i gathered my things and set out, not prepared to return until later this afternoon. first stop was the beacon street whole foods, to return the HQST MPPT solar controller. i actually returned the one old (with the broken bluetooth) because when i tried contacting HQST twice about honoring their warranty they never replied back. so i had no choice but to do the old switcheroo, buy the same one again from amazon, return the broken one. anyway, there was a line of people waiting to return stuff using the self service kiosk, so i decided to return it inside. the employee told me her phone didn't work and said i could use the self service kiosk instead. so i ended up waiting 10 minutes to return the item when usually i could get it done in a few seconds.
after that i went to harvard vanguard to pick up a prescription for my mother. the indian pharmacist was there, we chatted about how cold it was last night (temperature dipped into the upper 40's).
from there i biked towards cambridge common, taking the new bike lane on garden street, which was made into a one way road to accomodate the bikes (which i still think was a stupid idea and hope they revert back). i got the cafe a bit after 11:30am.
the t-fal deep fryer was still sitting on the countertop. my mother had covered it up with a white trash bag. i suggested to my father that we pour the content of the oil box back into the oil container. this way both the container and the deep fryer would be easier to store, instead of storing the deep fryer with a full oil box (liable to slosh and spill). so that's what we ended up doing. it also gave us a change to see how the oil box pours and see if it leaks. the only leakage was from the spring-loaded opening where the oil drains into, so you have to be careful with the pouring. we also compared the fry oil with a bottle of clean vegetable oil (both in 3L containers): the clean oil is entirely clear and has no smell, while the fry oil is just slightly opaque with a fried chicken smell. you could also see that we lost about half a cup of oil just from evaporation and mixing with the fry crumbs.
yesterday the most popular item was the beef noodle soup (8). today it was the bento box with char siu being the most popular choice. most of the customers came around the lunchtime period, after that it wasn't too busy. my parents had time to make some more scallion bread and meat buns. my godmother showed up again along with her friend. i could've left by 2pm, but stuck around until 4pm in case it might get busy. i took home all the leftover scallion bread and two old tea eggs.
being home relatively early and with pleasant weather, i decided to take the opportunity to fix the red spirit 3-speed that'd been sitting on my kitchen floor since august. what it primarily needed was tire replacements. when i started the repair work a few months ago, i managed to swap out the front tire but kept the old inner tube because it looked like it was still in decent shape. after a few hours the front wheel went flat, so obviously the inner tube was bad. so today i moved the bike outside so i had more room to work. it took a lot of effort to remove the front tire, it was on super tight. i ended up having to use my metal tire levers. i took out the inner tube and soaked it in the bathtub to check for leaks. i had the same problem i did this morning, i had to fill up the tube with more air because i saw the leaks. there were three: a tiny one facing the road, and two larger holes on the inside. that made me think the inner holes might've been caused by the metal tire levers. i decided to patch the holes, in a last ditch effort to save the inner tube, even though i had a spare. the two inner holes were hard to patch because they were so close to one another. the patch might not take, i won't know until i reinstall the tube.
i then went to work on the rear wheel. this bike uses an old 3-speed shimano gear hub, and i had to consult a few youtube videos to figure out how to disconnect the gear hub, which turned out to be pretty easy, just unscrew the shifter cable. removing the tire was challenging as the rubber had vulcanized and it basically disintegrated while i removed it. i was hoping to save the inner tube like i did for the front wheel, but when i saw the large puncture wound, i ended up throwing the whole thing away, tire and tube. i then spent some time polishing the gear hub with some WD-40 soaked rags, which was covered in decades old grease. i also polished parts of the frame. it started getting late (5:30pm) and i'd already suffered a few mosquito bites, so i decided to call it a day, continue fixing tomorrow.
for dinner i ate a tea egg and finished all the leftover scallion bread. i fell asleep on the couch after watching a stream of damian lillard reaction videos on youtube over his blockbuster trade to the milwaukee bucks, which are now favored to win the NBA eastern conference, usurping the porzingis-acquired celtics. the heat from the laptop was keeping my stomach warm. i got only after 30 minutes because it was too cold inside the house, temperature dropping to 65 degrees.