The Week #85

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  • Last week's getting locked out of the house caused some hassle this week, not with the locks or door, but with the car. We were waiting in the car while the locksmith did his work and as it was dark out, we turned on the interior lights (you can see guess this is going).  In the rush of finally being able to get inside / on with our evening, we forgot to turn them off.

    The next time we went to use the car (Friday?) the automatic sliding doors didn't work...immediately I figured the battery was dead. Thankfully I carry a pair of jumper cables in my car (though usually I'm the one giving the jump). 

    Thankfully my neighbor across the road was home and let me connect my my cables and give me a jump.
  • I fiddled around with Minecraft on my switch for a few minutes to figure out how it works. I can see how people sink hours and hours into this game building cool stuff. Leo also wanted to play. The controls are pretty complex, with one control stick being movement and the other being looking around,  so I have to help him frequently while he masters it.
  • Leo turned 4. For his birthday he got two small Lego sets: a 4+ helicopter and since he's taken to Minecraft, a little Minecraft set. We went and picked out a cake together. He picked a simple cream / strawberry cake (though he skips the strawberries).

    We shared cake and pizza at the grandparent's house. While I enjoy celebrating with the family, I am looking forward for Leo having a proper birthday party with friends someday.
  • As I mentioned, Tanzawa got it's first non-me user! Exciting and illuminating of all of the little issues that exist in the back of my head as a "someday" or have just learned to work around. 😅
  • The covid numbers seem to be starting a downwards trend. Most recently we've had 3 days with fewer cases (by the hundreds or thousands) of the same day the previous week. With this trend and constant public pressure, it seems like Japan will finally start letting non-tourists into Japan again. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but hopefully we'll stay open "for good" or at least long enough for the rest of our team to move to Japan. They've been waiting for over a year now.
  • I ordered two books that I'm really looking forward to reading: Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in our Lives and Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World. The first I suspect may just be preaching to the choir for me, but I know I'll learn something from it. The second, I read the sample chapters a month or two ago and I really enjoyed it. I got both of them in print, rather than e-books, as per usual. (I was quite tempted for the Kindle versions, and they're easy to read that way, but I want to spend less time looking at my phone).
    Love the covers!
  • I discovered The Linda Lindas, an all girl punk band from L.A. (the YouTube offers a good suggestion for a change). Really good music. My favorite so far is Missing You, about being stuck in the house during the pandemic. And the line about wanting to eat at grandma's place is punk as f.
  • As part of my reconsidering solar / batteries for the house, I did some searching. And in that search I discovered that a) I can get a Tesla Powerwall in Japan and b) Despite being double the capacity (13.5 kWh), they seem to be cheaper than domestic counterparts (6.5 kWh).

    I've asked a local installer for a quote for a system and I'm patiently awaiting it. My theory is that it will cost a bit more than the all Sharp system I was quoted before, but who knows.