i decided i was going to make chicken pot pie again for dinner. in the early afternoon i biked down to market basket to gather the ingredients. from the last time i made it back in early january, i knew one of the problems was the pot pie was too bland. this may just be a case of not adding enough salt (a common complaint in a lot of my recipes), but i wanted to see if i can change the ingredients to add more flavors. there was a sale on chicken breasts, but instead of getting raw cutlets, i came upon the idea of using leftover rotisserie chicken that i were also on sale. the rotisserie would have plenty of flavor already (i often use the leftover bones to make chicken stock).

in the afternoon i decided to bike down to microcenter to buy some raspberry pi's. according to their website, they had more than 10+ pi3's in stock. on amazon they typically sell for around $40 for a barebone unit, but microcenter was selling them for just $30. as for pi zero's, they sell on amazon for around $20, but microcenter has them for only $5 (they were on sale for a while at $1, that's how i picked up two).

i took a bike route recommended by google, which skirts the edge of harvard yard, down broadway, down quincy, down dewolfe, all the way to the river. it's a route that can only be taken by bikes because it needs to traverse the harvard campus to get onto a short stretch of broadway; it's hard to do by car without taking a very circuitous route. quincy and dewolfe are one ways that go directly to the charles. estimated time for the whole trip was just 15 minutes (may even be faster than car travel), but it took me a little longer because i was making frequent stops to check for pokemons. i found two new generation 2 creatures: xatu and chinchou. temperature was around 40°F which is considered warm here during the winter, but a good opportunity to test my new eddie bauer soft shell jacket.

i don't often shop at microcenter these days. back before the online shopping boom (late 90's), microcenter was the only place you could go to find computer peripherals and software, and i'd visit often (once a month if not more). now the only reason to shop here is if i have an emergency and need something right away, since typically their prices are higher than on the internet.

it took me a while to find the barebone raspberry pi 3 i was looking for. now a whole wing of the store is electronic DIY parts. some pi3's were part of a bundle that was more expensive, while other items that looked like pi's were actually just empty cases. finally i found them, in a cage bin secured in individual acrylic theft-deterrent boxes. as advertised, they were only $30 each. i had to ask one of the employees if they had anymore pi zero's; he told me they were fresh out of stock, but were expecting a new shipment possibly next week.

on the way back i crossed memorial drive at dewolfe, then cowperthwaite, bank, mt.auburn, trowbridge, across the public library, to home - another new route i've never tried before but will now incorporate into my mental gps.

speaking of electronic DIY parts, a few that i ordered from china on ebay months ago finally arrived in the mail: micro OTG adapters (3) and transmitter antennas (5, 99¢).

the new pi3 (henceforth known as pi3v2) looks nearly identical to my first pi3 (pi3v1), saving for a piece of high temperature tape on the HDMI port (pi3v1) and some markings on the ethernet and USB ports (pi3v2). i placed the new pi3 in a spare case i happened to have. i also had a set of spare miniature heatsinks, but i wanted to wait and make sure i can power up this pi3 before attaching them. unfortunately i don't have a spare microSDHC memory card, so i can't use the pi3v2 until i order one.