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i ended up going to bed last night at 5am. i just wasn't sleepy for some reason. whenever i have a bout of insomnia (i don't really call it insomnia though, not like i was tossing and turning in bed, i was up and about doing computer stuff and watching tv), i try very hard to think what i did that day. one look at the pile of soda cans on the coffee table was evidence that i had too much caffeine. that plus the accidental nap i had contributed to my inability to fall asleep. case solved!

7 hours later i was awake. i looked outside the living room window to see the aftermath of yesterday's blizzard. people were digging their cars out of the snow and i was pleasantly surprised to see that my upstairs neighbor had shoveled the steps and sidewalks. the big weather news was this blizzard of 2003 set a new boston snowfall record; prior to yesterday, the record holder was the blizzard of 1978. i had always had an inferiority complex growing up as a kid because i didn't live in boston when the blizzard of '78 happened (i was in taipei). i remember every winter in school kids would reminisce about the blizzard of '78 (kids in my age group were 4 years old when it happened) and i always felt kind of left out of those boisterous conversations. not anymore though, now that the blizzard of 2003 is the new benchmark. lunch, i made a bagel egg cheese sandwich, nutritious but too much vegetable oil in the pan stank up my house for the rest of the day.

i got dressed (knowing that everything would be wet eventually) and went into the backyard to take a snow measurement. although the official snowfall at logan airport was 27.5", when i went outside with the tape measure i only got 20.5". later, while watching the news, i learned the way they take snow measurement these days is every 10" they clear the snow and remeasure. that's because if you let snow sit, it sinks, which gives you a skewed measurement (but probably a more realistic number though). so 20.5" doesn't take into account the amount of sinking that happened. this also means that boston definitely got more snow back in 1978, because back then snowfall was measured without taking into consideration any sinking effects.

dinner, my father dropped off some stuff, mantou buns and some beef soup. i watched 3 solid hours of TV (gilmore girls, 24, kingpin) before turning off the tube for some computer work. i also got an unsubstantiated report that WHDH used a snowstorm photo of mine on one of their news broadcasts. i submitted a snapshot last night (the 1:30am view of my street), but didn't hear back from them so i figured nothing would happen.