seemed like it might be a busy day at the cafe: before we even opened, two customers came in looking to buy drinks. that they didn't notice the closed sign nor the lack of lights inside was a little surprising. someone else had preordered, and the moment we opened officially a sizable online order came in. all this was happening before my 2nd aunt showed up for work. i was starting to worry we didn't cook enough rice.
once again i was pretty busy for much of the day. from setting up tables and chairs outside on the back deck, to making a new batch of tea eggs, to cooking some new black noodles. we had at least 22 sales today, which works out to a sale every 15 minutes. somebody even called in the late morning asking if we take reservations (4 adults 1 child).
surprisingly there was no drama today. i gave my 2nd aunt her taxes and instructed her where to sign before mailing them out. i also helped her order some OTC medication through her health insurance benefits. she offered me some fried niangao which i ate out of courtesy even though they had a strong fishy taste. "did you add any shrimp to this?" i asked her, she said no. but then my sister asked if she had fried fish before preparing the niangao. turns out she used leftover fish frying oil, rendering everything with a fishy taste.
elsewhere in the cafe, i adjusted the rear cafe webcam so it looks out onto the back deck. i sorted 2 boxes of chinese noodles. i shredded 5 sheets of nori. i refilled the cooking oil dispenser and added salt to the salt container. i broke apart a few boxes of premade ice cubes. before we closed, we took out the spinach package and divided the spinach amongst ourselves, since there was way more than the cafe could use.
i left the cafe by 4:30pm, made it to my parents' place in about 10 minutes. the ruyage UV58Plus radio was supposed to arrive from aliexpress but it hadn't been delivered. instead a large temu package came. everyone got a little something: my mother with her yarns, my father a baofeng hand mic that also included a speaker and a meter strip of color LED lights that could be controlled via a bluetooth app. for me, a fridge magnet, a microwave steamer lid, a oil skimmer, frosted shower curtains, and a square ruler.
the aeroponic mustard greens look like they're on steroids. the leaves are so unnaturally large, they're almost scary. my father once again asked if we should remove some of the leaves, but i said we continued as-is, just to see how much large it could grow, and to wait for the stems to thicken, which is the main part of the mustard we want. i raised the led lights 2 weeks ago, and already the mustard leaves are so big they're almost touching the lights again.
it wasn't long before we had dinner. my mother made some stirfry noodles. having worked with noodles all day, noodles was the last thing i wanted to see, and it gave me some mild PTSD to see them so dry that they were sticking together. i guess i was pretty hungry since i didn't eat all day, and i quickly finished my noodles after adding a dollop of garlic hot sauce. my mother added the yellow habanero hot sauce i made a few years ago; the color is more dark yellow than bright yellow, but she said it's still better than the store bought hot sauces we get, a rare occasion where my food creation isn't ridiculed.
after dinner i received e-mail from aliexpress that the ruyage radio had been delivered. i went outside to look again, saw nothing, but when i opened the mailbox there was there package. my father and i played with it briefly.
accessories for the ruyage UV58Plus seemed a little cheap. there was a charging cradle but it had european plugs; ruyage provided a US plug adapter. we'll probably never use the charging cradle anyway, since the battery can be directly charged via USB-C cable (not provided). there was also a belt-clip, a lanyard strap, and an SMA antenna.
you'd think the color screen would be better than a monochrome screen (like on a baofeng), but the colors actually made it harder to see, since certain colors pop out more (like white) compared to others (like blue or grey). the screen also had a shallow viewing angle, so if you looked at it from the wrong direction, it'd look like the screen was off. speaking of which, the screen automatically turns off after a certain amount of time when not in use. this doesn't mean the radio is off! no, the radio is actually still on, there's just no way of knowing unless you press a button and then the screen turns on again.
scrolling through the menu, it shared many similar options with the baofeng radio. i was able to figure out how to add names to channels and store them into memory (999 channel capacity). the screen is large enough that it can display both the channel frequency and name at the same time, for both bands.
the radio didn't so much come with an instruction manual rather just an instruction sheet printed on both sides in small type. it was too tiny to read easily, so i went online and downloaded the "user manual" for the radtel RT-890, which is the same radio. the instructions were basically the same, although the menu hierarchy is different (though all functions are similar, just not in the same order). after looking over the pdf instructions, i turn off the key beeps and the voice prompt that reads every single menu choice (the baofeng has that as well). the voice was a chinese woman with an accent, hard to understand what she was saying.
a few things this radio has that the baofeng doesn't: it has an FM radio mode. you can't just tune to the frequency, but instead you hit the FM button and it goes into an exclusive FM radio mode, along with an icon on-screen letting you know you're listening to the radio. the ruyage also allows you to see the radio voltage, though i'm not sure how useful that is. you can also choose to show only one band at a time (turn off dual display). the radio can also tune in to air bands. the last thing we did was listen to logan airport approaching traffic chatter live on the air.
there's a few more things we haven't tried yet. the radio has two side function buttons that can be programmed to do different things depending on whether it's a long press or a short press. the ruyage UV58Plus can also be programmed via chirp using a programming cable connected to the computer. this uses the latest version of chirp, which requires the macos to be big sur or higher, so i need to upgrade my father's mac before we can install the latest version of chirp.
i didn't leave until 8:40pm, got back home by 9pm. i actually saw my sister walking hailey, and turned the bike around to pet her dog before continuing on my way.
waiting on the doorstep was another package, the xiaomi mi band 6 i got my mother, to replace her broken mi band 4. her old band still works, just the screen is dead. i've been pushing her to upgrade her fitness band anyway, so finally she had a legitimate excuse. for some reason mi bands are now hard to come by. on aliexpress, i was only able to find a few sellers, when before, there were several dozen at least, if not more. i ended up getting an open box mi band 6 from ebay for around $22. anyway, i turned it on, it works (asked to be paired), i charged it up before putting it back in the box.