the eton elite executive radio ($100) arrived early today and i spent the morning playing around with it. it's not the most intuitive of radios in terms of usage, but it's chock full of functionalities, all hidden away behind buttons that can be activated with various long and short pushes. FM broadcast comes in crystal clear, and the RDS means it shows info like station name and the song and artist. i managed to receive some chatter on the air band - logan airport approach and the watch tower - but it wasn't as clear and i think that because i live in a radio signal canyon. i also managed to receive a station on the shortwave, some conservative radio broadcast, the strong southern accent and reverential tone towards trump gave it away. i managed to program a few stations into the 700 channel memory. all and all, a nice piece of gadget to play with, but not sure if it's worth the $100. maybe with a more powerful outdoor antenna it can receive more channels, but shortwave listening has a high learning curve, since broadcasts are transmitted based on the time of day. the radio has also SSB, but i wasn't able to receive any ham radio conversations.

today wasn't a bad day, temperature in the lower 40's, overcast, but dry until the evening, when we're expected to get some overnight rain that'll last into tomorrow morning. i had plans of going to haymarket or market basket, but when i called my mother asking if she needed anything, she said no, and neither did i, so i decided not to go.

i did however go to the cafe in the afternoon to swap out some memory cards. the cafe wyze cams have been acting up lately. i tried to take a time lapse video with the front camera and discovered it hadn't been recording onto the memory card for a week. the rear camera doesn't seem to want to record an alert videos. so i figured reformatting the memory card and rebooting the cameras might fix the problems. i also tried installing the wyze sensor. the bridge dongle i installed to the rear camera, and i wanted to put the contact sensor onto the basement door, but there was too much interference and it lost the signal to the sensor. the only option now seems to be placing a camera in the basement and putting the sensor bridge onto that camera. i just so happen to have a spare wyze cam, but i kind of want to swap this one with the pan cam at my sister's place.

while my mother and godmother and 2nd aunt went on an ac moore field trip leaving my father to man the cafe, i biked to the porter square target to pick up a 3-pack of pur water filters. the online price was $21, but the store price was $25. when i asked a sales rep, he said this was always the case (store prices are always more expensive), but said they do price matching, so i would still get the lower price as long as i brought up the difference. when i went to the cashier, he said the exact same thing to me, that online prices are different than store prices. i showed him the cheaper price online, but he found it in his database. he seemed kind of unhappy that target does this, said it forces people to do their homework in order to get a discount. it feels like target is actively trying to trick people into paying more. anyway, i rode back to the cafe to drop off the filters (they're for my sister's godmother, who asked my mother last weekend if costco carried any, they didn't) before riding home. it was just 3:30pm but already it was getting dark and rush hour traffic had started. fortunately i brought my lights.

i didn't have lunch today. i was hungry this morning, but playing around with the new eton radio made me temporarily forget about food. i did heat up two slices of pound cake in the afternoon. for dinner i cooked up a bowl of ramen noodles.