when i got to belmont around noontime, my sister's car was already outside. there was nobody in the house, everyone was outside, trying to get esmei to go inside. she was also very wild today, running up to people and trying to bite them in the legs or hands. she just wanted to play but seemed overstimulated to the point where she couldn't calm down anymore. my father finally managed to "trick" her to come in by flashing a chew stick. even inside the house she continued to be wild, leaping onto the bed (her first time), chewing at the comforters. eventually she managed to go back outside again because we were worried she needed to use the bathroom, but once in the backyard, she refused to come in again.
for lunch i had some chinatown meat buns my 2nd aunt picked up on sunday and some fresh soy milk served in an insulated drinking glass.
while my parents and sister took esmei down to the nearby park for a walk, i was at home watching all-day NBA basketball on ABC and practicing my bird whistle. i was playing with it in my mouth, trying to get the perfect position. once i hit the sweet spot, i started whistling. it sounded nothing like a bird, more like a kazoo. i could whistle pretty loudly, but i'm still trying to pronounce different sounds to get different whistles.
my sister finally left with esmei around 2pm.
i put out more seeds in the feeder today, attracting a mix of birds: song sparrow, chickadee, goldfinch, carolina wren, juncos, house finches, cardinals, bluejay, downy woodpecker. the wren was feeding on the suet cake. i was surprised seeing a goldfinch eating the sunflowers, i thought their tiny beaks couldn't break the shells.
in the afternoon i started watering the houseplants. i didn't see any mealybugs on the quarantine pilea but i did still see a few on the quarantine orchid. i brought them outside to spray with fresh neem oil, along with the potted gardenia, which also had a few mealybugs. the bucket of Bti-infused rain water i set up last weekend was all cloudy, which is a good sign that the water was rich in beneficial bacteria. i watered the orchids first, before watering the other houseplants from smallest to largest. 3 orchids continue to grow our their flower spikes, but two others haven't make one yet. the pennyworts are doing well and i'm still surprised by how the seemingly dead potted pennyworts have sprouted back to life after a few weeks of water.
the big project i had today was to replace the broken right speaker on my late 2013 15" retina macbook pro. it started last month with a buzzing sound. instead of buying new replacement speakers, i got used ones instead, which are actually a little more expensive. the reasoning is because new speakers are made cheaply, while the old original speakers are higher quality. i've already twice replaced the speakers on my father's macbook pro (july 2023, august 2022), so i've had plenty of practice. my late-2012 MBP has slightly different internal components, but the teardown is still pretty much the same. i started at 3:30pm and didn't finish until 2 hours later. replacing a MBP is easy; the hard part is getting access to the speaker itself, which requires removing all the parts down to the motherboard.
when i finally removed the motherboard and had access to the broken right speaker, i decided to replace them both, even though i didn't have any problems with the left speaker. i did notice that the replacement speakers only had 4 wires in the speaker connectors while the originals had 6 wires. i wouldn't know if there's any different until i put the computer back together.
reassembling the macbook pro was easier but it still ended up taking almost an hour because i didn't want to rush it and double and triple checked everything to make sure i didn't make any mistakes. when i finally got the computer fully assembled, it wouldn't turn on for some reason, until i plugged it in. i accidentally hit the play button on itunes and it was blaring a song at full volume. the fact that it was loud meant the repair worked.
later when i was getting ready to leave, i unplugged the laptop and immediately it turned off. it'd only turn back on when i replugged it. i looked on the menubar and couldn't see a battery icon. i was a little worried, but after shutting off the machine, i opened it back up again. the battery connector wasn't fully seated. once i gently pressed it down in place, i closed up the macbook pro again and it worked fine. it wasn't able to restart without being plugged in, but once in the desktop, i saw the battery indicator in the menubar and i was able to disconnect without any problems.
the whole time i was repairing my macbook pro speaker, the celtics-lakers game was on tv, which i had in the background. both celtics and lakers had everyone playing. porzingis was back despite what looked to be a twisted ankle on the last game. i think the only person missing was kornet. boston played well in the first quarter, but the lakers came back in the second, to tie the game 58-57 going into halftime. in the 3rd quarter the laker had the lead momentarily before celtics regained the lead and never gave it back up. every time LA went on a run to cut it close, boston would go on a run of their own to pad the lead again. it was one of those games where the celtics looked like they'd win, the only question was by how much. final score was 126-115.
for dinner my father made hand drawn noodles. my mother cooked the noodles, a combination of yellow bean sprouts, wood ear mushrooms, and ground pork. it didn't sound that appetizing but it was pretty good, i love the chewy texture of homemade noodles.
my father and i made another temu order tonight. he got a new hernia support belt, while i ordered a set of fence door rods for the baby/dog gate, a digital thermometer for my 2nd aunt, and a dog pacifier.
when i got ready to return home around 7:30pm, i stepped outside and could hardly see anything because it was so foggy. fog is one of those weather phenomenons that we don't experience very often here in the greater boston area. it reminded me of a blizzard, where it's snowing so hard it creates this near white out condition. it was very eerie but also beautiful. and the weather was still warm though damp, because fog is basically a ground level cloud, and clouds are nothing more than water particles. i thought maybe it'd be hard to ride but it was actually easy, since the fog would enhance the headlights of oncoming cars. however it'd be easy to hit a pedestrian, as i could only see a few hundred yards in front of me. the fog was short-lived however: by the time i got home, it had already dissipated.