i thought about going to home depot to get some parts for making a drill powered carboy cleaner. it also required a carboy stopper, which i remember i had somewhere in the house, and compelled me to ransack my closet. it wasn't in the closet (was actually in one of the kitchen drawers) but i did find a mini tripod and the handlebar phone holder i bought a few years ago.
about to make lunch, i noticed the kitchen floor was a little dirty so decided to do some vacuuming. vacuum cleaners are supposed to suck - the more they suck the better - but i've been noticing my shark rocket vacuum has started to lose its suck, more like paltry sips these days. maybe it was getting old, despite being only 4 years old. looking at the vacuum, i saw a panel i never noticed before. i flipped it open and realized my vacuum actually had a filter. a filter that accordingly to the sticker inside the lid said i should wash every month. not only didn't i know about the filter, i hadn't washed it for 4 years. the thing was more dust than filter. there was actually two filters, one that looked like a large sponge, the other a cotton pad. i removed and gave them a good wash in the sink. it took many rinses before the filters were finally running clear. afterwards i soaked them in some oxi-clean to bring back some of that original brightness.
i made another english muffin for lunch. i had 3 remaining english muffins but two of them were moldy. my ham is about to go bad as well, need to finish it by this week.
since it was another hot and dry day, i decided to do a load of laundry and hang dry them outside. it was a little late (12:30pm) but i was confident there was enough time 
for them to dry. shirts, t-shirts, pants, shorts i hung out on the porch, while underwears and socks i dried them indoors on the polder drying rack i found a few weeks ago. despite being a little banged up, it still works, especially after i figured out how to fold it properly for storage. no longer will i have to resort to drape drying them from the back of chairs!
i swear, when i was hanging up my clothes outside, i could've sworn i smelled wood smoke. our new england skies have been hazy recently due to the west coast wild fires. with temperature in the 80's today, it wouldn't make any sense for people to use using their chimney, so chances are it really was wild fire smoke that i smelled.
i biked down to the cafe around 1:30pm to help my father install the nest thermostat at my grand uncle's upstairs apartment. the chinese astrophysicists who live there occasionally forget to turn off the heat when they're gone or leave it cranked up high at nights. having a wifi smart thermostat will allow us to control it remotely if that happens and to easily set heating schedules. when i got there my father wasn't there; even if he was, i realized he forgot to bring the nest thermostat itself, just brought the transformer instead.
i went next door to help him take apart a large cabinet. they finally managed to rent out that large commercial unit to a hair dresser, who were there earlier with their contractor to see what needs to be done.
afterwards my father and i went to the upstairs apartment and helped the two astrophysicists (including kevin) take down their air conditioners for the season. my father didn't want to move them into the basement so we decided to put them both in kevin's room instead because he has plenty of space. we also removed the common air conditioner installed on the window by the staircase. that one we had to use the multi-ladder to get it down as it was too high to reach. afterwards it took me and the two astrophysicists to carry the heavy AC down to the street. we put it on a hand truck and wheeled it into the back for disposal next week.
i returned home by 4pm. i went to star market to get a few snacks.
my supervisor sent us a group text in the afternoon. she told us enumeration work in our area was 100% finished, and that starting in october she'll have some scheduled pick-up days so we can return our census equipment, including our iphone, badge, bag, and any unused forms. so it sounds like the work has really stopped. i thought maybe the californian district judge who issued the original restraining order barring the census from shutting down at the end of september would extended the deadline to october. even if that were the case, our area is fully enumerated already, so we could be mobilized regardless, unless people are will to volunteer and travel to other states to enumerate elsewhere.
around 5pm my father called me. i had a hunch as to why: xiaowu said he could come over now to install the hot water heater. my father arrived at my place first, xiaowu a short time later. we went directly to the basement, where after diagnosing the problem, he started working. while my father and i worked to drain the old hot water tank using our portable pump, xiaowu replaced the corroded section of copper pipes and changed out a few rusty valves. he worked fast and seemed almost careless with his acetylene blowtorch, i few times i was afraid he was going to set the house on fire, or at the very least melt through some plastic pipes or cables. he's more of a rough and tumble installer, not a lot of finesse, but he gets the job done. my jump was running back and forth between the basement, my house, and the street, making sure the hose was drainage, turning on the upstairs faucet when required, emptying the catch buckets.
any corroded gate valves we switched out with new ball valves. we had all the spare parts ready for xiaowu to use, which made his work easier as he could repair immediately and not have to go out and get the parts. besides my plumbing, xiaowu also replaced the corroded cold water intake valve on steve and paul's hot water heater. for some reason the inside was all clogged up with debris. he also replaced a leaking segment of their copper piping, connecting it so it had a more direct path than what they had before, which included a dead end piping.
xiaowu ended up working until almost 7pm. my father came into the house briefly as xiaowu was starting to pack up, asked me to get $300 cash ready to pay xiaowu before he left. i was happy that my pipes were no longer leaking and i could flush the toilet again, but the hot water pressure on my sinks are still low, so i still need to contact a professional plumber to fix that problem as well as my leaking bathtub drain. i also realized while i was cleaning up the basement that he forgot to replace a corroded valve, the one that feeds cold water to my sinks. i suppose the plumber can easily replace it when he arrives, especially since i already have the spare valve.
the hot water was particularly hot, it's going to take some trial and error to get it down to the temperature i like. i usually like the hot water set to a temperature where i can comfortably shower using just the hot water alone and not have to touch the cold water.
my new motorcycle battery finally came in the evening. i left it charging on the trickle charger before installing it tomorrow. i'm curious to see how it performs, especially as we head into the colder months.
for dinner i had another meatball sub. there was an NBA playoff game between the lakers and nuggets that i was entirely not interested in, as well as a thursday night NFL game between the dolphins and jaguars. i had that game on in the background (now that youtube tv gets the NFL network) but turned it off to watch raised by wolves instead.