my mother called me this morning to let me know that my father was dropping off some traditional chinese birthday egg soup for breakfast. it's basically a sweet broth of soft-boiled eggs, fermented rice (甜酒酿), and some tangyuan (湯圓, glutinous rice flour balls).

client N called me a few times during the day from vicksburg with questions about setting up the remaining interactive machines. i kind of wish they sent me instead, i'd never been to virginia before. but with the project at the installation stage, i can probably invoice them sometime soon and get paid.

i finally replaced the broken brake lever on my bike and put back the grip using some hand sanitizer lotion as lubricant and adhesive. seeing all the rust on my chain and gears, i rolled up my sleeves and proceded to do a thorough cleaning.

after locating the missing link segment, i managed to unhook the bike chain so i could give it a more thorough cleaning. i'd already wiped it down with a paper towel so it wasn't that dirty, but there was still plenty of grease in the crevasses. i used a can of simple green heavy duty BBQ cleaning foam to degrease the chain. as far as i know, i don't know if anyone else does this, but the BBQ cleaning foam is the exact same formula as the simple green bike cleaning foam, but at less than half the price.

i don't know how well the cleaning foam works. i also mixed in some dishwasher fluid, which might've been equally effective. i used an old toothbrush to scrub the chain. after i was done, i dried off the chain and put it back on the bike. i forgot how the chain loops and had to check online for reference.

the MBP migration continues. i transferred over my browser bookmarks, my instant message buddy icons, and my (outdated) contacts. i also installed turbotax deluxe in anticipation of some tax work in the near future. yesterday i tried to transfer over my copy of klix (photo recovery program, not used very often, but essential when needed) but i forgot my serial number and couldn't find the original e-mail that had it. i contacted the company asking if they could resend it but never heard back from them. fortunately, i dug around the preference folder and read the serial number directly from the XML settings document. i have a few little more mac apps to copy over and i still have to create a PC bootcamp partition and transfer my game files.

it's been less than a week using the new MBP and here are some more comments i have about the new computer and system 10.8: i can't click with the heel of my palm on the new apple full-sized trackpad like i used to with the dedicated trackpad button. i think apple purposely disabled palm clicking because the new trackpad is large enough that users might accidentally brush their palms on it and register as clicks. i'll have to relearn not to click with my palms; back on my old MBP, my desktop was a cluttered mess. i'm trying to keep this new desktop clean for the time being (meaning empty). let's see how long that lasts. a big help is actually downloading everything into the downloads folder instead of on my desktop; i never really used screens when it first came out in OS X, but i really like this new hybrid called mission control. i especially like swiping between full screen apps - i can run a movie full-screen elsewhere, and when i need a break, i just pull it up and watch it; i can hear my hard drive powering down whenever i suddenly move the laptop. it's a feature that spins down the hard drive to prevent the read heads from crashing in case of a dropped laptop. i think my old MBP had it but i never felt/seen it in action. it's pretty sensitive, especially when i'm surfing on the couch with the laptop on my stomach, and i suddenly want to get up, and i can hear the hard drive quickly spinning down. i've since learned to get up slower.

for dinner i had some leftovers from sunday night. i'll need to make a grocery run tomorrow. good chance to test out my newly-fixed bike. i haven't biked since the snowstorm, i'm kind of anxious as to the road conditions.