the benefit of sleeping early is waking early. i found out last night when i took a shower that i actually got sunburnt from my topless sanding. not too bad, but the back of my neck and shoulders stung. i was up by 7:00 but forced myself to sleep until 8:00. i would've left earlier, but it rained a little bit earlier, and if conditions were wet, i was in no hurry to sand. i didn't actually leave until 9:30, taking the bicycle, which meant i wouldn't get to belmont until another 20 minutes, probably longer because i didn't want to tire myself out.

when i got to belmont i had a yogurt for breakfast and chatted with sunmeng briefly (even gave her a quick tour of the garden via video chat). i checked the weather to make sure it wasn't about to rain: radar showed possible strong storms sometime after 12:30 or so. i had a few hours at least. i started to work around 10:20. once again, it was very hot so i went topless again, but this time i remembered to bring sunblock. the overcast kept the sun away, but the humidity made today feel like it was in the 90's (actual temperature upper 80's).

at one point i replaced the sanding pad (3rd time). i'm not quite sure when to do this because the sanding surface still feels rough, but the edges of the pad were starting to get frayed and it's the edges that do a lot of heavy duty sanding. besides, i have a package of 50, so there's plenty to go around.

when i rechecked the weather during one of my breaks, the radar had changed: now the forecast said the rain wouldn't arrive until 2:00-3:00, which meant i could work longer if i wanted. the rain postponement actually cleared up the clouds, and once more, the sun returned until it reached noontime. i could feel myself baking but put faith that the sunblock was keeping me from burning again. i put in another hour before i finally stopped by 1:00. by that time my mother was already back from the cafe.

the eggplants are growing so fast it's actually kind of scary. i thought they were big yesterday, until i saw them today - just 24 hours later - and they're even bigger! eggplants are so interesting, from their purple tomato-like flowers, to their thorny stems and fuzzy leaves. i found the original seed packet, these are "emeperor's best hybrid" variety of eggplants. they're a high yielding bush plant and grow fruits that are 10" long. even though they're sold as part of burpee's asian seeds collection, this variety is not typical of asian eggplants, which are normally long and thin (chinese) or round and green (thai).

after a shower, i heated up some leftover sausage and made a sandwich for lunch with the last hamburger bun. my sister dropped off hailey and we put the gopro harness on her to try it out (without the camera).

when my father came home, together we moved the scaffolding to a different location, being careful not to crush any tender perennials on the western side of the house. we also relocated the backyard marble countertop (back along the eastern entrance) and the wooden picnic table (under the tree).

i also helped my father fix the samsung HDTV in their bedroom. ever since they came back from china march 2014, the built-in USB media player hasn't worked properly. he had a suspicion that it was his fault, because he left a powered hard drive connected to the HDTV when he left the country, and it must've zapped the TV somehow. i figured it was a case like mine, that the main board would need replacing, but i went online looking for answers. by holding down the exit button on the remote for 12 seconds, the TV will ask you if you want to reset everything to factory defaults. i did that and viola! media player working again. it still won't play certain formats (e.g. mov) but will accept mp4 and mkv.

my mother suggested we order pizza for dinner and i made the order online by 4:10. by father and i went to go pick it up 15 minutes later. i must've had 4-5 slices, i lost count. riding my bike back to cambridge, i figured i could at least work off one slice of calories.

the house - without HDTV - felt empty. fortunately i have a backlog of shows and movies to catch up. no television also gives me an excuse to get to bed earlier, so i can wake up again tomorrow and return to sanding. tomorrow is my last day of sanding this week because i have a doctor's appointment friday morning. i also don't like to sand on the weekends because it's noisy and i don't want to disturb the neighbors.