while relocating my motorcycle closer to the house after the street sweepers finished cleaning the road in the late morning, i bumped into paul who was outside doing some last minute sprucing up before their tenants arrive on thursday. paul told me they weren't going to get here until friday, and in the meantime he and steve will be gone until then. he also told me that not only are they renting out their place for 3 months, but then an additional 3 months afterwards to another couple, while they take an extended european vacation. they actually hired a cleaning service today, that's why it sounded noisier than usual.
in the afternoon i walked down to the community garden with half a dozen red chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum coccineum 'robinson red') to transplant. it was humid and hot, with a forecast of torrential downpours and thunderstorms by late afternoon. i haven't been to the garden since friday. not much have changed, except more star-of-bethlehem flowers have blossomed. the milkweeds are also a bit taller than last time. i have a lot of striped mallow seedlings but i'm worried they might get eaten by slugs, though i haven't seen any evidence of that. i planted the red chrysanthemums along the southeastern corner and eastern edge of my garden plot. they're perennials and if they grow well, the red flowers will nicely compliment the white garlic chive flowers.
my RCWL-0516 microwave radar sensors arrived in the mail today. i can't use them right away as they still require pins to be soldered onto the board.
when i went to the basement to check on the status of my bike tire, i was dismayed to see it's gone flat since i pumped it up on sunday night. i removed the front wheel from the frame and went about removing the tube from the tire. i used tape to mark my position, so i could put everything back in the same direction but also be able to check the inside of the tire for embedded puncture objects once i located the leak on the tube. i couldn't find the leak when i dunked the tube in the bathtub. but after i inflated the tube, the leak was pretty obvious, a steady stream of bubbles. i was also happy to see that the hole was facing outwards (to the road surface), meaning it was a simple puncture, and not something wrong with the wheel itself. i did the same trick with another old tube, found the leak easily. this tube however had the leak facing inwards, meaning maybe the puncture was caused by a loose spoke or something else.
patching was easy, and once i applied the patch, i took the tube outside to put it back into the wheel. it was 4:15pm, by then the outside air was warm and humid, and the sky quickly darkening, like it might rain at any moment. the tire took some effort to remove from the rim, and took an equally difficult time to put back onto the rim. i ended up using a metal tire lever to push the tire in place. after pumping up the tire, i installed it back onto the bike, everything looks good. however, i did notice that the brake surface of the rim is heavily scratched up to the point where the rim itself might lose structural integrity. i may need to buy a new front wheel at some point (the rear wheel was replaced back in july 2012).
it finally started raining at 5pm right when i was taking out the trash cans. production by that point dropped to zero, but the total production for the day was a surprising 40.95 kWh; i didn't think we'd get that high, but apparently there was some good sunshine in the morning and afternoon.
game 2 of the NBA playoffs was tonight between the cavaliers and celtics on ESPN. i switched channels after halftime, boston trailing by 7 points, to go watch a new episode of for the people. when i turned back an hour later, there was just a minute left in the game and the celtics were now up by more than 10 points to eventually win the game. this team is legit, to go up against the defending eastern conference champions and lebron james and to be up 2-0 in the series. and with no gordon hayward this season, and no kyrie irving mid-season, so they're not even playing to their full capacity yet. game 3 won't be until saturday in cleveland.
i used to look forward to going to bed, but now i dread it. ever since i got dermatitis on my hands (itchy blisters, about 2 weeks ago on my left hand, 1 week on my right), at least once per night i ended up scratching my palms to the point where i imagine them to be bloody stumps, but once i wake up they're fine. it's frustrating because i don't know what i touched to cause this allergic reaction. this has been happening every spring for the past few years, and subsides during the summer because after the initial outbreak, i'm careful about not touching anything synthetic (i think it's some kind of plastic/PVC allergy). i've tried creams and ointments, none of them work. the only temporary relief is if i rinse my hands under cold running water.