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i woke up late, around 11am. after using the bathroom and taking a shower, i found myself cleaning up the house a bit before freddy's arrival. better to do it now than to save it all for tonight. there really wasn't too much: i cleared some cupboard and refrigerator space for him, then put away some things in the kitchen and living room that'd just been sitting around. i knew since yesterday there'd be a few hours of rain tonight, so i covered up my motorcycle and rode the fuji bike to belmont instead around 12:30pm.

there was nobody home except the dog, but the television was still on. i arrived just in time to catch the 1pm game between the patriots and the bills. buffalo started out strong, with an initial series that new england had a hard time defending. unfortunately they weren't able to convert a touchdown and settled for a 3-point kick instead. when it came time for the patriots to take the field, they seemed to be having problems, but they always managed to convert on 3rd down. slowly they made their way down the field until they finally scored a touchdown. that turned out to be one of many touchdowns for the day. though the bills seemed like they might threaten at times, by the second half new england had control of the game and when it finally ended the score was 41-25.

my mother returned home with my sister (they were out shopping at nordstrom), along with some burger king takeout, which i had for a late lunch, having not eaten anything all day.

once evening arrived it began to rain, as forecasted.

i tested out the pi0 again from my parents' place. i tried it yesterday, and it wouldn't connect, but there was no way of adjusting the settings because i didn't have my keyboard/mouse. this time i brought all my equipment, connected everything to the external usb hub, and the pi0 managed to connect to the wifi without any problems, i was able to ssh into it as well. but when i tried it with the wifi dongle alone, once again it stopped working. and when i reconnected everything back up to the hub, it didn't work either, even though it worked the first time. i think my parents' wifi is kind of wonky, and the wifi dongle can be very picky when finding the signal. the pi0 will eventually live at the cafe anyway, so today's test doesn't prove anything. it does show that the pi0 can be rather finicky when it comes to the wifi connection.

i helped my parents order a new nest thermostat for the house. the one they currently have is a rectangular honeywell programmable box. it's not very intuitive to use (although everyone by now has somewhat of an idea of how to change the temperature if not actually program the scheduled heating) but the biggest problem is recently it seems to have a mind of its own, turning on the heat when nobody is at home, breaking out of the default heat setting. the nest will fix all those problems. i ordered from a seller on ebay for $50 less ($204), but i'm a bit leary because they have a zero return policy. in my own case, my first nest had a defective temperature sensor and i ended up exchanging it through amazon for a new one. i hope that doesn't happen this time. the one that i got is a 3rd generation, so i'm curious to see how different it is from mine (2nd generation). it's supposed to arrive no later than thursday. the best thing is we can still apply for the $100 energy rebate so the nest thermostat only costs $100 in the end.

after dinner i got a ride home from my father, my bicycle in the back of the car. my father took a long tray of larkspur seedlings i'm going to transplant in my parents' backyard.

i did some more cleaning when i got home, vacuumed a bit, and completely cleared out the guest bedroom. i also did a load of laundry while i was at it, hoping the dryer would add a nice fragrant smell to the house.

i watched the latest episode of westworld, followed by game 5 of the world series. the cub managed to eke out a win against the indians, now they go back to cleveland for the final 2 games.

freddy contacted me this morning, sent me an e-mail from bogota airport, said he was about to leave, and had a 5 hour layover in ft.lauderdale. from that piece of info i was able to find his flight number - jetblue 2170. scheduled to arrive around midnight, it actually landed a few minutes early at 11:53pm. the rest of the evening was spent waiting for him to show up. fortunately i'm a late sleeper, but it's pretty inconvenient to arrive so late, preventing me from sleeping.

freddy didn't finally arrive until 1:45am. the first thing i noticed was how amazingly tall he was, at least 6 feet if not taller. he arrived with a huge suitcase. he told me he managed to catch the last subway train leaving boston, but that it took forever because the conductor kept stopping for long stretches for every station. he didn't seem very talkative, but maybe because he was just tired from traveling for much of the day. the first thing i did was to teach him to how to open and close the front door; i don't think he got it completely, but at least i showed him the tricks. i then gave him a quick tour and asked him a bunch of questions. he's a 6th year medical student (instead of college, med students go directly to medical school, so that'd make him just 24 years old). this is his first visit to the US, having just visited panama and venezuela in the past (both countries that border colombia, and in the case of panama, was formerly a part of colombia before the US turned it into an independent state in order to build the panama canal). we became whatsapp friends, in case we needed to contact each other (that's a new thing, beginning with cristina). freddy also paid the rent immediately, which saved me the awkward moment of asking. i went to sleep around 2:30am, letting freddy unpack in his room.