more recent
12/28: It felt like 2001 as the Middle East featured the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' Hometown Throwdown show downstairs, while I caught local ska favorites Beat Soup and the Allstonians, both of whom had come out of retirement for their Hometown Throwup upstairs. Rounding out the bill were the singularly amusing Far From Finished.
12/27: Went to Redbones for the first time in many years for the first of a planned monthly series of gatherings of Quad Cycles riders, and got to see fete the redoubtable and fondly-remembered Johnny H., who was in town for the holidays.
12/23: Made my way up to Maine to have an early Xmas observance with the family. Happily, I managed to get through this year's holiday season with a lot less stress than usual.
12/19: You'd expect architects to be competent speakers, but Anthony Flint, author of "This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America", managed to get out 361 "uhhhs" in a 50-minute talk at the BPL on "Shaping the 21st-Century City". That's one every eight seconds.
12/18: Sadness all around. We commisserated at the Grand Canal with some friends from our former client, who closed their doors a week before Xmas, while also toasting the departure of coworker and good friend Dita for a long-term assignment in faraway Romania!
12/12: Our condo's annual meeting is always a freakshow extravaganza, although this year was less painful than most...
12/11: In a quarter century of coding, I've never found a more capable text editor than Xedit, which began life on 
the IBM mainframes I grew up on. Although I left the mainframe behind, the Windows port -- Kedit -- has been my editor of choice for over 15 years. They just came out with a new revision -- version 1.6 -- mostly to address Vista compatibility.
12/11: Google Maps finally unveiled their StreetView feature for the greater Boston area, including, of course, the area around the Vendome.
12/10: Met a few people at the Vendome holiday reception.
12/9: Finished reading "Cayman Islands Alive!", which I'd picked up at the Globe Corner Bookstore in anticipation of an upcoming winter migration down to the Caribbean islands.
12/9: Although I didn't do the ride myself, I got out and rode on my own before meeting up with the Quad Cycles crew at the Hatch Shell during their annual Jingle Ride into the city.
12/1: Spent part of my 46 hours at home on the weekend attending a birthday and bathroomwarming party at coworker Allison's in ice-pick-frigid JP.
11/27: After 347 days on one massive local project for work, I left for a two-week scoping session at a new client in scenic Columbus, Ohio.
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 11/19: Took a day off from work to test out the new eTrex Vista by making my first trip down to the Mohegan Sun casino. Played over four enjoyable hours of blackjack. Conclusion: it seems like a reasonable replacement for Foxwoods.
 11/18: On the way back from Maine I finally pulled the trigger and replaced my aging Garmin eTrex GPS with a shiny new eTrex Vista HCx. I was going to wait until spring for the Edge 705 and Magellan Triton, but REI had the eTrex at $80 off list, so I jumped.
11/17: Travelled up to Maine on the weekend before Thanksgiving as a sly way to avoid holiday travel.
 11/11: Completed my 9-day "sandwich retreat" at CIMC, having not only survived 55 hours of practice over nine days, but also gotten quite a lot out of it. It was particularly good to get an idea where I stood, both in terms of how my mind responds to long retreats, and where I stand overall in my practice and understanding of the dhamma. (writeup)
 11/8: I missed the 2007 Pan-Mass Challenge check presentation ceremony, but I couldn't miss the news that the $10,190 I raised was part of a massive $33 million gift to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. That's the biggest single gift they've ever received, and represents 100% of rider-raised contributions. (press release)
11/8: Had lunch with Sheeri on my last day working in Kendall and a week before she starts working out in Needham!
 11/5: Two months after he produced his first DargonZine issue, my assistant editor Liam Donahue came through with his second issue, DargonZine 20-4, this time almost without any assistance at all. Happy day!
 11/5: Received a copy of the annual fundraising letter that Light Boston made with the photos I took for them. Some of my shots also made it up into the presentation on the revised Light Boston web site.
 11/5: Had my first one-on-one teacher interview with Larry from CIMC, and came away from it with a better understanding of where I am in my practice and some beneficial directions for further inquiry.
11/3: Committed to the next level of practice by finally beginning my first lengthy Buddhist meditation retreat, a 9-day "sandwich retreat" at CIMC.
 10/30: Saw Sir Salman Rushdie give a talk at the BPL called "Public Events, Private Lives: Literature and Politics in the Modern World", wherein he talked about the intrusion of public events into our lives and the role of the novel in countering politically-mandated "official truths".
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10/28: Went to the  Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens to see their new wing and a huge, sprawling installation of art glass by Dale Chihuly, then dinner at India Garden in Oakland. Then, although I travelled 500 miles and was hanging out with two female non-fans, they insisted on watching the Boston Red Sox clinch their second World Series in recent years.
 10/27: Started the day by visiting the I Made It art show in an old run-down church in Braddock with Inna. Then we picked up Monika  and had a surprisingly bland dinner (Vietnamese) at Tram's Kitchen, before catching "Khafif’s Halloween Hafla - A Haunted Evening of Bellydance Brew-ha ha" at the not-yet-open Your Inner Vagabond Coffeehouse, which was a confusing melange of Arab, SCAdian, and Halloweeny.
 10/26: Began a big birthday weekend in Pittburgh by travelling up to scenic Slippery Rock, PA with my friend Inna to see the reggae rockin’ Wizdom Band atop a 12-foot high stage at the Ginger Hill Tavern.
10/24: Today's noontime Boston Bikes Summit discussion was a very disappointing talk on "Bicycling and Economic Development", which focused mostly on how planners hope to co-opt bicycling to allow them to increase population density in our cities. However, in the evening several locals took the floor to talk about the ancient and recent history of bike advocacy in Boston, and then the "expert team" talked about the facilities and processes they will recommend in their final report to the mayor.
10/23: The Tuesday noontime Boston Bikes Summit session was another marginally interesting talk on "Bicycling and Health".
10/22: With Mayor Menino taking a sudden interest in cycling, the three-day Boston Bikes Summit kicked off today. I attended the first public session on "State and Regional Bike Plans", where I learned about a number of promising new and planned initiatives. In the evening I went to the BPL to catch a vaguely interesting meeting on "The Role of Bicycling in World Class Cities".
 10/20: Here comes the bacon! Went out and saw a savory performance of the musical "Lard: Like Grease, But Thicker", put on by the substantive performers from the Boston chapter of Big Moves.
 10/4: Saw Boston Globe's Pulitzer Prize winning Washington correspondent Charlie Savage give an excellent talk based on his book "Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy" at the Old South Meeting House as a part of the Ford Hall Forum.
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