with every passing day there is less and less snow around. most of the snow on the streets are already gone, former glorious snow banks the size of small mountains now reduced to just a few shovelful of dirty snowballs. in their place however is a layer of gravel covering the streets, small pieces of pavement tossed up by the freezing upheavals. fortunately street cleaning has started up again, but it won't be until the 3rd week of april before it arrives on our street. after that, i can take out my motorcycle for the season, as the roads will be safe for riding.

it was raining intermittently today, a cold drizzle at the most. i was getting ready to pay a visit to the supermarket in the early afternoon but i checked the weather on my phone and it said the rain would stop shortly so i went back inside the house to wait it out. no matter what, i always seem to get just 12 items or less. the guy in front of me in line was inspecting a crispy new $20 bill. "so, is it real?" i jokingly asked him. then he started telling me about how he got it from his english tenant, a visiting professor who found his place via airbnd, but who's been visiting so often now they just make a personal arrangement. this guy also occasionally has a japanese tenant (a visiting professor as well) who comes to town with a folding bicycle in one of his suitcases. "i have just 2 rules," he told me, "no drunks, and no smoking." he also told me it's a great way to travel. that may be true, but i sort of prefer the privacy of a hotel versus living in somebody else's house.

i did some AFBHS work today, finally figured out what was causing the header display bug on the iphone. it wasn't so much an issue with the iphone as it was an issue with the smaller screen size. at 359px width, the code would break for some reason (that's why i didn't see the bug on my larger screen android nor on the computer). i fixed it initially by modifying the template code itself, but then i learned how to create a child template and modify it more safely and efficiently through that. using the child template, i also tweaked some of the colors (navigation and sidebar background) and got rid of the footer. now the only thing i have left to do is to solve a pdf form issue where checking one box checks them all.

in the evening i heated up some buitoni garlic and cheese tortellini and combined it with a simple jarred tomato sauce plus frozen spinach. a hot plate of pasta and cheese really hits the spot!

later i dug out the old linksys WVC54GCA wireless webcam and set it up in my living room. i got this 5 years ago, and the technology has really changed. nowadays, wireless internet webcams are motorized with HD quality resolution. the WVC54GCA can't tilt or pan. the field of view was too narrow so at one point i got a small wide angle lens and taped it to the front of the camera. it's not a perfect fit, hence the vignetting. the resolution is terrible, the colors are awful, but it still works, and could serve as a security camera for those times when i'm not at home. i use a free android app called tinyCAM Monitorwhich seems to work with a lot of different cameras, including this linksys and the 3 foscams (FI8910W, FI9821W V2). if i should ever get another one of these cameras, i'd be interested in the foscam FI9826W, which also has a 3x optical zoom. but for the same price i could get another pair of FI9821W V2.