after taking a shower and quickly wolfing down a pastry, i left for belmont sometime after 12:00, for what i thought would be the start of an NFL playoff game at 1:00. i went with my hooded sweatshirt plus down vest ensemble since i didn't think it'd was that cold (30°) but my arms were pretty chilly and i regretted my decision until i was almost at my parents' place and my arms had sufficiently warmed up. turns out i had no reason to rush: i must've misread the schedule since the first game (cardinals vs. panthers) wouldn't be until 4:30.

i returned the newly-flashed coolpad F1 phone to my father. it was like getting a brand new phone and he played with it the rest of the day, trying out all the new features he didn't have with the original coollife UI ROM. google now voice search was the first thing he tried, but that got old quickly when saying "google now" not only triggered his phone but my phone and my tablet as well (both with "google now" voice detection turned on). we ended up deactivating "google now" voice detection but still leaving voice search. google maps was also working, as well as baidu maps (which always worked on these china phones). i had a few different launchers installed but my father decided to go with dodol launcher (a korean import it seems). after helping him tweak some interface settings on his phone (so much customizations!), i'm tempted to install dodol on one of my android devices as well. he also installed baidu search, just to see if there were cool chinese language voice search items he could try out.

by the time i left around 6:30, it'd already been snowing for an hour or two, and the roads were already coated in a powdery layer of snow. it'd been a while since i'd been immersed in snow and i wanted to bike home despite the protest of my parents to take one of the cars instead. but as soon as i headed out, i knew it was a bad idea. this wasn't a light flurry that was falling down, but instead snow mixed with sleet pellets. riding wasn't too bad, not with my fat MTB tires, and my fears of slipping on patches of hidden ice made me extra careful. i was also very aware of any cars coming up behind or in front of me: i may be fine, but i didn't want to get squished by any sliding cars. i could barely see through my glasses and i'd long since given up on trying to wipe the snot running out of my nose. a few times the chain seemed to slip off from the crankset, so caked in snow were the sprockets. the key was slow and careful, and eventually i made it home, stashing the bike in the basement, since later on in the evening the snow would transition into rain, and i didn't want my ride to be frozen solid tomorrow morning.

after a hot soothing shower, i sat back to enjoy the second playoff game of the day between the steelers and the ravens. i also did a large load of laundry, my first since fixing the washer/dryer back in early december (so it'd been over a month, this is what happens when you pretty much wear the same clothes every day).

earlier this morning i finally took down the christmas lights that'd been hanging from my living room window. let 2015 begin!