the only thing i had to do today - thanksgiving eve - was to get some beers. i could just go to the liquor store around the corner, but i wanted more selection, so i decided to go to the somerville sav-mor off of mcgrath's highway near lechmere station. heading out, i saw the crowd of people outside petsi's pies. i biked towards east cambridge, finally arriving at my destination.

i thought there'd be more people but the parking lot was pretty much empty. i went to the beer aisle to pick two different beers. having no clue which beers are good or bad, i basically go by design, name recognition, and whatever else might attract me. i went with a 6-pak of samuel adams winter lager and a 6-pak of weihenstephaner hefe weissbier bavarian style. i also got a 6-pak of woodchuck pearsecco for myself.

i made it back home by 12:20pm. the line outside of petsi's was just as long. i watched as my upstairs neighbors packed up their car and drove off. i'll enjoy having the house to myself the next few days. a lot of neighbors had taken off as well, given the amount of empty parking spots outside. for lunch i had a maruchan instant cup of noodles.

afterwards i checked out the motion-sensing spotlight in my alleyway. it was doing this thing where it'd turn on for only 1 second regardless if it was day or night. i learned this behaviour is indicative of being in test mode. sure enough, when i checked the sensor, it was in test mode. not sure how that happened, but i also noticed a few days ago that someone had replaced the bulb at one point with a regular incandescent. maybe my upstairs neighbors fiddled with the settings when i wasn't here. this is good news though because it means i don't have to replace the spotlight. i will however change out the bulbs to PAR38 led spotlights.

around 1:30pm i left for my parents' place to help clean the house for thanksgiving. there was a good amount of traffic and it took me 20 minutes to eventually get there at almost 2pm.

i disconnected the on-demand pump and brought it inside so the freezing night time temperatures don't damage the pump. speaking of freezing, there was a layer of ice one inch thick in our water buckets. the mustard and daikon seedlings are still in various degrees of survival, with the daikons underneath the plastic cover doing the best. i tossed out the extra raspberry canes, a layer of ice forming in the bucket where they'd been soaking. i replaced the faucet cover in front of the house with a new one that had thicker foam; no reason to cheap out and use a repaired version that still had plenty of gaps to allow freezing temperature to get inside.

in the grow room, i filled up a 5 gallon bucket with rain water and brought it into the basement. the water reeds was getting a little dry so i topped off the pot.

i started cleaning the house but i wasn't making much of a dent. i used the wrong strategy, trying to put everything back where it should be, but there are so many things that don't go anywhere, and it'd be a lot quicker if i had a box that i could throw everything into. a bunch of fan's my the small bedroom i brought them down into the basement. a bucket of tools in the sunroom i took them into the basement as well. i finished by vacuuming the house, then doing the dishes. i left by 4pm, close to sunset. there were fewer cars on my return trip, i made it back home in 14 minutes.

today is an important day solar-wise, as we achieved the highest production ever for november at 594.64 kWh, with still 6 more days left in the month. this is to make up for a summer where we had the lowest production ever. at the rate we're going, if we get a few sunny days next week, we may break october's record production as well.

i finished watching foundation. the last episode came out last friday, but i'm only now getting around to watching the final two episodes. i find myself hate-watching it. of the three storylines, only the empire one is interesting, the other two are painful to watch. apple+ renewed it for another season but i don't think i'll be watching it anymore. i've already unsubscribed from the subreddit.

for dinner i heated up some french bread pizza. i ate while watching the 2 premiere episodes of hawkeye. it's actually pretty good, i look forward to a new episode next week. i finally got around to updating my pixel 3XL phone to android 12, the last supported system update for my phone. i'm surprised the transition went so smoothly, no glitches whatsoever, and the phone feels snappier under 12.