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my prediction came true: my morning was interrupted by the buzzing of the chainsaw and the grinding of the wood chipper. first they dismantled the large tree branch collapsed across a neighbor's yard, and later they chopped down the entire tree. not that they had a choice: the still-standing tree suffered such a catastrophic gash wound when one of its main branches split and broke off that it was only a matter of time before the rest of the tree rotted and topple over once again. nevertheless, it would've been a nice gesture if they didn't schedule the tree cutting for sunday morning. once they ran the heavy machines, i couldn't fall back asleep anymore.

i was in belmont by the early afternoon after taking apart the drum unit of my laser printer and cleaning off some debris on the drum itself (i was getting intermittent white streaks). my mother was home but left for the cafe soon afterwards. i went to home depot looking for a safe organic fungicide that will stop the powdery mildew that's slowly infecting the squash and gourd leaves. they had nothing i wanted. i went to the belmont hillside hardware store but apparently they're closed on sundays.

the sky was grey throughout the day with the threat of rain that never did come. it wasn't that hot but the high humidity made it seem like it was. once you surrender yourself to that sticky feeling, days like these are much more tolerable.

when my mother came back we were sorting through some state quarters. i got my sister a collection folder but my mother and i ended up filling it. this particular folder has slots for both the philadelphia and the denver mints. we nearly completed the P philadelphia series but only found a handful of D denvers. it's probably a regional thing. folks on the west coast must have more denver minted quarters.

we had homemade hamburgers for dinner. later my father and i plotted a theoretical 2 week tour of northeastern china for november-december. i showed him the new chinese input method i discovered, the quickcore input method (QIM). it uses an amazingly accurate predictive text interface that will even work with pinyin shorthand (e.g. entering "NHM" instantly brings up the chinese phrase "ni hao ma" (translation: "how are you"). it's only a trial version but i just might pay the $20 to get it registered. when i returned to cambridge, i played a round of wii golf and tennis before going to bed.