i arrived at my parents' place just in time for lunch: mung bean rice with quinoa, a slice of japanese toast, salted duck egg, and a trader joe brand taiwanese fried scallion pancake. earlier outside i noticed their next door neighbors had returned from their trip to england, and i saw a surveyor outside, measuring one of the two empty residential properties in the neighborhood.
afterwards i had some free time on my hand so i decided to crack open my father's macbook pro and replace his broken right speaker. i followed the directions i found online that was basically 43 steps (and the 43 more steps to put everything back). to get to the speaker, you basically have to remove everything from the computer including the logic board. my father helped me by shining a flashlight (i should've brought my headlamp).
we started at 1pm and didn't finish until 2:30pm. good thing i have some experience taking apart macbook pros, from all the times i've disassembled my machine to take out the logic board and send it to a repair place i found via ebay. go slow, double check each instruction, and keep all the different screws organized. when we removed the broken right speaker, we couldn't see any damage. the replacement speaker looked slightly different but had the exact same fit. after reassembling the computer, i turned it on and held my breath. at first it didn't turn on, but after a few seconds, i saw the familiar mac logo. everything seemed to work: the display, the trackpad, the keyboard. after booting to the desktop, i played a youtube video and normal sound was coming from both speakers. success! all it cost we was $8.50 to buy a used macbook pro speaker off of ebay.
with our outdoor garden basically devastated by the drought, i'm eager to get my hydroponic projects started, just so i can do some constructive gardening. i brought two 1-quart mason jars with 3" net cups. i also brought 2 rockwool cubes (1.5") and some leca balls. after soaking the rockwool, i dropped two chinese mustard seeds into each cube. the seeds were the ones i got from chinatown; i looked at the packaging, surprised they came from taiwan. sealed inside of a small ziploc bag, i'm guessing there's about 500 tiny mustard seeds. i left the wet rockwool by the window to help the seeds germinate.
i also soaked the leca, which was covered with reddish clay dust. it took a few water change to get the water sort of clear. the weird thing with leca is it floats. and it looks like food (especially dog food). the fact that it floats makes me wonder if i can use a leca pellet as a float in our rain barrel sight tube?
during a lull where my mother was trying to find something to watch, i suggested to her severance, which i chromecasted from my laptop to the HDTV using airflow. she begrudgingly started to watch the first episode, but kept complaining it was too boring and slow. but i made sure she didn't give up prematurely - like pausing the show when she went to use the bathroom or make dinner. when she finally finished watching the first episode, she was hooked, even though she wouldn't admit it. it helps that all apple+ shows have a myriad of foreign language subtitles, including chinese. i copied the rest (all 9 episodes of the first season) onto her imac so she could watch it after i was gone.
rest of the day i was doing aeroponics research, figuring out what other materials i needed: a large plastic tote container, various PVC pipe parts, and possibly a 3" drill bit. i figured once i get my aeroponics rig set up, it'll take me 2 weeks of sprouting mustard seedlings in rockwool before i can be fully growing aeroponically in my parents' basement.
for dinner we had braised beef, grilled zucchinis, tofu & pepper stirfry, and some cold mung bean soup. i returned home by 7:25pm. there's a good chance of rain tomorrow but i didn't bother covering up my motorcycle, it needs a washing.
the highlight of the evening was waiting for the premiere of house of the dragon on HBO at 9pm. i don't have HBO but for some reason as soon as it starts, i can find copies of it on torrent before the episode is even over. i watched it after i finished downloading. i'm not really in love with the casting, but i checked online, and they're going to age up some of the younger characters (i'm a big olivia cooke fan! team alicent hightower). i'm not used to matt smith (doctor who) playing a villain. it's hard to be taken as a serious evil when you're wearing a long white wig. i have no doubt the series will be up to HBO's usual level of quality, and i will of course watch it every sunday night, but i wasn't really "wowed" by the first episode.