t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


i biked to the cafe in the late morning to meet up with lucas for our last meeting. it was scheduled for 11am but he texted me earlier asking if it was okay to do it at 10:30am. i said sure, but that my father wouldn't be here, as he had to attend to my grand uncle at 10am. lucas decided the original time would be better, just so we were both available.

the cold weather was like a punch to the face. it took just 2 blocks before i felt my face freezing and hurting. my gloves were useless, should've worn mittens, which i had in my bag. the pain is indescribable. i was really worried that i'd get frostbite on my face, and kept rubbing them to warm them up. i also imagined the cold air freezing the lining of my lungs and stopping my ability to breathe. the pain, the loss of stamina, all made me just want to get off the bike and crawl into a ball. in hindsight i should've walked, something about the exertion and the additional wind on my face made it unbearable. when i finally arrived at the cafe i couldn't even talk, the shock of bone-chilling ride slowly wearing off as i began to thaw.

i kept waiting for lucas until he finally called me at 11:15am. turns out he went to the house, i forgot to tell him we were at the cafe. also my father wasn't done with my grand uncle and wouldn't be able to make the meeting, something he thought had a good chance of happening.

the meeting was just to touch base one last time, show us how to use the inverter (which we already figured out) and how to use the solaredge monitoring app (which we'd been playing with since last night). lucas answered some more questions. the mass solar loan project completion form my father signed digitally last night was actually the final sign off. mass solar loan will then contact naveo who will cut the final check for united solar without my parents' involvement. the SREC's will take 1-2 months to set up, and we won't see our first payment until Q2. besides united solar and us, the SREC trader also has access to monitor our solar panels, just to verify we're generating the reported amount of solar electricity. lucas also verified that on a typical day, we're supposed to generate kW of electricity; we're only generating W's because the panels are still covered in snow. as for the missing panel, as soon as we get a good day of solar production, we can see right away which panel is busted; lucas thinks one of the optimizer is bad and just needs to be swapped out. solar installations are still happening into the winter. snow and ice isn't as big a problem as the wind; they have special de-icing chemicals they use to spray onto the roof, but when it gets too windy it's simply too dangerous to work. the bitter cold doesn't help either, and he said his installation team yesterday kept running into the trucks every few minutes to warm up, that's why they're taking the day off today. with that i said good bye to lucas one last time.

my father called back, said that they moved my grand uncle to the hospice care, which is simply the corner room next door to his current room. my mother made me some turkey broth noodles for lunch before i returned home. riding on a full stomach did nothing to help with the cold, but wore my wool mittens this time, which at least kept my hands warm, although my face and eyeballs and lungs were dying. i got back with my face red from the bitter wind, streaks of tears streaming from the corner of my eyes.

my $20 langria 6 tier wire shelving unit arrived today. it was smaller than i thought even though i knew it'd be small. it was fun assembly it, the adult version of lego. after i pieced everything together, i realized i didn't really have a good place to put it in my tiny house. i may end up giving it either to my sister or mother, or if neither of them want it, i'll just put in my basement.

my mother and sister went to go visit my grand uncle, as well as my aunt lili and matthew. my 2nd aunt also visited. most surprisingly, my grand uncle's middle daughter made an unexpected visit along with her husband and kids. the only one not visiting today is my grand uncle's younger brother, who hasn't been seen in ages, but did call my father recently asking about my grand uncle. i also haven't visited since last weekend, i will go see my grand uncle tomorrow.

for dinner i heated up a can of soup and re-roasted the leftover asparagus from monday. i also tossed them again with some olive oil garlic and salt. i ate while watching the last 2 episodes of the marvelous mrs.maisel.

i spent the rest of the evening backing up my photos and transferring them from one hard drive to another. i have 2 hard drives with redundant backups that i can erase afterwards, freeing up more storage space.