the left side of my torso feels like somebody punched it and my right arm can barely grip, both the results of twisting pruning action yesterday. still, once i woke up this morning, i biked to belmont after readjusting my front and rear brakes. now if i can just fix that chain skipping problem, then everything will be right with the world.

i got there a bit before 11am and starting pruning one of the two branch piles in the backyard. it was warm enough that i worked in just a t-shirt, which is unusual, since typical temperature this time of the year should be in the 40's. at one point i stopped and brought out some houseplants from the basement grow room so i could spray them down with neem oil. even with that interlude, i managed to clear one of the branch piles before heading inside by noontime to get some lunch and watch the news.

i brought a container of tonkotsu instant ramen for lunch. after i finished eating, i was right back outside before 12:30pm.

i was done with the second branch pile by 1:30pm, used up all the available garden refuse containers we have. i did a tour of the backyard to see what was emerging. more and more crocuses are appearing in the western perennial bed. i use the crocuses to gauge if there are any rabbits in the backyard, because rabbits love to eat these flowers. if the are intact, it means no rabbits.

i then brought in the houseplants and did a mosquito bit soil drench on all the plants. last year we didn't put out the jasmines and gardenia until early may, when the night time temperature was 50 degrees and above. that means the houseplants will stay indoors for 6 more weeks. don't let the warm weather fool me, proper spring time is still months away.

i then did some drone flying. originally i just wanted to check out the maple tee, but i ended up doing some distance flying, going as far as the fresh pond rotary before my signal started becoming intermittent and i decided to head back. i completely lost signal at one point (near kingsley park), and thought the drone would initiate a return-to-home command, but a few seconds later i regained control so i manually brought it back home.

at 2:30pm i hurried to the cafe. i got there in 10 minutes, so my mother and i can walk down to the fresh pond td bank so she could put my name on her safety deposit box. when we got there, the banker told us he was running a bit behind and asked us if we could come back. my mother was having none of it so the banker ended up quickly doing our paperwork. we grabbed a bunch of green pens before leaving.

we went to trader joe's to get a few things, before crossing the street to fresh pond mall so i could talk with a comcast representative to see about getting a discount. it's very hit and miss and i got an agent who seemed annoyed that she had to speak with him. so of course she made no effort in getting me a good deal, said the cheapest she could go was $70/month (i'm currently paying $60/month), which is more expensive than the deal they quoted me on the phone last week. when i asked her about it, she said deals change all the time, and that phone deals and office deals are separate. basically i wasted my time coming here, it just reaffirmed my belief that comcast is a terrible company.

my mother and i walked back to the cafe. she noticed that the cafe internet was down, based on the fact that none of the webcams were working. when that happens, we also can't make credit card payment with the machine (have to use a phone backup) and the phones don't work. we hurried back so i could reset the modem and router (took me a while to find the router, i'd completely forgotten that i upgraded from a purple linksys with DD-WRT (october 2014) to a white tp-link with DD-WRT (feburary 2018)). strange thing was the modem reset itself a few times, before finally stabilizing, i wonder why that is.

when i returned home, i called a few contractors. paul heard back from the two he found, one of them was unreliable, the other - brian - seemed good but his price seemed a little high. paul wanted a second opinion so it fell upon me to find somebody else. i called sergio renovations (one of the contractors joseph recommended); after hearing what needed to be done, sergio told me the job was too small, and even then, he's currently back-logged with 3 months of work. he said we needed a handyman, and recommended his friend pedro. i called pedro who said he could come over tomorrow 4:30-5pm to check out the house.

i then called comcast. they offered me the deal from last week, which is 600Mbps for $60/month with a 2 year price guarantee (1-year contract). i ended up taking the deal, otherwise my bill would go up to $70/month under my current plan. afterwards i ran speedtest, 60Mbps upload, 20Mbps download.

i was kind of hungry and ate a bag of instant caesar salad with extra croutons. that was pretty filling and i wasn't too hungry the rest of the evening, though i did heat up a spicy jamaican beef patty more as a snack than actual dinner. i also finished the rest of my sour red seedless grapes and had a bit of pistachio ice cream.

i ran speedtest again, this time using my 5GHz network. the results were very different: 275Mbps upload, 22Mbps download. that's more like it! so it all depends if i'm using 2.4GHz or 5GHz.