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i went on a thursday morning run at 10am, and came back home exactly one hour later. i walked to and from the river, but would punctuate it with an occasional burst of running when i was in the mood. on the river, i ran the entire time, stopping to walk only across the two bridges.

my fitness tracker tells me that my charles river loop is only 2 miles long and i run about 9 minutes which isn't too bad. at my peak i was doing 7-minute miles, so that's a goal to work up to. i didn't put in my piece of gum until i was at the river, but the joe bazooka i was chewing was too sweet. next time try for some minty gum instead. oh, i also stopped at the drinking fountain by the boat house, it works, cool drenching water, but the pressure isn't that high and i nearly had to put my mouth on the spigot in order to get a few gulps of water.

i didn't go to the community on my way back but i did walk by. ann was on her way out, we were talking about my t-shirt with the eagle design, which i think is actually a girl's t-shirt given how it's cut. passing by the area where i found the milk crates yesterday, i wasn't surprised that somebody took the third and last milk crate, dumping out all the contents unceremoniously onto the sidewalk.

i came home and took a shower and made two hot dogs for lunch. before i left for my run, i started transferring over all the files from my 2TB hard drive onto the new 5TB drive. i was only copying over half but my mac told me it was going to take 3 hours. it ended up taking 3-1/2 hours. later i'd transfer over the half, for a grand total of 7 hours to copy over 2TB worth of data.

my parents need to renew their food establishment license by the end of the month. their food protection manager and allergy awareness certifications have all expired, and they "elected" me to take the corresponding exams and get certified on their behalf. i've been studying up on the food protection manager exam and finished the 210 questions on the servsafe study app. i felt confident enough that i went ahead and registered for the online exam tomorrow morning ($100). there are 80 questions, i need to get 60 right to pass. i also signed up for the allergen certification, which is a bargain at $10. there's no test, you basically watch a 22-year old allergen video (featuring local chef ming tsai) and afterwards you get a certificate.

in the afternoon i went to whole foods to return the small stainless steel carabiners that i bought back in late may. i completely forgot about them until i found them in my backpack. i only had a few more days left to return them.

afterwards i came back home, grabbed the 2nd milk crate that i picked up yesterday, and rode to the community garden. i put the milk crate underneath my other eggplant grow bag. i then watered my plot, as well as renee's, who knocked on my door yesterday evening asking me to water her garden while she's away this weekend. i spoke with marty - the guy who had the garden next to renee's - and he knows her from dancing. he told me a story about how renee used to be in a salsa dance class and tried to get the teachers to unionize (even going as far as getting petitions signed) without asking them first. none of them liked the idea and they banned her from class after that. i returned to my plot and did some upkeep: wrapping some climbing vines, weeding, spray diatomaceous earth, and removing squash vine borer eggs. ann came back to the return (honestly, i think she just hangs out at the garden) i saw her disappearing into the back park. i asked her why i sometimes see her going back there, and jokingly asked if there was a bathroom, and discovered she actually goes behind some of the bushes to pee.

i returned home by 2:30pm and stayed inside taking some servsafe practice tests. i discovered the questions they may ask could be more than the 210 i practiced with, which got me a little worried, as i scurried for more manager resources. typically you buy their manager handbook (now in its 7th edition) for $50 but i was too cheap to do that and i think it's a scam, given how i'm already paying $100 to take the test. the exam itself is proctored remotely when i take it online, so my webcam needs to be activated so someone can keep an eye on me, making sure i'm not cheating.

for dinner i heated up two more hot dogs. i have just two more left, i'll have them for lunch tomorrow and then probably either have some kind of instant noodles for dinner.

one of the things the testing proctor does is s/he needs to see where i'm taking the test (via webcam), to make sure i don't have cheat sheets strategically placed around the room. that gave me the impetus to clean the house a bit. i finally took down my grow closet equipment and returned all the boxes back into the closet. i also decluttered the living room. on top of that i cleaned up my computer as well, since i'll need to share my screen during the testing and i have a very cluttered desktop.

i ran my air purifier. it actually works like a room fan, and i started feeling the living room getting cooler. but it's proof that it's actually recirculating the air, it's not just a glorified air blower.

before i went to bed, i took another sample test using the servsafe study app, using 80 questions. i got 3 questions wrong, but that still gave me a 96% score. i think i'm ready for the actual exam!