i stopped my mung bean sprout experiment this morning (day 11), it was a total failure. a lot of beans didn't even really sprout, and of course they'd all turned brown and started to smell a little bit (a beany smell). i'll try again next time with better beans, but it could also be because it's too cold in my house. i'll only use the heat mat as a last resort, since it'd be no longer economical once i start doing that.
people were still digging out, those who didn't get around to doing it over the weekend. being that it was the start of the week, there was also trash pickup. if there's not enough empty spaces for cars, there's definitely no space for all the trash cans and recycle bins.
first thing i did when i got to belmont was inspect the solar panels. any bits of snow on the panels from yesterday had all melted by today. i noticed what appeared to be rabbit tracks in the fresh snow. i grabbed my drone so i could the prints from the air. the prints seem to be coming from the right most corner of the western fence. why rabbits want to come into our backyard is beyond me, there's nothing for them to eat. unless they built a nest here, but there wasn't enough prints to indicate that. it was cold but very sunny, and almost no wind, so an excellent flying day. i ended up doing a loop to the fresh pond golf course and back before packing up my drone.
later i replaced all the propellers, all 8 of them. when i first got the drone i bought some knockoff props, but they're not very good quality, so i think i'll buy some genuine DJI replacement props instead. i'll save the knockoffs as spares; i've never tried them, but i can't imagine they'd be any good. 
i replaced the props because it feels like my drone is louder than it used to be. i've since lightly crashed my drone a few times after the last time i replaced the props, nothing that damaged the props other than some very minor abrasions, but i like to see if new props will make it more quiet. i read various sources online to replace the props every 3 months, or every 200 flights. other say every 300-500 flight hours which seems virtually impossible: i'm currently only at 20 flight hours; assuming every flight averages 15 minutes, it'd take me 1200 flights to reach 300 flight hours. i also recalibrated the drone, feels like sometimes when i fly the horizon isn't leveled in certain directions.
for lunch we had leftovers from yesterday: hot & sour soup, braised pork hock, and soybean sprouts. my mother was watching a rebroadcast of china's annual chinese new year variety show.
monday is my traditional day for inspecting our houseplants. i brought the hot pepper and lemon verbana into the tub and sprayed them with a fresh batch of insecticidal soap to get rid of aphids. there wasn't much - not as bad as last week - but it's probably something i need to do a few more times to hopefully completely eliminate the aphids. mealybugs on the other hand are harder to eradicate. that one jasmine plant (left front) now has localized mealybug outbreaks at several places. i applied 2 more tablespoon of systemic pesticide and then watered. i also remove the plant from the shelf and put it in a cardboard box so i could spray it down with neem oil. it hasn't jumped to any neighboring plants yet, i just need to keep an eye on it to prevent any additional outbreaks. i also found 1-2 mealybugs on the gardenia, and a few on the large potted jasmine on the wall shelf.
our oscillating fan that we use to circulate the air inside or grow room was making a loud clicking sound and doesn't seem to want to oscillate anymore. we took it back upstairs to take it apart and see if we could fix it. to our surprise, there were some online instructions showing you how to open up the fan, a lot more involved than we realized. the problem seemed to be with the oscillation gear, we took it out and regreased it before putting the fan back together. it worked a lot better but after i brought it back downstairs, it started clicking again. i tightened a screw to make it work, it seems to be okay for the time being.
we had leftover hot & sour soup for dinner but my parents made some fresh chinese dumplings. i ate 15 and took home about another dozen frozen dumplings. my father gave me a ride back to cambridge.
close to midnight, i was checking the webcams, and i noticed the lights were all on in the cafe. even though it's closed today, my father was there in the afternoon meeting the accountant. he must've forgotten to turn off the lights. but that wasn't the worst part. a few hours later i saw a UPS guy come into the cafe and drop off a package. this was 2 hours after my father had already left. apparently he forgot to lock the front door. i had to call my sister and ask her to check the cafe. sure enough, the lights were on and the door unlocked.