temperature this morning was in the 30's. i didn't need a hat because i had my bike helmet but i did need gloves otherwise my fingertips would hurt from the freezing temperature. my bike was making some awful grinding noises the past few days, so i decided to oil the chain, which seemed to have fixed the problem; now it rides completely silent. i left for boston around 11am, a bit late on the account that i didn't want to get out of my warm bed until 10am. passing by kendall square, i was surprised that the bike counter said something like 450 bikes had already gone by the area today; i would've thought the cold weather would put people off from biking, but other than the cold, it was a perfectly nice day to ride.
when i got close to the chinese supermarkets, i pulled the bike over in the paved lot next to the lucas retrofitted church condo and launched my drone. last night i applied for flight clearance since the boston area is usually a no fly zone. 
i couldn't fly above 200ft. i'd flown in this area before, the wide open space offered good radio reception. i got as far as berkeley street over the turnpike before i lost a bar of signal and got skittish and decided to pull the drone back. i no problems with temperature, i had one of the batteries in my coat pocket to keep it warm, and once the drone was airborne, it generates enough keep to keep the drone from freezing. i still had 17 minutes left to fly by the time i decided to call it quits.
i went to c-mart first to check out their produce prices and grab a jar of expensive ($5.50) hunan hot sauce. next i went to ming's market to buy everything else, which was entirely vegetables: taiwanese cabbage, mustard greens, baby bokchoi, bean sprouts.
i was done by 12:20pm and started the arduous trip home. i decided on the most direct route which lead me over the frances appleton bridge onto the longfellow back into cambridge. i biked down broadway towards harvard square. i've biked this way before but i didn't remember how challenging it was. besides no dedicated bike lane, a good deal of it was uphill with traffic lights every block until i got to the public library, then i faced the gauntlet of high school kids on their lunch break. going down the harvard square underpass is a little scary, not only is it dark, but the echoes from the cars speeding by sounds like moaning noises. i then got onto garden street to get to the cafe, getting there by 1pm.
my mother was waiting for me to deliver the supplies. i ended up staying for another 2 hours to help out. xiaojun showed up expectedly, standing in the middle of the kitchen to watch while we worked. we were relieved when she finally decided to leave, just left without saying anything.
my father brought the baofeng data cable and i was trying to update the hand transceiver to get rid of the annoying tail squelch noises. i thought the trick was setting the tone mode from TSQL to just tone. however that didn't seem to do anything, and later i learned tone means there's a CTCSS signal just on the transmit, while TSQL sends the CTCSS on both transmit and receive. i also adjusted the squelch adjustment range: the default only goes up to 33, while i increased it up to 60. that seemed to have filtered some of the receptions, we may need to tweak with that a bit more. but i don't think there is a solution. the quansheng radio - whatever it's doing - seems to do a better job at removing tail squelch than all the other radios we own.
my mother baked another batch of chicken spring rolls like she did yesterday. we used a sweet thai chili dipping sauce, but i mixed in some of my own home made hot sauce for some more added heat.
i planned on going to my 2nd aunt's place to install the iyf.tv app on her HDTV, but my mother told me she was hanging out at the medford senior center, and a check of her shared location on google maps confirmed that. i was hoping she'd return home, but later when i checked her location, she must've gotten a ride, which took her out to arlington center. i finally gave up and left by 3pm.
instead of going home i headed straight to market masket to get some woolite detergent and a dish washing scrubbing brush. i also got some cilantro. i got into a line that i thought was quick but the woman ahead of us was buying some gift cards and it took forever to process them all and the manager had to be called a few times. i nearly stepped out of line but sort of just zoned out and stared at the shelf of candy and gum.
back at home i tried the woolite on a charcoal-colored wool watch cap i found yesterday out on the street. i was probably going to throw it away before i checked the tag and found out it was 100% wool. not only that, but a thick double knit layer as well, twice the insulation. one thing you don't know about me is most of my winter hats are found hats. i find so many lost hats throughout the course of the season, i never have to buy a winter hat ever again. i like to think i'm giving these orphaned hats a new home, a second chance at life, instead of getting stepped on and eventually getting swept up as trash. i also find lost gloves and mittens all the time as well, but you need a pair of those, and usually i find them as singles so they're not very useful. anyway, i soaked a basin with cold water and added some woolite, and then carefully "scrunched" the cap to wash it. woolite smells pretty good, i wish it came in a cheaper regular detergent version but with that scent. i left the cap to soak for half an hour before rinsing it clean with cold water. i squeezed it dry inside of a flat towel, then left it to air dry on a wire rack. pure wool dries pretty fast, i might be able to wear the cap by tomorrow.
i managed to stay awake today, did not end up taking a nap like i did tuesday. around 7pm i made dinner, finished the last of my gyudon leftover. i made my food to coincide with the start of the 2nd cavaliers-celtics game starting at 7:30pm.
celtics led throughout the game, though the cavaliers were always within striking distance. the 3rd quarter is the celtics kryptonite though, and cleveland outscored boston 33-25. but the celtics regained their composure in the 4th quarter, clamped down on offense to give themselves a little cushion as time finally expired. final score 116-107, celtics retain their undefeated home record for the season.
celtics have a tough schedule: they play again tomorrow night, facing the magic, and then again sunday afternoon. magic already beat boston once but that was back in orlando. i don't like these back-to-back games, teams have a higher chance of losing the second of their back-to-back. i think the league does this for parity reasons, to make it difficult for a good team to make it through the season without losing. this also allows bad teams to have a chance of beating a good team that's going back-to-back. but it gaves me something to watch tomorrow night so i'm not complaining too much.
i noticed that my bathtub caulk has started to crack again in a few small places. instead of pulling out the caulk and redoing it again like i did last time, i discovered i could just patch over the cracked caulk with more caulk, which is what i did. if it continues to crack in the same spot, i'm going to have to return the caulk to the manufacturer, take up their 1-year warranty.