a day of domestic duties, starting with shoveling the sidewalk of the snow that fell last night. it wasn't that much, half an inch at most, but by the time i went outside, most of it had already been trampled, and compacted snow is harder to shovel. afterwards i sprinkled some salt to melt what i couldn't remove.

i saw my neighbor julia, the one that's been trying to sell her house since september. the first few weeks it was on the market i saw a lot of people viewing her place but nothing must've happened because there's been no change on the realtor "for sale" sign hanging outside her house. it's been 4 months already, i wonder if she's reduced the price since then, from her original asking price of half a million dollars; because that condo is not worth nearly that much. i think julia might also be pregnant since the last time i saw her. that's kind of mysterious because i've never seen her with anyone. i wonder if it was in-vitro, since if i had to guess she's in her 40's.

continuing with my domestic choirs, i did another water change on the two aquariums. the algae problem happens so often (about a month after every new water change) that i need to do several changes to purify the water in the tank.

while doing a load of laundry, i also spruced up the kitchen and bathroom, using a magic eraser to clean the outside of the washer/dryer and scrub the sinks. i vacuumed and wiped down the countertop with some 409 spray.

the main project was to recaulk the bathtub. the last time i did it was back in early september, right before marco arrived. it didn't take long for the mildew to collect on the caulk. this time around i used silicone instead of latex. i don't know if one is better than the other in terms of resisting mildew, but silicone is more durable and i can scrub it was a sponge (to clean any mildew buildup) and not have it break apart like latex.

i've caulked the bathtub so many times (at least 2-3 times a year) i'm pretty much an expert at this point. before i caulked, i swabbed the edge of the bathtub with some alcohol. i put a tube of silicone caulk inside a caulking gun, and no matter how hard i squeezed the trigger, nothing was coming out. turns out cutting the tip wasn't enough; i also had to pierce the foil inside. as soon as i did that, a large glob of caulk came out from the pressure build up. fortunately i had plenty of paper towels on hand.

i figured i wouldn't be able to use the bathtub for 24 hours in order for the silicone to cure, but actually i can expose it to water only after 8 hours of drying. to play it safe, i really should wait a bit longer (i've not showered longer than 24+ hours before).

a bowl of cereal for lunch, some leftover curry for dinner.

beginning in the early evening i entered the world of skyrim again. last night i found giants and lost. my strategy is to avoid them all together, or run away when spotted. tonight, i fought bandits at white river watch, then went all the way to orphan rock to retrieve the nettlebane, which unbeknownst to me was guarded by several witches who booby-trapped the place. returning to whiterun, i went around to greywater grotto then helgen. i forgot i've been to helgen before, at the start of the game, when i was about to be executed before a dragon destroyed the town. when i finally came out, that aforementioned dragon was still there! it killed me a few times before i just sprinted all the way to riverwood. as a two-handed weapon warrior with no magical abilities, i have no way of killing an airborne dragon. how i managed to kill that initial dragon at the western watchtower i'll never know. i think that dragon was distracted by several other warriors and i managed to sneak up behind it and watch it a few times with an axe.