5/8: Checked out the MFA School's annual sidewalk sale, had dinner at Thai Basil for the first time, then spent Inna's last evening in Boston seeing her favorite band The Damned at Paradise, reliving one of our most memorable dates.

5/6: Spent the day walking Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway—the land formerly occupied by the Central Artery—with my visiting friend Inna. Stops included lunch at Legal Seafoods and watching the harbor seals at the New England Aquarium.

5/2: In the evening, our crew returned to Cambridge for Indian food chez Amber and a viewing of the German-language comedy "Enlightenment Guaranteed".

5/2: Spent most of the day in Foxboro with my buds from CIMC, attending teachings by the Dalai Lama. The morning session focused on the basic tenets of Buddhism, while the afternoon was devoted to discussing universal human values. An auspicious day that I won't soon forget! (writeup)

5/3: On the way back from my regular weekend Quad ride, I stopped to visit my friend Shea, who was displaying her Mudflatted pottery work as a part of the Somerville Open Studios.

5/1: Began a four-session training in nonviolent communication offered to my CIMC compatriots by fellow practitioner Bonnie Mioduchoski, based around the book "Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life" by Marshall Rosenberg.

4/27: Met Boston's mayor Tom Menino at a Back Bay breakfast and thanked him for his support of Nicole Freedman and rejuvenating the city's bicycle program, Boston Bikes, even in this time of major budget cuts.

4/26: He may be a self-impressed bastard, but Terry Pratchett remains one of the very few fiction authors I still read. This time it's "Making Money", which served its purpose—light entertainment— quite well.

4/25: Even in Boston, ska shows have become a rarity, so I had to show up for this Saturday night lineup at the Cantab Lounge's Club Bohemia: Beat Soup, the Allstonians, and Guns of Navarone. The latter get points for surreptitiously inserting song lyrics making fun of Mickey Bliss for spending the last hour of the show literally asleep at the sound board! Missed Robin on the sax tho...

4/24: Concluded "brain month" by dragging friends Mark & Mary out to a jammed Harvard Bookstore to catch a talk by Alva Noë, author of "Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness".

4/21: Attended the Society of Printers' annual Dwiggins design lecture. This year renowned Boston typographer Matthew Carter spoke about Herman Zapf, creator of Palatino and Optima, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

4/21: Warmed up for the upcoming ScooperBowl by taking advantage of Ben & Jerry's annual Free Cone Day by hitting all three "scoop shops" that are within walking distance of my condo.

4/16: Went to the Harvard Bookstore, which is now under new ownership, to attend an talk by Gary Marcus, author of "Kluge: The Haphazard Evolution of the Human Mind". Fairly interesting, but nothing particularly earthshattering about the idea that the brain, being the result of evolutionary forces that produce something that is "just good enough", is not a perfect computing and memory device.

4/13: In preparation for his upcoming visit, I read "Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of The Dalai Lama". About the same time, I also watched the 1997 film "Kundun", which is a pretty faithful depiction of his life as described in the book.

4/9: Took my new heart rate monitor out for a bike ride to the PMC headquarters and back, in in the process getting my first estimate for my max heart rate, my aerobic and anaerobic training zones, and a general measurement of my overall cardiac fitness. (my comments)

4/9: Part two of “brain Month” featured a talk by Bruce Hood, author of "SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable", who asserts that the brain's pattern- and meaning-making is responsible for adult superstitions. He agreed with my theories about the difficulty of controlling or even consciously knowing our own beliefs.

4/7: Made my way through the newly-revised edition of “Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century” and found it a singularly useful resource for marshaling one's resources and planning for retirement.

4/7: Kicked off “Brain month” with a rare trip over to the Brattle to catch the philosophical walkabout “Examined Life”. Although interesting, the parallels with Linklater's 2001 "Waking Life" were too pervasive to ignore. (my comments)

4/4: Joined a couple people from the Flickr Boston Photo Mob to shoot World Pillow Fight Day. Held in Christopher Columbus Park, Boston's 1100 combatants were the second largest gathering out of the 70 international cities that participated in the event. (my photos)

4/4: Made a rare early-season ride out to Arlington to observe Quad Cycles' grand reopening at its new location, as well as to celebrate universally-loved ride leader Bobby Mac's 60th birthday. (my photos)

4/2: Saw Evan Brenner's one-man play "The Buddha: In His Own Words" at the Boston Center for the Arts. Interesting in that most of the dialog is straight from the Theravadan suttas, so it's quite true to the lineage, and an interesting way of putting together information from different parts of the Pali canon, and much less painful than inflicting the whole Majjhima Nikaya on yourself!