Today, I drove on the highway for the first time—about 150 kilometers. I started out nervous but gradually found my rhythm, and by the end, I felt proud and accomplished.

In the morning, we visited Huanghua Port and Golden Beach, where the wide river and sandy shores created a relaxing coastal feel. Hamer and Liuliu played in the sand while we strolled and chatted under the sun.

In the afternoon, I drove Xiaoyan and Zhu Jian to Cangzhou West Station, tackling both local roads and the highway. The 100-kilometer stretch was intense at first, but I settled in and gained real confidence behind the wheel. Returning solo to Liuliu’s house, I felt calm and capable.

That evening, the warm, everyday scene—Liu Dan in the kitchen, the kids playing—filled me with comfort and gratitude. Their family’s kindness and support made me feel truly at home.

We got up at 5 a.m. to head to Huanghua, where Liuliu’s dad drove us to visit her at her grandma’s place. Hamer and Liuliu were clearly thrilled to see each other, though they tried to play it cool. I was unsure about driving back to Beijing alone and hoped Liuliu’s dad could take the car while we returned by train.

Lunch was a feast—seafood, lamb spine hotpot, and shrimp paste flatbread—that left me full well into the evening. We strolled through Xinyulou in the afternoon, and later, the four of us played mahjong until past 11. Afterward, Zhu Jian took me visit a local bathhouse for a soak and steam, spending the night there.

Tonight, we attended our first performance at the China National Opera House—a symphony and ballet set to The Yellow River. The music, staging, and dancing were breathtaking, and we left wanting to see it all over again.

Since our e-bike couldn’t fit four, I planned to run home—but Hamer wanted to join. We waited backstage, caught glimpses of the dancers leaving, then walked home together, snacking on frozen grapes from 7-Eleven. We held hands, laughed, and skipped until she got tired. At Chuangshan Liquor Bar, we stopped for skewers and beer to rest.

After dropping Hamer off at school this morning, I grabbed a big breakfast to share at home—more than we could finish.

Most of the day was spent diving into the MCP C# SDK. While reviewing the official samples, I spotted a bug I initially planned to fix, only to find someone had already submitted a PR—so I added a supporting comment instead. I also spent time exploring how to integrate MCP with the Earth project but realized it’s not easy to integrate directly.

In the evening, After shopping, we visited a print shop to print photos for Hamer.

Hello, April.

This morning, I woke up early and joined Hamer for a morning run. We ran and walked around 3 kilometers together—it was a joyful experience. On our walk back, she said the day felt like a weekend without school.

At work, I learned I’ll be taking over the lead of a project. It didn’t hit me until I was added to the group, making me realize this new responsibility.

In the evening, I grabbed some draft beer and skewers on a whim, and Xiaoyan couldn’t resist nibbling despite being full.

There was a moment of misunderstanding with Hamer’s homework, where I was adamant I was right, but later discovered she was correct. I realized I need to listen to her more and not always assume my perspective is the right one.

We also got our registration confirmed for the parent-child run at a local Half Marathon. Looking forward to it!

I spent the day optimizing the MCP server for ArcGIS Earth Automation API and troubleshooting data issues. Recorded demos using Claude as a client, which impressively handled polygon drawing and undo-delete commands.

Evening brought news I wasn’t selected for the Beijing Half Marathon. After dinner with Xiaoyan, I helped Hamer with homework and fixed her alarm. When she wanted to join my run but hesitated, we planned a morning run for April 1st instead.

Today was a leisurely Sunday that began with sleeping in until Hamer asked for help reading her textbook. Initially, I suggested she practice independently, which led her to seek Grandma’s assistance before proudly returning to demonstrate her progress.

My coffee experiment failed due to using espresso beans and too-fine grounds for pour-over brewing. At noon, we visited the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum for “The Origin of Civilization” exhibition, where LEGO recreations of archaeological sites and a bronze figure installation particularly impressed me.

After lunch at Sunrise Ramen in its new Wangjing location, we explored 798 Art District. At Berry Bean café, Hamer bonded with a dog named Huahua while I admired specialty bikes. The day concluded at Tiaohai Bar, where we unexpectedly stayed for a dance concert featuring memorable performances by SkyChildren, NoGender, and a duet by Quqi and Erhan.

This morning, Hamer and I used GPT-4o to enhance one of her drawings—she was amazed, though she noticed its text recognition could be better. After breakfast at Xiaoguan Market, we met her classmate. Hamer didn’t join the group play, preferring one-on-one time, but still enjoyed observing.

The wind on our way back was intense, and Xiaoyan later got her braces replaced. In the afternoon, I played in a football match with the CUGB alumni team after a four-year break—starting as goalkeeper and easing back into the game.

Since neither of us could take Hamer to dance, Grandma stepped in. Last night, Hamer cried about it, but Xiaoyan had a clever solution: Grandma would take her to class, and later they’d go to The Box to visit Miniso.

In the evening, we all played doubles at a new badminton gym, then grabbed barbecue on the way home—a relaxing end to a full day.

Today, I continued working hands-on with the MCP server, this time using the ArcGIS Earth Automation API as the application scenario. I used Cursor together with Claude 3.7 Sonnet, referencing the official Model Context Protocol servers' Python SDK to carry out some Vibe Coding. By the end of the workday, I had successfully run through the core workflow. There’s still some polishing to do before submission, but it’s coming together nicely. I tested the setup using the MCP Inspector, which worked quite well. Toward the end of the day, I switched back to using Claude as the MCP Client for another round of testing. It was genuinely exciting to see Claude follow my instructions, call various tools, and interact with Earth—I could hardly wait to complete the whole workflow!

As usual, I went to the gym at noon. I didn’t work out much, but the key thing is maintaining the habit.

In the evening, it got really cold. I had originally planned to go pick up Xiaoyan from Sanlitun, but halfway there, I felt frozen and asked her to take the subway instead—I met her at the station. After dinner, Hamer continued putting up English conversation stickers with me. She had even called me after school to remind me to come home early so we could do it together. I had intended to watch a movie afterward, but Hamer came running over, asking to join. In the end, we watched the animated film Goldie together.

Today, I was completely immersed in developing an MCP server for ArcGIS Location Services, to the point of practically skipping meals and breaks. By the end of the workday, I had finally built a simple, functional version. In the evening, I also tried submitting it to Smithery, though I still need to figure out how to properly use the deployed server—something I’ll dig into later.

Throughout the development process, I used uv to manage the Python project. The implementation was based on the ArcGIS Services Postman Collection, and I relied heavily on conversations with Claude and the Edit Mode in Cursor to guide my work. One of the trickiest parts was that the Postman Collection didn’t provide complete parameter details to the LLM, which led to a lot of misconfigured requests that took quite a bit of time to debug.

I used Claude Desktop as an MCP Client to test the server and found that using conversational prompts to drive the LLM for testing was a surprisingly fun experience. However, debugging wasn’t the most convenient, so I’m planning to try out the MCP Inspector to streamline the process going forward.

This morning, I also joined the CUGB Beijing Alumni Soccer Team group chat. The admin was super welcoming and gave me a great intro to the team, along with some useful info. I signed up to play in a match this Saturday afternoon—looking forward to getting out on the field and meeting everyone.

In the evening, the On Running shoes Xiaoyan ordered for me arrived. The fit was perfect, and I really liked how they felt—so much so that I kept walking around the house in them all night. Later on, Hamer and I put up some immersive English-language stickers around the house for speaking practice. It was a fun little parent-child activity.

I was tired in the afternoon from poor sleep and felt it during badminton, though I did test Xiaoyan’s new racket and liked it.

I also published my half-marathon training plans on GitHub Gist, upgraded Claude to Pro, and used it as an MCP Client—its power impressed me.

In the evening, Hamer and I shopped at Hema after dinner.

I woke up after 4 a.m. and couldn’t fall back asleep. Around 5, Hamer had two nosebleeds, so I stayed with her until daylight. She got ready early for a field trip, and I spent the day building a half-marathon plan and researching badminton gear.

I also fixed a symbology issue at work and studied HybridWebView.

In the evening, I joined a community-organized badminton session for the first time. The event had great energy, friendly people, and even snacks and beer. I was impressed by the group leader’s dedication—he didn’t play but focused on serving everyone else.

This morning, Hamer had a nosebleed but quickly recovered. We overslept and had to rush to get her to school.

I researched local badminton groups and found two promising platforms.

At work, I worked on understanding an NMEA date read error, gaining insights into GPGGA, GPGSA, and GPRMC.

I left work early today, headed home with Xiaoyan, and took Hamer to buy a 16K vocabulary notebook, which she loved.

During lunch, I read an article on Trump’s education policy—initially, it seemed absurd to me, but after reading, I saw some valid points and realized my first impression was too hasty.

Today, Hamer and I hiked Baiwang Mountain with friends, enjoying a relaxed but fading peach blossom view. Later, we joined a lively pizza-making session, then played at Taiyanggong Park badminton near Ditan Park. Meanwhile, Xiaoyan slept nearly the entire day, only getting up in the evening.

Today was productive. After a morning nap, I read and took notes on A Road to Classical Music, carefully analyzing the third track while listening to the corresponding pieces, which deepened my understanding.

In the afternoon, I took Hamer to dance class, then we got a haircut and hair wash. After that, we rushed to the hospital for my allergic rhinitis, and Hamer got a pit and fissure sealant.

On the way home, we took a quick stroll through Liuyin Park, then later went to pick up Xiaoyan from her business trip in Inner Mongolia.

In the morning, Hamer’s grandma took her to Decathlon and bought her a skateboard. I wasn’t keen on the idea, but since it was already done, I let it go.

Today was both relaxed and busy—relaxed in the morning, when I had time to ease into the day and chat with Xiaoyan, but busy in the afternoon as I rushed to update icons and fix bugs, barely finishing by 8 PM.

In the morning, I set up MAUI, finally getting the test app running and experimenting with HybridWebView. Using ChatGPT 4.5 and Gemini 2.0 Flash, I brainstormed a test setup—the results exceeded expectations, with Gemini 2.0 Flash even generating a professional 10-page document.

In the evening, I joined colleagues for barbecue after working overtime. We had a lively conversation about work, family, and personal interests, losing track of time until almost midnight.

Today marked Code Freeze, with everyone focused on finalizing features and fixing bugs. One by one, people wrapped up between 7 PM and 11 PM.

Before badminton, I completed the new UI development—a major task finally off my plate. Along the way, I learned that when setting Window transparency, AllowTransparency must be specified before configuring a semi-transparent Background.

This morning I woke up early, still thinking about last night’s implementation. Hamer woke up too, and we sat together—me working, her snacking. Later, I got some good news: my team included me to attend the UC. While not as excited as before, I still look forward to possibly going with Xiaoyan and Hamer.

I started the day early, determined to finish the Streaming Control work. After rushing through the final touches, I submitted a PR by late morning and discussed revisions with colleagues. By evening, the PR was merged, marking the completion of this feature.

Before leaving work, a colleague shared a new UI design—great but tricky to implement. Using Cursor, I quickly built an initial version that turned out well. After dinner, I returned to refine it, but over-tweaking led to losing the good version. Frustrated but learning, I experimented with Gemini and ChatGPT for reference code, realizing I prefer interactive debugging over Cursor’s automated Vibe Coding.

Meanwhile, Hamer and her classmate went to painting class, had dinner, and even went shopping at Hema together.

I started the day early, studying MAUI to deepen my understanding. Most of my work focused on Streaming Control, and by evening, I had sorted out most of the details—just a few bug fixes left before submitting a PR tomorrow.

At noon, I played table tennis, and time flew by. After work, I came home to find Xiaoyan watching Moana with Hamer. Strangely, Hamer stood the whole time—too scared to watch but unable to look away. She eventually cried, took the remote, then calmed down and turned off the TV herself. Later, my sister-in-law video-called, and seeing Yoyo lifted my mood.

Hamer surprised me with a heartfelt remark about how much I’ve been doing for her lately. Meanwhile, Xiaoyan and I had a playful chat—her teasing tone made the conversation especially fun.

This morning, I woke up feeling extremely drowsy, only fully shaking it off after Hamer finished using the bathroom. At breakfast, she accidentally bit her loose lower lateral incisor, making it painful and uncomfortable to eat. She was also anxious about getting to school before 8 AM, and we ended up rushing out.

I walked to work in strong winds. My day was spent refining the Streaming Control logic, extracting the information display section.

In the evening, one colleague asked me about MAUI, and since I wasn’t familiar with it, I felt a bit frustrated—a reminder that I still have more to learn.

On a whim, I decided to pick up Xiaoyan from the airport. After putting Hamer to bed, I showered and headed out, only to realize the airport express had stopped running. I took a taxi instead, dozing off on the way. At the terminal, I wandered around, ate, and watched Severance until Xiaoyan arrived. Filming her as she walked past, I followed quietly—she was completely shocked when she finally noticed me.

In the morning, Hamer made hamburgers again, even packing one for her classmate. After breakfast, we finished Win or Losein a cozy, darkened room. Later, we played with her classmate at The Temple of Earth Park, enjoying jump rope and workout areas filled mostly with girls. The fun continued with badminton in the evening, but by night, Hamer was feeling down, wondering why weekends couldn’t be school days instead.

Today, Hamer and I joined the slightly chaotic Hot Chocolate Run in Chaoyang Park, where we ran with Doubao, and the kids had a blast. We had lunch nearby with friends.

I took Hamer for a stroll on Yifan Street, which led to new discoveries and buying burger buns for homemade burgers.

In the evening, heavy snowfall surprised us and made us happy. Hamer and I ended the day with homemade burgers and Win or Lose TV.

Last night, I had nasal congestion, waking up twice. Saline spray helped. Daytime was symptom-free, but evening brought eye discomfort.

Work was bug-fixing and cross-testing, lacking enthusiasm. I did a short gym session at noon.

Hamer and her classmate played happily, even tried ballet this evening.

I’m exploring Google Gemini, curious about its features, after hearing about the new Flash release.

Today’s work focused on resolving code freeze issues and minor fixes, particularly in Survey123 and the attribute table.

Hamer woke up before her alarm, eagerly getting out of bed once it rang. We shopped online for a jump rope in the morning, and when it arrived in the evening, she was thrilled. After school, she played with her classmate, had dinner with them, and stayed at her home late doing homework, only coming home around 9 PM.

After work, I tried a Chengdu-style clay pot restaurant and was impressed. While checking Xiaoyan’s location in Thailand, I came across the Garuda, the national emblem, and also discovered the Highway Gothic, a typeface designed for federal highways.

This morning, while making a mango breakfast, Hamer accidentally cut her finger, but she handled the bleeding surprisingly calmly.

Xiaoyan left for Thailand today—her second trip there. She had really wanted me to join her, but I hesitated and ultimately declined, which left her a bit frustrated.

I spent most of the morning restructuring the KMZ saving function and wrapped it up in the afternoon before adjusting the UI.

I also explored MCP technology, realizing I had overlooked its potential, and briefly checked out OpenAI’s new Agent tool.