i slept until 10am this morning, after having gone to bed last night at 3am. today was about getting groceries and collecting ingredients for tomorrow's backyard barbecue. i did want to leave in the morning but it started getting late so i ended up making lunch (bagel sandwich) and watching the news. i managed to step on another piece of glass inside the house. this time it was embedded deep enough that i was able to pull it out. i put a bandaid underneath my foot.

in the early afternoon i made my way to market basket. i was first going to move my motorcycle back onto my street since they already cleaned the roads. i ended up chatting with my neighbor cherie for over half an hour. i've found that the older you get, the chattier you become. i've noticed this myself, when i speak to younger folks, and i realize i've been talking too much, while they politely listen. anyway, she told me some stories about harris street. there's an ongoing battle for parking: even though there are multiple no parking signs, they're mostly empty threats. in fact, tow companies don't even deal with private way parking situations because it's such a grey area and a liability issue they don't want to deal with. cherie also told me that several houses on the street are actually in somerville even though the street itself is in cambridge. so when she votes she actually had to go to somerville, but the weird thing is her utilities are in cambridge. i was admiring the tulip tree growing in her backyard. the landlord planted it there after the previous tree toppled during a storm. i remember when it was just a sapling, but now it's as tall as the house. it's growing in a shady backyard and i didn't think it'd do very well, but now it's tall enough that it gets plenty of sunshine on the top branches.

i finally managed to get away by 2pm. i went to market basket via bike and gathered the ingredients. i also got a shoulder pot roast which i plan on turning into jerky with my new dehydrator. unfortunately i couldn't find any worcestershire sauce for the marinade. i went down the sauce aisle 4 times before i finally found the empty space where the sauce was supposed to be.

i returned home to unload the groceries before getting the ebike from the basement and riding to belmont. i arrived by 3pm.

i had a video conference call with a heat pump consultant at 3:45pm. i was hoping to mow the lawn beforehand, since it was going to rain tomorrow morning. i ended up having enough time to only mow the front lawn before coming back inside for the conference call.

i spoke with jaime. we actually scheduled a call last month but totally forgot about it. jaime recommended a ducted heat pump system for a ranch house with an unfinished attic. the biggest limiting factor is the service panel upgrade. currently we have 100 amps, but in order to have enough electricity to run a heat pump system, we need to upgrade to 200 amps. because the electricity in our part of town is underground, that involves digging up the road. jaime told me we're probably look at 5-figures easily, between $10-15k just to upgrade the panel. he said we should get a few estimates from electricians to see how much it'd actually cost.

the conference call ended around 4:15pm. that gave me enough time to go outside and finish mowing the backyard. i kept seeing rabbits everywhere, i even chased out a few. we need to do a better job fencing in the yard to keep out the rabbits. i have a roll of wire hardware cloth in the garage i got a while back just for this project. maybe it's something we can do in late autumn once we clean up all the plants.

i left belmont and went to the cafe. i bought the bottle of bifenthrin so i could spray the mealybugs i found on the hanging fern. i took it off the hanger and put it outside. i then had to do some math to figure out how much 7% concentrated bifenthrin i needed for a 250ml spray bottle, when the recommended amount for a preventative spray is 0.25 fl. oz. per gallon of water. turns out i needed exactly 1ml of concentrated bifenthrin, which i measured out using a syringe. i initially sprayed using a regular spray bottle, but it was giving me a steady stream. i ended up pouring out the alcohol from a continuous spray bottle and used that instead. i also sprayed the jade plant, which also had some mealybugs.

i collected a few more ingredients at the cafe (ginger, cilantro, onion, soy sauce) before finally leaving. i got back home around 5:45pm. even though it was almost sunset, there was just enough daylight for me to clean up the dead leaves in the backyard and sidewalk.

i took an hour to decompress first - and to play some cyberpunk 2077. i forgot just how suped up my new macbook pro is - M3 max chip with 36GB of RAM. that's enough to turn on raytracing in the game for better graphics. i didn't really see the improvements, with the exception of puddles and bodies of water that will reflect back the nearby scenery. i even did a benchmark - even with raytracing turned on i was still getting 60fps. that macbook pro is a beast!

i finally started barbecue preparations by 7pm. for tomorrow i'm serving pasta salad and blue cheese burgers, both items need to be prepared a day in advance.

i started with the blue cheese burger. i don't exactly have a recipe, it's one of the few things were i just improvise. i had a little bit less than 2 lbs. of 80% fat ground beef. i added a whole container of blue cheese, followed by whatever stinky ingredients i could get my hands on: minced garlic, chopped scallions, french mustard, ground pepper, frank's house sauce, black vinegar, and chinese cooking wine. i mixed everything up with a gloved hand then put it away overnight to tenderize.

next was the pasta salad. i still had leftover tri-color rotini from the last time i made this back in may. i make it about once a year, and only for barbecues. my mother really likes it, if i have leftovers i can give it to her on friday when they come back from their cruise. the recipe itself is easy, just has a lot of ingredients that need to buy chopped and prepared. the original recipe only calls for 1 cup of arugula, but i added 3 cups because it's my mother's favorite.

while i was preparing the pasta salad, i was also making my dinner. i decided on some gyudon tonight, because i had some shaved steak in the freezer. the other key ingredient is beni shoga, which i have a jar (my parents have two more jars at their place from the last time i made it). there's something about the smell of simmering onion slices in dashi + teriyaki sauce that reminds me of japanese cuisine. i cooked 2 cups of rice while i waited. once the pasta salad was done (a miracle i have enough room in the fridge for it), i made the gyudon. the shaved steak i bought wasn't good quality - large slices instead of actually shaved.

during that time i was also doing a load of laundry. because i was cooking i didn't have time to fold the clothes from the dryer so i just dumped it on my bed (will need to take care of that before i go to sleep).

i didn't eat until 9:30pm. the gyudon was pretty good. that's why i always have some shaved steak in the freezer, so i can make gyudon whenever i like.

no football or baseball tonight, but it was the start of the NBA season. the first game was between the rockets and thunder. OKC also had their championship ring ceremony before the game. i was hoping for the thunder to lose, and they nearly did, as the game went into double overtime. final score was 124-125, thunder victory, but it was a close one. crazy also how high the score was - did they not play defense?