i vowed to hit as many poke stops as possible in order to collect as many poke balls as i can. it made me wish i had a handlebar phone holder (i did order one back in november 2018 but never installed it and can't find it now), since it was definitely not safe trying to ride a bike with one hand and use a phone with other, especially a phone as unwieldy as the 6.3" screen pixel 3XL. i was so afraid of dropping the phone, i decided not to "ride and pokemon" but pulled over onto the curb to tag poke stops. i passed numerous pokemons along the way, but i didn't have the time nor the poke balls to try capturing them all. despite the new hands free driving law that just went into effect in MA, there are none such laws for bicycles. if you get hurt because you were using your phone while biking, you have no one to blame but yourself.
arriving in belmont, i moved the 100W solar-charging battery station outside so it could get some proper sun. i also refilled the squirrel buster, documenting the fact that a 3 oz. weight isn't enough to trigger the shroud from hiding the seed tray, in order to make my case to the manufacturer for some possible replacement parts. but i discovered it does work, just that at 3 oz., the feeder doesn't have enough downward force to lower the outer shroud. at close to 6 oz. that is enough weight to drop the shroud, but grackles comes around 4 oz. maybe i can take the feeder apart, clean out the parts, then reassemble everything, maybe that will fix the sticking issue.
my mother whipped up some noodles for lunch. we opened up the jar of sichuan paocai that'd been fermenting for more than a month. i got the camera ready to film the deliciousness, but when my mother opened up the jar, there was no carbonization, meaning there was no fermentation, which seemed impossible. back when the jar was empty and there was nothing but paocai liquids, it made so much gas that when we opened the jar there was a loud pop. that didn't happen at all this time. maybe the lid wasn't airtight, but if that was the case, there would've been mold growing inside the jar and there wasn't. maybe it was a temperature issue, too cold in the house while my parents were gone. the final product lacked flavor, wasn't very salty, wasn't very sour, and the vegetables tasted soft, not crunchy at all. afterwards i shook the jar, mix up the ingredients inside, hoping get some of the bottom bacterias up to the top. if there is no additional carbonization, it may be a lost cause and i may have to start a new batch of paocai.
another day, another production record for 2020, at 43.03kWh. today was clear for the most part, with a smattering of clouds that seemed to enhance rather than eclipse the sunlight. not the prettiest graph line, but i'll take the higher production any day over the perfect bell curve.
when i got back to my house i realized i left my keys at my parents' place. fortunately i have a spare hidden key. i put two ferrite cores on the led lamp cords and powered up the TYT radio. my father was showering at the time, so i tested by myself using the cafe repeater. with the lights on, i still couldn't receive any signals. i used the baofeng as a benchmark, which also couldn't receive when the lights were on. when my father finally fired up his TYT radio, i already knew the ferrite cores were useless. we ended up running a receptions test. i could receive him just fine, very clear and loud, but i had to get my antenna cord just right, find the sweet spot, otherwise i don't get any signal. i could receive at medium-2 but with gaps; at medium-1 there were no gaps. on his end, even when i was broadcasting on high power, there was a lot of background noise. nothing changed from my setup from yesterday or thursday, with the exception that the antenna is no longer passing through the SWR meter first. could it be the weather? the best transmissions we ever got was on a clear day, and tonight was cloudy. maybe it's a day-night thing: more lights and devices are turned on at nights, and certainly more turned on LED lights would cause more interference. who knows if my upstairs neighbors doesn't have a bunch of LED lamps turned on as well. we decided to test again tomorrow morning, maybe that will make a difference.
kevin came home by 8pm, retreated to his bedroom. he came out again to cook around 10:30pm, and also asked to borrow the vacuum cleaner, the 3rd time in 2 weeks that he's vacuumed. for someone who seems to be a neat freak, why does he insist on peeing on the bathroom? although since i put down the paper towels, there has been zero accidents, like he's been far more careful when using the toilet.
