i walked down to the cafe this morning to meet up with my father and his accountant jeff. jeff used to work in the accounting office across the street, before it was sold to H&R block and essentially liquidated as they didn't follow up with existing clients who all then went elsewhere with their business. now he works from home with a hand selected portfolio of former clients, my father being one of them. originally i thought it was a waste of my time but my father wanted me to be there to listen in. i still don't understand everything, but it was interesting, and i asked a few questions that my father failed to ask (like details about schedule K-1) that cleared up a few things.

walking home, i spotted a carolina wren sitting on an utility line. i couldn't get a good look, just the bottom, but from what little i saw (long banded-pattern tail, thin curved beak), it was unmistakably a wren. i also spotted a red-tailed hawk, they're easy when they're in flight because they're so big, but harder when they're perched since they remain motionless and camouflaged.

i brought home a container of braised beef which i had for lunch along with some glass noodles i got yesterday.

impeachment coverage took over most of the local channels. i watched whenever i could, switching away whenever it got boring. without knowing party affiliation, it was easy to distinguish republicans from democrats: republicans all say trump did nothing wrong and this was a sham political proceeding, while democrats took the moral high ground and framed trump's wrongdoings as an existential threat to our democracy. the "debate" (more like each side taking turns offering up sound bites) was scheduled to last into the evening, before the final impeachment vote would take place.

yesterday we had nearly zero production (just 61Wh of electricity); today we managed to make 13.06kWh. that's with a thin layer of snow and ice on the panels that managed to melt on its own from sun exposure. from the panel view we could see that the panels on the main roof was cleared, while the sunroom roof panels were still covered, but with enough exposure to generate a little electricity and facilitate melting. nothing we can do but let nature takes it course. good news is the long range forecast doesn't show any rain or snow, so hopefully we can finally start making some electricity for december.

running out of space on my laptop, i finally got around to backing up the photos stored on my computer. i managed to clear 100GB worth of space, backing up to two separate hard drives (the backup and the backup backup).

i finally got around to making a greek salad from all the ingredients i purchased monday morning before the snowstorm arrived. i had some old feta cheese (from the pasta salad i made for our september backyard barbecue) which i used along with some new cheese. i mixed and ate everything from my large 2 quart pyrex prep bowl, a 3-4 serving salad for one person. i put in all the greatest hits: pepperoncini, kalamata olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions. i used half a bag of salad mix as a base (iceberg lettuce, sliced carrots) then also added some cubed ham to give it more protein (something like chickpeas could be substituted if i wanted to keep it strictly vegetarian). instead of making my own greek dressing (which isn't very hard) i bought some instead. it tasted pretty good, i was left in a food coma afterwards.

the house of representatives finally took their vote in the evening. both impeachment articles were expected to pass, the drama was seeing if they were any defections. no republicans made the switch, while 2 democrats voted no: one a democrat about to switch his party affiliation to republican, another in a heavily red district. not that the democrats needed their vote, since they already had more than enough to impeach. democratic hawaiian congresswoman and presidential candidate tulsi gabbard elected to vote "present" which all but certain put the nail on the coffin of her democratic presidential hopes (she was already on the out) and her political career as a democrat in hawaii.

it started with some unusually smelly farts. i figured it was because of the feta cheese. later i felt an intense urge to use the bathroom, where i had a cramping bout of diarrhea that made me (a devote athiest) pray to god. was the cheese really that bad? then i remembered i used two different kinds of cheese: old feta and new feta. i checked to make sure the old feta didn't have any mold, but maybe it had some white molds i couldn't see. after it passed i felt better.