an empty house is what i woke up to on this saturday morning. when i arrived in belmont around noontime, i was surprised to find my father at home while my mother was at the cafe. apparently they switched because my father was having lower back pains again today, so much so he could barely walk, and stayed in bed for much of the day. i told him to get up and walk around a bit, it's better for the back, and later after a hot soak in the tub, he felt a bit better. i had some meat buns for lunch.
the bird feeder was empty but it looked like a squirrel had gone to town on it as it was covered with bite marks. later when i checked the backyard webcam footage, i saw a squirrel had attacked the feeder early thursday afternoon. it spent over 10 minutes gnawing at the feeder, trying to get access to the seeds, but i think it only managed to get a few crumbs at best, the squirrel buster served its purpose. i don't like all the damages but these battle scars shows that the feeder works in keeping squirrels away from the seeds. after refilling the feeder, i added water to some of the bird baths.
the strong winds from the past few days had tipped over the tall backyard step ladder. i leaned it back upright, but it managed to flatten a tomato cage and break off the lower branch of a nearby evergreen. elsewhere, i noticed a few crocuses along the western perennial bed, as well as a few emerging daffodils. seed-grown columbines also seem to be thawing out as well as lupines behind the garage. it's a little disconcerting realizing 1) how little snow we got this winter, and 2) how unusually warm it's been.
i started watching amazon prime's new show hunters about a group of 70's nazi hunters headed by al pacino. it's a fair bit of jewish escapism, and there were so many yiddish words being thrown about, i felt like there were a lot of jokes i simply didn't get. i'm also fully onboard the witcher bandwagon, up to episode 3 so far.
the nevada caucus was this afternoon. sanders won handedly, but buttigieg was 2nd in terms of counties won, even though biden seemed to be second in county convention delegates. once again, even hours after the caucuses closed, they still didn't have a final count. bernie won for sure, but who takes second place and by how much will determine if there's a viable challenger to sanders' frontrunner status. south carolina will vote next saturday, followed by super tuesday on march 3rd.
although i'm happy we achieved another 40kWh day, it wasn't anything exciting. we didn't hit 7kW, and during peak production it didn't match yesterday's record performance, which says something to the sky condition today. tomorrow looks to be another repeat.
one of these nights i'm going to go down to harvard square in the early evening to get some better night photography with the pixel night sight; that camera just wants to be taken out at night so it can show off its low light capturing capabilities. preferably on a rainy night, so i can get reflections in the puddles. in the meantime, i just have to settle for some glowing mason jar backyard shots.
my mother came home in the evening and immediately started making dinner. my father finally left the bedroom, pushing a walker. i turned on the heat for my roommate when i noticed he was home by 6pm.
leaving for home by 7:30pm (temperature at 32°F), i stopped by the huron avenue bridge to take a photo of the cambridge-watertown bike path construction. it was pitch dark, but it made no difference to the pixel night sight, which still managed to take a photo.
my google pixel fast charger arrived today. had i bought my pixel brand new, it would've came with the phone, but instead i had to pay $7.99 for it off of ebay. it was bigger than i'd imagined, and heavier too. it had a white face, even though all the ones i saw online had a black face. i plugged in my 6.6 ft USB-C cable. the lockscreen told me it was charing rapidly, and a check of the ampere app showed it was charging at 3A.
as part of my predict 2 study participation, i had to answer 5 questionnaires, with questions ranging from general health, gut health, medical history, and eating habits. one question it asked was what was my birth weight. i had to ask my mother, who still remembered after all these years: 3100g or 6 lbs. 13 oz. i was kind of a small baby. i also assumed i arrived on time, but my mother said i was overdue. the questionnaire also asked for the age of my parents at the time of my birth (22 and 26 respectively). when i finally filled out all the questionnaires, i received an e-mail with a link to the predict 2 app. it felt like i game, like i somehow unlocked a present in the form of the app. later i realized i could've downloaded the app anytime, since it was available in the google play store. with the app downloaded, now i wait for the arrival of my study pack. my new task is to scan the barcode once it arrives, like another step in this lengthy game.