kevin went to sleep late last night, i was already in bed (12am) when he finally signed off (1am). i got out of bed just to make sure everything was okay. it kind of sucks when you can't trust your roommate to use the bathroom without making a mess, but it's happened more than once (peeing on the floor, leaving shower running, leaving bathroom light on), so my confidence in him is at a low.

kevin woke up at 7am, i heard him in the kitchen, so i turned on the heat. he left by 8am (according to router client list). i turned the heat back down before returning to sleep, but at 8:30am the scheduled heat started running. i didn't realize this until 9:30am.

for lunch i made some scrambled eggs with a side of kielbasa sausage, washed down with some black tea since there was nothing else to drink in the house. i'm trying to eat healthier, but a lack of imagination and ingredients made me resort to the simplest recipes.

i called my 2nd aunt to ask her what she wanted from market basket: snapple iced tea, milk, scallions. as for me, i was there to get a bag of salad and some tomato sauce. it was cold this morning (20') but by the time i went out in the early afternoon it was 31°F. the roads were a little treacherous, any snow that didn't melt yesterday was now a solidly frozen and slippery obstacle, i kept to the center of the road whenever possible, where salt and traffic cleared the ice. i forgot to bring my bungie netting to secure the 12-pack case of snapple, but luckily i had some bungie cord wrapped around my rear bike baskets and use those to gently tie down the ice tea before carefully pedalling to the cafe, avoiding icy patches and pot holes.

while i was there, i also set up 2 yellow sticky traps in the potted plants. i don't know if there are any fungus gnats, but the sticky trap will catch them if there are. i returned home a little bit before 3pm.

my luxauto 1000W led grow light arrived today. i actually watched the UPS truck parked outside delivering packages. the delivery man seemed to visit every house but mine. a minute later i received an e-mail saying the package was delivered. i went out and found my box on my neighbor's doorstep.

the luxauto light was longer than the 3 led lights we currently own. it was also in black while the others are white. the luxauto felt heavier, weighing at 6.18 lbs. the power draw is 180W (according to specs, i'll need to do any actual measurement at some point). when it got here it was freezing cold, i let it warm up a bit before plugging it in the kitchen. even though it only has 96 LED's, when i turned it on, it was like having a magenta sun in the kitchen. people outside probably could've seen the unnatural glow coming from inside the house. i think the reflectors really help the light to focus each one of the 15W LED's. it's impossible to look at it directly without fear of permanent eye damage. i used my camera to examine the lights. the reflectors are kind of pretty, makes the light look like an array of colorful crystal light fixtures. two of the LED's are dim, those would be the IR LED's. not bad for a $54 light.

today was another cold yet sunny day, good for solar production. there must've been some clouds in the morning because there was a brief hiccup in the graph this morning before it shot straight up by 9:30am. nevertheless, it wasn't able to excede the midday maximum from a few days ago; there could still be lot areas of packed snow blocking the panels along the edges, preventing us from achieving the maximum production. we didn't do too bad today, but day's end we still managed to make 30.42kWh. we keep this up, we may just beat last year's january production record of 550.50kWh. this january we're currently at 341.78kWh, we still need 209kWh to break that record. we can do it if we average 19kWh per day of production for the rest of the month. tuesday-wednesday-thursday looks to be sunny clear days, we should be able to make 30kWh each, cutting the difference down to around 110kWh.

kevin returned home by 6:30pm, immediately went to the kitchen to make dinner, i heard the sound of shells rattling in a box, looks like he's having pasta tonight. he finished cooking by 7pm, retreated to his bedroom to eat. as for myself, i made another spaghetti and meatball sub, this time with a plate of salad (russian dressing) and some ginger beer. i asked kevin why he was up so early this morning (given that he went to bed so late), he said he couldn't sleep so decided to get up and go to work. i ate while watching the lakers-celtics game. kemba walker has never beaten lebron james, he's 0-28, until tonight that is, when boston spanked los angeles to a tune of 139-107. the lakers looked low energy, were missing shots, had none of theit signature dominance. the celtics on the other hand were coming off of a 3-game losing streak and was hungry for a win.