i woke up this morning ready to cram the rest of my census training so i could be ready for the capstone conference call tomorrow. i was done with 2 hours worth of study when my supervisor contacted everyone in a group text with the phone number to call for the conference. later she informed us the conference call would happen a week after first orientation. for me that meant tomorrow, but because i got my online training material late, i got an extension to friday. but i didn't want to be held back, so i crammed throughout the weekend, finish studying in less than half the time in what was supposed to take 6 days.

i didn't know if my supervisor wanted us to respond to her privately but i just replied to the message, ended up texting everyone in the group. i learned something though: a lot of people who texted back, they all had conference dates later in the week, none had it on tuesday. my supervisor also called me minutes later to confirm i'd be ready for tomorrow (i told her i just had a few more hours of training left to go) and told me she ran into problems again when she tried to schedule me for the call and her supervisor told me i was in zone 5. she straightened everything out though, i'm on for tomorrow morning 9am.

i rode the motorcycle to belmont, meant i wouldn't be drenched in sweat on another heatwave day like i would if i biked. after some fried zucchini pancakes for lunch, i spent another 2+ hours finishing up the rest of my training. i imagine tomorrow's conference call (scheduled for 3 hours) will involve some role playing to get us ready for field work.

with the temperature so hot today, nobody felt like cooking. for dinner we just ordered a large hawaiian pizza from domino's. it's our first time ordering pizza since the pandemic. they have delivery-to-car but i went inside and picked it up.

on a cloudless day in the middle of summer with the temperature so hot and humid, it's impossible to break into the 50kWh ceiling. with just 4 more days left this month and the weather forecast as it is, we're not going to break 1200kWh but we'll come close. it's going to be our lowest performing month of july. on a brighter note, SRECtrader contacted my parents today, said they sold two more SREC's on their behalf, $260 each. it's on the low side, but free solar money is free solar money.

back at home, i took a shower then relaxed in the air conditioned living room. like always, as soon as i turned off the AC the room started heating back up. i fished out my stainless steel insulated takeya thermos from my cupboard and filled it up with ice water. freezing cold water is my drink of choice during the summer, i'm surprised it took me this long to remember to start using it again. while in the kitchen i noticed a few moths. in fact, the pantry moth trap has doubled in trapped moths since the last i checked. maybe they came in when i had my back door open (attracted by the pheromones), which doesn't close properly and still allows some bugs to get inside the house. i have to be more careful about that. i went several weeks where i didn't see any moths to now seeing them again. at least they seem to be pantry moths, my cloth moth trap hasn't had any new visitors.

i started reading lovecraft country (2016) by matt ruff after seeing the HBO trailer for the new series starting in mid-august. at first i thought it was sort of gimmicky: marrying traditional lovecraftian cosmic horror with topical 1950's racial tension in the US. but it's a mashup that makes sense, that institutional racism is in itself a kind of cosmic horror. then i learned it was a book, so figured i could get a jump on the show (looked intriguing, i'm definitely watching) by starting on the book. after a few pages in i was already hooked; the writing has a clarity and simplicity that makes it easy to read. the book also has a cool cover, done up in a pulp novel style, cthulhu tentacles that are also KKK robes.