the weather was nice and sunny for the time being, but rain was expected later in the afternoon. i wore shorts for the second time in a row, the outdoor temperature was still in the 70's. i figured it was the perfect occasion to ride down to market basket and get a few grocery items. when i got my bike however, the rear tire was completely flat. i spent the next half hour fixing the flat. i didn't mind, at least the weather was nice. the hole was apparent enough that i didn't need to soak the inner tube underwater to find it. i traced the matching location on the tire, there was a puncture but the object was long gone. i scratched the inner tube with a metal brush before applying some rubber cement then the rubber patch. i put back the rear wheel and inflated the tire, good as new. at some point i need to replace the rear brake arms, the ones that i currently have is only grabbing from one side.
although the temperature was warm, it was also super windy. the sky was a fury of different clouds, a clear sign that a storm was coming. i was probably only in the supermarket for 15 minutes, but by the time i came out, the parking lot was soaked, like a downpour had just passed through the area. my bike seat was totally wet, i had to ride home with my shorts soaked. my front brake pad was also rubbing against the rim, i had to stopped to readjust the wheel before making it home. and did i mention it started to rain again? not a lot, but enough to make me want to get home quickly.
after soaking the potted soil, i planted the buttercup squash seeds (10) and bitter melon seeds (6). the bitter melons was one seed per pot but for the squash i planted two seeds per pot because i wasn't sure how viable they were. i also raised the grow lights above the bean and tomato seedlings, to give them a bit more room to grow. i wasn't able to puncture holes underneath the stock seedlings tray. i'll raise them as-is for the time being.
next came time to file my state taxes. since it costs money to do it electronically, i printed out the forms to mail out. beside my own, i also printed out my 2nd aunt's and my sister's godmother's state taxes as well. in order to do that i finally had to connect the new brother HL-L2370DW printer that's been sitting in a box in my house since february. i still think my old brother printer is fixable, as it can still print if i feed the paper manually, it just won't draw paper from the tray. but it also makes weird clicking sounds even after its unplugged, so the problem may be worse than it seems.
anyway, i have a new printer now. setup was easy, it took me a few minutes to figure out how to open the printer to install the toner. i connected the ethernet cable and powered on the printer. my macbook pro was able to find it on the network without any problems, and the driver seems to be built into the operating system through airprint. i printed out a set of tax forms as a test, they came out fine. very dark, which made me realize i've been printing with faded toner all this time. i know people were complaining about how the printer cable wake up from deep sleep so i was going to turn that off. but as a test, i decided to print out some more forms while the printer was in deep sleep mode. the printer woke up without any problems and started printing again, so maybe i don't need to turn off deep sleep after all. i printed out the rest of my tax forms.
i packaged up the tax forms into manila envelopes. i'll go to the post office tomorrow to mail mine off but to get postage for the other two tax packages before giving them to my 2nd aunt and sister's godmother to sign and then mail themselves. they're only getting money back from federal, for state both of them are paying zero and receiving zero.
around 5:30pm it started getting really dark, to the point where i closed the blinds and got ready to turn on the lights. i saw flashes of lightning then heard the thunder as it suddenly started to rain. it didn't last very long, maybe half an hour spread over an hour, but it was quite the downpour.
i finished watching the two episodes of HBO's the nevers that've aired so far. a mashup of victorian period drama, steampunk, superhuman powers, action, and science fiction. it's pretty good, despite being the last project joss whedon worked on before he was basically driven out of town after it was revealed his decades of creating a toxic work environment. which is really surprising, because whedon used to stand for quality, from firefly to buffy to directly some comic adaptations like the avenger series and even justice league. but the nevers is now my favorite new series.
after 9pm i finally started preparing dinner, heated up some leftover congee on the stove along with a glass of chocolate milk (trying to finish up my milk). later i took out the trash, it was freezing outside, temperature down in the 40's. all i could think of is, "could my seedlings possibly survive these cold early spring nights?"