woke up at 8:40am after having slept in the guest bedroom for the second time. took me an hour to get ready before i left for a run at 9:45am. temperature was already in the 60's, hardly any breeze, blue sky, bright sun. i noticed a neighbor had already tossed out their chrysanthemums even though it still looked good. is it too late to buy mums now? i went at a leisurely pace, no hurry whatsoever.

coming back, i stopped by the empty community garden. my last visit was way back in september, i've pretty much given up on my plot, especially when cambridge turned off the water a few weeks ago. the only thing i need to do now is come back at some point and clean everything out for the season. i was basically here to see my deadly monkshood, which have finally bloomed since my last visit.

they hadn't collected the garden refuse yet, so i had some time to sweep the front walk and rake all the oak leaves from the backyard. later when i went outside the sidewalk was once more littered with yellow honeylocust leaves.

for lunch i baked some honey barbecue chicken tenders in the oven. i had some old blue cheese sauce that i used for dipping. the sauce was probably bad because i had to use the bathroom afterwards.

i grabbed my canon 55-250mm lens and heard a troubling rattling sound. was there a glass element loose in the lens? but when i tried shooting with it, it worked fine. so what was that sound? turns out it was the UV filter. the glass had come loose from the threaded ring. i tried to push it back together but it was still rattling. i'll need to buy a new one (probably from temu, where they're only a few bucks). it was a relief, because originally i thought i had to send out the lens to canon factory for repairs.

1:40pm i went on a field trip that's been on my mind for a while. a few weeks ago somebody in reddit was asking where they could get some fried clams locally. someone mentioned courthouse seafood in east cambridge. i was curious to try them so i went there via motorcycle, thinking i could bring them back to my parents faster than if i took the bicycle. that turned out to be a mistake, as it's much slower traveling by motorcycle when you're stuck in traffic and have to follow all the traffic lights. plus they stripped the surface of cambridge street outbound, so it dangerous to ride on a motorcycle. at least the weather was nice (75 degrees), i just had a t-shirt on, probably the last time this year i can ride without a jacket.

courthouse seafood is the sort of old timey place that caters to its portuguese neighbors. the owners seemed to know all the customers, and they were all friendly with him, coming and asking for particular seafoods. the prices were also pretty good. whole native clams dinner (which comes with cole slaw and french fries) sells for $24.95. true, it's the most expensive item on the menu, but fried clams elsewhere can be as much as $35-40. i also got the wednesday/saturday special super fish & chips for $9.95. i waited for my food. on one side of the wall were refrigerators stocked with seafoods. they also sold refrigerated quince jams, which i might come back and get some in the near future. i admired how clean the place was, especially the open kitchen. i didn't have to wait long, they had no food ready in a matter of minutes. they also threw in two tartar sauce.

it took nearly 20 minutes to ride to the cafe. my takeout was strapped to the back of my motorcycle, i didn't care for the hot fried seafood smell. my parents and 2nd aunt were surprised to see me. i made sure to come in the afternoon, after their busy lunch time stretch (it was just as busy today as it was yesterday). everyone clamored to tried the fried seafood. it took me so long to get there, the food was a little soggy from the steam. the fried whole belly clams were good but i wish there was more. my father said they reminded him of the gigantic whole belly clams we had at the clam box in quincy, which is probably the best fried clams we've ever had. super fish and chips was just fried white fish. and there was lots of leftover fries. i ended up taking all the fries home. i also brought two glass pot lids i found while running. the larger lid fit our 20 qt stock pot, while the smaller lid didn't fit any of our pots.

i returned home by 3pm. my father told me he couldn't transmit with one of his quansheng radios. i noticed it had an AM designation. when i came home i looked into it. apparently there's a demodulation setting with options of AM/FM/USB. once i switched it to FM, i was once again able to transmit from that frequency (2m band). we gave it a test: while my father couldn't my transmissions (with 5W of power on the stock quansheng antenna), i could hear him transmitting on an external roof mounted DIY antenna amplified to 20W (loud but a little staticky).

speaking of ham radios, while i was just casually looking up call signs online, i discovered my parents next door neighbors recently (last year) got their technician license, the father and the daughter. i've also been researching SDR's. currently i'm researching the RX888 MKII which has two SMA ports that allows full spectrum reception, from HF to VHF/UHF bands. unfortunately it seems to work best with SDR-console, which only runs on a windows PC.

i got really sleepy in the early evening and decided to take a nap in the guest bedroom around 6:30pm. i didn't wake up until 8:30pm. honestly, i wasn't very hungry, especially after finishing all those fries earlier, and could've just kept on sleeping. i woke up and made an instant cup of korean shin black noodles (with beef bone broth).