i went down into the city this morning to see the march for our lives protest happening in boston. if history was being made, i wanted to witness it for myself. i decided to watch it from the corner of clarendon and columbus avenue, where i typically watch the pride parade. but instead of starting from copley square, this march began in dorchester, going up columbus avenue to boston common, a route i'd never seen before, but a direct route that takes it through much of the city.

i timed it so that it would arrive right when i got to clarendon-columbus, but the march was moving slower than i expected, so i ended up walking down the stretch of columbus avenue to see if i could see the start of the procession. the closer i got, the more spectators i saw, lining both sides of the street, holding up signs of support of their own. i spotted my upstairs neighbors; i was going to say hi to them, but realized i didn't want to hang out with them so decided to ignore them.

when the march arrived, it was just a wave of teenagers. luckily i stood with my back between to cars and was able to get away and not get stuck there. i walked back to clarendon to find a good spot and waited for them to arrive.

afterwards i biked towards chinatown via the south end. i decided to get my groceries at ming's market, then continue to chinatown cafe to get some lunch. i was hoping to find some napa cabbage on sale to make autenthic kimchi, but they were 99¢/lbs., so i didn't get them. afterwards when i went to chinatown cafe the place was crowded. i got my pepper and salt porkchop, put it inside an insulated canvas bag, strapped it to the back of my bicycle, then pedaled home.

considering how cloudy it was today (at times there was a solid grey cap over the landscape), i was surprised we made 26.68kWh today. the graph did the same thing it did yesterday morning, a blob of extra production that surpassed the "perfect production" trend line. that could mean we have the potential to make even more energy in the early mornings, thanks to the higher sun angle.

i wanted to stop at the cafe to drop off the cabbage/tomatoes i bought for my 2nd aunt, but it was already 3pm and the only thing i ate today was a blueberry muffin, so i decided to eat instead. pepper and salt porkchops is one of my favorites, but the serving size was so large i only managed to eat half, saving the rest for dinner. i ate while watching live coverage of the march program in boston common.

bruce contacted me in the evening, asking if liked corned beef. i've had corn beef before, but always in slices in sandwiches, never from homemade, so i was intrigued. he had some excess which me gave me along with some fancy cabbage. the corned beef was amazing. so tender, so juicy, so much flavor, at first i couldn't even recognize it as beef, thought it was lamb for something reason because i tasted a gaminess. when i sliced the beef open, there was a pretty zebra pattern of lean meat and fat. the cabbage wasn't bad either, some fancy toasted pinenuts, and i tasted some cheese in there as well. i had the corned beef and cabbage with my leftover pepper and salt porkchops, an irish-chinese dinner combination. i'm so in love with corned beef, i want to try making it myself.

after thinking about it all day, i finally decided to order the chinese mini bi-pin sockets, despite the shorter wires. i could always splice in longer wires, or splice in thinner wires. i ordered through amazon.com, a package of 10 for $5.57 from DEMASLED_US (they don't sell them in singles, but cheap enough to get a few), arriving on monday. i also ordered a new higuchi 50W halogen bi-pin GY6.35 bulb ($3.34) just in case the old one was damaged.

the weather forecast says there might be a coating to maybe an inch of snow overnight and into tomorrow morning. just so happens my sister asked me to dogsit hailey in belmont on sunday, so if there is snow, i'll be there to clean it off, though i also heard tomorrow is going to be an overcast day, so even with clear solar panels i'm not expecting much production. but i had the same feeling today and yesterday, and we made surprisingly large amounts of electricity, so who knows.