i installed the chinese AI app doubao on my phone last night. the interface is all in chinese, but they're intuitive enough that you can figure out the settings even without knowing the language. it can natively understand both chinese and english. you can write prompts for the AI, but it's much easier to use voice recognition. doubao responds back in a friendly conversational voice. speaking of which, there are many different voices to choose from, as well as dialects, both english and chinese. i made it talk back to me in scottish and sichuan.

i wanted to test out its AI image generation capability. i found an image of esmei and uploaded it into doubao. i then asked it this: can you make a new photo with this dog wearing a birthday costume in a style of renaissance painting? i wasn't expecting too much, didn't even know if it could do it or not. what i got back was pretty amazing. it managed to capture esmei perfectly. too perfectly, as it flawlessly matched her fur pattern even though from the photo you could see all those details. which makes me think it actually secretly looked through my other photos to gather more data. best part it was all free, none of that daily 10 token deal with google's AI image generation (the number of filter have been drastically curtailed since june).

i then asked it the same thing but to do it in a comic book illustration style. what about making it look like a 3D printed painted miniature model? the result was pretty good. it even gave me a few recommendations. more realistic hand-painted? like custom desk ornament? or as a cute chibi miniature. i tried the chibi miniature. i then combined all my previous descriptions, so it created a chibi miniature esmei in a renaissance-style wearing a birthday outfit with her name on a plaque on the base. the more descriptions you give it, the more details the result.

i had a good night's sleep but only slept for 5-1/2 hours because the contractors starting working on their demolition beginning at 7am. because of the way the houses here are built, the sound gets funneled through the alleyways so it sounded like it was coming from the front not the back. i put on a t-shirt and went to the 2nd floor deck to collect my gopro. i was hoping to catch some perseid meteor action, but the light pollution was just too great, the seemingly black sky looking grey in the 30-seconds frame exposure.

the morning sun was still blocked by some tall pine trees that belonged to a different backyard neighbor, so it was still shady in the backyard for now. it's not until when the sun comes out will i get to see what happens.

normally on a wednesday morning i might go out running, but i decided to skip it today. my reasoning? hemorrhoids! i had a flare up over the weekend. i could probably still run, but i didn't want to aggravate my condition, and decided it was better if i rested today.

i watered the front and backyard, before doing some weeding and pruning some ivy vines and coleus flower stalks. i then biked to the community garden to water there. i bumped into gail, we chatted for a bit. i found out the beans with the white flowers she was growing were string beans. she also had a bunch of late-season small-flower asters which had yet to bloom.

i got back home by 11am. the sun was now shining on the deck. behind the sun screen it was dim but still bright. in the backyard garden, the sun screen didn't really cast a shadow. that confused me and made me wonder if it was even working. but when you look on the ground, you can see the screen was casting a shadow, just not a deep one. it's essentially mimicking the dappled sunlight effect you get from underneath a shady tree. i moved my potted pepper plant to a different section of the yard that got full sun the entire day.

for lunch i finished the rest of the leftover barbecue. i then biked to market basket to get some groceries. i stopped to admire the harlequin glorybower, now blooming. the flowers smell like cloves.

i returned home and switched to my ebike. i also brought all my eclipse glasses. i went outside to take a look at the sun, which already had a small bite. the only way you'd be able to see this is with eclipse glasses. i went to the cafe to drop off some supplies. the 8-12" plant stands arrived, my father and i put went outside and put a few underneath our potted plants, including the passion fruit vine. we looked at the sun with the eclipse glasses, the bite was getting bigger. maximum would be at 2pm, when we get 16% coverage. eliza in brittany france will get 95% coverage.

i continued on my way to belmont. i was here primarily to wait for my facebook marketplace seller in lexington to contact me about the two metal sawhorses he was trying to sell for $10. he told me he might be free this afternoon, otherwise 4pm. i kept waiting for him to text me. finally by 4pm i went back to facebook marketplace and saw that the items had already been sold. so it seems like he sold it somebody else and just ghosted me. i didn't take it personally, not the first time it's happened to me. but the seller actually did finally text me, gave me some story that he ran over one of the sawhorses with his car and then threw out the other one. who knows if that's true or not. it depends entirely if you're trusting of others or more cynical.

while i was waiting for my seller to contact me (unbeknownst the items were already gone), i was the backyard taking photos of the eclipse with my 70-300mm telephoto lens with an eclipse filter taped to the front. i didn't dare look through the viewer, but instead used the LCD screen. there wasn't too much to see. i also discovered i could take eclipse photos with my phone using the filter and lowering the brightness to near zero.

i weeded the front yard (purslane, oxalis, dandelions, nutsedges, crabgrass, spurges, ragweeds), my t-shirt completely soaked, salty sweat dripping into my eyes and coating my glasses. afterwards i mowed the lawn, starting with the front, working to the back. there's a small chance it might rain overnight and possibly some tomorrow, so it's a good time to mow.

i arrived in belmont after the drip irrigation had gone off so i wasn't able to see it in action. the pots were wet, so it worked, and none of the luffa or bitter melon leaves were drooping, which is what we wanted. the two water buckets were already half full. currently all the full-size luffas have been harvested, with the exception of one fruit in our western garden. that one we intend to leave for seeds, but it's getting so heavy, i'm afraid it'll tear itself off the vine before it has a change to mature. i also some a bunch of long beans, thin but not thick enough yet. long beans are really easy to miss.

i got back home around 4:30pm. i was in the basement inspecting my marin bike. i've been meaning to install a rear rack, so i can either put a full-size basket or some collapsible side baskets. i have a small collection of rear racks, but none of them seem to fit. a few are also missing mounting hardware. i found on ibera rear rack that looks promising. i finally went back inside because even in the basement i was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes.

google came out with their new line of pixel phones - pixel 11. a lot of the details had already been leaked, including prices. this series seem very underwhelming. while buy a new pixel when an old one performs nearly the same but at a cheaper price? the base model pixel 11 starts at $900, while the pro starts at $1100. with the announcement today, i was curious to see if the price of old pixels would drop, particularly the pixel 9 pro 256GB model i bought over the weekend (due to arrive in a few more days). prices have not dropped, and in many cases have gone up. i paid $528 for an excellent grade refurbished, you can't find a deal like that now. the cheapest one i've seen lists for $550.

my sister finally saw the AI generated esmei model. she gave me some input while i quickly churned out new versions. i went through 13 iterations, tweaking the outfit, fur colors, and ear shape. ear shape got particularly crazy, at one point creating 2 pairs of ears.

for dinner i baked a chicken pot pie in the oven for an hour. since that was going to warm up the house, i figured i would also do a load of laundry.

i ate while watching the red sox-blue jays game. i'm for sure jinxing the team because they lost again tonight, 5th in a row, ever since i started watching. the pot pie wasn't that good, a little bland.

every morning i have to water three gardens: my backyard, my community garden plot, and the cafe patio plants. if only it'd rain! that would save me from watering duty. there was a team of spanish-speaking demolition contractors emptying debris from inside the house and putting them into a construction dumpster. i waved to one of them as he saw me on the 2nd floor balcony. in the community garden, gene was there working on his plot. there was a tangle of garden hoses; as a courtesy, i told him i would take care of it, and had to spend several minutes untangling the mess. finally there was the cafe. today 5 passion flower bloomed. there hasn't been a single day without at least one passion vine flower.

today seemed very promising, as we had two ubereats deliveries early in the morning. but then it wasn't very busy after that. there were a few lunchtime customers but when i checked the sales summary we barely made any profit. it was starting to look like a very bleak day. what saved us was a few large orders after 5pm. just a few orders finally put us over the daily average.

i try to limit myself daily to the amount of trump news. the headline today was how trump didn't take air force one back from the NATO summit in turkey due to threats of an iranian assassination attempt. so what's the big deal? there was a high amount of subterfuge, as trump was seen getting onboard the plane, but then disembarked by hiding in a catering container, to be flown home in a different plane. protecting the president is not an issue here; the issue is nobody on air force one knew about it, and the plane flown anyway, to act as a decoy. if the threat was so credible that trump (and his retinue of hegseth, rubio and the treasury secretary) had to secretly switch planes, why even fly it at all? everyone onboard the airforce one - including the press corp - were enlisted without consent to potentially die for trump in the event of an attack. alas, this is just a drop in the bucket of the awful things trump has done. and his MAGA supporters will still support him regardless, using some kind of mental gymnastics to justify what he did. the one good thing is now i have an image of trump cowering in fear as the secret service push him inside a catering container so iranians don't kill him. please someone make an AI short clip of this, i'd love to see it.

i was planning on figuring out a way to install deepask AI assistant pro on my father pixel phone. but in the meantime he could try some alternatives. i read deepseek is a very popular chinese AI app. he actually installed the app on his phone, just never activated it. he signed in using his google account. he asked it to plan out a china travel itinerary. it was okay, but wasn't very detailed. i also heard my father saying he was using doubao, another popular chinese AI app developed by bytedance (the creator of tiktok). apparently he was calling deepask doubao, which isn't surprising since they both have a similar icon - a woman's head. what if we tried the actual doubao app? i went looking for it on the google store, there was something with the same name, but it had nothing to do with AI search. so apparently it's not available on the google store (unless you're in china). the reasoning is foreign and domestic regulations (also a dose of spyware for the chinese audience), just like how bytedance had two version of tiktok (douyin in china). however, i simply went to the official doubao (豆包) website to download the apk (did a search for "豆包 apk"). i installed it and gave it to my father to test. he asked it to create a china travel itinerary. after a few seconds of thinking, it gave him a very detailed itinerary. so he should've been using doubao from the start, not deepask, which seems to be a knockoff. as to what purpose, who knows. but doubao is infinitely better.

my parents picked a box of bitter melons for the cafe. i made a new sign on the illuminated acrylic board advertising bitter melon smoothies. they were unusually popular last summer, both with curious customers and those we already enjoy bitter melon drinks.

in the early afternoon my father steamed a bunch of small soup buns. we each had 8 pieces. i also ate some leftover grilled wings from last night.

my father continued to test doubao. it has a live translation function where it can speak back chinese input as english in 300 different accents. even when i was whispering to my father, it caught what i was saying on the microphone and translated to chinese/english depending on what language i was using. it also has an immersive photo AI mode like google lens, but you can speak to it, and it'll reply back as if it was a live person, telling you what you're looking at based on the live camera image. can chatgpt do this?

my 2nd aunt unexpectedly showed up today, stopping by before her tennis match. stopping by to eat that is, as she kept asking for food. my sister showed up in the late afternoon, said she was going to kittery with her korean friend and esmei. seemed kind of late to be driving up to maine to do some shopping, but that's the kind of easy life she lives.

i ran over to my sister's place to pick up some packages before we finally closed the cafe for the day. it was my two different sets of black shade cloth (40-50% shading, 12x8 $20, 6x8 $18) and an assortment package ball bungee cords ($7.99, 6, 9, 11 inches).

as soon as i got home i went into the backyard to install the shade cloth. i did my patio deck first using the 6x8 ft shade cloth. i wasn't sure how to install it and originally i was going to drape it from the 2nd story deck. that left a big gap at the bottom. so i lowered the shade cloth, tying the upper corners with 11 inch bungie cords to the two supporting columns while using the same 11 inch bungie cords for the lower corners. i then used 9 inch bungie cords fo the sides and the bottom. it worked surprisingly well. the shade cloth had grommets which made it easy to attach the bungie ball cords. i could still see through it, not sure if people can see me from the other side. at 40% there's minimal light blockage, still enough light to grow crops. it's enough to keep plants from burning.

i then set up the second shade cloth, from my deck to the fence. this one was a little worried, because i could only find 12x8 ft size, but the distance from deck to fence is actually 14 ft. fortunately bungie cords can stretch, and i also used the smaller 6 inch bungie cord as an extension. the final result worked really well, very taut. this one is 40-50% shading. it offers more shade yet at the same time still allowing some sunlight to filter through. i'm hoping this one will mimic what our previous oak tree was doing to our backyard.

the ultimate test will be tomorrow, where i get to experience how much shade (and temperature lowering) the shade clothes will provide.

for dinner i had some leftover barbecue, including a piece of porkchop, some grilled zucchinis, and chicken wings.

before bed, i grabbed my gopro 9 and set up an astrophotography time-lapse video on the 2nd story deck. i had my thermacell but i still got bit by mosquitoes.

even though it was cool last night, there was hardly any breeze so it still felt warm. i left most windows opened but the indoor temperature only went down a few degrees. i watered the backyard. i could hear banging noises coming from the gutted house in our backyard. i gathered my things and left for the community garden to water my plot. the only other person there was gretchen. i picked a few ripe tomatoes. i ate some cherry tomatoes, which tasted weird, until i remembered i sprayed them with calcium chloride, that's why they tasted a bit salty.

from there i went to the cafe to water the plants and bring out some frozen foods to thaw in the fridge. there wasn't any passion flowers when i arrived, but by time i got the hose ready for watering, 5 new flowers opened up.

i got to my parents' place around 10:45am. it was still early enough that i saw all the double violet-pink long bean flowers. looks like we're going to get a good crop of beans this year, these kind as well as the blue beans (flat beans) which were already flowering a few weeks ago. there was no more blue butterfly pea flowers, but a lot of spent blossoms. blossoms need to be picked off or the plants stop making flowers, thinking it's already made enough. a few had turned into green seed pods, we'll have some seeds for next season.

my father was busy tweaking the drip irrigation setup. he added a second bucket, paired with the previous bucket through some clear tubing so the feeder hose will draw water from both buckets. he also added some miracle-gro fertilizer to give the plants some additional boost. i tried connecting the irrigation hub to the wifi. it came close a few times but always failed in the end. i wonder if the metal trellis isn't causing some kind of signal interference. in hindsight, we could've gotten the non-wifi version which was $11 cheaper.

my mother boiled some homemade dumplings for lunch. the secret of delicious dumplings is the sauce. i made a mixture of huy fong chili garlic sauce with laoganma chili crisps and soy sauce and vinegar. if i really wanted to take it up another level, i'd also add some chopped cilantro and minced garlic.

after lunch my parents went to the bank in fresh pond. i went outside to check on the drip irrigation, which was set to go off at 1pm, watering for 30 minutes. there was no activity in the emitters. when i checked the display, i noticed the clock was wrong, 1am instead of 1pm. i added a few minutes to the start time and waited for the pump to start watering. it worked like a charm, fast dripping into each grow bag and large pot. i noticed a bumble bee floating in the bucket. it must've fallen in when trying to get a drink of water. i fished it out with my finger and was happy to see it was still alive. that happiness was short lived when i felt a sudden surge of pain in my finger tip. i dropped my phone and threw the bumble bee away as a reflex. that's not nice, i was only trying to save your life! i've been stung by a bumble bee before, but on my leg, where it didn't hurt too much. the fingertip was a different story. pulsating, searing pain. i went inside and looked up "bee sting treatment". unless you're allergic (which i'm not), the best thing to do is take some pain killers and ice the wound. i grabbed an ice cube from the freezer and pressed it against my finger. i also learned that only female bumble bees sting, and they don't die like honey bees. bumble bee venom is also more painful than honey bee venom. it said that the pain goes away on its own after a while. 10 minutes of holding the ice cube was enough that my fingertip wasn't in throbbing pain anymore. i went outside to find my phone, lying in the grass.

my parents came back from the bank. my father showed me a second flush of new female flowers coming from our grow bag luffas. he estimates we'll probably harvest another 20 luffas. we watched the drip irrigation in progress. there isn't much to see since the emitters are buried below ground, but eventually all the grow bags and pots were dripping water from the bottom, a good sign that they were all probably watered. it didn't use a lot of water but it was still enough to soak all the plants. drip irrigation might be a future way where we extend the usefulness of our rain barrels. that'll definitely be a garden project for next year.

my mother said one of the $20 bill she went to deposit was actually a counterfeit. for some reason the bank didn't take it (aren't they legally supposed to?). from a distance it looks like a genuine $20, but upon closer inspection the quality is poor and missing certain security features like iridescent ink and microfilm security strip. my mother said at least it was only $20. they have no idea which customer slipped them the funny money but now they'll be more vigilante. we don't get too much cash transactions these days anyway, most purchases are credit card.

my sister brought home esmei briefly. we forgot we had some raw chicken wings defrosting on a metal tray sitting on top of a cooler in the kitchen. the first thing esmei did was rush into the kitchen and lick a few chicken wings. thankfully she didn't have time to eat any yet.

looking outside in the late afternoon, none of the luffas or the bitter melons were wilting from the heat. that means the afternoon serving of drip irrigation helped to keep the plants happy and cool.

i was surfing the web for interesting plant seeds and came across roselle hibiscus. apparently you can grow them as an annual and harvest the bright red calyxes for all sorts of uses, from making teas, jams, drinks, and also candied roselle. my father said we should grow them next year instead of tomatoes, which so far this season we still haven't harvested a single fruit from our backyard. so later in the evening i went online and bought a bunch of roselle seeds for next year.

my father has been using the chinese deepask AI assistant pro. a few week ago google removed it from its store and a few days ago my father discovered it stopped working. i tried to install a newer version using an xapk file which requires the use of a third party app (full of ads) for proper installation. once installed though, the app wouldn't run anymore. google play store would intercede, spitting out a "the app installed on your device is not recognized" and wouldn't open up the app. i tried a bunch of different methods, from installing older versions of the app to using a VPN (with a hong kong location) but none of them worked. the weird thing was the app still worked on my mother's phone. so i'll trying extracting her app tomorrow and installing it on my father's phone. that's the final thing i can do. if it still doesn't work, he'll have to use something else. he's been using the app to create an itinerary for a possible china trip in late october.

approaching 6pm my father and i went into the backyard to do some grilling. i defrosted 2 bags of chicken wings earlier, already salt reduced them. my father sliced up the zucchini i found and added some seasoning. we also skewered some okras and grilled them as well. my mother came out with some leftover marinated porkchops which we also grilled.

the wings were good - we didn't scorch them too badly this time - but wings taste the best when they're a day old. the okras were surprisingly savory, we should grill them again next time. the smaller okras were still tender, the larger ones were so woody as to be inedible. cutting them open revealed white pearl seeds. we finished the sangria i made last weekend.

i went home after dinner. pushing my ebike through the backyard, i passed by shady plants continuing to die in the scorching afternoon sun. that rhododendron probably won't survive. they prefer dappled sunlight, not direct heat with no protection. it was getting leggy anyway, wouldn't mind seeing something else in its place.

i watched a stream of the red sox bluejays game while i took a shower. did i jinx the sox? ever since i started following them, they've been losing. they lost their 3rd straight game tonight.

i ordered some more miracle-gro water soluble fertilizer. this time i got their tomato food variety, which is a more balanced 18-18-21. traditional miracle-gro all-purpose plant food is 24-8-16. i also got a new tire pressure gauge, to replace the one that i bought a few years back but my father lost (my theory is he left it outside while working on someething and somebody swiped it). finally i got some slow bolt cilantro. we have a few empty grow bags that i could repurpose as cilantro incubators. we won't be able to harvest until 45-60 days later, but by then the weather will be cooler, perfect for cilantro.

renee turned off her heat pump last night so i wanted a reprieve from the noise. it also happened to coincide with a night time cooling. i basically went through the entire house opening all the windows before i went to sleep. home invasion prowler be damned! this was my best change to at least lower the indoor temperature by a few degrees.

i started reading the tainted cup (2024) by robert jackson bennett, after i read a glowing review of the series on slate. it falls in the fantasy murder mystery genre, kind of like a sherlock holmes mixed in a fantasy world were people modify organics (including themselves) into magically technology. the book won both the 2025 hugo award for best novel and the world fantasy award. it made me put my rereard of william gibson's neuromancer on hold.

even though conditions were optimal for a great night of sleep, i was restless. it felt like i wasn't sleep at all, as i checked the clock. the last time i saw was 3am. when morning daylight came, i forced myself to sleep until 9am. after my ablutions, i went outside to water the back and front yard. i didn't like how my deck plants were still very much exposed to the hot midday sun, so i put up a cardboard box barrier. i then mixed a few buckets worth of miracle-gro fertilizer and doused some important plants like hostas, foxgloves, trilliums, and hydrangeas. my reward for those plants bearing with the heat.

i mixed 4 containers of miracle-gro fertilizer then rode down to the community garden to water and fertilize. richard was there watering his plants, his black t-shirt completely soaked. i asked about his watermelon, he showed me his large pumpkin hidden in plain site. it was a good size, speckled with orange. how i never noticed it before is a surprise, because i've been periodically peeking in his plot trying to find signs of watermelons. he was disappointed he only got one pumpkin, because he wanted a second one for his son. he also told me he had to leave before he passed out from heat exhaustion. after i watered my plants, i poured the fertilizer solution into the grow bags. here's to increased bounty!

when i got back home, i grabbed my ebike from the basement and left for belmont. so the big thing i had to do today was drive bruce to wellesley in the early afternoon for his MRI appointment. i went to my parents' place to grab the car. my father warned me the brakes were a little soft (sounds like a future DIY project) but after riding some of the wonkiest bicycles with barely any braking, soft car brakes are still way better.

i stopped off at the cafe because i forgot to do so when i left the house earlier. i put away the tea eggs then watered the plants. the bakery was resurfacing their floors yesterday and continued today. i know this because i could hear them sanding the floor next door. there were 5 passion flowers today.

i made it back home with an hour to spare. i texted bruce to let him know i had the car and that we'd meet at 12:15pm for his 1pm appointment. while using the bathroom, i had my laptop perched on my knee as i familiarized myself with the route to the shields MRI facility. google maps recommended two routes that took me on the highway, but i preferred a more familiar route straight down route 16 passing through watertown and newton before arriving in wellesley. it's a route i know from my time spent doing motorcycle naturing. i memorized a few landmarks then committed the route to memory, old school style.

we left at the designated time. traveling route 16 added extra minutes to the trip but we had plenty of time. when we arrived we were afraid it'd be busy for people who couldn't get an MRI done during the weekdays, but the rear parking lot was actually pretty empty. when we tried to go in, the door wasn't even opened yet so we rang a buzzer before they let us inside. it seems like bruce was the first (and maybe the only?) patient of the day. we sat in the waiting area briefly before a nurse came out to take him inside. i had my phone to keep me busy. a woman came in afterwards wearing a knee brace, and another woman came in right before bruce was discharged. he was gone for about half an hour.

returning home was faster. instead of continuing on mt.auburn street once we got into watertown, i took a detour through belmont, pass my parents' house, to get us onto huron avenue along fresh pond. we got back home around 2pm. the whole procedure including travel time took about 2 hours.

i grabbed my things and headed back to belmont to return the car. it was 2:30pm by the time i got there. my parents made kimchi pancakes for lunch stuffed with pork floss.

my father and i were outside in the backyard briefly but hungry mosquitoes kept nipping at our bare legs so we came back inside. my aunt drove up to our house to deliver a homemade cherry pie because they bought too much cherries.

we went back outside around 4pm, when our raddy WS-74 solar drip irrigation kit ($46) arrived from amazon (i ordered it just saturday morning). we were kind of surprised how little 1/4" clear tubing they gave us - only 30ft - would it be enough? in order to properly test it, we had no choice but to cut the tubing (can it still be returned?).

our first test was just seeing it in action. it siphons water from a bucket that it then outputs at 7W. we connected the check valve and regulator valve then cut two 1 ft length of tubing and attached two angled emitters. the emitters showed an impressive flow of water which we could control by turning the knob on the regulator valve. for our next test we hooked up a third emitter but attached to 28ft of tubing. it passed that test as well, with strong tail end pressure.

we decided to hook up our entire sawhorse trellis garden, watering all the potted luffas as well as the bitter melons. we put the water bucket closest to our most troubled luffa in a grow bag, the westernmost luffa, that dries to bare bones every afternoon with drooping leaves. it stands to reason that the emitters closest to the bucket would have the strongest pressure while those at the end of the line will just be a trickle. we inserted 2 angled emitters into this luffa grow bag, so it could get double the irrigation. we then ran the tubing though all the grow bags and pots. the kit came with 15 emitters, we ended up using 13. we just barely had enough tubing.

we then turned on the pump. because the tubing is clear, we could see the water traveling through the transparent piping, follow it as it went from one end to the other. for the most part our irrigation follows a single line, ending with a three-way split. emitters closest to the bucket had the most pressure, while the ones farthest away had the least. i wonder if could split the water when it first comes out, thereby each side would get equal pressure. the control box can also be controlled via wifi using the tuya app, but i couldn't get it to connect. the control box arrived with low batter charge, we had to power it using a usb power bank. later my father attached the included solar panel to charge up the control box.

my father seemed to like this little solar drip irrigation kit. it seems to be able to do what we needed, which is to provide a second watering in the middle of the day to keep the grow bags moist. i personally prefer a more robust solution, using a 120v submersible pump that would feed water through a 1/2" main line before getting diverted to smaller 1/4" for the actual irrigation through various emitters. that solution is more complicated and probably more than we need right now. probably next year's garden project.

the other thing we did today was buy a bunch of stuff online because of the final day of tax free weekend. most of our purchases were on amazon. we bought more than on prime day back in june. nothing too extravagant, mostly essentials that we would've bought anyway, except today we didn't have to the pay the 6.75% MA sales tax. the big thing i got was a new (refurbished excellent, porcelain) phone - a pixel 9 pro with 256GB for $530. my current phone is a pixel 7 that i purchased brand new at the end of 2022, so it's almost 4 years ago. i engaged in some promotional hijinks where i bought a used pixel 6 for $270 and traded it in to the google store for a new pixel 7 for $20 more. with the new pixel 11 series coming out next week, the price of old pixel phones should drop. but i heard the new 11 series will be more expensive for just incremental updates, so old pixels will still be sought after, and prices will stay the same if not actually go up because of demand. who knows. i can always return the phone if i find a better deal (not due to arrive until next weekend).

the thing i'm mostly looking forward to on the pixel 9 pro is actual macro capability and 5x optical zoom (30x with AI enhancement). i use my pixel for pretty much the bulk of my photo taking, so it's only fitting i should upgrade to a better camera.

the other big purchase was buying a bunch of gro pro nx level 16" plant elevators for grow bags. apparently they're an essential staple in the cannabis industry, because that's where i originally found them. they're actually pretty cheap - i've seen some as low as $2 - but it must be a scam because them they tack on $60 for shipping. i was set to buy a bunch from a grower warehouse - even eating the shipping cost ($27) - but then i discovered a seller selling them in bulk on ebay for free shipping. they're about $4.50 a piece, but if i buy 20, they only cost $4 each. i debated long and hard - do i really need that many grow bag stands? but ended up still getting 20 since i can use some in my own future backyard deck garden. plus back in june i bought 2 dozen 10 gallon grow bags, so 20 plant stands actually isn't enough. and i save an extra $5.50 because of the tax free holiday.

after my father and i finished setting up the drip irrigation, i came back inside to make dinner. i was making gyudon tonight. this time i also poached 3 eggs. i added extra water this time (by accident) which turned out to be the right decision since that meant more savory broth. i simmered the onions and shaved beef in a wok which was much easier to work with. my father helped me cut the onion and minced the ginger. my mother went out into the backyard and collected some scallions. beni shoga i brought from home, mirin from the cafe, and hondashi i found in the cupboard from the last time i made korean rice cake.

i brought a can of sour monkey tripel for my father to try. like i said yesterday, it's more of a novelty beer. but the high alcohol content makes it the equivalent of drinking 2 beers. my mother took a sip and demanded night shift brewing double parked IPA instead. i had a slice of cherry pie before i left. if you didn't tell me, i wouldn't have known it was cherry, looked like some kind of colorless berry. nobody warned me but there were still pits. i found not one but three in my slice, nearly broke a tooth.

i got back home before 8pm. a spandex racer blew past me when i was about to make a turn at an intersection. i easily followed him on my ebike as he pedaled up the steep hill. even lance armstrong couldn't ride faster than an ebike. i wasn't even pedalling, just pressed the throttle button until i effortlessly passed him.

i made a bunch of purchases on aliexpress. i don't think they got the tax free weekend memo, they still made me pay tax. mostly various sizes of screws and some replacement mi fitness band straps. the last things i got - with minutes to spare - was some shade cloth for the backyard from amazon. i decided to try putting one up on deck for some shade and privacy, and another shade cloth over the backyard to keep the plants alive. they're not that expensive - about $20 each - plus some bungee ball cords. i got 40-50% shade, which is still enough for half the light to shine through, but reduce the temperature by 10 degrees or more. it's an experiment, don't know if it'll work, but worth a try. they should arrive on tuesday, i've got all wednesday to install them.

another cool night, and another night where my neighbor isn't running her heat pump. once again, i went through the house, opened as many windows as possible.

after i finished watering my front and backyard this morning, i biked over to the community garden to water my plot. i also brought a spray bottle to mix in some of my blossom-end rot solution (1 tsp per bottle). i sprayed my two tomato plants, completely drenching them in calcium chloride. it's my first time using a calcium supplement for my tomatoes, not sure how well it'll work. apparently you spray every week (unless it rains, then you spray more often) up to 4 applications.

i brought a large cardboard box attached to my rear bike rack so i could bring one of my potted pepper plants home. now that i have serious sunlight in my backyard, i can finally grow some vegetables. this pepper plant was sort of an outlier in the garden anyway, bringing it home clears up some space.

some landscaping people were working in my neighbor's backyard today, clearing away some brush. this is the first time i've seen contractors there since they cut down the tree on tuesday (that seems such a long time ago). i put the pepper on a plant stand in the middle of my deck, the sunniest part. it was still early enough in the morning that the backyard was still in partial shade but i expect it to be super sunny a bit later. i also rearranged some of my deck plants to keep them from getting the brunt of the midday sun.

i was already sweat-soaked from working in the garden and the backyard. i took another quick shower before finally heading to the cafe around 10:30am.

unfortunately the slow day we had yesterday carried over into today, and we made a little less, as there were fewer cash sales and no deliveries. we were super busy right when we opened, to the point where we had to cook more rice. but that surge stopped abruptly at noon, until we had another spike at 1pm but nothing after that. fortunately we had good tuesday-wednesday-thursday profits that carried us over, but based on those three days, we were hoping for a record august week which didn't happen. how much this is all weather-related we don't know. this year seems particularly hot and humid, so much so that nobody sits outside on the backyard patio, and most days we don't even bother setting it up anymore.

my father went to go pick up my 2nd aunt this morning, too hot for her to walk to the cafe. he went home in the afternoon then came back at closing time to give my 2nd aunt a ride home. she also took home one of the ikea shelving units we originally grabbed for her but she took one look at them and said she didn't want them. a few days later she changed her mind. i was going to go with them to help carry the furniture into her apartment, but my father said it wasn't necessary. i stayed with my mother at the cafe after we closed, until my father came back.

i bumped into my neighbor neil, coming back from a grocery run. he told me now their backyard gets more sun than before. imagine how we feel! he said he and his wife went to go see the property after they cut down the tree. i said i'd be curious to count the rings to figure out how old the tree was, he said i could just walk in.

so i took his advice and walked to the back to check out the tree trunk in person. the backyard was a mess. i think the old lady who lived would be rolling over in her grave knowing that they destroyed her cherished garden. i saw the trunk and grabbed my tape measure: it had a diameter of about 55 inches. i tried to count the rings, but the trunk surface was so rough cut, i couldn't see them.

coming back, i went to the corner liquor store to look for some more double IPA. the only one i saw was night shift double parked double IPA. it's the one i got for my parents, it's pretty good - drinks like a cider not like a beer, very fruity and sweet - but i wanted to find a different brand. i ended up getting a 6-pack of sour monkey sour tripel. nothing about it said double IPA, but i was intrigued with its name. sour? plus it was 9.5% alcohol, similar to a double IPA.

i took a shower when i got home. afterwards i settled down to some leftover scallion bread and a can of sour monkey. i thought "sour" was just some esoteric beer term, like how some beers are "juicy". but they weren't kidding, it was actually sour, but not enough to make it unpalatable, though wasn't what i was searching for. it wasn't bad, but i don't think i'd buy it again. it's more of a novelty beer.

i continued watching widow's bay. i originally gave up on the show after watching half the first episode and got bored. but i kept hearing good things and pushed myself to watch more. the 4th episode was the hook, made me somewhat invested. i used to watch in bed, but all those pirated free streaming apps went silent back in june, so i can only watch them on my laptop through a streaming website with heavy ad blockers.

maybe it's the heat, maybe it's just accumulated lack of good night sleeping, but i was really drowsy today and ended up taking a nap on the couch around 7:30pm. i woke up around 9pm. i felt hungry but didn't feel like cooking, so i ate my last can of sweet corn, bachelor's diet.

i had the AC turned on since i got home, but felt guilty and turned it off around 11pm. the rest of the house was probably still warm, but since the AC lowered the overall indoor humidity, it didn't feel all that bad.

i watered the backyard again this morning. my one umbrella plant sitting in a particularly sunny corner of my backyard deck has scorch marks on its leaves from the sun. i moved it to a shadier spot, as well as the hanging prayer plant. elsewhere, solomon seals, lily of the valley, and rhododendrons all have signs of heat scalding. the only plant that seems to be happy is the hydrangea. afterwards i went to the community garden to water. there was one butterfly pea flower but i left it alone, hopefully to get some seeds. when i left somebody that thrown out a large zucchini on top of the trash can. i grabbed it and put it in my bag as i left for the cafe.

approaching the cafe, i found a manual juicer. nothing fancy, it's well designed, and i found the matching model on amazon for only $8. add it to my collection of single purpose kitchen tools.

i went out again, this time to the fresh pond mall. i went to staples to return the weber ash tray. i never returned an amazon purchase at staples before, which is weird, because a few stores down is a whole foods with a dedicated amazon return department. there was only a single person working the desk and i had to wait for an old lady to finish up paying and stop talking before the clerk could process my amazon return. i asked if this was new, but she said they were handling amazon returns ever since she worked there.

afterwards i went to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers and edamame, before returning to the cafe.

we had few customers in the morning but that was it in terms of profit. it was shaping to be another very slow day. the customers who came on tuesday-wednesday-thursday - where they did they go? wasn't like today was any hotter, but maybe they finally got sick of the heat and decided not to go out for food. we were saved by our evening spike, had enough customers to pull us above our daily average.

my father and i looked for a solar-powered drip irrigation system for our sawhorse trellis luffas and other grow bag potted plants. a lot of them have cheap manual controls but we found a few with digital displays that can be easier adjusted. we found one in particular that also included wifi and we'll probably get it tomorrow during the MA tax free holiday.

my aunt came by the afternoon. my mother gave her some more luffas and some scallion bread. i didn't know the bread was for her because i ended up eating a bunch. my mother made a bitter melon with salted duck egg stifry and another chinese eggplant with basil stirfry. my father made a dish with shredded chicken and sichuan peppercorn oil. i ended up going home with some of that leftovers.

i inspected the backyard after i put away my bike. i noticed some more sun-damaged plants. i've been toying with the idea of installing a sun shade in the backyard to give the plants some protection from the intense heat and sunlight. some sensitive shade plants will need to be this autumn, to parts of the backyard that doesn't get so much sunlight.

i turned on the AC as soon as i got home. it was 84 degrees inside the house. after a shower i had dinner. i listened to the new york times podcast about AIPAC and how it alienated the democratic base that it once supported.

i got ready early this morning so i'd have time to water my backyard as well as my community garden plot. with the large oak tree missing, the backyard needed watering more than ever. i noticed the trilliums had scorch mark on the leaves, don't know if they're going to survive. on the other side of the yard i saw some browning ferns. up in a nearby tree, a squirrel was twitching its tail in distress. it must've relied on the acorns the oak tree provided, now gone forever. hopefully it can find other sources of food. not just humans who mourn the loss of the oak tree.

after watering around my house, i biked to the community garden to water my plot. now that i know consistent daily watering is key to eliminating bottom blossom rot, i'm going to be more vigilant about watering. it looked like jen was in the garden but i didn't see her. however by the time i was leaving i saw her watering some of the common beds.

it was so hot and humid today it felt unbearable to be outside. it was the first of many days where we'll be in the 90's. combined with the humidity (my weather station said 83%) it easily felt like 100 degrees or more. we didn't even bother setting up the patio furniture, no sane person would want to sit outside. two passion flowers today. the city road crew was finally paving concord avenue.

my father was setting up the deep fryer when i got to the cafe. i helped him fry a new batch of salt & pepper chicken. we kept the kitchen door closed to keep the fry smell from permeating to the rest of the cafe. i set up a fan on a table to blow out the fry oil smell.

once the frying was done, i made a new batch of tea eggs. we actually ran out of tea eggs and had to start using the batch i just made. once that happened, i made yet another new batch of tea eggs. i also made a new batch of black soy noodles and roasted a new batch of chinese sausages. my mother made some scallion bread and a new batch of sour mustard greens and pickled cucumbers. seems like everyone had something to do.

it was one of those days where it didn't seem like it'd be too busy. but every hour got progressively busier, hitting a peak between 1-3pm, when it got super busy for some reason as customers kept coming in one after another. my personal theory is they had a meeting at the astrophysics center that ran late, and everyone was coming late to our cafe for lunch.

my sister took off by 2pm. she was going to the BTS concert at gillette stadium and was dropping off esmei at her friend's house, with instructions for my parents to pick up esmei after work. my sister isn't expected to get back home until late, and will swing by my parents' place to grab her dog. this concert was long planned months ago. she even bought a glowing BTS wand that can sync up with concert events as well as getting a new pair of pentax 8x25 binoculars which she paid $180 (even though we have binoculars she could borrow).

after 3pm we barely had any customers. close to the end of the day we had a few delivery orders, that's about it. every day this week we've made about the same (above our daily average), with today being the highest of the three days profit-wise. kind of surprisingly, i figured with the heat customers would stay away.

after work, my mother gave me some leftover rice and a fishy-smelling luffa and pork dish my father created earlier. but i wasn't going home, but instead heading to belmont to personally spearhead some upgrades to our grow bags to make them perform better.

there are many benefits to using grow bags. plants grow denser roots and don't get root bound because of air pruning. grow bags also don't get as hot since heat can easily escape the porous fabric and plants never get root rot because of excellent drainage. but what we didn't take into account were some of the disadvantages, the two being grow bags dry out super fast and because of the excellent drainage a lot of nutrients get leached out. that's why my father's been noticing for many weeks now that ground-grown luffas seem healthier. yes they grow slowly, but they don't experience the drying or the nutrient leaching. the grow bag luffas grow great initially, and started to fruit as soon as they reached the trellis (only 2-1/2 feet), but over time, the drying and leaching takes a toll.

leaching we can counteract by fertilizing weekly, that's not a problem. the drying out is more difficult to solve, especially given how dry it's been this summer (take a look at our yellow lawn if you need proof). grow bags need frequent watering, which we can't do when we're at work. my father has been researching solar irrigation solutions, but i don't know how well they work. another trick is to bunch the grow bags closer together, so they shield one another from drying out too quickly. we can't do that because the luffas are already entwined to the trellis and can't be moved anymore. the only thing left to try is to put some mulch around the plants, the idea being it keeps the soil from evaporating from the top (though it can still evaporate through the porous sides). we happen to have a large used bundle of commercial straw in the garage. i added about 2 layers of straw before my father watered the grow bags. we'll see how this will work out.

my parents went to go pick up esmei. my father let her into the backyard. she wasn't at all surprised to see me, but instead ran across the lawn chasing after a rabbit. i also picked more than a dozen butterfly pea flowers. i didn't pick the old ones - the blossoms had already faded - some of which have already turned into seed pods.

our bean trellises in the raised beds are growing super well. my father has been diligently pruning the tips to increase side shoot and pruning the bottom leaves to provide more air circulation. the leaves themselves are huge, bigger than my outstretched hand. i still haven't seen any long bean flowers (which only bloom in the morning), but today i saw more spent flowers, which will now develop into long beans.

i returned home by 7:30pm. it was starting to get dark (sunset now at 7:58pm) and i didn't put on my bike lights even though i had them (the trek allant also features some dazzling spoke lights which look especially cool). even though i was riding a manual bike, it felt like i was still traveling pretty fast. i think all my training with smaller 26" mountain bike wheels have prepared me well for the 700c wheels upgrade. manual bikes are also lighter, it's easy to maintain a fast speed once i reach it. approaching home, i rode on the newly paved garfield street - black and smooth like glass - what a pleasure to ride on.

i turned on the AC when i got home - i'm not a masochist. i hopped in the shower to wash off the fryer smell from this morning. i didn't have dinner until almost 9pm. i had some cherries afterwards, and some vanilla bean ice cream.

this was my first full day being at home with the backyard oak tree now gone. the thing i noticed right away was just how bright it was now with no shade. there was no construction today, not sure when that's going to start. the original schedule was for a year of construction, with most of the noisy parts happening in the first few months.

i went out for a run and immediately regret the decision as it was both hot and humid today. i did little running, just basically walked down to the river, ran 1-1/2 miles around the river (abbreviated route as part of the river path is closed for construction), then walked back. at least they paved garfield street, must've happened yesterday, i didn't see it because i've been going out of my way to avoid that street.

i stopped by the community garden to water. i harvested a few small tomatoes. one of them had bottom rot. i've always thought it was a disease issue, but it's actually a calcium deficiency. plants need calcium to build strong cell walls. inconsistent watering also contribute to blossom-end rot. the quickest fix is to apply a foliar spray that contains calcium.

i got back home a bit after 11am. i was looking to see if jeff and michelle had left the house. the webcam didn't pick up any activity but i didn't hear any upstairs noises so they must've left while i was out.

for lunch i ate a can of sweet corn.

around 1:30pm i went out to run errands. i was going to return an weber ash pan ($30) but for some reason amazon didn't let me take it to a whole foods but instead told me to go to staples instead. another thing i had to do was get gas for the motorcycle. this shows you how little i've been riding it this season, but i believe this is my first time getting gasoline for the bike this year. naturally i wanted until gas prices were at their most expensive. but first i stopped at the porter square star market to get some cherries on sale and some häagen-dazs ice cream. only then did i go get gas. i could've run some other errands but i didn't want my ice cream to melt on such a hot day, so i returned home.

i switched the motorcycle for the bicycle and went out again. i stopped by the community garden a second time to harvest some butterfly pea flowers i saw this morning but didn't have a container to hold them. i then went to harvard vanguard to pick up a bunch of prescriptions for my parents. finally i went to market basket to get some groceries. it was so hot, i could feel my skin baking while i panted like a dog to keep cool.

i didn't go out again after that. today is the first day of a week-long heatwave (though official the temperature here in cambridge only reached 89 degrees). it was warm inside the house, but not as hot outside. it was also dry, but the indoor humidity slowly crept up. i didn't have to turn on the air conditioner today but i probably will tomorrow. i kept the windows closed to keep the cool air from escaping. without the backyard shade trade, i wonder how hot it'll be inside the house now, especially since nobody is living upstairs for the next few months, so it'll only get hotter upstairs. one good thing is all that new sun exposure will make it warmer during the winter.

i feasted on a bag of hazelnut chocolate wafer cookies as i watched disclosure day on my computer. other than that, i didn't do anything else the rest of the day. it's kind of scary how fast time goes by on my one day off. periodically i'd check the cafe profit, to gauge how busy they were. we were actually busier today than yesterday, but with one fewer sale (34 versus 33). i have some bike projects i need to work on but too hot to be out in the backyard. there was also photos that needed cataloging, but i totally blew that off (like i've been blowing it off for always 2 years now).

i got a little sleepy but never went to sleep. for some reason i ate very late - close to 10pm - cooked some annie's pasta shells with cheese.

around 11pm i gathered my camera equipment and climbed the deck to my neighbor's 2nd floor, now that i have the whole house to myself. i wanted to try taking some slow shutter photos with my dSLR and try to get some stars. from the 2nd floor deck i had an expansive view into the backyard neighbor's property and beyond. in the sky, nothing but stars through the thick city light pollution. earlier i looked up the settings for my camera: manual 1600 ISO 10mm f/3.5 30 seconds shutter speed. while that was happening, i also had my pixel phone set on my light stand to take photos using the astrophotography function - which takes 2-4 minutes photos. the backyard neighbor had already turned off their lights, but at one point he went into the backyard and toggled through his light settings before finally turning them off. i don't know if he saw me. i must've looked super creepy, with my two cameras pointing into his backyard. i did get some star photos, but unfortunately my constellation recognition skills are very rusty, and i wasn't sure what i was looking at. despite the light pollution, i think it'd be awesome to set up a telescope on a clear night, a lot of things to see. the perseid meteor shower is next week, i'm hoping to do some shooting star watching from the backyard deck.

the developer wasted no time: at exactly 8am i heard the sounds of chainsaw cutting down the backyard oak tree. i didn't even have enough time to set up my gopro to shoot a time lapse then run outside to launch my drone into the air to take some photos. i was imagining loggers climbing the tree, cutting it branch by branch, but that wasn't the case. instead, a large crane with an articulating claw grabbed ahold of a branch before a chainsaw attachment swung out to cut it off. it was surprisingly efficient and low risk. they managed to cut down the tree in just a matter of hours.

my neighbor pike caught my outside while i was flying the drone. he seemed impressed, i told him he could get one to inspect his solar panels. jen came out of her house and i chatted with her. she sent a bunch of neighbors a group text informing us the tree removal was happening. i revealed to her i was the one who left a pilea plant in her backyard when i watered for a week. the drone was starting to run low on battery and came back home on its own.

because i was trying to document the tree removal, i arrived late to the cafe, but still not before we opened.

my father made another luffa soup with some tofu and okra leaves. he saw somewhere that okra leaves are edible so added some to the soup. if they are edible they're just barely. the leaves are tough - like chewing paper - and the stems are even tougher, like chewing something fibrous.

5 passion flower blossoms today. the weather was warm but dry, good enough to open the patio umbrella, but we didn't bother setting it up because we didn't have too many customers in the afternoon. that meant the passion flowers got another day of full sun exposure. because of the rain that fell yesterday, the soil was still wet and i didn't bother watering. some cypress vine flowers have also bloomed, tiny red stars.

i set up an old wyze webcam on my backyard patio so i could monitor the tree cutting. through grainy image i could see by 1pm the tree was gone. something that i can easily imagine was close to 100 years old destroyed in just a few hours. and for what? to make way for new houses. i curse those developers and i curse the people who will eventually move in.

my father was busy cutting up all the pork butts we bought yesterday to make charsiu pork. some pork from costco, some pork from market basket. we left it to marinate before packaging them up in food safe boxes and freezing them. the few leftover pieces i roasted in our air fryer oven. there was a strong smell of burning rubber that we couldn't figure out where it was coming from. the most likely culprit was the oven, but when i opened it up i didn't smell anything unusual. nevertheless the smell persisted, until we noticed smoke coming from the oven. turns out it wasn't the oven exactly, but the cord. it was connected to a short extension cord, and the plug had melted, leaving scorched plastic residue on the wall. we quickly shut everything down. the extension cord itself was cool to the touch, as well as the wall outlet. whatever happened was concentrated at the plug. my father thinks maybe some water dripped on the contacts (from rinsed out plastic pitchers we store above the plug), and instead of short circuiting, it just melted the plug. what was unusual was the breaker didn't trip. the plug was so fused to the extension cord, we had to cut it off. fortunately we have a spare air fryer in the basement which i brought up. everything was back to normal after that. the old oven still works, we just need to replace the plug end.

my father deep fried some trimmed off pork skin to make some crispy salty snacks. my mother made a soup with some smoked ham hock she got yesterday along with some daikon radish. she added some barley as well. i had a bowl and took some home after work for dinner.

it was starting to look like another slow day. we'd be lucky to reach our daily average. the day went fast though, and when 5pm approached, we would soon be going home. plus normally we get an uptick in the evening. what happened for the next 1-1/2 hours was more than an uptick. we got several large orders - including one over the phone. we went from a slow day to suddenly a pretty good day profit wise. we even had to turn down a customer, a guy called asking for a tamago but that's a custom item and would take at least 10 minutes to make. my father told him we were closing and try next time.

i was afraid to go home, afraid to see backyard without the shade of the large oak tree canopy. it felt weird to see so much sky when i used to see nothing but branches and leaves. there was sawdust everywhere and a few small branches had landed in our yard. i threw them over the fence. i climbed to the second landing to retrieve my gopro, still recording since this morning. a perk of not having a giant oak tree in the backyard is for the first time ever i could launch my drone from the comfort of home without worrying about hitting tree branches. i sent my drone in the air and took some photos and a few videos. the tree trunk was massive, the size of a round dining table. it'd be cool to count the rings, figure out how it was. it's going to take a long time to get used to the new backyard view.

i decompressed with a shower before heating up the leftover ham hock soup. i also boiled some rice noodles. i was sweating like crazy while i ate.

later in the evening i took out the trash. i went to the backyard to take a look. for the first time ever, i had a clear view of the southern sky. i could actually do some stargazing from my patio! i used the astrophotography feature on my pixel phone (attached to a tripod) to take 2-4 minutes long exposures. it's still too bright in the city, but i did photography some faint stars i'd never seen before. i might try catching the perseid meteor showers from the topmost deck next week (got the whole house to myself starting tomorrow).

the meteorologists were all wrong. the forecast for today was rain in the early morning before anyone wakes up, then a little more in the early afternoon. the clouds must've shifted because it rained practically the entire day, from morning all the way into the early evening. that of course ruined my plan to bike to my parents' place for a monday supply run. i figured we could pivot, go to the everett costco closer to where i live followed by the somerville market basket. but my mother still wanted to visit the waltham costco/market basket, so my father ended up coming to pick me up around 10:20am. we passed by the cafe, where starting this morning around 7am, sewer contractors were digging up the sidewalk in order to fix the water main leak, which the city is making us pay to repair for $9000.

i had a chance to take a peek in the backyard before we left for our supply run. the plants seemed happy with all this rain. i even saw formerly dead and dried areas of grass growing new seedlings. because it was early and a grey day, i was hoping to see some long bean flowers, but there were none. potential flower buds, just no flowers. my father has been cutting the tips off the bean shoots, which he says promotes side branching and more flowering. the blue beans are definitely flowering.

we went to the waltham costco first. despite the pouring rain, it was still busy. we bought pork butts for our charsiu pork. we also stocked up on vegetable oil. they sell these 4-1/2 gallon tubs of soybean oil which is slightly cheaper. we've never used soybean oil before, apparently it has a higher smoke point (450 degrees). but later i learned that vegetable oil is soybean oil. they also carry canola oil which we don't use. i've always heard it's healthier, and it's what i use at home. there was downpours by the time we left, so my father went to get the car and drive up to the entrance so we could load our supplies.

next we went to market basket. it too was busy. my father dropped us off at the entrance before circling the parking lot to find a spot. i had a trash bag full of seltzer cans to deposit, but unfortunately the deposit machines were broken. i was hoping to flag down my father so i could put the cans back in the car but he drove off before i could do that. in ended up bringing the empty cans inside like a hobo. it didn't seem like we needed much but we still filled the shopping cart with groceries. one thing i saw that i didn't notice before was they carried 4 oz. angostura aromatic bitters for cocktails ($7.99). two bottles on amazon sells for nearly $30.

we returned to cambridge via the highway. i was worried because of the rain and reduced visibility, sort of braced myself for a potential crash that never happened. passing through fresh pond we stopped at trader joe's to get a few more things. every time i got out of the car or left the store, my glasses would fog up due to the temperature/humidity change.

we didn't get to the cafe until after 1pm. the contractors were finished, but we didn't bother checking their work. it's all underground anyway, not much to see. despite all the rain, 3 passion flowers managed to blossom. the rain seemed to make them open up even more, maybe all that vibration from the rain drops. we didn't leave the cafe until after 1:30pm.

for lunch we heated up some dean's sausage and egg breakfast sandwiches in the microwave.

usually when it rains the weather turns cooler, but it wasn't the case today. it was actually still very hot and humid, like walking into a sauna whenever we went outside. there wasn't much to do in the backyard. my father and i picked a luffa gourd for preserving, so it could mature and we can collect the seeds for next season.

i learned something about the butterfly pea flowers: when they get wet, they start losing their pigment. i touched one of the flowers to get a better photo, and all the rain water on my fingertips were stained blue. that's why you harvest the flowers the day they bloom, either in the morning or later in the day. leave them on the vine, they begin to lose their natural blue coloring. the were already a few old flowers turning in pea pods (seeds for next year).

the rain finally stopped in the late afternoon/early evening, with one final band of rain showers supposedly passing through the boston area around 6:30pm (once again the meteorologists were wrong). how much rain did we get? so it rained on wednesday as well, but a bucket that was left outside underneath a canopy of luffa leaves had about 4-5" of rain. we are still in a moderate drought as of last tuesday, but i'm curious to see the new drought map for this week. hopefully we can put a significant dent in all that dryness.

dinner featured all vegetables from our garden: luffa stirfry, swiss chard stirfry, and a chicken stirfry with sweet basil and spicy longhorn peppers. my parents have also been harvesting the okras and ate them previously when i wasn't around. okras are best when breaded and fried. they said the okras were also a little tough which isn't surprisingly, our okras are gigantic, longer than our bitter melons. the only other thing we didn't eat were bitter melons, but i had some last night. in a few weeks we can look forward to some long broad (blue) beans as well. as for tomatoes, my father has been pruning them back so severely (after watching a tiktok video) they don't have enough leaves to produce fruits. something is also eating them, probably chipmunks. it's gotten to the point where i don't know if i want to grow any tomatoes next season. we also have japanese eggplants i forgot, but they're not mature yet.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i went inside to grab some CR2016 watch batteries for him (i ordered them by mistake, amazon gave me a refund and said i could keep them), he wants to start wearing his old casio watches after the nth xiaomi fitness band died on him.

i spent the evening playing with the BSD date function on macos, learning how to format the date just the way i like it (e.g. 260803-1). GNU date is easier to use (doesn't require esoteric flags to do anything), but alas macos is BSD linux. once i sort of figured that out, i plugged that formatting code into a script google AI search wrote for me that would automatically scan a list of files by creation date and sort them into folders. i had to tweak the code a little bit. it was also adding the invisible desktop file into a folder, before i asked it to ignore invisible files. i also made it check to see if the folder existed, otherwise create it.

an early version of the script didn't work and i kept getting a "bad interpreter: operation not permitted" error. i thought it had something to do with the file privileges (like the script not being executable) but all the privileges were set correctly. turns out the problem was a macos quarantine issue, since i created the script using bbedit, the system flagged it as a potential threat. i fixed it by using the xattr command to remove the quarantine flag on the script. it worked after that. my first version (bash shell) would output in terminal where it moved the file; my second version (using zsh shell) worked behind the scene, did all the sorting before i realized it. this script is going to save me some time the next time i do a batch photo download and need to sort them into date folders.