it's been several weeks of zero maintenance showering but my bathtub drain finally clogged again. over the weekend i tried to clear it with half a bottle of drain-o but that didn't work. last night i did another drain-o treatment, followed by pouring down the drain a pot of boiling water, then plunging the drain to clear any remaining blockage. that seemed to work well and last night i showered while listening to the water rushing down the drain. that fix seemed to be short-lived, as the drain once again plugged up while i took my morning shower. i plunged it again afterwards, seemed to be flowing, we'll see how long that lasts.
i made scrambled eggs and kielbasa for lunch. next time i'm going to preheat the kielbasa in the toaster oven first before grilling them in the frying pan. the way i'm cooking them now - directly in the frying pan - they get charred before they get hot.
afterwards i made a grocery list and rode the bike down to market basket. i found an old jar of ALDI-brand tikka masala sauce, and since chicken breast was on sale this week, i decided to make chicken tikka masala this week for dinner. the only ingredients i needed besides chicken was a can of chicken broth.
back at home, i decided to fix my loose rear bike baskets with the rubber insulated clamps i got from harbor freight yesterday. i thought a stainless steel hose clamp would work, but it don't bind close enough the basket strut to the frame so it's still loose.
so i switched to a rubber insulated clamp, mounted right next to the boss on the left seat stay. the boss is where the basket struct would normally attach to the frame, but a long time ago the screw head sheared off and now the rest of the screw is firmly stuck inside the boss. i used a 1/2" rubber insulated clamp, combined with a stainless steel #10-32 x 3/4" machine screw, sandwiched between two #10 stainless steel flat washers, and held in place with a #10-32 stainless steel nylon lock nut. i used a mini wrench from my bike tool to hold the lock nut in place where i screwed in the screw. i also secured the screws on basket structs attached to the the seat post, which always work themselves loose because of the oscillating baskets.
the final result was super tight, i feel like the rear baskets haven't been this secure in over a decade. it's such an elegant solution to my loose rear baskets problem, i'm kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. instead i've been riding with those loose baskets wobbling and clattering where ever i go, always afraid the entire baskets will just fall off, or jam into my rear gears. i think it's an even better solution than securing the strut to the boss, because now the strut bottom won't rub up against the nut securing the rear wheel axle to the frame.
my next bike project will be to clean the drive chain with my chain cleaning tool which i still haven't used yet.
in the late afternoon i ate the leftover grilled buffalo wings from yesterday. i didn't have any special spicy wings sauce, so instead i used my blue cheese dressing. it was actually kind of cold inside the house, but as a rule i don't turn up the heat until after 6pm. i think it didn't help that i was drinking cold ice tea.
i didn't start making dinner until almost 9pm, trying to coincide it with biden's state of the union address. i started by making the rice, which i decided to make some some butter garlic rice from an online recipe: cook some minced garlic in 4 tbsp of butter, mix in 1-1/2 cups of long grain rice, then add 2-1/2 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil, then simmer covered low heat for 15 minutes. as for the tikka masala itself, i used 1.25 lbs. of chicken breast cut into cubes, seasoned with salt and pepper, before cooking them in olive oil until brown. i then added the tikka masala simmering sauce and left it to simmer for 12 minutes covered.
the final result was okay, edible but nothing to write home about. the butter garlic rice tasted neither buttery or garlicky, but the butter did add enough "oil" to the rice that it didn't stick in the pot. i think if i made plain rice in the cooker it wouldn't have made much difference. the chicken reduced and i think i could've used up the other half of chicken breast instead of storing them in the freezer. the sauce was okay, but didn't really taste like tikka masala from an indian restaurant.
i ate while watching the state of the union adress. it ran long - about 1-1/2 hours - and was raucous at times, with republicans openly jeering biden, and biden responding back. the MSNBC analysts afterwards loved this new animated biden, someone who wouldn't back down, and almost seemed happy to engage with his hecklers.
can't wait to go to bed, to enjoy my new microfiber bedsheet, and to watch a few more episodes of newsradio on amazon prime. this has been my nightly ritual for the past 2 weeks, i've already finished season 2 over the weekend (i skipped season 1), now i'm starting season 3. i remember watching the show live. i'd forgotten dave foley was on the show. there's a young joe rogan, before he became this alpha male podcaster. and andy dick, back when he was weird but people still liked him. of course the incomparable phil hartman, his last roll before his untimely death.