i didn't go running this morning because i was scheduled to help michael with his computer. of course nothing said i couldn't simply run later, and the weather today was certainly runworthy, with temperature in the mid-50's and overcast. michael called me while i was in the shower. maybe it was tell me some good news, that he opened up the computer this morning and everything started working again. i called him back, he said he was at dunkin' donuts and asked if i drank coffee. i said no, but he offered to get me some tea, so i told him i take it black. i then went down to the store to meet up with him at 11am.

i spent the first 15 minutes looking over the issue. windows 7 seemed to have stalled inside of parallel. i tried to restart windows a few times but the command wouldn't work. i restarted parallel but i wasn't sure if it also restarted windows. something was broken, and no amount of setting adjusting could fix it. but michael told me some good news: after i left on tuesday, he backed up his macbook pro. that meant using time machine, i could restore the windows 7 virtual machine file from tuesday, when everthing was still working. it didn't work the first time i tried to restore - gave me an error - but i think it was because parallel was still running in the background. when i turned it off completely, that's when i managed to restore the virtual machine file. it took a while - 10+ minutes - because the file was 60GB large. before i restored i also manually backed up his outlook files, which were thankfully stores external to the virtual machine file.

all this copying was going on, i sipped my dunkin' tea. michael also got me a donut. plus he had time to make me a new pair of glasses, one with just far-seeing lenses, not progressives. i tried them on, they seemed work just like my progressives, they just didn't have an close-focus, and for some reason parts of my distant-focus was also a little blurry. michael made these pairs as a test to see which ones i liked better; he thinks i'll prefer progressives once i've tried the only-distant-focus pairs.

we also chatted about xi jinping's visit to moscow to meet with putin. he told me his kids are still wearing masks in school, but they're definitely in a very small minority of people still masking. his daughter was actually getting her 3rd booster today, and his wife said they could stop masking in school after that. he told me one of the places he does still wear a mask is when he goes to market basket.

after the virtual machine file finished copying, with fingers crossed we restarted parallel. sure enough, outlook opened up like nothing had happened, everything back to normal. why parallel broke to begin with that's hard to say. did it have anything to do with his e-mail account getting hacked? i say no, but i can't be 100% sure. all i know is because michael backed up his files on tuesday, i was able to fix the issue.

i finally left, getting home at 12:30pm. i went out again a short time later, to walgreens to pick up my prescription. the guy ahead of me in line was having issues with his prescriptions. he kept saying they repeatedly get his orders wrong, and that he'll take his business elsewhere because they can't seem to fulfill his medications. he was kind of being an asshole about it, if he didn't like the service there, just go somewhere else, no need to make a big public scene. after i picked up my prescription, i told the pharmacists, "i come here all the time, and i've never had any problems," before giving them a thumbs up. hopefully i was able to counteract some of that negativity earlier.

when i got back home i finished the rest of my tea and ate the donut. at first i thought it was a simple glazed donut, but it looked like blueberries on the inside. it was actually pretty good, can't remember the last time i had a dunkin' donut, i remember they were always very dry, more like a dried crumbling cake than actually donut. i'll have to ask michael which one he ordered.

in the afternoon i started making my green cabbage kimchi - yangbaechu kimchi (양배추 김치). i made it twice back in 2021. my two heads of st.patrick's day sale cabbage had been in my fridge for almost 2 weeks, so i urgently had to use them up before they went bad. i also had way more daikon radish than i needed for the kimchi, so i decided to use up the rest and make a batch of daikon-only kimchi. although it wasn't difficult, it took more than half an hour to cut up all the vegetables (cabbage and daikon) and figure out what amount of salt to use to reduce them. i was finished by 3pm, left the cabbage and daikon to reduce for the next 2 hours.

as for the daikon kimchi - kkakdugi (깍두기) - i found a maangchi recipe, and i basically followed it verbatim, halving the portions since i was only using half (2lbs) the amount of daikon. one of things it did was to add an equal amount of sugar with reducing salt. it also used fish sauce, which normally i don't use but instead resorting to shrimp paste. her recipe said the daikon kimchi can be assembled in just 30 minutes, but i waited 2 hours along with the green cababge kimchi, coming into the kitchen every so often and tossing the vegetables to help with the reduction.

i realized i didn't have any ginger. i had various options - getting some from market basket, getting some from the cafe - but i ended up just going to star market. i couldn't find the ginger at first, but i did i grabbed the smallest one they had, which only cost me 60¢. i'd also wanted to go to reliable market in union square to pick up some fresh shrimp paste, but decided i'd use the old jar that i had instead. the sky looked like it was about to rain anyway, saving me a trip.

at 5pm i started assembling my kimchi, starting with kkakdugi. i drained the radish, saving the liquid. i then chopped some scallions and minced the garlic and ginger, before mixing all the ingredients together with some fish sauce, leftover radish juice, and red pepper powder. i used the fresh red pepper powder this time, which had a brighter color. i then packed the daikon in a tall glass jar with the remainder going into a small pyrex dish with cover.

next i moved on to the yangbaechu kimchi. the green cabbage had reduced to a rubbery yet crunchy consistency. for some reason i started adding carrots to my green cabbage kimchi, and i continued with that tradition. in the past i just julienned the carrots manually, but this time i decided to use the benriner mandoline. it took me a few minutes to figure out how to attach the dicing blade. the whole time i was using the mandoline i was worried that i might accidentally slice my fingers. i also had a hard time figuring out how to hold the mandoline; i'd love to have a mandoline that had a stand, so i didn't have to hold it up by hand. i chopped the scallions, garlic chives, and thai chili peppers. i processed the ginger, garlic, and asian pear. i mixed the "sauce" ingredients first before adding the reduced cabbage and daikon. i mixed everything with one gloved hand so i could take photos with the free hand. instead of jars, i put the yangbaechu kimchi in a 16 cup tub, with the leftover filling a single quart jar. now i wait for everything to ferment (in about 2 days) before putting them into the fridge.

my upstairs neighbors finally came home today, i saw them coming up the steps from my living room window. as soon as they came back, all the noises came back as well, since they're incapable of doing anything quiet. thankfully they'll probably only be here for 2 more months before they leave for the cape for the summer.

my korean culinary adventure extended into dinner, when i had some luxury korean ramen for dinner. i was thinking next time i could add some bean sprouts for some even more deliciousness.

after dinner i had a craving for snacks so went across the street to star market to score some goodies before they closed at 10pm. they were actually kind of busy given how late it was, with most of the shoppers being young people. i was looking for chex mix which they didn't seem to have, so i stocked up on cheez-it crackers, 5 boxes. with the sale that'd be $2.50/box, but before i went to go pay, i looked at the ad again and discovered the sale price was only for the smallest 7 oz. box, and none of the items i picked up were discounted (therefore they'd be $5/box). i sheepishly put everything back, before getting some poppables. back at home, i ended up having some orange slices.

i finally went ahead and ordered a pair of knipex pliers wrenches, sizes 180mm and 125mm. i'd been tracking their prices for weeks now, and rewatched all related videos on youtube over and over again. the only thing preventing me from buying them was the price: around $90 for a pair. as far as hand tools are concerned, german-made knipex are one of the most expensive, though many have said they're worth the money. i finally went ahead and bought them after the price dropped down to $86.99. for some reason the price on these fluctuates like crazy. hours after the purchase, i saw the price change again, down to $86.80. it wasn't worth it at that point to cancel and reorder. the good thing is these have free returns. if i get any kind of buyer's remorse, i won't hesitate to return them, and buy the $40 harbor freight 10" icon knockoff pliers wrench instead (when they back in stock around mid-april).