i biked down to the cafe this morning so i could go with my father to see the accountant so i could familiarize myself with some of the financial details of the LLC. the appointment was at 11am, i got there 30 minutes early. the new refurbished foscam FI9821W v2 webcam ($30) arrived yesterday. i was in the backroom setting it up, configuring the router to make sure the correct service port was forwarding to the proper static IP address. i was halfway done before i had to leave for the meeting, which was just across the street.

i'd never been in that brick building across the street before, although i've passed by it a million times over the course of my life. i assumed it was a multistory building, but inside it was just one floor, with a spacious ceiling (i heard this was done for property tax reason). we chatted for a little while, i left thinking corporate taxes is a very complex and technical thing, just like how people when they hear about IT shop talk.

back at the cafe i finished setting up the webcam. i'm pretty familiar with all the steps now, this being the 5th foscam i've set up (not counting the 2012 zyxel IPC3605N frances gifted me that i later returned and exchanged for my first foscam, nor my old 2010 linksys webcam [which finally died earlier this year], nor the 6th black foscam i got earlier this year that i later returned because it kept on crashing due to overheating and got a white foscam instead).

i realized today that the way i configure the webcam is kind of complicated, because i set the ip number on the webcam to static instead of DHCP-assigned. there's always a leap of faith when i untether the internet cable and wait nervously to see if i can see the camera back on the router. the easier way to set it up is to leave everything in the camera as is (besides changing the login/password and making sure it's connecting to the right network via wifi) but use address reservation in the router to match the MAC address to a specific ip number (sort of the way i do my raspberry pi's).

anyway, the webcam worked. i was a little worried, because it's a refurbished model (although looking at it, you wouldn't be able to tell since it looks brand new). at that price ($30), it's worth getting two cameras since normally a brand new unit costs $60-70. using a ladder, i climbed up to the top of the rear door to remove the old foscam (FI8910W) and replace it with this new one (FI9821W V2). so far so good, we'll leave it on and see if it crashes or malfunctions the next few days.

with that business out of the way, i returned home with two meat buns reserved later for dinner. it was cold and wet and rainy yesterday, but today was a calm dry late autumn day, temperature in the 40's. back at home my kimchi was still fermenting (the house smells like cabbage). the old korean chili powder would pool at the bottom of the jar, looking like dark congealed blood. hopefully it tastes better than it looks. but it's not a big deal if i have to make a new batch. i haven't made kimchi in so long, it's normal for the first batch since my hiatus to be a little off. i'm sure the second batch will be better!

my father stopped by my house briefly on his way to market basket to drop off a large empty box (in case if i ever need to do any shipping).

i'd brought home the old foscam FI8910W. originally i was just going to leave it at the cafe and put it in the basement, but with it's inability to pan horizontal left and right (just vertically up and down), it wasn't very useful. i brought it back to see if i could fix it somehow. that involved opening up the camera, which wasn't very hard, but some screws were hidden behind stickers, and the screws were kind of cheap and i think i stripped some of them while trying to remove them. i got as far seeing the gearing for the panning action. everything inside looked pristine, so it wasn't a clogging problem. at this point it's either one of two things: either the panning control on the circuit board is fried (i didn't see any scorch marks), or there's something wrong with the W-24BYJ 5V DC stepper motor. stepper motors are more reliable than regular motors, so it's a mystery why it stopped working. but if the stepper motor needs to be replaced, it's a relatively cheap part, with prices $1-$5 on ebay.

i went to star market to get some snacks: potato chips and pistachio häagen-daz ice cream. when i returned home, i was surprised to discover i already have an uneaten carton of pistachio in the freezer. too much ice cream!

my mother told me that the health inspector finally came by the cafe today. she said the only thing my parents had to do was to make the sushi sign smaller, so people don't think this is a sushi place, since a sushi restaurant requires additional permitting. but otherwise they passed their inspection.

for dinner i heated up the two meat buns in the microwave.