i was back at the cafe this morning, replacing one DD-WRT router with another DD-WRT router (2). i thought i could physically turn off the wifi using the wifi button on the back of the 2nd router, but that didn't seem to do anything, so i had to do some final configuration with twin SSID's (it didn't make a difference since i was working through ethernet cable not wifi). i had to set up the reserved addresses and port forwarding for the webcams, and needed to get the MAC addresses and settings from the 1st router. for some reason even when i was connecting via LAN i still couldn't get into the admin until i reset the router two more times. once that was done, i switched out the routers. it took a few minutes before everything was back online. i could get into the admin page without any problems, both locally and remotely.

i then went over to my sister's place to set up a webcam at her place. she won't use it all the time, more of a dog nanny cam when she's not home. it should've been easy, but for some reason it wouldn't reroute the camera once i set up a new reserved IP address. i finally ended up just reserving its current IP address which seemed to work out okay. i was under a time crunch because the upstairs astrophysicists come home for lunch and i could already hear them upstairs while i was repeatedly resetting the router (and disabling their wifi). my sister came home and i helped her set up the webcam app on her ipad, but first she had to upgrade her system from iOS 8 to 9 (the most current iOS is 11). it look a while to upgrade and by that point she'd already finished lunch and took hailey out for a hike. my stomach was grumbling and i finally finished by 1:20pm. my parents gave me a container of tripe soup; my father was going to eat it but his gout was starting to act up again so he gave it to me (he went to trader joe's later to get some cherry juice which helps with the gout).

i heated up the tripe soup when i got back home. it's a little bland so i ended up adding a lot of salt and chopped scallions to bring out the flavors.

the electricity bill for february arrived today (actually an e-mail saying it was available online). for the billing cycle between 1/27 to 2/26 (actually 1/27 to 2/25), my parents only had to pay $25.91. they said we used 331 kWh of electricity, and generated back to the grid 407 kWh (from my data we actually generated 416 kWh). but we actually produced 560 kWh total, of which we used 144 kWh (the rest of which returned to the grid). so the actual usage (belmont light electricity + direct solar panel electricity) is 475 kWh. eventually we'll reach a point (maybe as early as next month!) when we'll have enough production credit to offset our usage and then the electricity bill will be zero.

the solaredge overview numbers didn't return today; i think that 72 hours wait time is just a delaying tactic to get customers to temporarily stop calling, but eventually i'll need to call them back and get them to fix it. the data is still there though, because the correct numbers can be seen in layout view, including total lifetime product (we are currently at 978 kWh). in terms of problems it's minor, but it's kind of demoralizing looking at the overview and see such low lifetime numbers.

today started as a warm and sunny day, temperature in the 60's. after noontime however the production just dropped, but not too bad, and it kept above 2kW for a while before finally tapering out. it was warm when i went to the cafe, but by the time i left it was beginning to get chilly and i only had a light jacket. we made 31.96 kWh today, a surprisingly amount as i wasn't expecting much production today with the approaching storm. i know for sure we won't get any production tomorrow as it's going to be raining all day.

i was going to get some groceries at market basket today, but with a massive storm arriving overnight, i knew the place would be crowded with people stocking up on emergency food. so instead i figured i'd just get a few things from nearby star market, but realized i had enough food in the house to last me at least a few days, and this storm was only going to affect one day on friday. i did go out, but just to the dollar store to get some snacks. i also came back with some baking soda for the refrigerator.

i was able to remotely monitor the cafe router. was it because the previous router was just bad? or maybe it's a version difference: the first router was v8, and the second one was v9. or maybe i made a mistake setting up the client network. regardless, DD-WRT 2 works great, and i'm beginning to think i'll return that asus router after all (arriving tomorrow). it's amazing to see how many people are connected to the router at any one time. at one point i counted around 20 (that may not accurate, as it's just counting IP leases).

one thing we've known about for quite sometime is that the business next door has been secretly pilfering the cafe's free wifi for many years now. we could ban those devices outright but that seems a bit harsh. besides, if they were to come into the cafe and buy something, they'd technically be customers and entitled to the free wifi anyway. another idea is to simply turn off the wifi when the cafe is closed, which hopefully will inconvenience them enough to convince them to get their own (comcast commercial internet access is $80/month which comes out to about $1000/year). unfortunately, after some research, it seems that with the DD-WRT, it's impossible to schedule an automated shut off of the guest wifi without turning off all the wifi including the private wifi. another solution is to have two routers, one private, one public, with the public router switching off the wifi based on a schedule. in the meantime, i can manually disable the guest wifi but it restarts the whole router afterwards. maybe the asus router will do a better job at this and we'll keep it after all.

i tested the dynamic DNS i set up last night. it didn't work then, but it's had some time to propagate, and when i tried it again today, it finally worked. dynamic DNS is a fun tool, i'll be setting up some more DDNS in the future. the only thing is i have to use namecheap's DNS instead of dreamhost's. currently i'm testing with an unused domain name, but i wonder if it messes with some services (like mail server) if i don't use dreamhost's DNS. i'll have to do some research.

when evening came around, i made some cheese pasta shells with kale for dinner, followed by some defrosted cream puffs. i was going to have some chicken with pozole, but i didn't have any tomato sauce in the house and didn't feel like going out and buying some (afraid the supermarket would be too crowded). my neighbors finally came home, i heard them upstairs, but they were pretty quiet, probably tired from all that traveling. i was beginning to think if they didn't come back by tonight then they wouldn't be able to get back until the weekend since i'm sure the airport will be closed tomorrow due to to the impending storm.