the things I need to do to replace the cracked headlight...

what the hell is going on?

old oxygen sensor, new oxygen sensor

The Bosch one was prone to intermittent failures, especially while
cruising at 90mph in west Texas. Replacing it with a genuine Honda
part that has the right wire length. Bosch "OEM" parts are waaaaay
overrated.

new antilock brake sensor in!

vertical rainbow

disconnected

It's that time when I have to unplug the cable modem. No more internet here. )-:

It's ok though. At this time tomorrow, I won't have a bed here either.

goodbye

My desktop says goodbye. I'll be packing it in a few minutes. ETA: mid-July.

On the upside - me traveling means more regular blog updates!

allegedly i'm graduating

packing

Interesting challenge these days. I need to pack for a sequence of trips.

• A week in Cleveland (drive)
  
• A wedding (drive)
  
• A week in Seattle (fly)
  
• A month of driving across the country, visiting cities, ball parks, national parks, and a ton of driving.

End result? I know what I'll be wearing to JT's wedding already. I also seem to have gotten everything to fit in my bag. It's a bit big, but I can swap some things around if for some reason I feel like I need more than one pair of shoes for Seattle (doubtful).

Yeah... boring post. Better than nothing, right?

Tony Blair has arrived

There are cops EVERYWHERE... on this block, at least.

link of the day

Photo coverage of the earthquake in China

real fake friends

This may be a touchy subject, but what the hell. It's 1:50am and I have a 8:15 class tomorrow (my last class here in business school!). But anyway... I was thinking about something that happened today that I'm a bit irked about.

Now how can I do this without being anything remotely specific but still get the point across...

OK... so maybe I should start by saying what I mean by a fake friend. A fake friend is (in this case at least) someone who asks to be your friend on facebook, but they aren't really your friend. In fact, not even someone you would consider an acquaintance. I may know who you are, but I have no real expectation of talking to you, hanging out with you, or doing anything with you. BUT, for the sake of social "norms" and to avoid offending people who actually do consider me a friend/acquaintance, I accept.

So what's a real fake friend? I'm a believer (not to be confused with evangelist) of the theory that if you act in accordance to certain expectations, it'll become a reality. At work it would be how filling in bigger roles can lead to a promotion. In this case it would be if you act as if you're good friends with someone, it can actually facilitate the "friend-making" process. A real fake friend is someone who hasn't really made it to the friend level yet, but has this mentality. So when duty calls, they fill the role accordingly.

Tonight I had my first interaction EVER with one of these fake friends. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed. Rather than casual friendliness to be expected of people (ANYONE... not just friends or fake friends), what I got was a bit of hostility and belligerence. Fake friend in this case seemed more like an aspirational enemy. What the hell?

Periodically I go through and purge my fake friends. Tonight I made a special occasion to delete this false link. No hard feelings, fake buddy. I'm just following the social norm called reciprocity.

Also, I'm not sure how well connected this person is, but it's generally not a good idea to randomly create conflict with people. Now, I'm not going to go around slandering your name in public because of this. I'm not really into that. But, don't expect me to forget this if you decide to ask me for favors down the road either.

Perhaps if I feel nice in the morning I'll forward this post to the person I'm talking about.

car update

The a/c isn't getting fixed. Why? I'll be in Seattle where my car can live virtually forever and last time I checked it doesn't get too hot up there.

But, right now my timing belt and water pump is getting replaced (every 90k miles... $770 + tax) and I just ordered a few more parts that need to be replaced. A headlamp (it's got a huge bulls-eye crack and another crack in it... $125-ish) and also another anti-lock brake sensor ($125-ish).

I like to brag about how maintenance is like a car payment, but this month's car payment really sucks! Next month I get to have my windshield replaced. Hopefully it'll be covered by insurance.

great weekend... till now?

Karaoke
Brunch in Jamaica Plain
Samuel Adams Brewery tour
Bowling
Awesome Red Sox game at Fenway
Helped SOM/FES win the IM Ultimate Frisbee Championship
Ice Cream Social

Now I need to write a paper or two. Damn.

fenway