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wednesday the high temperature was 60°, yesterday it was 70°, and today it peaked at 80°: looks like the cold days are over, warm days from here on out. not only was today hot but it was also humid, with strong thunderstorms later in the evening. i figured with the impending storm many people wouldn't risk waiting in line to go into market basket, so i decided today (friday) would be the ideal day to plan another market basket visit.

first i made another bagel sandwich for lunch, waited until almsot 1pm when kevin was finally done with the kitchen. i finished the last of my ham, now i'm sort of free to have whatever i want for lunch, with the caveat that now i had all this leftover salami that i might need to eat up before it goes bad, if it hasn't already.

i left the house by 1:40pm. first stop was to walgreens to pick up my 3 prescription refills that i made online last night. i was anticipating some problems because my irbesartan was a temporarily prescription and i was getting refilled almost a week early. to my surprise, all 3 prescriptions were ready for pickup.

i then made my way to market basket, coming in from the front of the store so i could check out how long the line was. it wasn't all the way out to the street, about midway along the side of the parking lot, a little better than last time. and my wait wasn't as long (nearly 40 minutes last time), less than 30 minutes this time around. i actually saw a woman with child - both not wearing masks - trying to get inside. the door attendant stopped her and got one of the employees to get a mask from the store for this woman to wear. not sure where she's been that she thought she could get into a supermarket unmasked, it's been the norm for at least several weeks now. and did she know she was in violation of the state directive that said everyone must wear a mask if they're out in the public, especially if they can't socially distance themselves? maybe i was like her at one point, but once stores changed their policies to mask-only and the governor urges everyone to wear masks, that's what i've been doing, like a good citizen.

inside market basket there was less people, but as the aisles were turned into one-way lanes, there was some congestion at the front of the store. most people followed the arrows and the signs, but a few - elderly immigrants - could care less and were going the wrong way. i pushed a cart instead of using my grocery bags, which i kept in my everyday carry bag. rookie mistake, i grabbed a cart without realizing there were bottles of sanitizers and wipes along the wall for disinfecting the handlebar (i hope this isn't how i end up getting the coronavirus). i wasn't planning on getting a lot of stuff (figured i'd come back next week for fresh ingredients) but still ended up spending $74 on groceries. market basket has started issuing their weekly circular again, i know they stopped for a while during the height of the outbreak. i used sale items as a guide as to what i should get but also still buying whatever comes to mind, since i don't plan on making frequent trips to the supermarket. i also bought an 12-pack of toilet paper ($6.99), seeing a pile of it in the closet is actually comforting in a hoarding kind of way. as far as items, they seemed to have everything, including pasta now, all brands, all varieties. there was also several brands of flour, i didn't see if they carried any yeast though. everything seemed to be well stocked.

soon after i came home from market basket, i went back out again to star market to get some schweppes seltzer on sale (3/$10) and some pizzaz apples. they didn't have any pomegranate flavor, i ended up going with orange, raspberry lime, and pink grapefruit.

i've been trying to get in touch with seaflo all this week after we decided that the 42-series was a better pump than the 33-series we received. i've been sending them messages via their online form but so far no reply. earlier in the week i called a number that i found in the seaflo packaging and actually managed to get somebody. just as i feared though, it was only the company headquarter. the guy i spoke to - frank - he was nice enough to give me the number of the US seller. when i called that number, after a few rings it went to voicemail so i left a number. days later, when i tried calling again, it went straight to voicemail and said the mailbox was full so i couldn't even leave a message anymore. i tried the online form once more, but wasn't hopeful.

what i needed was a working number. from the company website i knew that seafresh marine was the US distributor of seaflo pumps. although there was no phone number on the site, there was an address. the address pointed to a physical store in lake como, NJ, and when i searched specifically for that store, there was a number. i called the number but nobody answered so i left a message. minutes later somebody named frank called me. he told me they were just the distributor, and give me a number to call which was the US seller. i found out later this was the same frank i called with the number in the seaflo packaging. so did i call the company headquarter and the distributor? but when i used their website to buy a pump, it was a different seller? so confusing. i called the number frank gave me, it was the same number he gave last time. it went straight to a full mailbox, unable to leave messages.

i had one other avenue of attack. the original shipment had a return address. i searched for it online and found it was the location of south bend components in indiana. i went to their website and discovered seaflo was one of the companies with a warehouse there. there was no seaflo number but there was a number for south bend components which i called. i figured somebody there might tell me how to reach seaflo. nobody answered, went to voicemail, i left a message.

by then i was out of options. was seaflo a scam? but we did receive a pump after all, just can't get in touch with anyone at the company for additional service. we wanted to do a trade-upgrade, but what if we just wanted to return a pump? or get warranty service? it seemed weird that it was so difficult to reach the company.

while i was feeling dejected, a few minutes later i received a phone call. it was from south bend components, a guy named chris. turns out the number i called is also the number for seaflo. i told him my situation, that i got a 33-series pump but i wanted to upgrade. right away he suggested the 51-series. although the 51-series is much more powerful (5gpm) it was also more expensive at $100+. i told him i just needed the 42-series (3gpm) because i was only using it for rain barrels and i liked the variable flow technology. he told me to text him my address (at the same number) and he'd send me the 42-series. "what about the price difference?" i asked him, the 42-series being a few dollars more expensive. he said he'd overlook that. he also didn't mention the 33-series pump until i brought it up. "just return it to this address when you get the 42," he told me. i went to feeling like seaflo was a scam to thinking seaflo is actually a pretty good company with excellent customer support.

today was even hotter than yesterday - temperature reaching 80°F - so the solar panels were even less efficient. but the intermittent clouds and sun plus we're at a point in the year when even on an off day we still make a lot of production meant we still made 43.17kWh. at the midway point for this month we're at 629.17kWh; at this rate we might challenge the month of july for the single month production record, which currently stands at 1289.68kWh for july 2018.