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thankfully the weather wasn't cold enough to freeze because it pretty much rained the entire day, and will rain for much of tomorrow as well. there were some icy roads in the suburbs, but otherwise cold and wet. i spent the day listening to the crackle of rain drops tapping against the house.

canon was having another online sale on refurbished equipment. i know i just recently bought a new dSLR body and lens, but what i also really need is a good carry-anywhere point-and-shoot (POS) camera. i really like my parents' powershot SX230, which is a superzoom (14x) compact travel camera. just so happens canon was selling refurbished SX260 (the 2nd generation of that model) for $168. it'd dropped to this price last week and i sort of regret not getting one after the price went back up. however, after taxes (canon charges MA taxes on purchases from their online store), the price coms out to $178. that's not that much of a discount, given a brand new SX260 (with a one year warranty compared to the 90 days refurbished warranty) sells for $189 on amazon.com, which is only $10 more. regardless, i almost bought one (new), but after thinking about it a bit, i may want to wait until CES 2013 in january and see what new cameras are coming out. even if i'm not planning on buying the next generation version of this model, it may very well drive down the SX260 to an even lower price point. i'm also intrigued by the panasonic lumix DMC-ZS20 which also has a 20x zoom and GPS, but supposedly a much faster autofocus than the SX260 (i heard the image quality is inferior though, too much noise at all ISO).

the only constructive thing i did today then was to recaulk all 11 of my windows. i noticed about a month ago that the existing caulk was beginning to crack on every window. not enough that the windows are in danger of falling out, but just enough that on some of them i can feel a bit of draft leaking in. so i went about the house cleaning up the windows first, vacuuming any dust and wiping away any dirt. i then went to work with a tube of acrylic-latex caulk i had in the house. not sure the vintage, but it probably was a little old because it came out rather watery at first. the good thing about acrylic caulk is that it's much easier to work with than silicone, and the acrylic doesn't burn the skin on my fingers the way silicone does. in all it took about an hour and a half to do all my windows. i still had at least 3" left of caulk in the tube. when it was all done, i'm not sure if i noticed the house was any warmer, but it left me with a sense of accomplishment.

for dinner i fired up some hot dogs. one of the best homemade hot dogs i've ever had was when i still had my broken toaster oven. it had a malfunctioning thermostat so i always ended up overcooking the hot dogs to the point where they were sputtering grease and frying in their own juices. but that left them with a slight crunch that was kind of delicious. maybe i'll try to reproduce the effect by cooking these hot dogs at a higher temperature.

drew came home around 9:30 after having dinner with a graduate student he met at harvard. we ended up watching a marathon of tattoo nightmares in spike tv.