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not only did i sleep late last night (3am), but i didn't sleep well, waking up before 9am. something was worrying me, and as i started my morning routine, i suddenly figured out what it could be: my web server issues. i messaged tech support yesterday but they never got back to me. i did some research last night, but still couldn't figure out what it could be. at the very least i had to clean up some code (maybe use a global session variable). when i checked my email however, there was a message from text support. apparently they managed to fix the problem, reduced the level of filtering on my site. i tested a few posts, it seemed to be fixed, i'll know more when i do some updating.

i was carrying a lot of things on my way to my parents' place: bags of clementine and mandarin oranges, three large daikon radish, my over-fermented jiu niang, chinatown pastries, rice flour, corn starch, scallions, garlic chives. the rear baskets and my backpack were so full, i ended up having to sling my drone bag across my shoulder. the weather was in the upper 50's, sunny but windy enough to still feel like a touch of winter in early spring. i pedaled in my single speed, slowly and steadily making my way to my destination.

for lunch i had one of the chinatown pastries, a sponge cake. that wasn't enough and later i had another pastry. my father tried my over-fermented jiu niang, said it tasted very much like the time he over-fermented a large batch of glutinous rice. it wasn't very sweet but produced a lot of liquids, which was the start of some good rice wine after he left it to ferment so the rice starch was all consumed. my mother also tried some of the oranges i got her. the gold nuggets were dry, bland, and slightly sour; the mandarins tasted better, sweeter.

when my parents went out for a walk in the afternoon, i checked their location on google map and went into the backyard to intercept them with the drone. my first pass i couldn't find them. i rebooted the phone before attaching it to the drone controller, it remained stable for a long time, but the DJI fly app crashed briefly when i was around the reservoir. i returned the drone, got a new battery, and checked the map again. i also called my parents to confirm where they were, before launching the drone a second time. this time i found them, only because my mother was wearing a red jacket that i was able to spot 400ft from the air as a dot. i lowered it to 200 ft but didn't want to bring it down any further for fear of hitting a treetop or powerlines. even though i was above my parents for much of the way, they said they couldn't hear or see the drone. only when they were near the house, when i lowered the drone to 50ft, did they finally see it. a neighbor also saw the low flying drone, asked my father if it was ours.

i went out again later to check up on the garlics, currently the only thing growing in the raised beds. i saw them just 3 days ago, and they look even better. a little chicken manure, a little rain, that's all the garlics need. i also removed all the chicken wires, didn't want anything blocking their growth.

my parents made some soy milk. it was a good chance to use our new nut milk bag, but the problem we soon realized was how to squeeze hot soy milk without burning your hands? in the end we drank it as is, grounded soy bits and all. it wasn't too bad the top portion, but the closer you got to the bottom, the grannier the soy milk became. nut milk bags might be a good thing for cold (or even lukewarm) soy milk, but a mesh hand-held strainer works better for hot soy milk.

for dinner we just had light scallion bread stuffed with braised beef. we ate early, done before the 6pm evening news.

riding home, the near full moon was out, bright in the sky. it seemed to have confused a lot of birds, who thought it was the sun. i was serenaded by a chorus of bird songs as i returned to cambridge. i also stopped to take a photo of the grow light house on huron avenue. i pass by it all the time, the plurple lights seem to be on 24/7. glimpses of plants inside the house seems like the owner is keeping an indoor jungle.

i inspected my grow closet. even though i planted two hyacinth beans per container, only one of them seem to germinate, which the except of one pot that had two seedlings. i ended up digging out the extra seedling and planting it in the one container that didn't have any sprouts. i carefully dug around to find the two seeds, both rotten and moldy. in grow light news, my barrina lights still seem to be stuck somewhere in connecticut. to add insults to injuries, the white 2ft grow lights i wanted but were all out sold are now back in stock both on amazon and the manufacturer's website. what i really want to do is cancel my plurple light order and just buy the white variety from amazon, despite being more expensive. at least i know i'll get them and not wait indefinitely for them to arrive.

i finally got the led pancake light to work with the NP-F batteries. the last time i tried another smaller NP-F battery but i might've shorted the battery out when the brightness was set too high. this time around i dialed it down to zero before slowing ramping it up. i tried both batteries and with a single battery, both methods worked. when i cranked the brightness to 100%, the battery indicator went down one bar. it went back up when i lowered it to 50%. one thing i noticed was the left battery holder wasn't working. i kept trying but it wouldn't click. i was afraid maybe the clipping mechanism was broken and even tried to open up the light but couldn't. only later did i realize what the problem was: these original NP-F batteries only have slot on one side of the battery. that's why the battery worked on the right side, but didn't on the left. it was the batteries, not the light that was the problem.