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i met the taiwanese tourists (brad & olivia) at harvard square this morning (9:00am) to take them to salem. i brought them back to the house to give them a quick tour, let the use the bathroom, and retrieve the car (ana had just came home after spending the night elsewhere, but she was asleep when we arrived). they gave me a box of taiwanese pineapple cakes as a gift. as i predicted, salem was pretty boring. we spent 2 hours just walking around before finally driving back.

* salem great pyrenees and bernese mountain dog

i drove back the wrong way (thanks garmin gps! instead of 95-93) and returned via lynn and revere so it took a long time. i treated them to some authentic american burgers for a late lunch. as if to make it even more american, the patriots-bills game from last night was broadcasting from the ceiling-mounted HDTV's. after letting them use the bathroom at my place, i sent them on their way back to harvard square at 3:00pm.

i returned my parents' car and was ready to help my father install the new hot water heater he got from home depot today (they only gave him $300 credit despite the previous tank still being under the 12 warranty; he paid an additional $150 to get a new 9 year warranty heater). unfortunately the new tank was slightly taller than the old tank so the pipings needed to be reduced in size. my father did the soldering originally but didn't feel comfortable enough to do the work again so called xiaowu for help.

i took a nap at 5pm, xiaowu came at 6pm (i kept watch on hailey to make sure she wouldn't bark), and he finally left at 7pm. after my father picked up my mother from work, we had dinner. later my father discovered that the heater was still leaking from the old coupling. nothing drastic, but we'll need to get it fixed next week. i bicycled back to cambridge in my fuji glow bike. ana wasn't home but came back around 10:30pm.