i noticed my father was at the cafe this morning. even though i sent him the photo of the fedex notice i taped to the door, he didn't see it, and came to the cafe to wait for the delivery. fedex isn't exactly helpful with their updates: it just said the package would be delivered today with no time frame, so basically we're expected to wait from 8am to 8pm. my father ended up staying there until noontime before going home. fedex seems to be very unreliable, and when they say a delivery date, there's no guarantee they'll keep it, as we found out on friday. at least with amazon deliveries, they'll give you a time window, and sometimes will even provide a gps location if the package is nearby.

i was going to the cambridge carnival parade. i thought it started at 11am, but that was just for the festivities; the actual parade starts at 12:30pm. they moved the location of the festival itself; it used to always end at kendall square, with multiple performance stages and vendors, but now that kendall square is all fancy restaurants and high end lab spaces, it would be unbecoming for such an event to be held there. instead, it was moved to university park.

i checked the weather forecast, google told me it'd rain around 1pm. i watched the morning news to see their forecast, they said there'd be no rain, despite the overcast, and there'd be breaks of sunshine. so in spite of what the clouds were telling me, i didn't bother bringing my umbrella. instead i packed my camera including the 55-250mm (mounted) and the 18-200mm as well as my 3D camera.

i decided to go via motorcycle, figured i could easily stash it in one of the many side streets around central square, with free parking in cambridge on sundays (in case i needed to park in a metered spot). i left by 11:45am. i immediately regret not taking the bicycle, as there was a traffic jam on beacon street for some reason. only when i passed inman square did the traffic finally clear up. i wasn't pressed for time anyway, so i wasn't too worried. i ended up parking on norfolk street, just a block away from mass ave.

as soon as i arrived i felt rain drops. that's not good. and i made the rookie mistake of not bringing my umbrella (i used to bring it everywhere, strapped to the bottom of my lumbar bag). there was a very little drizzle, it never got too bad, but i made sure to wait underneath a tree, which was more than enough to keep me and my camera dry. i walked all the way down to staging area at river-blackstone.

i should've known something was wrong given how few people i saw walking down river street. a group of thrill seekers even asked me if they missed the parade since there was hardly any people. by the time i made it to the staging area, my fears were realized. just like at the boston carnival parade, the cambridge carnival organizers must also have some beef with the dancers and musicians regarding money. so like the boston parade, they also decided to boycott the cambridge parade as well. these things used to be crazy! but now there was just a small group of children and seniors, followed by a small pickup truck with some speakers and an emcee/dj, followed by a handful of costumed dancers. it was pretty sad. i looked at my watch, maybe i can still make gametime at 1pm to watch the patriots game. there weren't even any politicians (in an election year no less), not even the cambridge mayor came.

the parade kicked off at 12:30pm. it was more like a funeral procession than a bonafide carnival parade. i followed them, walking ahead and turning around to snap some photos, before walking ahead some more. because it was so grey, it made for great exposure, but i had to increase my ISO to 3200 to get that fast shutter speed and not any blurry photos. i only used the longer 55-250mm telephoto lens, there wasn't enough interesting things to use the wider lens. i also snapped some photos with my 3D camera, which i remembered to take out.

once the procession got to mass ave, i stopped following it, and instead went to get some lunch at aleppo's place (formerly moody's falafel). i got one of their deluxe pita wrap which was $15. i retrieved my motorcycle from norfolk then rode home.

instead of going straight home, i took a detour and went to the community garden. because of the light rain, there was nobody there, and i managed to take some more 3D photos of the garden before finally going home.

i packed up my things and left for belmont. i got there by 2:30pm. it'd been nearly a hour since i bought the pita wrap. when i took it out of my bag, it was already all soggy and cold. i split some to share with my mother and ate the rest. it was okay, but i think i really wanted a greek gyro, and i wasn't going to get that at a syrian restaurant.

i turned on the tv for the first time to watch the football game. it didn't surprise me that the score was 17-0, new england losing. i'm not sure how i feel about this season. i guess i'm preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. i don't expect us to go to the super bowl, but as long as they stay competitive, and don't get blown out, and have some good games, i'll be happy. patriots ended up losing, 20-7. later i watched the highlights (or lowlights?), they could've won, but a few costly turnovers that resulted in touchdown for miami sealed their fate, especially since the offense is the team's weakest link.

fedex notified us in the afternoon that a delivery attempt for the ice machine was made at 1:44pm but there was nobody at the cafe to receive the package (because we're closed). the problem is it's unrealistic for fedex to think that we can wait all the day for a package that may or may not even arrive. they rescheduled a new delivery date for tomorrow, but we're closed too on mondays. they didn't even bother calling me sister (i don't think they bothered to read the note i taped to the door), who was just next door. so i'm going to go down to the cafe tomorrow morning and wait a few hours in case fedex might come in the morning, but otherwise they'll going to have to reschedule the delivery again. none of this would be a problem if they just delivered the ice maker on friday like they promised.

i promised i'd built my aeroponic setup this weekend but i was just too tired to do that. i did go to the basement to check on the mustard plants, they're still growing, i'll leave it at that. the fact that the leaves still look a bit yellowy does worry me, i'll keep an eye on it.

dinner wasn't anything exciting, some stewed bitter melon, some eggs, some stirfry ham & tofu. it took me forever to finish my bowl of rice while my mother chastised me for eating so slow.

afterwards my father and i ordered a new 100W solar panel from amazon: the WECHTAY 10-busbar 100W monocrystalline solar panel ($84). this one is a rigid aluminum frame, compared to our old 100W flexible solar panel that broke. my father was still hopeful we could fix it, but we tested the schottky diode with the multimeter and it was functioning okay, just that there was zero voltage production. at this point it was easier just to buy a new panel than try to figure out a fix, which may or may not work.

i got back home by 7:45pm. after a shower, i settled in to watch the sunday night football game between the buccaneers and cowboys. i found it a little weird that i was rooting for tom brady again. tampa bay ended up winning, but it looks like dak prescott might be hurt...again?