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i left the house at 10:15am for my thursday morning run. today would be the hottest day this week - and quite possibly this year - if that can be believed. temperature would reach 93 degrees. basically anytime i stepped outside i'd be soaked in sweat. once you give it to the fact that you're going to be gross and sticky and hot, it actually wasn't too bad.

maybe it was the heat, maybe because i didn't eat anything, but it was a real struggle to run today. i seriously thought about stopping at one point, i had no energy. but i decided to keep on running, even if it was a slow pace. walking across the eliot bridge, i could few my veins throbbing from the heat.

i got back home by 11:25am. i had 20 minutes to rest - take a shower, change into some dry clothes - before riding the motorcycle to the cafe to help out. my mother laughed at me, said it wasn't busy, but it was still early, so i figured i'd stick around for a few hours just in case. since today i was supposed to have a day off before working friday and saturday, this means i worked every single day this week - all because my sister has disappeared off the face of the earth and hasn't contacted us to let us know when and if she'll ever come back to work. my parents actually like it when my sister isn't here, don't have to listen to her incessant complaining. but it means i have to work every day.

hard to explain why, but every once in a while we get these streaks. like today, every single customers seemed to be ordering the minced pork bento for some reason. nothing else, just that. was it mentioned somewhere online, given a glowing 5-star review? who knows, but it completed depleted our stock of minced pork, so i had to get on my motorcycle and rush down to market basket (1pm) to buy more ground pork. they do carry regular ground pork, but i needed it to be ground to chunkier sausage consistency, so i had to wait for the butcher to do that. it didn't take them long, and in the meantime i could grab a few more things.

on the one hand i was glad i wasn't bicycling, because that would've been exhausting in this heat. but on the other hand, on a motorcycle i have to observe traffic rules, and every time i came to a stop at a traffic light, i would be baking underneath the sun. there is only cool breeze (more like warm breeze) when i'm riding!

i took off from the cafe around 2pm, when it looked like the busy period had tapered off. i strapped a bag of potting soil to the back of my motorcycle. instead of heading home, i went to belmont to 1) transfer free cambridge compost i got back in april from rubber tubs into plastic bags, and 2) water the lawn patches. it was trash day today and that combined with the heat meant the streets were coated in smelly rotting and fermented drips from everyone's garbage. it's not something you'd ever notice in a car, but on a motorcycle, when the road is just underneath my feet, it was a foul experience.

when i got to belmont i brought in all the empty trash cans. one of the smelly trash trucks must've sprung a leak, because the street smelled something awful. our next door neighbor finally decided to mow his lawn and often times mow our patch that border his; except being the lazy house owner that he is, he mows on mulch, leaving behind thick clumps of dead grass on our lawn that i had to clean up with a rake.

after transferring the compost (the two tubs were sitting outside, i wanted to get it done before the next rainstorm, hopefully this weekend), i went out front to water the lawn. using rain barrels to water is totally guilt-free, especially since the power from our battery is also free as well (courtesy of solar panels). the only noise was the humming from the DC transfer pump, but it wasn't too bad, hidden behind thick bushes. my father did a good job working this morning, the lawn patches were still slightly moist, but it wouldn't hurt to give them some more water, especially on a hot day. grass seedlings have sprouted from all the patches, much faster than when i reseeded the lawn back in the spring. maybe the hotter weather causes them to germinate faster? or the fact that i mixed the seeds with the raised bed soil, so there's greater grass-to-dirt contact?

after the front lawn, i watered the few patches on the back lawn, followed by the garden areas. the lawn needs to be mowed again this weekend, starting to get shaggy again. i saw my father's parallel wiring of our 2 100W solar panels. when you wire panels in parallel, they have the same voltage (12v) but double the current, so a faster charge rate. i forgot to check the controller, but already one of the panels was in the maple tree's shadow, so it wouldn't be producing very much.

completely sweat-soaked from working outside for nearly an hour, i returned to cambridge a bit after 3pm. soon after getting back, i changed into a pair of shorts and took the bicycle down to the beacon street whole foods so i can return the extra crimping tool set. coming back, i stopped by the star market to stock up on polar seltzer, which were on sale 3 for $10. i wasn't surprised but a bit shocked that the polar seltzer aisles had been completely emptied. the only ones left was a case of pomegranate (lucky, that's one of my favorites), case of lemon, and a case of black cherry. there were also several cases of toasted coconut, but seems like that's the least favorite of all the flavors. later in the store i saw an aisle display of polar seltzers, and was able to upgrade my selection to watermelon-strawberry and cranberry-lime, getting rid of the lemon and black cherry. i also got some chips on sale. haven't had any chips in a while, but suddenly had a craving.

my mother called me complaining that their square point-of-sales system was down. i'd actually noticed that earlier (around 3pm), when i couldn't access transactions and reports on the phone app. when i checked square's website, there was no mention of the outage, but reddit and twitter were abuzz with disgruntled customers complaining about lost revenue. apparently this was happening nationwide, and international as well (at least in australia). currently it's almost 1am on the east coast and the square servers are still down.

i had another burrito bowl for dinner. i still have enough ingredients to make one more tomorrow. i'm starting to reach the saturation point of burrito bowls. unfortunately i told my mother i'd make it again this weekend, so i'm basically eating burrito bowls all this week it looks like.

i did some research on "quick and easy CO2 aquarium" and came across some interesting youtube videos. apparently the technology has improved since the last time i did any serious research on the subject. there's better ready made equipment, you don't have to hack your own anymore. i saw one that used two soda containers, one produced CO2 using a sugar and yeast solution while the second container served as a water source to trap the released gas before feeding it to an aquarium diffuser. a few other solutions used the same setup, but used a combination of citric acid and baking soda to produce the CO2. i was also ready to buy one ($20) until noticed they were also selling these stainless steel tanks that i thought was for filling with commercially manufactured CO2, but actually you just mix citric acid with baking soda and the tank basically just traps the CO2, to be released on-demand. those are obviously more expensive, but the limiting factor of any CO2 aquarium setup was where to buy CO2 to fill a tank and how much would it cost. to simply use citric acid and baking soda seems like a much easier solution. i'll have to look into it some more.

NFL season started today. the first game was between the detroit lions versus the defending superbowl champions kansas city chiefs. naturally i was rooting for the lions. i didn't watch the game, but when i checked the final score, i was happily surprised to see the lions beat the chiefs, in kansas city no less, 21-20.

it's so hot in the house. not that hot that i'd reinstall the AC (that'd be crazy, even though that'd be comfortable, but i dwell in the uncomfortable), but it's currently 83 degrees room temperature. i've got a few windows opened and my vornado fan is running in the living room. i'm also stripped down to my underwear. i might take another quick shower before going to bed, just to cool off, rinse off the sweaty stickiness.