i woke up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat. i was dreaming but couldn't remember what it was. i think it involved a manic pixie dream girl, but like i said, i recall nothing. so engrossed i was in the subconscious realm that i must not have stirred awake, even though i was baking underneath several layers of blankets. it was so uncomfortable that i got out of bed to change my t-shirt before going back to sleep.

today was an exciting day because the weather looked to be optimal for maximum solar production. i could even see the sunshine peeking through my venetian blinds. however when i checked the status on the app, there was a sudden drop in production, which can only mean clouds. i thought it was going to a cloudless day. at 9:30am production did something unusual, when it suddenly skyrocketed to nearly 6kW, when the former maximum for that time period was only 4.5kW.

my mother called at 9:40am, said my parents were going on a 3-store supply run and would grab some dim sum in malden first. they came to pick me up around 11am. the sky was disappointingly hazy and cloudy when i thought it'd be clear. my father told me that the morning peak solar production happened to correspond to a brief period when the sky was especially clear and cloudless, more so than last wednesday, when he said despite the sun there was still some haze in the air.

we didn't arrive in malden until 11:30am. we found parking next to the high school after circling around the area. here's an important lesson about weekend dim sum: arrive early if you don't want to wait for a table. 11:30am was not early and there was a large crowd waiting, more so than usual as it was so cold outside (20's). ming's seafood restaurant was packed to capacity. surprisingly, we got a table fairly quickly, as we were willing to share a table. we ended up splitting a large round table in the back with 3 other groups: a late-middle-aged couple speaking mandarin, 2 college friends speaking english, and older twin sons bringing their elderly cantonese parents. none of them greeted us when we sat down, they all pretended we weren't there. my mother changed seats with me so she could sit on the outside and run around the restaurant tracking down the dishes we wanted to eat. the food was okay, but boston chinatown dim sum is still the best. i liked the crispy fried calamari but it was so salty i felt a little light-headed afterwards. after we finished and left, i got a chance to admire some romanesque architecture in the town square, a church and a library. i'd find out later that the library itself was designed by h.h. richardson himself in 1885.

next we hit a series of stores: 88 asian supermarket (malden), restaurant depot (everett), and market basket (chelsea). we didn't make it back to belmont until 2:30pm. it was cold enough that we left some frozen items in the car.

i'd seen the score for the jaguars-steelers game while we were still at market basket: 21-0. on the ride back, pittsburgh finally managed to score, bringing the score to 21-7. when we got back home, the score was 28-14 going into the halftime break. it seemed incredible, that here was pittsburgh, the team destined to meet the patriots again for an AFC championship rematch, and somehow they were getting beat by jacksonville. it seemed neither team wanted to play defense, as it became a shootout. the final score was 45-42, the steelers tried all they could to win, but every time they pulled to within one touchdown, the jaguars somehow managed to score another touchdown. the jaguars will come to foxboro next sunday to face the patriots.

by sundown it was time to tally up the total solar production for the day. originally i thought we would excede wednesday record production by a large margin, but when i saw the clouds, i was beginning to lose hope, maybe 20-25kWh at the most. even though we didn't get a nice bell curve, there were enough spikes along the way that we actually managed to beat wednesday's production by about 1kWh, with 30.11 kWh for the day. tomorrow looks to be a cloudy day; depending on whether it's dark clouds or light clouds, i think we might be able to make 10 kWh at least.

for dinner we ate leftovers from last night. i got a ride home afterwards. i watched the end of the saints-vikings game. i had no interest in either teams, but was rooting for new orleans because they seemed to be the underdog. the final few minutes was pretty exciting, and minnesota managed to win based on a miracle reception and then a missed tackle. vikings will face off against the eagles next weekend in philadelphia. can philly pull another miracle, beat minnesota to go to the super bowl?