my father was supposed to come pick me up at 11am but seemed to have forgotten until i called him. i was bringing to belmont my leftover chicken burrito bowl dish along with 3 jars of jiu niang. when i checked them last night there was already enough liquid to float the rice, and when i opened a jar to smell it, it had that distinctive jiu niang aroma.

today was a cold but sunny day, and snow would melting, especially if they were on any exposed black surface of solar panels. my father was already out in the backyard removing the melting snow from the room while i was still getting ready. a lot of snow had already melted and fallen on its own, but the snow on the sunroom panels and the panels above them needed some coaxing to remove.

my sister called and said she had a big order coming, so my father left to go help her at the cafe, while i continued clearing the roof. i was finally done by 12:15pm, and launched the drone into the sky to inspect the panels. since the weather was nice and mostly importantly it wasn't too windy, i decided to fly as far as the oakley country club before returning. the noontime tree shadows on fresh snow made for some pretty silhouettes.

i did a bit more snow cleaning from the solar panels as there was some snow blocking the mid-upper panels before coming inside around 1pm.

for lunch i had some mantou stuffed with pork floss and pickled mustard. we also tried the jiu niang i'd made. it was sweet enough that my mother took 2 spoonful. it was a mellow sweetness with a distinctive jiu niang flavor and no sour taste. when my father came home and tried it, he said it could be even sweeter after more fermenting in the fridge. my father also made some jiu niang soup with the fermented sweet rice he made and some glutinous rice balls i'd made.

the day after a snowstorm is when all the birds come out to the feeders, after they've been starving a whole day waiting out the storm. we had house finches and a cardinal, a mourning dove decided to roost above the feeders, and a female downy woodpecker fed at the suet feeder.

in the late afternoon i went out to fly my drone for the second time today when i noticed tree tops were being illuminated by the low angle sun. at one point i was looking at the reservoir and the middle school, and saw a mountain the distant horizon, looking northwest. could that actually be mount monadnock all the way in new hampshire? the peak itself is 3166ft tall, but at a distance of about 60 miles away. could i actually have see something that far? the direction seems to be right, but i can't be sure. next time i'm going to fly even higher, to see if there are mountains beyond that.

i helped my father ordered 2 BMS from aliexpress. there seems to be two types: the flat type that's basically a circuit board sandwiched between two pieces of metal shielding, and a thicker type that's essentially a rectangular heat sink with a fan. initially we thought about getting 2 types for some variety (maybe one is better than the other) but the flat type doesn't come with any cables besides the balancing wires, so they're actually more expensive (because you have to make your own low gauge wires) and more of a hassle to use. my father had also shown me some BMS that came with a parallel balancing dongle, so you can connect multiple sets of lithium batteries together (e.g. 4 pieces with 4 pieces, creating a super 8 piece battery), but decided not to get it because it wasn't a configuration we'd ever use. we went with the daly BMS 4s LiFePo4 12v 100A with bluetooth. each one was $77.80 from aliexpress. ebay had the same, but they were $10+ more expensive each. now we wait and see if aliexpress will actually send them out, not only the BMS, but the 8 AKESHA brand 100A 3.2v LiFePo4 batteries we ordered as well back in late january.

my father made hot & sour soup in the early evening. for dinner we had some fried rice and some random salad by mother had whipped up using her japanese sesame dressing.

when i returned to cambridge, my kenda rim tapes had arrived. now all i need is for the tire to get here and i can fix my front wheel.

remember how i drank all that blueberry juice yesterday? well, today when i went to the bathroom, my poop was an olive greenish color. i thought it'd be dark blue like the blueberry, but the body absorbs anthocyanins in different ways. the explanation is that bile inside the stomach is yellow, and when mixed with blue, it produces green.