i thought i could ride the bike to work today but at the last minute decided it was safer to just walk. i took note of the road conditions, so i could try riding to belmont tomorrow.

my father dropped my mother off at work before picking up my 2nd aunt then returning home himself. my mother was busy this morning, already baking a batch of chinese sausages, roasting some charsiu pork, cooking the rice, and portioning out the curry chicken.

i ordered some heating oil for my parents. even though the price of gasoline has gone down nationally, heating oil prices continue to rise. currently i's $3.65/gallon. i only ordered 100 gallons this time, to be delivered on tuesday.

we were busy today - the last day of january - between 12-1pm and 3-4pm. all other times we barely saw any customers. during our afternoon crunch, i accidentally poured zhajiang noodles sauce onto a bento. we redid the two orders, and i ended up eating the zhajiang sauce rice for lunch, mixed with some shredded cucumbers and hot sauce.

my 2nd aunt brought some hunter sausages she got from the russian supermarket. i baked it for a few minutes in the air fryer but it was already cooked. it's a kind of polish smoked kielbasa flavored with spices like juniper. i like it, has a very rustic flavor, i could imagine a hunter out in the woods snacking on one of these.

i helped my 2nd aunt order some over-the-counter medication using her insurance card. i also helped her make her third weee order. we discovered on tuesday that even though weee advertises free shipping if you order a certain amount, they will still automatically add a handling fee ($2-3) and a tip without asking. i helped my 2nd aunt take off the tip before made her order.

my father came back before we closed and helped us clean up before giving us all rides home. my 2nd aunt was first, we dropped her off at star market because she needed to get some groceries. my parents were going to drop me off at home, but i opted to walk the rest of the way instead when my father stopped at cumberland farm to get some gasoline for the snowblower. it was weird coming home from the cafe via somerville avenue, i believe it's a first. there was a convoy of cars at the car wash.

i set up the wooden shelf i picked up yesterday to hold a bunch of my plants. now they're no longer on the floors and i can open my back door if i wanted to.

after a shower, i played cyberpunk for the next 4 hours. i stopped to get something to eat. i wasn't too hungry, just had a sponge cake my 2nd aunt gave me tuesday.

this morning was my second day of walking to work. temperature this morning was 3 degrees. i wore my wool long underwear underneath my double-layer flannel-lined khakis. on my feet were wool socks. i also wore my columbia 3-in-1 jacket. i was warm for the most part, but my arms did feel a little cold, and i could feel icicles forming on my beard. the walk felt longer today, maybe because i was running late. i went to star market earlier to get oranges and carrots. they had a lot of missing produce, i'm guessing maybe their supply truck didn't make it this week. oranges were a casualty, but i did buy a bag of carrots for $1.99. turns out my parents had the same idea, and went to whole foods to get carrots. same price but for less though they were organic.

i noticed the next door bakery was closed today. was it too cold for the employees to come? the owner is only there occasionally, so if someone doesn't come in early to bake the goods, they have nothing to sell for the day. later my sister went to investigate and turns out they were closed on purpose as an ICE protest. i forgot this was happening. when i first heard about it a while back i briefly considered if we should be participating as well, but people have to eat.

i finally had a slice of my homemade sweet potato pumpkin pie. it was okay, the filling a little gooey, but you can definitely taste both the sweet potato and the pumpkin combo. i think it'd be better with a graham cracker crust. after the pie i had some chicken broth.

a check of the solar panel showed that one of the missing panels from yesterday was now generating electricity. only a trickle, but that meant snow melted enough for the panel to working. the upper left most panel is still down unfortunately, which means it's still fully buried in snow.

we ran out of chinese sausage today, and will most likely run out of salt & pepper chicken by tomorrow. i made a new batch of tea eggs with the eggs i got from market basket on wednesday. i also made a new batch of boba pearls. my father finished new batches of beef noodle soup, ramen, and chicken curry.

we got a bunch of phone calls today. for some reason customers call instead of ordering online. it's more work for us because 1) we have to answer the phone call, 2) we have to write down the order, and 3) we have to input that order into our point-of-sale app for payment when the customer shows up to pick up the order. if just order online, it saves us a lot of steps. also about 30% of all the phone calls we get are scams. seems like every day someone from some indian call center will contact us to tell us our ubereats table will expire but they can send us a new one for free. i stay cordial and listen to their pitch, but next time i'm going to hang up immediately.

today turned out to be the busiest day this week and the third busiest day this month. for several hours between lunchtime and the early afternoon we kept getting customers. bentos were the most popular. by late afternoon all that business quickly tapered off.

my aunt showed up in the early afternoon. she ate some beef noodle soup. she was asking us what we wanted to do for their birthdays. originally she wanted to try a korean barbecue buffet in natick, but my father proposed noontime dim sum at joyful garden in watertown, which has now become our default restaurant stop whenever we need a place to go eat.

the walk home seemed quicker. even though i was no longer wearing all-black ensemble, i noticed cars still don't stop at crosswalks for me. something about all this snow makes drivers less kind it seems. approaching the house, i found a wooden bookcase someone left on a snowbank. at first i thought it was a space spacer, but there was a free tag attached so i couldn't resist and brought it inside. it has three shelves but the middle shelf is much taller. it's designed to be collapsible. i feel like it was a kitchen because there were some sauce stains which i managed to clean off. not sure what i'm going to do with this but it makes for a good plant stand.

i brought home some leftover beef noodle soup which i had for dinner after a shower. maybe my stomach shrank from not eating very much because of the food poisoning from monday, because i felt very bloated and uncomfortable afterwards. the runs also came back. maybe i have a gluten allergy?

i told my parents i didn't need a ride this morning but would walk to the cafe instead. it wasn't too bad, for the most part the sidewalks were cleared. those that weren't, the foot traffic from the past few days have already trampled the snow to slush. the only difficulty was sometimes intersections or crosswalks weren't cleared, and instead of climbing over a mound of snow, i had to find some other way to get across. i brought the 6 dozen eggs i got from market basket yesterday. in hindsight, that probably wasn't the smartest move, walking on slippery roads carrying all those eggs. i managed to get to the cafe before my parents did, even though i was a few minutes late. i went ahead and cooked 7 cups of rice, thinking that today would be a busy day.

the floors were stained with salt yesterday so my father had already mopped. but they continue to get dirty so i mopped again this morning, putting up all the seats on the table. normally it's quiet in the morning, but today someone called as soon as we opened to make an order. who orders an bento first thing in the morning? the rice wasn't even cooked yet, we had to microwave some leftover rice from yesterday. to make matters worse, he showed up immediately after ordering. why not just order in person instead of calling like a psycho? because he was waiting, i couldn't finish mopping the floors until he left.

i only had a can of soup last night and was feeling hungry this morning. i went down to the basement a fished out some spinach egg bake from the freezer and warmed one up in the microwave. my mother made me a green tea latte she bought from trader joe's last night when they made a visit after work. it was good, similar to the ones i make with matcha powder and milk.

our solar panels were back up and running again, with the exception of two panels on the upper leftmost corner, the ones i couldn't clear off yesterday. i kept checking all day, hoping the black panels would heat up enough to melt the snow, but it's so cold outside, any sort of melting would freeze immediately. the only salvation is for my father to try and clean off that final remnant of snow on saturday. we still have 22 panels working though, better than where we were 2 days ago.

my parents made a new batch of vegetable buns today. 3 steamers were running off of the induction cooktops. it made it so that the kitchen became much warmer than the front of the cafe.

other than that guy who ordered right when we opened, we didn't get another customer until after noontime. it was lightly busy for a while. a lot of customers, but most were ordering just a single item or two, which isn't all that profitable. the rest of the afternoon it was quiet. in the late afternoon i nearly fell asleep but snapped awake when i had to make another batch of black soy noodles.

my mother made chinese-style chicken noodle soup for lunch in the afternoon. it was very good, but all that carb really filled up my stomach and made me feel bloated and gassy.

in the evening we had a slight uptick in business. there was one big phone order, which put us to our daily average, for an otherwise kind of slow week. just two more days left in january.

my parents could've given me a ride home but i opted to walk instead. the roads leading up to my house are badly plowed, two way traffic streets narrowed to only allow a single lane of congestion. i realized my dark jeans and dark jacket probably made me less than visible in night. that turned out to be true when a turning car narrowly hit me before screeching to a stop. i'll try wearing my columbia jacket tomorrow, more visibility. i also have a safety vest which looks dorky as hell but if it keeps me alive it's probably worth wearing.

coming home, i checked out some heat pump heat exchangers. they're always installed away from neighboring windows. except in the case of my next door neighbor, who put it right outside my bedroom windows. it makes me mad enough that i can't sleep if i thinking about it too much, on top of the noise that's already being made from the compressor. i was also annoyed that my upstairs neighbors did not bring in the trash, left it out on the sidewalk, blocking the already narrow path.

i brought home a mantou bun stuffed with sour pickled mustards and cilantro for dinner. i ate it after i showered and change into some fresh clothes. i watched a rebroadcast of the patriots-seahawks superbowl game from 2015. there were so many moments from the final 2 minutes that i forgot. was seattle purposely targeting malcolm butler? because he seemed to be involved in so many plays in those final moments. he broke up one pass, then broke up a second pass only for the receiver to miracle catch it because the ball never fell to the ground. that should've been the play of the game. instead it's lost to history, and everyone remembers butler's miracle goal line interception instead. the game still wasn't over. new england had the ball, but in their own goal. they needed to advance it, otherwise it becomes a safety for seattle and they get the ball back. patriots lucked out because seahawks went offsides, and the patriots were awarded 5 yards of breathing room. brady took a knee, but a fight between players started, resulting in a personal foul and ejection of a seahawk player, further advancing patriots by 15 more yards, finally ending the game. this was the patriots 4th super bowl win. little did they know, the team would go on and win 2 more for a total of 6.

i slept early again last night, was in bed by 11:30pm. i started rereading george r.r. martin's a knight of the seven kingdoms as i couldn't wait for next sunday's episode. my next door neighbor's heat pump heat exchanger started going off. it was so loud, i downloaded a sound meter app and measured the noise at around 55 decibels, above the allowed limit. the fact that the heat exchanger faces both my bedroom windows and i wasn't consulted in the least means i'll need to have a serious talk with renee when i get the chance. i'm hoping maybe it's louder because of the very cold weather we've been experiencing, and that it'll normally run quieter.

i set my alarm to 7:30am. i still had the runs, but i could already feel myself getting better. nevertheless, i was still afraid i might need to go to the bathroom at a moment's notice. so the itinerary for the day was to go get my annual physical at mass general hospital, then go directly to my parents' place afterwards so i could clean the snow off the solar panels (something i wasn't able to do on monday).

i left the house by 8:10am for my 9am appointment. it'd take just half an hour to get there, with 4 stops from porter square to MGH/charles, but i left a little early in case of subway delay. temperature this morning was in the teens. it's been this cold for so long, it doesn't even faze me anymore. you just have to dress for the weather. i discovered that i could wear a sherpa fleece hooded sweatshirt underneath my rain jacket and it'll keep me just as warm as my heavy columbia 3-in-1 interchange jacket. the best part is the outer jacket is completely water and wind proof.

when i got to porter square, the platform was already crowded with people. this meant the train delay i feared was now happening. but it still only 8:20am, i had some time to spare. the platform only got more crowded as everyone continued waiting for the train. two trains had already left for alewife. the automated announcement kept repeating, "southbound trains will arrive every 6 to 10 minutes," as if to taunt us. a few people couldn't wait anymore and stormed out of the station, most likely catching an uber. while a lot of people browsed their phones (and a few luddites even had actual books), i just stood there and vegged out.

i waited for half an hour before a southbound train finally arrived at porter square. but it was already packed with passengers from alewife and davis. a handful of people did managed to squeeze into the trains, but i wasn't one of them. i had no choice but wait for the next train. but wouldn't it also be crowded?

it took another 20 minutes before the next train showed up. having learned my lesson, i positioned myself close to an opening door and quickly moved inside the train car. we were all packed inside tightly like sardines in a can. i could feel my phone vibrating (was my doctor calling about my appointment?) but i couldn't move my hands to check. i couldn't grab onto anything but that didn't matter, since other bodies braced me from falling. it actually felt kind of nice to be engulfed in bodies. i noticed a young woman sporting a huge diamond ring. another girl had a beautiful knit hat with knitted embroidered flowers (i was so tempted to take a photo, if only i could get my hands free). nobody was coughing, everyone smells nice, everyone polite and quiet and minding their own business, trying to make the best of a bad situation. whenever we stopped at a station (harvard, central, kendall), there was a jostle of people getting off, followed by a squeeze of new people trying to get on. almost at my destination, i noticed the car behind us was completely empty? why run empty cars during morning rush hour? one of those MBTA mysteries.

we arrived at charles/MGH by 9:30am. i quickly made my way to the doctor's office. the receptionist told me they tried calling me. i actually sent my doctor a message through the patient portal but he probably didn't see it. fortunately everyone was very understanding of the situation, as they all shared in some commuting mishaps these past few days because of the weekend snowstorm.

my doctor saw me but it was a quick visit. this should've been my annual physical, but he had it marked down on his calendar as a follow-up. i didn't have anything to talk about anyway, and didn't want to bring up my food poisoning issue. i noticed he put on a mask as he came in, probably hospital procedure. he told me he waited half an hour for the subway this morning at alewife, after biking to the station from his arlington home. he sent me downstairs to get some lab work done and made an appointment for my physical in 6 months.

i went to the lab works office on the 2nd floor. a woman sitting behind a small desk gave me a number and told me to go down to the end of the hallway. my number was called, my info taken, before i was asked to wait for my number to be called again. while waiting, i noticed a man in shackles escorted by somebody who looked like a deputy. another deputy joined them a short time later. this isn't the first time i've seen prisoners getting health care treatment at MGH. this convict was here to get his teeth fixed because he cracked it. while the two deputies browsed their phone while they waited, the man in shackled just sat there next to me.

marie was the woman taking my blood samples today. not only was i getting blood taken for my primary care doctor, but my GI doctor also put in some blood work tests. i asked marie about her commute. she too had a difficult time getting to work, even managed to lose one of her gloves.

with that i was done, the whole visit about an hour. it was 10:40am as i headed towards harvard square to catch a bus that would take me to belmont. the subways had returned to normal. after a 12 minute wait, an outbound train arrived at the station. i got to harvard right when the bus arrived so i didn't have to wait. i got dropped off in belmont by 11:30am, then a 10 minute walk to my parents' house. for the most part the sidewalks where shoveled, but you could tell which homes had a snowblower and which ones shoveled my hand. it was trash day and there was no place to put the trash cans but the sidewalks, so a few times i had to detour out onto the streets.

i got to my parents' place at 11:40am. first thing i did was use the bathroom. i then went to the basement to get the extension pole. all the segments were loose now, but for how long? i noticed the birdfeeder was still half full, and there weren't any birds today? what happened? later i saw a sharp-shinned hawk perched in a nearby tree.

i brought my rain pants and put them over a pair of my father's rubber boots. i started by clearing the edge of the sunroom, before moving the large platform ladder to the left side of the house to clear off the snow from those panels. so the good news is because it's been so cold, there hasn't been very much melting, so the snow was still powdery, other than a light glazed crust. unfortunately there was a lot of snow, and trying to push 2ft worth of snow from the panels required some strength and patience.

feeling thirsty, i looked inside the sunroom cooler but couldn't find any canned seltzer. i settled for some hard cider, which i took a few sips and left it outside in the snow, made sure it was cold.

i did all i could from the ground level before i used the extension ladder to climb onto the roof with the shovel and the snow broom. there i worked for the next 1-1/2 hours, clearing the snow with the shovel before using the extension pole snow broom to push the snow off the solar panels. my mother called during that time, said she didn't see me in the backyard webcam, but did she me drinking something earlier. i had to come down from the room at one point because the snow broom head i had snapped off. fortunately we have two more spares in the garage.

i cleared as much as i could from the roof, but snow piles on the very leftmost edge of the solar panels i couldn't reach. i climbed back down (2:30pm) and used the platform ladder and extension pole to clear that remaining bit of snow. by that point the sun angle's was no longer shining directly onto the roof so temperature had cooled off. that clump of snow was basically stuck. here's hoping whatever amount i cleared of the solar panels today will heat up tomorrow in the sun and hopefully melt that remaining bit of snow.

at 3pm i got my drone and flew it in the air to get a good photo of my snow clearing work. some might say what's the point, since we're supposed to get more snow this weekend (as much as 5 inches). thing is, if i don't clear all this snow, it's going to take forever to melt, and we won't get any solar production in the time being. the cold weather seemed to be good for the drone, i got about 18 minutes of flying time, which felt like forever. i flew it to fresh pond and back, did some circles around the neighborhood, before finally returning the drone.

at 3:30pm i was packing up, getting ready to leave. my mother called me, said my sister could come and give me a ride back home. so i waited. my sister showed up 10 minutes later with esmei. while she was outside clearing snow from the car in the driveway, i let esmei out into the backyard. even though there were shoveled trails, she didn't seem to notice them, and ran where ever she wanted, often times half buried in the snow. she was most likely smelling all the rabbit scents, as i noticed a lot of rabbit prints in the snow. after running a bit, she got bored and went back inside the house. i told my sister it was time to leave.

driving me home wasn't so straight forward. we stopped twice so she could walk esmei, because she said esmei didn't poop yet today. esmei doesn't like the feeling of snow on her butt when she's pooping, needs a nice flat surface with no snow. we even stopped at the observatory so my sister could walk esmei but she still didn't poop. i didn't get back home until around 4pm.

i went out again, this time walking down to walgreens to pick up my prescription. i thought it was just one but turns out to be three prescriptions. since i was very close to market basket, i decided to go there next, get a bunch of eggs for the cafe. i also got some canned chicken soup for myself, as recovery food for food poisoning.

i finally returned home by 5pm. i didn't eat all day, heated up a can of chicken soup.

afterwards i played a little bit of cyberpunk. it was my day off after all, even though i'd been out of the house from 8am to 5pm.

the sports world continues to reverberate from the shocking news yesterday that bill belichick was not a first-ballot hall of famer. but one of the no-voters actually came out and said the reason why belichick didn't get the nod was because of the voting process, where out of 5 candidates voters can only choose 3. so this no-voter decided to vote for 3 senior candidates since they a lot longer for induction. essentially, there's a backlog of worthy HOF inductees but because they can only select a certain number every year, that list grows longer and longer.

i couldn't bike to work, and walking would be just as treacherous with the many unshoveled sidewalks. so my father came to pick me up after dropping my mother off at the cafe. it snowed a bit more overnight - just a few inches - not even enough to bother shoveling. our original plan was to make a stop a market basket to get some supplies, but my father said we didn't have time, so instead we went to get my mother's prescriptions instead before heading to the cafe. the roads looked like a dirt path of salty powdery snow. there's no relief in sight since we're stuck in a freeze for at least this week.

at least the parking lot was cleared, but we pay to have people plow it for us. it must've been the envy of the neighborhood as various cars throughout the day parked there - cars that didn't belong to customers. honestly, there was nowhere else they could park. i checked the outdoor stairwell leading to the basement and realized the snow crew failed to clean that section. so i spent a hour digging it out, more shoveling work.

as for my upset stomach, it continued for much of the day. luckily we have a bidet in the bathroom which made for a more cleansing and hygienic bathroom experience. if it wasn't for that, i would've probably stayed home today.

we didn't know what to expect for today. i figured it'd be a slow day, as it was hard for customers to get to our place. but it actually turned out to be a fairly busy day, with a big spike during the lunch period. i guess the snow and frigid temperature couldn't keep people away from eating.

my father made sweet red adzuki bean rice porridge for me to eat. that was as much as i could consume since i barely had any appetite. in the late afternoon i made a batch of tea eggs with the limited eggs we had left, after going over to my sister's place to grab some of her eggs. my 2nd aunt showed up a bit later, back from a trip to quincy, to the ranch 99 asian supermarket. she bought some bokchoi and scallions, saving us the trouble of going to market basket after work. she also brought some leftover KFC spicy wings and fries which i ate. finally, she got a japanese cheesecake which we sampled. we noticed it had two layers, which meant the cream cheese didn't completely mix with the cake portion. it tasted okay though, with a beautiful dark brown crust.

after work my parents drove my 2nd aunt home before dropping me off.

still with no appetite and not particularly hungry despite a grumbling stomach, i had some instant tonkotsu ramen for dinner. unfortunately i have my annual physical tomorrow morning, i hope i will have recovered enough from my stomach bug to actually make the appointment.

i couldn't bike to work, and walking would be just as treacherous with the many unshoveled sidewalks. so my father came to pick me up after dropping my mother off at the cafe. it snowed a bit more overnight - just a few inches - not even enough to bother shoveling. our original plan was to make a stop a market basket to get some supplies, but my father said we didn't have time, so instead we went to get my mother's prescriptions instead before heading to the cafe. the roads looked like a dirt path of salty powdery snow. there's no relief in sight since we're stuck in a freeze for at least this week.

at least the parking lot was cleared, but we pay to have people plow it for us. it must've been the envy of the neighborhood as various cars throughout the day parked there - cars that didn't belong to customers. honestly, there was nowhere else they could park. i checked the outdoor stairwell leading to the basement and realized the snow crew failed to clean that section. so i spent a hour digging it out, more shoveling work.

as for my upset stomach, it continued for much of the day. luckily we have a bidet in the bathroom which made for a more cleansing and hygienic bathroom experience. if it wasn't for that, i would've probably stayed home today. also i made sure i washed my hands thoroughly, pandemic-level washing.

we didn't know what to expect for today. i figured it'd be a slow day, as it was hard for customers to get to our place. but it actually turned out to be a fairly busy day, with a big spike during the lunch period. i guess the snow and frigid temperature couldn't keep people away from eating.

my father made sweet red adzuki bean rice porridge for me to eat. that was as much as i could consume since i barely had any appetite. in the late afternoon i made a batch of tea eggs with the limited eggs we had left, after going over to my sister's place to grab some of her eggs. my 2nd aunt showed up a bit later, back from a trip to quincy, to the ranch 99 asian supermarket. she bought some bokchoi and scallions, saving us the trouble of going to market basket after work. she also brought some leftover KFC spicy wings and fries which i ate. finally, she got a japanese cheesecake which we sampled. we noticed it had two layers, which meant the cream cheese didn't completely mix with the cake portion. it tasted okay though, with a beautiful dark brown crust.

after work my parents drove my 2nd aunt home before dropping me off.

still with no appetite and not particularly hungry despite a grumbling stomach, i had some instant tonkotsu ramen for dinner. unfortunately i have my annual physical tomorrow morning, i hope i will have recovered enough from my stomach bug to actually make the appointment.

with nothing to do today but stay home and watch football, i didn't wake up this morning until 10:30am. i remember the forecast was for some flurries in the morning before more steady snow falling after noontime. when i looked out the window, i wasn't expecting everything to be already coated in white. the snow seemed to have arrived early.

channel 5 was having all day coverage of the snowstorm. i watched the crawler at the bottom of the screen announcing school closing. do schools still do that? nowadays i figured they'd just announce the news on their website or maybe an official school twitter account. i was relieved to learn that market basket was closing early today, letting all their employees go home by 4pm. for lunch i finished some leftover pizza from last night.

i played a little bit of cyberpunk before heading into the kitchen to make a pumpkin-sweet potato pie with the canned leftover thanksgiving pumpkin and sweet potato. we were going to throw them out (or donate them), but i decided to rescue them. this was an american test kitchen recipe:

the pie itself is fairly basic. for some reason i seemed to have double the liquid pie filling. maybe my crust was too shallow. i was going to pour out the leftover pumpkin sweet potato filling, but decided to keep it in case the pie turns out delicious and i want to create a mini-pie. when it came out of the oven, the center still looked liquidy, but i left it to solidify on the kitchen counter.

i made a batch of popcorn before the patriots-broncos game started a 3pm. i had a popcorn mishap, some liquid must've been in my kernel dish as i poured everything into the pot. it exploded in a splash of hot scalding oil, i got it all over my hands, my face, and my clothes. i thought i was going to be burned, but nothing happened except for an oily mess.

it feels a little weird watching football, when in minnesota ICE agents are murdering american citizens and getting away with it. it made me feel a little guilty.

the broncos was helmed by their backup quarterback who hasn't played meaningful minutes since 2023. he had a week to prepare for the AFC championship. but there was so much talk about him being a secret weapon, how he was going to surprise people with his abilities, that i was starting to believe that maybe a backup QB might have a shot at defeating the patriots. in the first quarter stidham threw a 50+ yard pass that eventually led to a touchdown in that drive. new england was down a 0-7, and seemingly unable to make an offensive gains against bronco's vaunted defense. the second quarter was looking the same for the patriots, but a stidham fumble turnover gave new england great field advantage for a walk-in touchdown by drake maye.

i went out to do some shoveling because i noticed both my neighbors renee and don had already shoveled their sidewalk. i dressed in my winter gear with my rain gear over that because i didn't want to get soaked. temperature - according to my weather station anyway - was still just 15 degrees, but it didn't feel that cold. maybe i was just distracted by all that snow. it was about 4:30pm and there was already 5-6" of snow on the ground. the snow was super powdery, like you could clear it with a leaf blower. i was surprised when my upstairs neighbor paul came down to shovel as well. they rarely help out, so this was a special occasion. paul shoveled a path into the backyard. i went back inside to watch the game.

in the second half, the weather in denver - which was just simply cold - was now snowy and windy as well. visibility was poor, the snow making the field slippery, the ball hard to throw and catch. both teams attempted field goals that failed. patriots did get one successful field goal at the end of the third quarter. little did anyone realize that was the final score of the game. weather conditions was such that you could hardly play. new england's strategy was just to eat the clock for the fourth quarter, with the belief that the broncos couldn't score on the patriots' defense. the gamble turned out to be true. final score was 10-7. patriots are going to the superbowl in 2 weeks.

the patriots' cinderella season continues. yes they had an easy regular season schedule, which they took care of by beating most of their opponents - which is what good teams do. going into the playoffs, naysayers were saying the patriots would be exposed. but new england kept on winning. they beat the chargers, who purposely tanked their final regular season game so they could get the patriots, thinking they'd be an easier opponent. they were wrong, only scored a field goal in a 3-16 loss. when the patriots faced the texans, people were saying new england would lose when facing a tough defense. new england ended up winning, 16-28. the broncos were just the latest challenge. another solid defense, held the patriots to only 10 points. you told me that and i would've assumed the patriots lost that game, not knowing the patriots held the broncos to just 7 points. so all season new england has been overlooked. people expect them to lose, but they continue to win. and now they're just one final win away from being super bowl champions.

i went back to cyberpunk. i had the rams-seahawks game on in the background, but i didn't have a favorite. i heard rams would be the easier opponent for new england, but i just wanted stafford to get knocked out, hopefully put drake maye in a better position to get the MVP. facing either team in the super bowl, i didn't care one way or another. patriots have history with both franchises in the superbowl. stafford was really good in the second half, but they overcome their deficit and time ran out. final score was 27-31. patriots will face the seahawks in san francisco in 2 weeks.

my father called me sometime around 7pm, said he just cleared the sidewalk and driveway with our two-stage snowblower. even just that little bit was enough to use up all the gasoline. fortunately he got some more a few days earlier. he said he'll run the snowblower again tomorrow morning.

i heated up a frozen chicken alfredo dinner in the oven. after the second game was over (9:30pm), i went back outside to shovel. 5 hours had passed and it didn't look like i did any shoveling earlier, because snow had refilled the sidewalk. because this was powdery snow, the wind would cause it to drift. in some places the snow was only as high as my calves, while in others it was over my knees. even though the snow was light, shoveling was hard work. i started to sweat underneath my layers, as i started peeling to cool off, but not too much because i didn't want to get soaked. i first dug a trench into the backyard. i had to clear the area surrounding my furnace vents, otherwise it'll shut off if it doesn't get enough fresh intake of air. the snow was already pretty high, i was surprised the furnace was still running. i kept digging until i made my way to the basement. that's when i saw paul had left the basement door open. i had to dig out the snow pile that went into the basement before i could close the door. i looked up to see if paul was still up but looked like he went to sleep. after i finished with the back, i started shoveling the sidewalk. there was so much snow and no where to put it. i ended up only shoveling a sidewalk trench, leaving a sidewalk snow barrier so i could dump the snow. earlier i was carrying the snow and dumping it in the backyard but that was too labor intensive and took too much time. i also dug a trench out into the street so i could get out. it's going to a nightmare tomorrow for all those car owners to dig themselves out. glad i don't have a car.

i finally came back inside after a little more than an hour. i was sweat-soaked, wet hair plastered to my forehead. but it felt good being back inside. i knew my sister kept texting me, i thought maybe she was sending me esmei snow photos, but she texted me because esmei ran away. but my sister found her 5 minutes later by tracking her paw prints in the fresh snow. esmei ran to the cafe, maybe hoping my parents were there to give her a treat. when my sister called, she came running back.

eliza told me late last night that theo got into mcgill. he's also applying to colleges in france and the netherlands, but mcgill was his number one choice. good for him! but still kind of scary that the children of friends are now college age.

i woke up early, before 9am. last night while looking through facebook market place, i saw a somerville seller peddling a whirligig stovetop popcorn maker for $25. i've seen the post before, back when it was $40. i wanted to message the seller immediately but didn't want to seem like a psycho who spends late nights just surfing the web for cheap deals, so i waited until the morning. i texted him first thing but got no response. i'm fine either way, i've made popcorn enough times now with just simple pots that i'm starting to get the hang of it. yes, there's always a few unpopped kernels, but that's not a big deal. i get the feeling that a popcorn maker is a novelty gadget, i'll use it for a while, then it'll just gather dust in the kitchen. like the bread machine. like the smokeless foreman grill. like the electric popcorn popper. and more and more like the dehydrator.

my nest thermostat said 2 degrees this morning, while my weather station said it was 25 degrees. i think the remote sensor need new batteries. my fitness band said 5 degrees while the google weather app told me 4 degrees. whatever the case, it's cold outside! i was expecting the roads to be frozen white, but everything outside looks pretty normal.

this snowstorm comes at the perfect time, the two days that the cafe is closed. the only inconvenience is that we can't do a supply run this weekend, but we still have enough stock to get by another week, with a quick trip to the nearby market basket or trader joe's to pick up a few more perishable supplies.

because it was so cold, my father came to pick me after dropping my mother off at the cafe. my aliexpress mini tear-off chinese calendar arrived, my mother hung it from her desk. business-wise, we didn't know what to expect. because of the bitterly cold weather, you'd expect not a lot of customers, but for the first 2 hours we were pretty busy. after 1pm though, business dried up completely.

i was waiting for my popcorn machine seller to answer my message. i even turned on facebook notification, which i normally have off, since i only use facebook for market place. looking into the facebook app setting, i was shocked just how many types of notifications they send you. i turned them all off (took a while), but left market place on. i kept checking facebook and discovered in the afternoon that the posting had been updated as sold. maybe i should've contacted the seller right away instead of waiting overnight. would've been nice to know that there was already a buyer, as a courtesy.

i had korean street toast again. i thought i had enough bread to make 3 servings, but i only had enough for 2. this time i didn't add any salt to the egg-vegetables mixture. i thought it'd be bland, but the ham was plenty salty enough.

my sister came by with esmei. because of the impending snow emergency, she was going to park her car at alewife. the plan was to give me a ride home first, park her car, then call my father for a pickup before they closed. so i ended up going home about an hour early, a bit after 3pm.

first thing i did when i got home was to replace the batteries in my outdoor weather station sensor. it took a while to update, and at first i thought the sensor itself needed to be replaced. but i watched as the outdoor temperature slowly dropped on the indoor LCD display.

i spent the rest of the day immersed in cyberpunk, stopping around 8pm to heat up a frozen pizza (spinach & mushroom) for dinner. i played all the way until 1am before stopping.

temperature this morning was in the upper 20's. in the gradient of coldness, upper 20's is cold but not that cold. it warranted thermal underwear, but just a thin layer, not my heavy duty merino wool underwear. biking to the cafe was okay, just try not to brake, at least not stop with the front brakes since it'll stutter the bike. i really need to replace the front wheel, but can't bear to spend $70 for a wheel i know i used to get for just $25. i placed an amazon order for an avenir brand 26 x 1.5" front wheel for $40 ($40 i can do), but it's temporarily back-ordered with no availability timeframe. in the meantime i'm lurking on facebook market place (the only time i'm ever on facebook), hoping to find a replacement wheel for cheap or score an inexpensive mountain bike i can pilfer the wheel from. i also haven't checked my basement yet, there might be a spare wheel, but if there is, it's most likely in bad shape as well (otherwise i would've used it by now).

when my parents arrived at the cafe, my father said he tried again this morning our two-stroke craftsman snowblower and it still wouldn't start. at this point he's given up and will just shovel the impending snowstorm by hand. he couldn't figure out what was wrong, said he didn't even smell gasoline. i suspected maybe it was the old fuel he used, which we might be able to fix with some stabilizer. it did work at one point, when i replaced the carburetor last spring, we ran the snowblower to test and it worked fine.

after i made a new batch of black soy noodles and dumplings, i drove the car to belmont to check on the snowblower. i couldn't remember if i installed a shutoff switch, but if i did, that would explain the problem. sure enough, taking a peek underneath the snowblower in the garage revealed the newly installed switch underneath the plastic gas tank. i called my father to let him know the good news but he didn't answer his phone. i added a little bit of iso-heet to the fuel to help remove any water. i then tried to start the snowblower after priming it a few times with the pump. it didn't start. i tried using the draw cord but that didn't work either. i primed it one more time (5 pumps), then hit the start button. didn't work the first time, but the second time the engine sputtered to life. loud, smelly, just like a motorcycle. i pulled the power cord to see if it could run on its own. i could hear the engine slowing down, so i turned on the choke a little bit, as the engine roared back to life.

i noticed the one-stroke toro snowblower we had propped up on a table had leaked fuel onto the garage floor. my father noticed as well and tipped the machine back upright. i grabbed some paper towel and DIY power wash and started cleaning up the mess. it wasn't gasoline because it didn't have any noticeable smell, most likely it was engine oil. the toro is still non-functional, but this weekend snowstorm is more suited to the larger craftsman snowblower, which does a better job with high volume dry powdery snow. the toro is better suited for wet slushy snow.

i returned to the cafe with the good news. i even recorded a video of me starting the snowblower to show my father.

despite the cold, it wasn't a bad day profit-wise. we were busy during lunchtime and a little bit around the evening. once again, chicken curry was the most popular item (we didn't sell any yesterday). there was four orders of pad thai, but each time we had to tell the customers we were all out (we ran out of sauce and don't have the necessary ingredients to make more). normally beef noodle soup is one of our most popular items, especially when the weather's cold. but we had no sales until the early evening, and suddenly we got four beef noodle soup orders, three of which were sit-down customers.

my mother called my 2nd aunt and told her she didn't need to come to work tomorrow because it's going to be super cold (single digits) and we probably won't get too much business anyway. everyone will be hunkering down at home, waiting for the snow to come. i went over to the upstairs apartment to check and make sure the pipe heater was working (we don't want the pipe to freeze). i also turned up the heat - from 53 degrees to 60 degrees (normally it's set low since nobody is currently living upstairs, all the chinese astrophysicists having gone back home).

the temperature had only dropped into the lower 20's by the time i returned home. i have to ride carefully, especially downhill, because my bike doesn't stop very well anymore. the rear brakes are starting to fail too, i need to replace the brake pads. but there's no hurry because i probably won't be biking for a while because of all the snow that's supposed to fall by sunday-monday. i put away my trek utility bike in the basement, don't want it to get buried in the snow.

i made some luxury korean ramen for dinner, added some leftover tofu that i needed to use up. i'm kind of sick of korean ramen, just too bad i bought a case of it last year, which will last me for a very long time.

after dinner i went to star market to get some snacks. i was expectedly a madhouse, but it was surprisingly calm, with just a handful of customers. i read online that market basket was totally crazy today, that there was a traffic jam from porter square to union square of customers trying to get their pre-snowstorm groceries.

back at the house, settled in for a night of cyberpunk. not too many gigs tonight, i spent most of my time playing around with the camera. i much rather wander around night city looking for photo opps then spending 20-30 minutes adjusting the camera and the lights to get the perfect photo. i'm using the standard three-point lighting setup for NPC's: key light 45 degrees above eye level to one side of the subject, a softer fill light on the other side, and a back light pointing to the back of the head. cyperpunk defaults with a turquoise colored light which gives everything a futuristic glow but i normally like to turn it down. for the fill light i like going with a magenta hue for contrast. now that i'm actively searching for NPC's to photograph, i'm noticing more repeats. i also just discovered today that the same body tattoo patterns get reused for different NPC's.

temperature today was in the 40's. probably the last "warm" day we'll see in a while. the weekend snow was melting, but i made notes of where all the wet patches were, in case everything freeze up overnight to form black ice.

i mopped up the floors with vinegar and warm water before we opened, there were salt stains everywhere. i also cooked a new batch of tea eggs using the steam method. i believe this is the third steamed batch? i'm curious how steaming will affect older eggs, which are already easy to peel. would it make the shells even more brittle?

storm watch continues: the latest forecast says 1-2ft of snow might fall in the boston area. my father said he tried to start the 2-stage snowblower this morning but couldn't get it to work. hopefully he'll figure it out on saturday before the snow arrives on sunday. supermarkets must be crazy now, i don't think i need to go, i have enough food and drinks in my house. the last time we got more than a foot of snow was back in january 2022. i stayed home for much of it, only going out in the evening to take photos.

today was the busiest day this week so far. we made above our daily average. we got slammed during lunch, and another spike around 5pm. my father didn't get back until almost noontime, went to go visit the accountant in arlington center. the accountant wasn't there, but showed up right when my father was about to leave. our daily regular allen told us today he's going to work remotely from florida for the next 2 months, be back at the end of march. he's not leaving soon enough because he's going to get hit with a big snowstorm this weekend.

i helped my father order an ATORCH wifi DT20W 100A power meter ($30). it'll allow him to remotely monitor a battery's voltage/amperage/power. he can currently do that with our anker power station, but he wants to install this device on the aolithium lifepo4 battery.

for lunch i made korean street toast. it seemed delicious in theory, but not so much in practice. it was okay, but seems like something a poor person would make using leftover ingredients. it wasn't what you'd typically ascribe as korean food.

the kohler bidet worked well for 2 days but today it started acting up. the seat was warm, but the water spray from the bidet was ice cold. my mother immediately clamored to have us send it back, but i'd already assumed we'd be keeping it and tossed out some packaging material. i still should be able to return it via amazon, i have a little over 2-weeks before the return deadline. maybe it's a faulty unit? and we just need a replacement? we'll monitor it a few more days, if it still doesn't improve, we'll have no choice but to return it.

when i returned home i finished the rest of my tuna fish sandwich for dinner. i only had two slices of bread but too much tuna sandwich spread, so i made tuna melt, heating everything up in the toaster oven. i think it would've been better if i warmed it up on the stove, as the cheese was barely melted while the tuna spread was still cold.

no cyberpunk tonight. just finished writing up a few blog posts, going to go to bed early to make up for not geting any sleep last night.