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i attached the gopro camera to the back of my bicycle to try and figure out where the chain seems to be skipping. from the footage it doesn't seem to be skipping at all, even though i can feel and hear it. but that bike has bigger issues than skipping chains: the brakes are soft again, and i've been forced to stop "manually" but jumping off the bike and stopping flintstone-style with my feet. i really ought to adjust the brakes before i ride again, brakes that don't really stop are just too dangerous. plus it's something i can actually fix, unlike the mysterious chain skipping issue.

my parents weren't home yet by the time i got to belmont. they were out visiting banks, first to naveo credit union to pay off the solar panel loan, then to cambridge trust to ask about closing a bank account for my taiwanese aunt.

when they finally returned, we finished the last of our corned beef. afterwards my mother and i went to the td bank in fresh pond so she add my name to her security box. we didn't realize we needed an appointment, and there were 3 people ahead of us in line already. the next available appointment was an hour wait, so we decided to come back tomorrow.

back in belmont, my father and i were out in the backyard pruning the maple tree. i was standing on the picnic table when i felt some soft wood and decided to get off before i fell through, but as soon as i landed on the bench, it cracked in half under my weight (rotting wood) and i wrenched my back.

a large piece of tree truck that my father cut off with the chainsaw ended up falling through the nearby evergreen, breaking every single branch as it came down. this tree was a wild one that just grew on its own, but even though, no reason to damage it. hopefully it can recover from its injuries, especially now that we opened up the canopy to allow more sunlight on that southwestern corner of the backyard.

we ended up with two large piles of branches that i'll probably come back tomorrow and try to cut them down to size and put them into refuse bins. belmont doesn't start garden refuse pickup until april, so we still have 2 more weeks. also we're not done pruning the maple tree.

after dinner i went home around 6:30pm. it was still daylight out, sunset wasn't until 6:50pm, i didn't even bother putting on my bike lights.