone camera, hoping to snag a few photos, but i couldn't see it from where i was. supposedly we might see it again tomorrow night, but the forecast seems to be cloudy.

i bought a few things from aliexpress tonight. 11-11 is a big shopping holiday in china, so there were a lot of promotional discounts. i got a pair of glass oil spray bottles for my father, as well as bicycle brake pads, quick release skewer springs, and anti-theft ball clamp. everything should arrive in a few weeks, right around thanksgiving. with all the tariffs, i'm kind of surprised i'm still able to order things from china. who's paying all the import taxes? the sellers? aliexpress? me? i have noticed aliexpress doesn't have as good a selection as it used to be. a lot of vendors simply can't afford to sell to the US anymore if it means paying exorbitant import taxes.

my parents came to pick me up a 9:30am for a supply run. it was raining this morning and would rain throughout much of the day. i packed a box of jeff's oversized pots and dishes into the car, along with some wire document bins and a shower caddy.

first stop was the everett costco. maybe the rain kept a lot of people at home, but it was super chill at costco today, very quiet and peaceful shopping. they had an ebike on sale - the magnum cosmo 2.0 - for $1500. it has a torque sensor and a welded rear rack. there's no chain guard so it looks like an easy place to get your pant legs caught in. it also had front suspension, but i prefer a seat post suspension. the most important thing to get here were eggs, we even got some extra for maybe my thanksgiving flan in a few weeks. back outside, we saw the tipico restaurant truck. i'm going to visit that place one of these days and get something to eat!

chelsea market basket was our next stop. ongoing construction has torn up the parking lot on the left side of the supermarket. what will be built there? i did some research later on, apparently a new 20000-square-foot market basket spirits store! frozen turkeys were on sale but it's still a bit early to get a bird.

originally we were also going to go restaurant depot, but there was just no more room in the car. we'll go next weekend, or the weekend after that.

heading back, we made one more stop, to the malden 88 supermarket. mainly to grab some bokchoi, but it's hard to visit an asian supermarket and not leave with a shopping cart of groceries. malden 88 doesn't have the best prices compared to chinatown supermarkets, but it is on the way when we do a supply run. they are also undergoing renovations, adding new refrigeration, expanding their meat department, and improving their seafood department. i never noticed before, but there's an incredible giant undersea tiled mural on the wall of the fish department. is that new or has it always been there? what was this place before it became an asian supermarket?

we starting head back around noontime. we went to the cafe to drop off the supplies, then went to belmont. we got some charsiu buns at costco and had it for lunch. it tasted like charsiu buns but didn't have the classic red charsiu look. i showed pluribus to my father.

afterwards we went down to the basement to work on the grow room. a lot of the orchids have leaf damage. my father says it from the cold, but i think it's from being exposed to too much grow light. it's a shame, because a few weeks ago they were all perfectly healthy when we brought them inside. they weren't the only plants yellowing: a lot of pileas had yellow leaves and my monstera vine has turned yellow as well. we worked to remove one of the shelves from the wire racks, so taller plants can be placed there. we also relocated the hot pepper wintering bench so it'd get some sunlight from one of the basement windows and the basement door. when it comes to plants, i don't get too sentimental or attached. plants live, plants die, i take it as it comes.

i got a car battery jump starter for my father, but when i saw it today, i found out it was remarkably light. that could only mean it has a very small battery. my father corroborated this when he went to charge up the unit and it finished charging very quickly. so we're going to return it and get a different one. i don't doubt it can jump start a car, but we bought it to use as a backup battery pack as well.

my mother made a stew of meigan cai she bought from the asian supermarket along with some tofu and pork. after dinner my father gave me a ride home.

a package waited for me on the doorstep: my replacement emeterm motion-sickness wristband. i was thinking they'd send me a refurbished unit for a warranty replacement but they gave me a new one. i put the old one away and went ahead and charged up the new one. however when i used the old charging cable, it wouldn't work, only the new cable worked. that made me curious so i took out the old wristband and charged it with the new cable and sure enough it seemed to be charging again! it did however do this thing where the lights would flash off intermittently, something the new unit didn't do when recharging. but i charged it up to full just to see if it'd still work. it finished charging in about an hour which seemed a bit fast, so made me think the battery was bad. but when i wore it on my wrist, it worked just like before, and i could feel the tingles. so long story short, apparently it was the charging cable that was bad, and the old wristband still works. so now i have two motion-sickness wristbands! a replacement charging cable costs $10.

i watched monday night football over the antenna on ABC as google and disney continue their contract dispute. i saw someone mention online whether or not the government will open back up before the youtube tv dispute is settled. i should've skipped the game though, a terrible one between the eagles and packers. no score in the first half, and only a field goal in the 3rd quarter. finally in the 4th each team managed to score a touchdown. final score was 10-7, eagles win, but should be considered a loss over such poor offensive performance.

my recovery sleep after taking two vaccine dosage was okay. the pain in my arm was so mild i could lie on it without any problems. i did get body aches though, and for some reason my feet were really sensitive to both temperature and touch. no crazy fever dreams, but i do remember something about diamonds and not much else. i woke up around 6am to use the bathroom, slept some more until 8:30am, then stayed in bed surfing the web before finally getting up at 9:30am. after a shower i took 200mg of ibuprofen. not sure if it'll work because the expiration on the bottle said 8/15, decade old expired drug.

i decided not to go to belmont today since it was going to rain starting in the afternoon and last into the evening. i called my mother to tell her. we were supposed to grill some salmon burgers this weekend, but it's going to rain most of tomorrow as well, so it might be a bust.

so i stayed home, continue my recuperation. the expired ibuprofen still worked, because i felt a lot better afterwards.

i started making my candied orange slices. besides oranges (two varieties) i also had a few limes i cut up as well. i couldn't find any info online on dehydrated candied lime slices. the reason is nobody does this, because as soon as you simmer the lime slices in the syrup, they immediately lose their vibrant green color. i also reused the leftover orange syrup from last time. i had about 5-1/2 cups left over, i added 1/2 cup more water with 1/2 cup of sugar.

i wanted to simmer the slices so they were completely translucent, but after 40 minutes of simmering, i turned off the stove as i was afraid the slices were turning too soft and disintegrating. i then started layering them onto the mesh trays. i had enough for 4 trays. i had some oranges left so i sliced them up and simmered them in the syrup for 20 minutes before placing them onto one additional tray.

i set the dehydrator to 135 degrees and 6 hours. what's weird is ended up with just 16 oz. of leftover orange syrup. previously i had 48 oz. of leftover syrup. where did the syrup go? hopefully infused into the orange and lime slices.

i had a nongshim cup of noodle for lunch along with a tea egg.

i watched the patriots-buccaneers game. this was one of the games on the schedule that could've been a lost for new england. it didn't start out well for the patriots, as tampa bay scored a touchdown in their opening drive. patriots did get a touchdown of their own to tie it up in the first quarter. in the second the patriots got the lead with another touchdown while the bucs only scored a field goal. it was 14-10 going into halftime. start of the third quarter and pats scored right from the start, giving them a 21-10 lead. the bucs threatened at times, but could never regain the lead. the final score was 28-23, but it wasn't even that close. the win gives the pats a 8-2 record and a perfect 5-0 road record. even better, the bills lost to the dolphins today in miami, 13-30, widening the ACF east for the pats even more.

i watched the first two episodes of pluribus - the new apple/sony series from vince gilligan. it's a slow start, but once it gets going, it really cooks and looks to be a great new series. the second season has already been green lit.

for dinner i baked a flat bread pizza. i only ate half, but got hungry again and ate the other half.

the orange slices had finished drying by 8pm, but i left them to cool down first. at 10pm i went to put them into jars. they don't look any better than the last batch. some of the rinds are tough to chew. the lime slices weren't bad, but more like a dark pickle green instead of the bright lime green.

i woke up at 8am to go to haymarket, to collect my ingredients for my dehydrator. no more apples, but i wanted to collect some more oranges to try making candied orange slices, as well as an assortment of berries to make fruit rollups. i left around 8:40am, traveling via ebike. it was still raining when i woke up but the rain clouds had left, though the sky was sky grey and puddles dotted the path.

riding an ebike grants you the power of speed. i thought at first i'd be more selective with that power, but i'm finding out i like to go fast and will pass people if they're riding too slow, which means just about anybody on a manual bike. on a manual bike there's a certain fairness at play: if you want to go faster, you have to pedal faster, which exerts more energy. not so on an ebike. it's a total cheat code having the ability to go faster than a normal bike would allow and not even breaking a sweat. i still pedal though, i don't use the throttle, but the amount of power i get with every stroke is exponentially greater than what a normal human can achieve.

i didn't have enough cash on hand, but luckily there's a bank with ATM's just around the corner from haymarket. this one didn't have smaller denominations than $20, so i ended up receiving 5 $20's. i couldn't find good oranges. the few that i saw were very large navel oranges that don't dehydrate well. i bought some small clementines from one vendor, but the oranges didn't look very fresh. i found another vendor that sold smaller navel oranges, bought some from her. the rest of my haul: 2 pineapples ($4), 1 lbs. of radishes ($2), 1 daikon ($2), 4 limes ($1).

i left haymarket around 9:40am, taking the route i discovered last weekend, basically a retrace of the route i took to get here in the first place, through the west end, by the science museum, by cambridge crossing, onto cambridge street to inman square to home. it took me abou 18 minutes to get back. on a normal bike it'd probably take me 25 minutes, and i'd be exhausted and sweat-soaked.

i unloaded the oranges and limes and grabbed the hot chili oil sauce i made weeks ago before heading to the cafe to start my saturday shift.

today was more of a typical saturday in that we were busy enough to make our daily average at least despite the fewer hours. a lot of bento sales, we managed to sell all the varieties we carry. i cooked 6 cups of rice which ended up being the perfect amount, with barely any left over. we got a bunch of orders right when we were about to close, including a phone order. the guy who came to pick up the order saw we sold bitter melon smoothies and bought one of those as well with boba added.

my parents ended up staying an extra half hour so my father can marinate the thawed chicken thighs. i left promptly at 4pm because i had a 4:30pm vaccination appointment at the arlington walgreens. google maps said it'd take me 17 minutes via bike but i got there in just 14 minutes with the ebike (2.6 miles). there was car traffic but i bypassed all of it cruising down the empty bike lane. the only challenge was it was starting to get dark, and i didn't want to hit any pot holes so i rode carefully.

i came to this arlington walgreens (by spy pond) last september to get the double pfizer covid vaccine and the flu vaccine. the only side effects was a sore arm and body aches that went away after a good night's sleep. i'm hoping today will be the same, even though i'm getting a covid vaccine and a shingles vaccine booster. it would've been easier to get my shots at my local pharmacy, but they only offer the moderna vaccine. i got the moderna back in 2023 and i had a lot of side effects, so ever since then i always do pfizer.

the pharmacist working tonight seemed like an asshole. he got annoyed with me when he couldn't find my medical record on file ("are you sure you got the shingles vaccine?"), until i gave him my full legal name. he then chastised me for not using my official name when i signed up for the vaccines, said it wouldn't match my records and the insurance might not pay for it. he also told me i was using an old insurance card and should update it. when it finally came time to administer the shots though (in a little makeshift office space next to the cramped waiting area), he was much nicer and had a sense of humor. he told me to massage my arm afterwards for a few minutes to help with the pain and to take some tylenol.

preparing to head home, i discovered my rear bike light (trek) was out of juice. i have another backup rear light but it doesn't fit in the bracket (it uses one of those rubber attachment). fortunately the ebike itself has rear lights on the seat stays (a little small but better than nothing), but i still prefer a bigger brighter tail light for night riding. the collapsible rear basket also has a big red reflector. it wasn't completely dark yet, and i still have a bright head light (built-in ebike). i also forgot i have wheel lights as well, didn't turn them on.

i got back home a little before 5pm.

after a shower, i baked a frozen chicken alfredo in the oven for about an hour. the plan was to load up on some proteins and carb and then go to bed early.

my arm ached and i started getting body aches, but it wasn't too bad. not sure why i was so wiped when i got 3 vaccines back in september. i had body aches, tiredness, and cold chills. maybe i didn't get enough rest on that day and spent it running errands. today's different because after i got my vaccines i came right home to rest. going to bed now (11pm), watch some videos, then go to sleep.

woke up early again this morning to make another trip to market basket. this time i was picking up my own groceries, including some salmon burgers i'm hoping to grill in belmont over the weekend.

i bought my dehydrated apple chips which everyone agreed was not good. my father preferred the candied orange slices instead.

in the mid-morning i went over to my sister's place to grab the obihai VoIP device. esmei was barking because a "stranger" had come into the house, but once she ran out and recognized me, she became friendly again. i let her outside into the backyard so she could go to the bathroom but all she wanted to do was play.

i went over to my 2nd uncle's place again to reswap the obihai device. my 2nd aunt was actually calling this morning from taiwan, but my sister didn't pick up. while i was there, my 2nd uncle asked if i could fix the tv. it was a battery issue, which turned out to be a remote control issue. fortunately they had a spare. i also tried to set up his own youtube account but took forever with the screen keyboard and the wonky remote so i wasn't able to do it. the important thing was the phone was working again and my 2nd uncle could once again call my uncle. i returned to the cafe.

noontime was our busiest time today. a few old customers showed up, including little moustache and his girlfriend. it was a normal day, a combination of bentos and noodles and drinks. the only weird thing was after 5pm we had zero customers. that's not uncommon late fridays, people have weekend plans that doesn't involve the cafe. my mother sold two hats. overall it was a good day, we didn't beat last friday's profit, but it was still the second busiest day this week with just one day remaining tomorrow. last saturday we barely had any customers. would tomorrow be the same?

our neighbor jeana gave us a passion flower plant today. not sure why she didn't want it anymore, seems pretty healthy, produced flowers during the summer. only thing it needs is to be transferred to a larger pot. with our led grow light setup, would it potentially flower during the winter? it came with a tag that just said "passion flower" so we don't know what kind, but definitely not the hardy native kind because the care instruction said temperatures between 0-30°C. but it's nice to have another plant to add to our indoor plant garden.

we made some boxed carrot cake today, my mother's request. afterwards we realized the strawberry cake i baked last week was much better. we also had some tangyuan while my aunt was here, in celebration of the winter solstice on the chinese calendar.

i moved the motorcycle when i got home so it wasn't taking up a full parking spot. for dinner, i had an instant bowl of tonkotsu ramen with an old tea egg. nice and simple, and i didn't feel hungry afterwards. i watched the celtics game, they lost to the magic 110-123 an NBA cup match. celtics will have a chance to get revenge when they play the magic again on sunday (in orlando).

played some cyberpunk 2077. i'm on act 2 now, "playing for time" mission to find evelyn parker. but i'm taking my time eradicating the streets of gang members, mostly tyger claws. my strategy is this: throw a couple of grenades into one of their gatherings, hide somewhere and when they come chasing, snipe them off one by one. it's not very sportsmanlike, and i fear the grenades can sometimes destroy some valuable loot leaving nothing but broken scraps. i found myself in kabuki, with its heavy asian-influenced architecture and design. i walk to all my destinations, allow me to see more even though it takes the longest. i don't use quick jump stations, and i'm a terrible driver in the game (both cars and motorcycles).

the apple slices i was dehydrating last night for 6 hours were still soft. so i set the dehydrator for 2 more hours. i went to market basket to get a few things for the cafe, including ground pork and oat milk.

today was a weird day in that we only sold 3 bento boxes, two of which happened close to closing time. we did however sell a lot of noodles of every variety. around noontime i'd already made 3 batches of black soy noodles. a woman called ordering 3 sesame cold noodles. we also didn't get busy until after 1pm.

when i came home after work, i found a letter from the middlesex district attorney office, with a summons to appear as a witness in a criminal trial in 1-1/2 weeks. i thought it was a scam letter at first, but there was a docket number which i looked up online and realized this was for the car crash i witnessed on linnaean street a year ago. the defendant is being charged with negligent operation, property vandalization, and lane violation. the court date happens to be on a monday morning so i'm free, and the cambridge district court is in medford (not sure why) so i should be able to make it. it'll be a fun new experience! being a key witness in a criminal jury case.

i checked on my apple slices. they were dried now, but had a texture like foam or packaging material. they kind of remind me of dried mushrooms. peeling them allowed them to stay flat, but they were stuck to the wire trays so took a while to remove. i tried one - tasted like the apple chips i made last time - that is, sweet and sour, with a foamy texture. they're not exactly crispy like chips - i think those are probably fried-dried. i don't think i'll make apple chips again. candied orange slices were much better, i'll definitely make those again.

for dinner i brought home some extra zhajiang noodle sauce which to me looks a lot like minced pork sauce. i cooked up some noodles, chopped some cucumber and scallions, then mixed it with the sauce that i reheatd in the microwave. i also added a dollop of hot sauce. it was actually pretty good. not something i'd eat everyday, but very filling.

i woke up around 7:30am this morning so i could go down to the community garden and dig up my two pepper plants before the hard freeze arrives in a few days. i went down to the basement to find some pots and turned off the water to the outdoor faucet while i was at it. i ended up walking to the garden since there was no way i could carry the two potted plants back with me on the bike. i almost harvested some peppers and hyacinth bean seeds.

back at the house, i inspected the candied orange slices i dehydrated overnight. the valencia orange i used had very delicate pulp and basically disintegrated while i was simmering them in syrup. these orange slices don't look particularly special, but do taste sweet because of the added sugar. i had enough to fill two jars.

i went across the street to star market to get some sugar bee apples on sale for 97¢/lbs. (with coupon). there was a limit of 5 lbs. per customer, which is about 9 large apples.

i finally left for the cafe, getting there by 9:10am. my father was already starting to prep to fry a batch of salt & pepper chicken. i assisted while my mother manned the front of the cafe. the few recent times we fried the chicken, we keep the kitchen door closed so the oil smell doesn't permeated through the rest of the cafe. but of course that means i have to change out of all my clothes when i get home because i'll be saturated in frying oil smell.

it wasn't too busy today, but we still made above our daily average. the busiest stretch was an hour before closing, when we had two big orders come in. that's a good thing because up until that point, we had a hour's stretch where there was zero customers and it was getting boring enough that i started getting sleepy. having to fulfill two orders suddenly woke up us and got us ready to close the cafe.

not only was i watching more political coverage on television, but i was also reading up on it on my phone. last night's election felt like a democrat sweep, just good news after good news. that coupled with the dodgers' world series win on friday put me in a really good mood.

my mother sent me home with a bento box of a new batch of pork feet with daikon radish that'd been simmering for half the day. i ate it soon after i got home, after i used the bathroom and took a shower (changing out of my oily clothes). i ate while watching political coverage on MSNBC (now branded as MSNOW as NBC try to distance themselves from their news wing).

afterwards i started making a batch of apple chips with my dehydrating. i peeled the apples first, since i read it keeps them from getting wrinkly as they dry. the mcintosh and cortland apples i had were kind of mealy (not crispy) and probably made for bad chips as they were hard to slice and fell apart if i made them too thin. i strove for 1/8" thickness and no more than 1/4". i soaked them in a citric acid bath before layering them onto the mesh racks. i had enough apples to fill all 6 racks. i set the dehydrator to 135 degrees for 6 hours. of course this means my house will smell like fragrant apples, not at all a bad odor.

i played a little cyberpunk 2077. spoiler alert! i escaped from konpeki plaza after making a mad dash to the elevator after first scoping out the area by hacking into the security cameras. but the result is jackie dying in the car and i get "infected" by the ghost of johnny silverhands when i take the biochip and get double-crossed and shot but only to be resurrected a short time later. i could barely move in the game for some reason, and noticed i kept getting flashes of warnings telling me i was carrying too much. fortunately the storyline takes me back to my apartment when i was unable to unload all my loot.

breaking news this morning was the death of dick cheney age 84. there was a time when he and bush were the two people in the world i hated the most. their war on terror put the US in a forever war for the next 2 decades. we went to war with iraq based on a lie that they had "weapons of mass destruction" (the ultimate macguffin). however this was before trump came along. by comparison, bush and cheney were utterly mild. cheney even endorsed kamala harris during the last presidential election, though she probably didn't go around advertising it. not sure how i feel about cheney's death. he's been out of politics for a while, living quietly in retirement. democrats obviously have no love for him, nor do the republicans under the cult of trump. i doubt trump will hold a state funeral for cheney.

we had some trader joe okonomiyaki at the cafe this morning. it's a japanese egg pancake stuffed with cabbage that you drizzle a special sauce then sprinkle thin-sliced bonito fish flakes that wiggle like they're alive when they hit the pancake. it was actually pretty good. kind of reminds me of taiwanese oyster pancakes but without the oysters. it had a slimy but not entirely unpleasant texture on the inside. the fish flakes really sell it though, gives it an umami flavor you wouldn't get otherwise.

today being tuesday, it was a busy day of prep work. my father made a new batch of beef noodle soup, while i did the rest, like making ice cubes, black soy noodles, dumplings, boba pearls, tea eggs, and roasting charsiu pork. i didn't get to sit down until around 4pm.

with the deck gone, my sister could park her car so the rear window looks directly into the back of the cafe, which allows esmei to look inside. it's really unsettling how she never barks, just sits there and watches without any emotions. i gave her a piece of cabbage core which she was entirely uninterested in, until i broke it off into smaller pieces. only then did she begrudgingly started chewing on it, most out of boredom.

business-wise it was also a busy day, with something like 33 customers. the school committee candidate who's poster my father plastered on the cafe windows, she actually called this morning reminding us to vote. that made me less likely to vote for her. yes, today was election day. i couldn't wake up early enough to vote before work, so i decided to go afterwards. that candidate actually came to have lunch at the cafe. when i had some free time, i did some quick research on the cambridge city council candidates as well as the school committee candidates. i made a list of who to vote for. i prefer moderates. i've been getting a lot of mail from the bike mafia, asking me to vote for pro-bike candidates. i like bike lines but only if they're sensible. i think the one they're building on broadway is unnecessary, and taking away parking spots hurt small businesses, particularly long time customers used to driving to these places but now can't anymore because there's no more parking.

after work i biked home. after bringing out all the trash, i walked down to the nearby elementary school to cast my vote. outside were still candidate supporters with their picket signs. i took out my little cheat sheet of who to vote for and filled in the ballots. i don't remember it being this complicated, or maybe it's been a while since i voted in a local election. honestly, i don't know any of the candidates, and i'm basically clueless as to what the city council even do. i'm really voting because today is election day, and all across america people are voting, and i wanted to be a part of that. it's not as exciting as the NYC mayoral race, or the gubernatorial races in new jersey and virginia, but maybe i can vicariously experience those races by voting in our own local race.

i still have apples and oranges to dehydrate. one of the oranges has gotten moldy, so i was under pressure to use them before they all go bad. i ended up having some dinner first. because we made a batch of beef noodle soup, there was a lot of leftover tendon and scraps. so i had a big bowl of beef noodle soup, washed it down with some carlson orchards cider barn select hard cider.

i ate while watching the election coverage. by the time i turned on MSNBC, they'd already announced democrat spanberger as the winner of virginia before she gave her acceptance speech. in new jersey, democrat sherrill win's her gubernatorial race. and just across the river, zohran mamdani wins the NYC mayoral race, beating andrew cuomo - who was running as an independent after losing the primary - and who trump publicly supported over the actual republican candidate. mamdani gave an amazing acceptance speech - i got goosebumps, reminded me of some of obama's speeches. i know very little about mamdani but at only age 34 he has the kind of charisma that will take him into higher offices. finally, out on the coast, in california, they voters passed proposition 50, which will redistrict to get rid of republican counties to give california more democrat seats in the house. basically, the democrats won every race tonight, all across the US, a repudiation of the republicans and trump.

around 10:30pm i started making candied orange slices. into a large shallow pan i added 6 cups of water and 3 cups of sugar. once the sugar dissolved, i added orange slices and left them to simmer for about an hour, until the pith turns translucent. not sure what types of oranges i had. the more orange-colored oranges, some kind of smaller navel oranges? i also get these yellowish oranges that look like huge lemons but one of them had a sticker that said valencia orange. i then layered the orange slices onto the dehydrator racks and set the machine for 135° for 6 hours. these are not supposed to be crackling dry, slight softness is okay.

i forced myself to keep on sleeping despite repeatedly waking up, like my body clock hasn't adjusted to the time change yet. i finally got out of bed around 9am. i brought in all my houseplants from the back porch. they seem okay, but the night time temperatures have dipped into the 30's, better they live inside now. besides, it's already november. just a matter of time before we get our first killing frost.

i left around 10am, taking the motorcycle, with the threat of rain in the afternoon. a little rain would be good, wash off the stains on my bike. i stopped by the cafe to move the frozen foods into the fridge to thaw. the handy man was outside disassembling the back patio. earlier last week i'd already moved all the deck furniture into the basement.

i got to belmont around 10:30am. my father made pan-fried pancakes that i ate rolled up with some pork floss.

today's big project was to move all the outdoor houseplants into our basement grow room. but first i needed to spray the plants with bifenthrin to make sure i don't accidentally bring any pests inside. it's really just to control the mealybugs, but bifenthrin will kill just about anything. i use it as a foliar spray, but it can also be used as a soil drench to kill any bugs in the soil. i've determined to make this winter the first winter where i don't see any pests and all my plants are healthy and survive into spring unscathed. into a 1/2 gallon spray i added 1/4 oz. of concentrated bifenthrin - which is 1/2 tbsp. bifenthrin is milky and viscous and has no smell. it looks like nothing but it worked last season in getting rid of mealybugs, so hopefully it'll do the same this winter. i put all the plants i wanted to spray on the plant stands and sprayed them. i then waited for the solution to dry before moving them into the basement.

i also sprayed the orchids, but not more repotting one that had a crooked stem and adding more wood bark to the smaller potted orchid. they really seem to love living outside. the only thing we learned is to not water the flowers because frequent water drops can cause black spots. already two of them have developed flower spikes, so we may see some orchids before the year is through.

i took some extra tradescantia, trimmed them, and repotted them in a hanging plante. i also have a tradescantia nanouk that i broken into smaller pieces and repotted in its own hanging planter.

while i was doing that, my father was mowing the lawn. not so much the grass - which has stopped growing because of the cold weather - but more so to pulverize and collect the leaves on the grass so we don't have to rake and can added the shredded leaf debris to our compost bins.

we started moving the plants indoors around 1:30pm. it might rain soon, so we needed to move everything before then. my father added a metal adjustable shelf inside the grow room, along with the wooden plant stand table i built. outside was another metal shelf for storing our wintering peppers (those i didn't treat with bifenthrin). because the table stand was taking up too much room, we decided to move it out of the grow room and replace it with the other metal shelf.

i couldn't fit any of the peppers plants onto the metal shelf so i trimmed them all back a few more inches. that's before i realized my father had switched the shelves and this one had 4 layers while the one i used before only had 3. it's not that big a deal, the surviving peppers will simply grow out new branches.

so all the jasmines, the gardenia, the pileas, the prayer plant, the tradescantia, that one jade plant, a rubber plant, a monstera vine, pennyworts, as well as several holiday cactuses, all moved into the grow room. the osmanthus we moved into the sunroom, with the main potted plant going to my father's bedroom. some of the plants still need some repotting - like the pileas and the monstera - that's why i didn't spray them with bifenthrin.

the last two plants to move was the water reed and the yellow dragonfruit cactus. the cactus was in rough shape, and the based seemed rotted. my father decided we didn't want it anymore, but still trimmed off a few healthy "branches" so we can repot them if we wanted to. the thing with these cactus is even if they're dead, they still remain green, so it's hard to tell if it's alive or not. our summers are not long enough to ever grow fruits. it's grown so tall, it's essentially a safety hazard, and we get pricked by the thorns often. so the only other plant was saved was the reeds. i trimmed off some roots and moved it into the basement.

with that the official grow room season has begun.

my mother came out of her room briefly to collect a few more blue beans growing on vines. while examining the daikon in RB2, i noticed the radish was already poking out of the ground. we can probably eat it if we wanted. it's the only daikon that emerged this season, i forgot to plant them in late fall as the raised beds was still occupied mostly by bean vines. none of my radishes in RB0 and RB2 have emerged yet, nor any of the cilantro.

i finally stopped working by 4pm, after nearly 5 hours. i've been moving around so much today, i already reached 10,000+ steps without realizing it.

for dinner we had some stirfry broccoli and another plate of stirfry chinese smoked pork with chinese celery and tofu. i ate quickly and returned home. it wasn't going to rain until after 8pm, but i wanted to get back earlier just in case. all the parking spots on my street were full, i ended up parking 2 blocks away. i didn't bother putting on the bike cover, i need the rain to give my motorcycle a wash.

youtube tv and disney are still in dispute, so no ESPN channels. but more importantly, we don't get our local ABC affiliates either. i've been watching WCVB via antenna, but sometimes the reception isn't very good (which is why we got youtube tv in the first place). not sure how much longer this will go on. ESPN i don't really miss, but watching channel 5 news is my jam, and i haven't been able to do that since last friday.

once again i wasn't in the mood to dehydrate my apples and oranges. i checked out a bit of monday night football game via antenna between the cardinals and cowboys. both teams were garbage, i wasn't interested in either of them. i switched back to youtube tv and caught the second half of the jazz-celtics game. utah is a team that boston would've easily beat normally, and that looked to be the case in the first half, when the celtics was up by 10 points. but the jazz got the lead in the 3rd quarter and dominated in the 4th. surprisingly, celtics had a chance to win, and regained the lead with minutes left in the game, but squandered it and the jazz ended up stealing a victory, 105-103.

i played a little more of cyberpunk 2077 before calling it a night. election day tomorrow, i don't think i'll go vote until after work. i still need to do my research on the candidates.

the first day of time change and i'm not used to it yet. everything felt late but was still early. i woke up at 9am, after about 6 hours of sleep. after i got ready, i took the motorcycle to market basket to get a few paocai ingredients (salt, sugar, vinegar). i came back home to get the rest of my things before getting to the cafe by 10:40am.

i ended up spending 3 hours there making a new batch of paocai. i weighed the cabbages, discovered we bought 30 lbs. worth. i only needed 25 lbs. so i removed one of the cabbages. cutting the cabbage into quarters was easy; the hard part was shredding them by hand which took over half an hour. i salted the cabbage and left it to reduce for an hour. at 12:30pm i drained the reduced cabbage and rinsed them in the sink. i tried to squeeze the cabbage by hand to remove excess liquids, but that was taking too long and too tedious, so i simply shook out as much liquids as i could before throwing all the cabbage back into the big plastic bowl. i added the shredded reduced carrots, before finally adding 12 cups of vinegar with 12 cups of sugar. i also added some chopped thai chili peppers and a tablespoon of sichuan peppercorn. it was 1pm before i started packing the paocai into plastic containers. that took me another half hour. i was finally finished by 1:40pm.

during that time i was changing the wall clocks and managed to slice my thumb open from the sharp edge of the plastic frame. i didn't even know it happened until i noticed my thumb was hurting and bloody. i put on a waterproof bandaid and worked in gloves the rest of the way.

this latest batch was 15 containers. i made sure i had enough sugar vinegar solution to fill each container to the top, which should hopefully keep them from browning. i also didn't pack the containers too tightly. a batch typically last 2 months, so these should last us until the end of the year.

i made it to belmont by 2pm. my mother was watching me the whole time i was at the cafe from the webcam. she made homemade wonton soup for a late lunch. the falcons-patriots game had already started. patriots started hot, scoring 3 touchdowns in the first half. but then they started getting sloppy, drake maye got intercepted, and later fumbled close to new england's own end zone, allowing the falcons to score another touchdown going into halftime, the score 14-21. it was a lot closer than i needed to be. patriots only scored a field goal in the 3rd and didn't score at all in the 4th. falcons nearly tied the game with less than 2 minutes left, but their kicker missed the extra point field goal so the final score was 23-24, patriots win. new england now shares the best record in the NFL (7-2) along with the colts and broncos. who would've thought?

i brought a jar of newly smoked jerky and new korean jerky. both were dehydrated in just 4 hours, leaving them tender and not brittle dry. these batch taste better, have a softer texture that's easier to chew.

i wanted to put away the outdoor potted plants in the basement, but it was already so late by the time i got to my parents' place. i'll do it tomorrow, because i also need to spray them bifenthrin to kill off any pests from hitchhiking into the house.

the marquee late afternoon game was between the chiefs-bills. 5-3 kansas city is on a comeback tour, after mucking up the start of their season. but i was rooting for buffalo, and glad they won in the end (21-28) even it means they're still just one game back from the patriots. i personally don't think new england will win the division. eventually things will settle, and the bills will rise to the top, while the patriots go into the playoffs as a wild card.

for dinner my father stirfried the swiss chard and made a stew using pork trotters. the skin had so much collagen it gave the stew a very sticky mouth feel. maybe because i'd been snacking so much throughout the day that i barely had any appetite for dinner. i was so stuffed afterwards, i could feel my belly distending.

temperature was in the upper 40's when i motorcycled home. i feel the cold in my legs, but the warmth of the engine soon took care of that. i didn't realize it's going to rain tomorrow (late afternoon), so i have to decide how i'm going to get to belmont. i'm thinking electric bike. it'll be a game time decision tomorrow.

i played a little bit of cyberpunk 2077 tonight. i escaped food farm without having to engage royce, and my latest mission is to once again escape - this time from konpeki plaza after it went on lockdown. when i went back for a second bout, my saved game wouldn't load. good old games (GOG, where i downloaded cyberpunk from) has a feature that will verify and fix corrupted game files. i ran the update but my saved game still wouldn't open. so i just used an earlier auto-saved game which opened fine.