i went with my parents on a supply run, first to costco, then to restaurant depot. my sister came as well, driving her own car and bringing her godmother along.

despite all the cars parked outside, costco was surprisingly calm when we first went inside. but apparently everyone was crowded in fresh food departments at the back of the warehouse. the everett costco has also decided to do away with their separate alcohol department at the front of the store and move everything inside, blended with the rest of the merchandise. the wines and beers ended up taking several long aisles in the middle of the store. this makes sense, as alcohol is probably one of their biggest selling item. as for the former space in front of the store, they turned that into a cafeteria area.

afterwards we went to restaurant depot. my father wanted to bring my sister there to show her an oven, which they ended up deciding not to get. it wouldn't have mattered anyway as both cars were filled to capacity with supplies. there was talk of maybe the chelsea market basket or perhaps the malden super 88, but there was just no more room in the cars. we all reconvened back at the cafe to unload the supplies.

all day long i was following the progress of our solar panels, now that the inverter cap had been removed. just what exactly is the maximum amount of electricity we can generate during the peak solar period? would it be possible to reach 8kW or more? yesterday we were seeing values of 8.6kW and beyond, which seemed impossible give the number and type of panels we have (20x 335 LG panels, 8kW maximum). in the end these high numbers never charted since the graph values are based on the average production in 15 minute increments.

i haven't charted our solar production since the end of march, when we discovered the clipping issue. it was just too painful to see everyday a chunk of electricity getting lost because we were capped by our 6kW inverter. now that we have a 10kW inverter, i'm back to charting again.

the day was promising at first, cloudless blue sky in the early morning, but by late morning clouds started to roll in, and production was a series of ups and downs. unlike yesterday, the production graph line actually went beyond 6kW, something we'd never seen before up until now. this gave us an idea of how much production we lost every time due to clipping. today - with non-peak condition - we probably made 1kWh more of electricity compared to what we would've made with the old 6kW inverter. basically everything above the 6kW is bonus electricity we didn't have before.

the highest amount of electricity we've made in may of last year was 50.62kWh. that record was broken a few days ago when we made 50.67kWh (i didn't even know, i've all but stopped monitoring our solar production). today we achieved 46.83kWh. no bad given that 51kWh is the maximum daily production we've ever had last year. now we're just waiting for that one perfect day when it's absolutely cloudless during the whole day. in a typical summer season, that happens very rarely, only a few times at most.

i also played around with the status screen on the inverter; i'd forgotten that it will toggle through various displays showing different info.

in the late afternoon we barbecued a slab of ribs we got at costco and ate by around 4pm. even though my father had a new tank of gas, he still insisted on using the old one because he believes it's still good. it worked for the most part, but occasionally the gas would get clogged and extinguish the flames in the barbecue.

i got a ride home by 7pm. my upstairs neighbor doesn't seem to be home this weekend, which is great, because i can enjoy the house all by myself. this is also my last weekend before my next new roommate arrives next saturday.