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i took the day off from working at the cafe to go to the boston caribbean parade. i've only taken saturday off one other time this year, and that was to see the pride parade back in june. i felt a little guilty, because the parade doesn't start until 1pm (officially anyway, usually starts much later than that), so i could've worked for an hour or so before leaving.

i armed myself with my 18-200mm lens but also brought my 55-250mm just in case i needed a longer telephoto. i also had my fuji 3D camera. last night i recharged a bunch of camera batteries. i also switched out my memory card. i usually use a samsung EVO select 128GB microSDXC card, but i replaced it with a newly purchased samsung PRO plus 128GB. the EVO select has a read/write speed of 100/60 MB/s while the new PRO plus is rated for 160/120 MB/s. i'm not sure if my canon 80D dSLR can even read/write that fast, but can't go wrong with a faster card.

the latest breaking news from boston was earlier this morning a mass shooting took place in dorchester that wounded at least 7 people, none life-threatening. a part of me did hesitate: should i really be going after a shooting? but honestly, it's a terrible thing to say, but shootings happen so often in boston, it's actually pretty common.

i thought i had a lot of time, but before i knew it, it was almost noon, time to leave. i wore a pair of jeans and my stay cool navy polo. i filled my insulated contigo travel mug with some ice water. i didn't eat any breakfast/lunch, but i often go without, so it wasn't a big deal. i headed out a bit after noontime, after taking the rain cover of my motorcycle.

earlier i was memorizing the route i'd take to get to the parade. memorial drive across the BU bridge, onto the jamaicaway, exiting after the riverway bridge, riding down heath street to get to columbus avenue, follow that to seaver street along franklin park, stash my motorcycle on one of the many residential streets. for some reason google maps said i couldn't go straight down heath street, very street, and showed me a confusing detour that exited out from jackson square. i figured i'd take my luck, reroute if in fact the street was closed off somehow.

about to get on the jamaicaway, my mother called me, i felt my mi band vibrating on my wrist as well as the phone in my pocket. there wasn't any place i could pull over until i got to heath street. she actually called twice, which made me think it was a real emergency. did something happen at the cafe? or was hailey close to dying? so when i called back, she said john miller and his family stopped by the cafe. this was totally unexpected, and he came on the rare saturday when i wasn't at the cafe. my mother said they came because will was attending a new art school in natick. she said they'd be back more often, so i'll get to see them soon. i texted john afterwards. he said they were already on their way back to new york, and stopped by the cafe on a whim. i'm just glad it was a happy phone call, and not some actual emergency!

i continued on my way to dorchester. that google maps heath street detour? must be a glitch, because there was nothing wrong with heath street, i rode it all the way down to columbus avenue. i also forgot they close off seaver street before the parade begins, so i had to take a detour down walnut avenue. i did the same thing last time, so i was sort of prepared, but still stopped briefly to check the map on my phone. i ended up parking at the intersection of elm hill avenue and howland street, right across the street from the grace church of all nations. i knew i was close to the parade route because there was police tape preventing me from going any further down elm hill.

i walked down elm hill avenue a few blocks and got onto warren street. i then followed warren downhill to MLK jr boulevard, the parade staging area. i hungrily eyed the popeyes restaurant, one of the rare popeyes in the greater boston area. what i wouldn't give for some fried chicken! it was already almost 1pm - the start of the parade - but people still looked like they were getting organized. that gave me time to walk up MLK jr boulevard to get a sneak preview of what's in store. i wasn't impressed with what i saw. last year i read there was beef between the parade organizer and the various soca bandleaders, who wanted to get paid for participating in the parade. apparently they still haven't settled their differences, and many soca groups have elected to sit out once again, despite being the 50th anniversary of the boston carnival parade.

the parade finally started around 1:30pm. even the spectators seemed fewer than last year. at this rate, i don't know if there will even be a carnival parade next year. i may have to go down to new york city next year to get my carnival fix. there was basically just one large of costumed carnival revelers, and that was it. there was also a children group in front, and another group that featured seniors. they didn't even have the foam truck! though new this year was a speaker truck featuring jumbo-sized LCD screens.

i ended up taking less than 900 photos. typically at an event like this, i take a few thousand, easily. there just wasn't a lot to photograph. i even walked down to the end of the parade route to see what else was coming, and was surprised to see that was it. so i walked back to the head of the parade, and did that a few times, retaking photos of the same group of people.

i ended up leaving a bit after 3pm. even though i had my earplugs, my hearing still felt muffled afterwards. i followed elm hill avenue out to seaver street, where the outbound lane was still open to traffic. i kept going onto i got onto columbus avenue, and retraced my steps to get back home. it took me 44 minutes to get into boston (i also stopped to call and text, so there's that), but just 36 minutes to get back to cambridge by a little before 4pm.

i gathered my things and went to the cafe to help close business for the weekend. my parents were there as well as my 2nd aunt. business at the cafe was okay, not crazy. my mother was a little disappointed, but maybe with the nice weather and being so close to the end of the summer, a lot of people were taking one last vacation, so not many customers. we left by 4:30pm.

my father cooked some readymade orange crispy chicken we bought from costco on monday. he served it on a bed of broccoli. the sauce was more sour than sweet, and the chicken had a lot of breading. for my money, the best readymade orange crispy chicken is from trader joe's. nevertheless, it was still good.

after dinner, i helped my father order some new wires for the solar panels. we ended up going with 12 gauge landscape wires: 100 feet spool costs $45, consisting of 65 bare copper strands. we also found out the old monster-brand stereo wires we're currently using to connect our portable solar panels are actually 16 gauge wires. i returned home a bit after 7pm.

after a shower, i finished watching the first two episodes of ahsoka while eating some more watermelon. later i downloaded the photos and videos from today's outing. i ended up not using my 55-250mm telephoto lens, nor the fuji 3D camera. i did set my gopro camera to shoot a pair of riding selfie videos for posterity: time lapse 4K widescreen 1s wide.