since i had the car, there was no need to rush this morning. i woke up early though, before the automated heating went off at 9am. the dry air made my skin itch like crazy and i scratched so much in bed i couldn't go back to sleep anymore.

i replaced the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. this will be a good test to see how slow i use my toilet paper. a single roll could last me a whole month.

i probably also woke up early because i wanted to put a new glass screen protector on my pixel 7 phone. it didn't take long, just a month, for me to crack the screen. i must've dropped the phone at least 50 different times since i got it, some from heights onto surfaces i thought for sure the screen protector would crack, but it never did. it made me start to think i must've gotten a very high quality screen protector for it to survive so much impact. so last night i was using the bathroom and had the phone propped up on the sink so i could watch youtube tv and floss at the same time. the phone - because of the slippery case - slipped and slid into the sink. not a big deal. but when i picked up the phone, the screen was cracked at two different spots, and there were more cracks all over the screen. so i tossed out the old screen protector last night, and this morning put a new one now. i'm amazed but i also did a very good job apply this latest protector, 99% dust-free.

i finally left the house by 11:20am. i was happy to see i wasn't ticketed. i took my chances last night, not putting the visitor's parking permit in the car because i figured with it being new year's eve and a rainy night, the city probably wasn't enforcing any parking rules. i brought along my clamp light for my parents' kitchen, which is missing a light for the work table area. i stopped by the cafe to pick up the strawberry parfait cake my sister bought for my mother.

hailey was home, and clamored to go outside when she saw me. it was warm (temperature in the 50's) but the lawn was still slightly damp from the overnight rain. i let hailey back inside the house after she finished touring the backyard. i dried off her paws before she entered the rest of the house.

for lunch i had beef noodle soup. this was leftover beef soup with chunks of tendon that we couldn't sell to customers (not everyone enjoys eating tendon). my father handmade the noodles. after my mother finished eating, she disappeared to her bedroom.

my mother went out for an overdue walk in the early afternoon, taking advantage of the warmer weather. i would've joined her, but i was about to start assembling my aeroponics system. hailey thought my mother was taking her so when she didn't she kept barking until my mother came back and took her out with the leash.

i first made the manifold using the 10ft length of 1/2 PVC pipe i bought a few months ago. i rewatched a few youtube videos and reread some websites to get my instructions. the 27 gallon tote i got from costco back in late august ($9) had an inner dimension of 17-1/4" x 27-1/4" when measured 2" from the top of the container. i started with the shorter ends, laying out the pipe fittings to a distance of 17-1/4" so i could figure out how long to cut the pvc pipes. 3 section of pvc each had a length of 3-3/4". using the ratchet pvc cutter (dominox 1-1/4" cutter, $8) was a joy compared to the way we'd used to cut pvc pipes which was with a circular saw: zero mess, and the blade cut the plastic pipe like butter. i very quickly assembled the outer frame of the manifold. i had a brief scare when i realized the longer sides were just two single 24" length of pvc pipes, no t-connectors. but then i realized i could simply reuse those pipes i already cut for the middle sections, and recut 2 new 24" pvc pipes. when i finally finished the manifold, i discovered a problem: i didn't have enough pvc pipe left over to connect the manifold to the pump.

so i took a quick drive to home depot, which gave me a chance to return the GFCI plug i no longer needed. they don't cut pvc pipes for you at home depot, you either buy them by the 10ft length (1/2" $5.24) or they have shorter 2ft pieces ($2.62). i was tempted to buy the longer length because it was more economical, but i didn't need all that pipe, so i opted for the 2ft pipe instead.

after returning home, i cut a length of pvc so i could connect the manifold to the pump. the next step was drilling holes into the pvc pipes and installing the various spray heads. i decided to hold off on that until tomorrow, so i could think about where on the pvc i want to put the sprayers.

my sister came home to pick up hailey as well as to have some of that strawberry cake. i saw the label on the container, it was $25. it's a nice cake, but not $25 nice.

in the basement i took out the two lemon verbena and sprayed them with neem oil outside after i discovered some mites. i'm going to move them to the sunroom, because they can survive in a cold environment. not freezing temperature, but the sunroom never drops that cold anyway. the coldest it'd ever get is 38-40 degrees, in which case the verbena would drop all its leaves and enter dormancy, which would be ideal. i'd also like to move a few jasmines to the sunroom, as an experiment. not the mature ones, but a few of the smaller potted jasmines, to see how they do.

when evening arrived my father went outside and cooked up two dishes on the wok: some smelts and some jumbo shrimps. he started with the smelt first, wasn't entirely happy with the results, maybe the oil wasn't hot enough so they didn't reach that optimal crispiness level. next came the shrimps, which were fried first before a second stirfry with seasoning. they were crispy as well, but not optimal crispiness. my father thinks that maybe he floured them too early, and the moisture had already wicked away the breading. next time he'll cook them immediately after flouring.

my mother didn't think the smelts and shrimps were enough, so she cooked two more dishes, a mustard green stirfry and a tofu stirfry.

being that it was sunday, there were football games today, on the second to last sunday of the regular season. patriots beat the dolphins (their star quarterback tua tagovailoa currently undergoing concussion protocol for the 3rd time this season), which means if new england beats buffalo next weekend in buffalo, they'll earn a playoff spot. how likely that will be is uncertain, and if you ask most patriots fan, this year's team doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. but patriots should play next sunday like its their playoffs: win and advance, or lose and go home.

after dinner my father and i scoured temu to buy another $30 worth of items so we could qualify for a discount. but we couldn't find anything else we wanted, so decided to look again some other time. i biked home (i stashed my bike in the backyard yesterday). temperature was down to the lower 40's, but it wasn't bad, i wore my puffy winter jacket, so i was quite warm.

later in the evening i realized i'm still missing a key part of my aeroponics system: an adapter to connect the pump to the manifold. the pump came with two adapters, but both are barbed and designed for soft tubing, not solid pvc pipes. the pvc pipe is barely attached to the adapter. i did some research, and the diameter on my 400gph vivosun pump is a non-standard 3/8". i need to get a threaded 3/8" adapter that ends in a non-threaded 1/2" slip connection for a 1/2" pvc pipe. i only found two places online that carried them. they don't cost too much - 70¢ - it's just the shipping. one place wanted $12 for shipping, another $5. the $5 shipping is more reasonable, and if i buy a few more adapters, i can spread out the cost. i just want to make sure about the diameter before ordering.