i continued digging out the parking space in front of my house. even though i cleared out a lot yesterday, i underestimated the size so only 1.5 cars can fit. i worked to reduce a large snow mound so i could add a few more feet of clearance. the pink of the ice pick, the scratch of the shovel, and the noise of me grunting was the predominant background noise for the next hour. i was pulling out blocks of ice more than 4" deep, and piled them up along the top of the sidewalk snow banks to form a wall of ice boulders. another snowstorm is scheduled for wednesday, and we could get an additional feet or more of snow. the way i figure it, i'm just doing some preemptive snow clearing so it won't be a big mess than what it'll already be by mid next week.

i knew my neighbor paul was upstairs but god forbid he'd come downstairs and help out. i step inside briefly to take a break and that's when i heard paul scrambling downstairs to relocate one of his 3 cars to the space i just dug out. total dick move. maybe he felt guilty, because moments later he moved to a different spot. later another neighbor pulled up next to me in his car and asked if it'd be open if he took one of the spots i dug out. this was the guy who drove a grey mini. i see him all the time, but he and his girlfriend have always ignored me to the point where it was getting kind of awkward. i introduced myself to ben. perhaps feeling guilty as well, he was telling me how he saw people putting space savers in their parking spots, and that he'd never do that, how he wasn't territorial about where he parked.

by the time i was almost done, i finally saw paul. he had no choice but to confront me because he was picking up steve from the airport. "wow, you did all this work?" he said. "i came home late last night, and couldn't find a spot anywhere, so i ended up parking all the way down the street." yeah, you came home around 2:30 because you woke me up from sleep and you didn't go to bed until 3:30, and then this morning you were up by 8:30. i also wanted to make some sarcastic comment about the fact that they own 3 cars but never once did i see them digging out a parking spot, but i decided otherwise.

the weather wasn't that cold (in the 20's) but my father said he could give me a ride back to belmont. feeling lazy, i agreed. he said 11:30 but didn't show up until an hour later.

i let hailey out into the backyard when i arrived. wanting to play, she'd stand a few yards away from me, waiting for me to throw some snow at her so she can catch it.

i only had a banana for breakfast, so my mother made me some fermented rice porridge with dough balls. later i saw my sister with a plate of chorizo sausages, potatoes, and fried egg and finished her leftovers.

i helped my parents move some furniture in anticipation of the brand new 46" HDTV that would be arriving on monday. they still need to upgrade their cable box to an HD version.

since i didn't have a good night sleep, i fell asleep briefly on my parents' bed before dinner.

my parents originally planned on going down to new york city this weekend, but decided against it because of the record cold temperature that was about to hit our area. my mother wanted to go out to dinner, using the money she'd otherwise be spending on her weekend trip. i talked her out of it; i prefer eating something simple at home instead.

i got a ride back to cambridge. i brought back the philips DVP5960 to replace my old sony DVD player (which i almost never use anymore); the philips has the ability to play movies off of a thumb drive or an external USB hard drive.