the first thing i did when i got to the cafe this morning was to revise the specials menu board. the description for the taiwanese bento box is too cluttered, hard to read. since we no longer have curry lentil soup, there's more room to expand. i removed the liquid chalk using a wet paper towel and a magic eraser, then free-hand wrote in the new text.

next i set up the new pack of bn-link smart plugs. every time we buy a new set of plugs, the user interface changes, even though it still uses the same smart app. i was disappointed to learn that these latest sets were missing the electricity monitoring function, which besides setting up an appliance on a schedule, is the second most used function of the smart plug. i ended up switching to an older smart plug to power the bunn coffee brewer, just because it had power monitoring. later i also set up a plug for our tea egg warmer.

our grubhub equipment arrived yesterday. we turned on the (lenovo) tablet today, just to see how it works, and connected the bluetooth printer. we also logged into the admin interface from a computer and tweaked the prices, descriptions, and categories.

in the afternoon - during a lull - i went into the parking lot and flew my drone. i was up in the sky for about 15 minutes, had good reception throughout, only had to bring it back because it was very windy and draining my battery. i was surprised by how many rooftop balconies i saw, it's one of those things that you can't see from the ground, but up in the air it's very obvious.

i didn't leave the cafe until 4pm. when i got back home, i took a quick trip to star market to grab a package of drumsticks (still on sale, 89¢/lbs.).

i called verizon again, to contest the bill amount for my parents' verizon FIOS. there was a sense of urgency because the autopay schedule was due to make a payment tomorrow, and i saw they still hadn't updated the bill amount, still $45, still charging me for a verizon router when we've been using our own.

i thought i had it resolved, and logged into my father's e-mail account to look for a verification e-mail. while i was in there, i also helped him erase some spam mail. i came across an e-mail that looked like spam, but the title was the cambridge small business grant my parents had signed up for. i decided to search for the sender, and sure enough, about 2 weeks ago she had sent my father an e-mail congratulating him on receiving the grant. unfortunately nobody saw the e-mail, and we'd already missed a deadline last today, with today being the last to submit all necessary forms.

i called my father with the good news bad news: good news they got the grant, bad news nobody knew about it and today was the last day to submit supporting documents. so i quickly printed out the necessary forms (W-9, certificate of authority, CORI compliance, tax compliance) and biked to the cafe close to 6pm so he can sign them. i also brought my flatbed scanner, scanned the documents as pdf's, then sent off the e-mail. all the while the sky looked like it was rain at any moment, and i even felt some drops.

i returned home by 6:30pm. later in the evening my mother called me. i stopped calling her because she always seems to be a cranky mood whenever i call. she's been checking up on us through the webcams and our square digital payment system. she said tomorrow (saturday for us) they're scheduled to visit a nearby hospital so they can get their PCR test (deep nose swab). after that they're basically done with the quarantine and can leave the house (but must do 2 more at-home tests).

i did a search for "bn-link smart plug with monitoring" because i wasn't happy for the ones we got. i was surprised when i got it hit from bn-link's own website, where they were selling a 4-pack of monitoring smart plugs for nearly the same price as the ones i got from amazon (without monitoring). so of course i bought a box, i'll return the non-monitoring ones when i get the new plugs.

had another ham-egg-avocado-bagel sandwich for dinner. at this point i'm kind of all bageled out, looking to take a break. even though they're delicious, when you eat one every day, they start losing their magic. tomorrow may be one of those luxury ramen kind of nights.