all the things i planned on doing this morning - go see the head of the charles, clean up my community garden plot, clean my parents' backyard, pick up some power tools - i did none of those things. the cold and overcast weather made it easy for me to sleep late (almost 11am). i woke up with some soreness in leg joints, but nothing too bad, though i did walk around the house gingerly. the patriots-bears game was at 1pm. i made myself a salad for lunch then later ate an apple. eating cold food on a cold day makes me feel even colder. i also felt like i was coming down with something, maybe a chest congestion. i ended up making some rooibos tea later in the afternoon along with a hot cup of korean noodles.

in hindsight, it didn't seem like new england was very much in danger of losing today's game in chicago, despite two turnovers that allowed the bears to easily and quickly score two touchdowns as well as a hail mary play with seconds left that might've allowed chicago to send the game into overtime. it never should've been that close, subtract the two turnover touchdowns and the final score becomes more realistic. the only bad thing that came out of the game was sony michel injured his knee in some kind of twisting motion when some chicago players pin his leg and landed on it. he'll be out for certain, just don't know if it's going to be a few months or the rest of the season. chris hogan also looked like his suffered a leg injury, but that guy has unsung indestructibility, because last week it looked like he was also injured pretty badly but he came right back into the game, just like today.

the automatic wire stripper arrived yesterday, it was waiting on my doorstep when i came home late last night. i got a chance to open the package and take a look at it. it looks pretty industrial, but the plastic adjustable pin that allows you to choose the length of wire to strip off is not well made, just a cheap plastic part that's not only hard to adjust but seems like it would break easily. fortunately it's easier just to estimate and cut strip without using the pin. i didn't have any wires in my house but i'll take it to belmont and give it a try on some leftover wires.

i just assumed it was very cold outside today even though i didn't once go out. i saw my neighbor don bundled up in his puffy winter jacket. my weather sensor it was just in the 40's outside, but i knew with the wind it felt much colder. i managed to stay warm with hot drinks and wool socks, but by 6pm i turned up the heat to 65°F, the first time i turned up the heat, not counting late thursday night when i just turned on the furnace but still had the thermostat set to the lowest temperature just to test and make sure it was still working and not let the room temperature drop too much while i was gone.

for dinner i just heated up a brick of frozen lasagna.