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because kevin has been waking up the past few days around 7am to leave for work, i decided to adjust the heating so the thermostat will kick in by 7am. the previous program was for heating between 8-9am. but wouldn't you know it, the day i adjust the thermostat programing is the day that kevin decides to wake up late.

as for myself, i woke up by 8am to get ready to ride down to belmont during a brief lull in the 2-day rainstorm to clean off the snow from the solar panels. my neighbors' panels were clear, but that doesn't necessarily mean the same in belmont. my parents were still home at the time and i called my father to go outside and check on the status. he called a few minutes later, said the panels were perfectly cleared, even though from the solar monitoring page i saw half the panels were still dark. but most likely that was because it was still early, and was very much overcast as well; there would be very little solar generation today regardless if the panels were cleared or not. but with a hard freeze later tonight, it was important to get them cleaned. anyway, that meant i didn't have to ride down to belmont after all.

i was monitoring the panels and noticed two of them weren't lighting up for some reason. that made me nervous, and being nervous made me want to ride down to belmont still and inspect the panels for damages. i kept thinking that maybe squirrels had chewed up the wires, but if that were the case, a whole string of panels would be down. i kept watching starting from 8am, and it wasn't until 9:45am before the dead left panel starting generating, followed by the dead right one at 10:10am. so they did work, just slow. maybe there was still some slush on them to prevent them from generating like the other panels. i'll take a look tomorrow, couldn't go anyway today as it was raining for much of the day.

kevin finally woke up after 10am, right when i got out of the bathroom. he came out his room and asked if i was still using then went inside. later i used the bathroom again, figuring he was finally done, and i could do my business in peace. after a shower i came out, and immediately afterwards came out and asked if i was using the bathroom because he wanted to take a shower. two days of consecutive showers! this must be a new record for him, since he took a shower last night as well (i also know this because he adjusted the shower nozzle again). i thought he was still going to work but by 11am i heard the ominous click of his bedroom as he went back inside and didn't come out. kevin would be staying home today. he seems to stay home about once a week; i can't really fault him because he still goes to work on the weekends. and if there was a day to stay home, it'd be today, with another day of torrential rains.

i saw kevin once more, when he briefly came out of his room at 1:30pm to use the bathroom before retreating back into his room. the lights in his room were all off. he skipped lunch. was he okay? was he sick? depressed? the mystery deepened. then quite suddenly kevin came out at 2pm and went to work. he didn't go for very long, coming back again at 5:40pm. he microwaved something to eat, but went out to star market at 7pm. half an hour later he was back with $50 worth of groceries. he cooked some more dinner, but a part of it was his lunch for tomorrow.

as for me, besides reporting the going-ons of my erratic roommate, i didn't do much today, didn't even leave the house. once kevin left, i continued working on my book safe, finally punching clear through. i glued together the inner pages and glued the bottom to the back cover of the book, along with the book jacket, which gives it a more natural look, an additional layer of camouflage.

in the late afternoon the rain had finally stopped and the sun was starting to peek out again. by then it was too little too late, as sunset was in another hour. tomorrow looks to be a sunny day, hopefully we can make some decent production. already a week into february, every single day so far we've used far more electricity than we made. maybe tomorrow might be the first time this month we make a surplus instead of a deficit.

for dinner i baked some more potato wedges and ate the last of my salad, an accidental vegetarian dinner.