it was still cold enough in the late morning that there were ice puddles outside as i got my bike from the basement and rode to market basket for groceries. i rode carefully, keeping an eye out for black ice on the road. the bike chain was rubbing up against something, i'll need to adjust it at some point. i got a few essentials - whole milk, yogurt, nectarines, blue cheese. i was searching for edamame beans but they didn't have them anymore. i also bought a rotisserie chicken ($4.99).

this was my first time using one of the new KF94 masks i'd ordered. the third year of the pandemic and i'm finally getting around to trying out one of these masks. the material didn't seem as thick as my KN95 masks, felt a little flimsy to be honest, and made me think maybe they were counterfeits. also it reminded me of a maxi-pad when it's all folded up. when i was wearing it i hardly felt it because it doesn't hug my face like KN95 or surgical masks. out of all the mask designs though, KF94 are definitely the most stylish. but i still like the KN95 masks for one reason: they can be folded completely flat, so they don't get crumbled in my pocket when i'm not wearing them.

i ate the rotisserie chicken while watching the news. the governor announced he'll lift the public school mask mandate at the end of february. i only had the two drumsticks, leaving the rest (including the bones) to make chicken broth later in the evening for my rice noodles.

the mung beans had soaked for 24 hours on the heat pad. there was bubbles in the water and most of the beans had sprouted, something that didn't happen when i soaked them the last time with these same beans. i rinsed off the beans and carefully transferred them to the cheesecloth inside of the plastic strainer on top of clear bowl. i covered up the beans then watered them with lukewarm tap water before covering them up with a plate and putting them back on top of the heat pad covered by the insulated grocery bag.

i also figured out how much electricity the heat pad uses. i knew from yesterday it uses 20W of power. leaving it on for 24 hours a day, that means 480Wh. after 2 days, about a full 1kWh of electricity. i should only need to run it for 5 days or so, so about 2.5kWh of electricity total.

in the afternoon i tried manually filling in the 8825 tax form with 2021 spreadsheet data. the bank wants this info to continue a line of credit, but taxes aren't done yet. i ended up attaching an external monitor because there was too many numbers to keep straight. eventually i gave up. things like depreciation, those numbers i don't have until the taxes are finished. this is the whole reason why my parents have an accountant, to take care of things like this. unfortunately he's notoriously slow, and usually their taxes don't get done until mid-april.

in the evening i went to measure the temperature of my mung beans once my heating turned on. the insulate bag itself measured 70 degrees, while the mung beans were about 76 degrees. later when i went to go water the mung beans for the night, i noticed there was already some roots forming at the bottom of the colander.

for dinner i chop up the rotisserie chicken and cooked it in a pot with a full kettle of boiling water. i also added some smashed ginger, a dash of white ground pepper, and some chinese cooking wine. i left it to simmer covered for half an hour. i then discarded the ginger and any bones i found, while shredding the chicken. in hindsight i should've added more water, as there was barely enough broth. i ended up having to add water to the rice noodle broth. it's been a while since i had rice noodles, i have enough soup for 2 more servings (i'll need to add more water to make more broth).

i watched the women's halfpipe finals and the men's single figure skating finals. maureen and i were texting comments. chloe kim won gold in the halfpipe, while nathan chen took home gold in figure skating. i was rooting for hanyu but he didn't medal. despite falling twice in the freeskate program, he managed to score high enough that he was still in 4th place; imagine if he didn't mess up in his short program, he would've definitely medaled. there was another eileen gu sighting, as she gave chloe kim a hug from the sidelines after she won the gold.

in the span of less than 24 hours, US went from having zero gold medals to 3 gold medals. the third happened last night, when lindsey jacobellis won in women's snowboard cross. she'd escaped NBC's radar in their cavalcade of winter olympics superstars, despite having been in every single olympics since 2006 torino.

elsewhere, some drama in the team figure skating award ceremony: one of the russian skaters tested positive for a banned substance back in december. now the olympic committee is deciding what to do. should they disqualify the russians? if that happens, team USA - currently at silver - would advance to gold, with japan taking silver, and 4th place canada receiving bronze. it'd also affect the women's figure skating, because the doping athlete in question is 15-year old phenom kamila valieva. because of her age, any punishment the olympic hands out won't be as harsh, but if they don't do anything and allow the russian team to still receive their gold medal, they will further tarnish what's left of their so-called integrity.