it took me about half an hour to ride down to coolidge corner in brookline to pick up my 5 gallon water jug ($10). i snorted some nasal spray before hand, to lessen the effects of the tree pollen. stephanie lived right across the street from the fire station and when i asked her if it ever gets noisy, she said not really, and that the fire trucks don't blare their sirens at nights. i hadn't been in coolidge corner in years, but with my cargo i was in no mood to explore so i just hurried home.

the jug was smaller than i expected, and much lighter. i'm just used to them being full of water! i laid down some towels on my rear rack and secured the bottle with some bungie cords. the bottle is from a company called pure water health out in california. the one i got retails for $23.50.

only when i got back home did it finally occur to me that i never even considered what kind of plastic the jug was made from. turns out it's a no.7, which may or may not contain BPA, which has been recently linked to unhealthy side effects. i searched brewing forums to figure out if it was safe or not, but nobody really knows for sure. it's not ideal, but it's only for storing the fermenting mash for about a week, and the actual distillate will only be kept in glass jars. BPA has a high melting point (316.4°F) so even if it could leach into the mash/wash, it could never be distilled. besides, moonshine is not for children or pregnant ladies! the best sort of fermenting containers would be glass carboys, but those are expensive ($30+). i may graduate to one of those in the future, should my moonshine venture take off.

i went to belmont in the afternoon to pick up the money plants i uprooted and planted in plastic containers. they'd been sitting in the shade so they were still a bit wilty. i packed them tightly in a box, hoping they wouldn't get jostled during the ride back. unfortunately, jostled they did, and half of them tumbled out of their containers. i'll take these to the plant swap tomorrow.

2 more people responded to my craig's list ad. bikes are a hot commodity, that's why they have their own category. and especially this time of the year, when the weather is warming up and people are getting back into biking. evan was meeting me at 4:00 to see the bike. when he told me he was running late and wouldn't get here until 4:30, i grew suspicion, but i had 2-3 more people on a wait list hoping to buy my bike so i wasn't too worried. i was actually surprised when he did show up sometime after 4:30.

evan was a young man in his early 20's. turns out he actually lives in backbay (but works in wilmington) and arrived at my place via MBTA. he took the bike on a test ride around the block and came back so i could adjust the seat. he also wanted to adjust the handlebar height but i wasn't sure how to do it until the rastafarian handyman working down the street came by and told us the secret was prying off the cap to reveal an adjustment screw hidden underneath. apparently he knows a lot about bikes! evan on the other hand knew almost nothing about bicycles, and asked if it was normal for the handlebars to drop like that. i got a sense that evan wasn't in love with the bike, and would've preferred a hybrid bike instead. alton (the rastafarian) helped me sell it though, said all road bikes were like this. he also came back with some grease to go inside the stem tube ("that feels good!" he said as he poked his finger into the hole). evan tried to bargain down the price to $80 but i held firm, and after a few moments he paid me the $100. not bad for a bike i got for free!

inspired by the sale, i went down into my basement and retrieved 3 more bikes i wanted to sell: the schwinn le tour iii (missing a rear wheel), the ross gran tour ii (left here by pau), and the jetter o'neal (free). the only one that can remotely be ridden is the ross. the jetter is all rusted stuck. the schwinn is in really great shape, just needs a back wheel. maybe i can take the rear wheel off of the jetter and put it on the schwinn; a working bike sells better than a broken bike. even minus a rear wheel, i think i can still sell it as is for $60. the ross i can probably get $80-100. the jetter, for the frame, maybe $20-40.

i noticed it a few days ago but thought it was just dust on the front lens of the panasonic SZ20 camera but today i discovered it's actually something inside the camera that's causing a slight blurry spot in the lower left corner of all my photos. i don't think it's on the glass of the lens elements (at least none that i could see), at least i hope that isn't the case. it's a lot easier to fix if it's just dust on the CCD chip, and i watched a youtube video where i guy shows you how to take apart a panasonic lumix (it's quite easy apparently; not as complicated as taking apart a canon dSLR). the problem with these zoom cameras is since the protruding zoom elements aren't sealed, it easy for dust to get sucked back inside the camera. i look forward to disassembling the ZS20 and hopefully i can fix the blurry spot.

for dinner i heated up a brick of lasagna and ate while toggling back and forth between the seasonal (series?) finale of happy endings and game 6 of the knicks-celtics playoff game. in the 4th quarter with about 7-8 minutes left in the game and boston down by 25 points, it looked like game over, but the celtics went on a 17 point run and almost tied the game, staging what looked to be an amazing comeback. alas, boston couldn't sustain that energy and new york finally managed to score points of their own. thus ends the celtic season. i'm not too sad because boston never really had a chance, not without rondo and a few other injured supporting players. this was the year that jeff green became a star in the making, so boston's future looks bright so long as he's on the team to continue the legacy. i don't really care who wins the finals this year as long as it isn't miami.