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JUL

06

2013

with less than 48 hours to go before i leave, i picked off the few remaining items from my to-do list. i finally went ahead and covered up my travel guides (china and taiwan). it's just a little something i do so i don't look like a tourist when i'm browsing the guide out in public.

i checked out the wireless webcam i installed at the cafe. despite the glitches i found yesterday, it seemed to be doing pretty well and i didn't see any additional crashes. so looks like this is a keeper.

after that i started collecting the things i'd pack. my parents came in the afternoon to help out. they were shocked by hot it was inside my house, even though i didn't think it was that bad, but it did feel cooler outside than inside, so i must've been doing something wrong. it was just too hot to get anything constructive done so i gave up and figured i could work on my packing later in the evening, when it was cooler (hopefully).

i went to belmont with my parents. after some garlic chive rice noodle soup for a late lunch, my father and i went to the fresh pond t-mobile store to get a pay-as-you-go account. the wait was long and they almost skipped us before we complained. $10 for 30 minutes of talk (expires in 90 days) but with an additional $10 one-time installation fee. all this so i wouldn't have to bring my cellphone with me (just a SIM card).

next we went to home depot so i could buy some smoke detectors. i ended up buying just one, which not only was the cheapest ($5) but also the smallest.

working in the heat made me tired, and i fell asleep on the couch with the air conditioner on, watching live coverage of the asiana flight 214 plane crash in san francisco. we had some risotto that my sister made.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i opened up the windows and put into the fan as soon as i got back to cool the place down. i gathered up my empty seltzer cans and biked to market basket to return them and use the deposit to buy a quart of yogurt. coming back home, there was a pretty sunset in the sky, made me already miss the place before i even left.

i put my bike away in the basement for the last time this summer. i thought i heard the chirping of a smoke detector with a bad battery but i couldn't find it. i made a mango lassi with the yogurt and some leftover frozen mango in the freezer. i installed the new smoke detector in the kitchen using some blue sticky tack, underneath the cabinet above the fridge. i organized some more travel items, packaging them into large and small ziploc bags. i did a load of laundry. i backed up some photos and copied my music files. i tested a cold storage solution for my vivotif vaccine using ice cubes and my insulated tumbler.

despite all that, i haven't packed yet. it's basically a matter of just stuffing everything into my backpack. hopefully it won't take too long and i spend the rest of tomorrow relaxing.