Brompton recently opened an official shop around Harajuku. While daily life doesn't allow for much time to potter, occasionally there's a gap. The Brompton is the perfect bicycle for pottering: it folds, it fits on trains and under tables, and it has gears.

Today I set off on the Shonan-Shinjuku line intending to cycle around Shibuya/Harajuku to visit the Brompton shop and Blue Lug. Cycling from Shibuya is far too close – may as well walk. So I started stepping backwards along the stops... Ebisu?...maybe... Oosaki?...hmm...Nishi-ooi?

Then it hit me. I haven't been to Nishi-ooi since I was an exchange student and we set out (pre smartphone with gps in your pocket) on a walk one night...got lost...and ended up at Nishi-ooi. Perfect, I'll ride from Nishi-ooi to...Shibuya? Nah, since I'm in the neighborhood I'll ride to my old station and see what's changed in the last 17 - 18 years(!).

And so, rather than pottering to some bike shops, I potter around memory lane and it was fantastic.

The ride was smooth. It was entirely on the streets, but all of the streets were 30kph roads with at least some paint to indicate where cyclists should ride. The paint doesn't protect you, but it at least tells drivers to expect and be prepared for bicycles.

Along the way I rode through a nice park with a nice jungle gym and a place to splash around in the water. And also a nearly 100 year old steam locomotive?!

Riding up to Ontakesan my nose told me what I had hoped – Yanaka coffee was still there and still roasting beans. I used to always get my coffee from them when I was a student, not realizing how fortunate I was to have such great coffee so easily accessible.

Ontakesan still has a thriving Shotengai (shopping street) filled with local businesses and I missed that. It felt so alive – people visiting a local market, getting coffee beans, or Japanese style sweets.

I can order Yanaka coffee online (and I sometimes do), but for love of nostalgia and for supporting the local shopping street I had to buy some beans. I picked up the Ontakesan blend, 200g whole bean for me, and 200g ground for my in-laws.

There were a few changes in the neighborhood. The McDonalds had become a Saint Marc cafe (chocolate croissants and coffee), an upgrade. Italian Tomato is now a KFC. The little cake shop had turned into a hair salon, most likely because the owner retired. And the little Italian place was nowhere to be found.

While the station hasn't changed, still fits a 3-car train, the wrap on the trains has. I'm half-certain Baskin Robbins is now sponsoring the Ikegami line.

The Leo Palace the school had rented out and treated as dorms was still there. Unfortunately my old local Natural Lawson's had been downgraded to a regular Lawson's. I couldn't help but imagine what life would be like living in this neighborhood again. In a neighborhood with a thriving shopping street instead of a 4-lane road where a shopping street once stood. Perhaps rose-tinted glasses, but also simpler times.

After getting my coffee I decided to continue on towards Sangen-jaya, to meet up with my wife. This part of the ride removed some of the rose tint from my glasses. Not because of dangerous or unfun riding, but because it started to get a bit warmer out and there was a distinct lack of shade trees had me imagining this ride in 2 months time.

I say this, but also I did manage to stumble upon a small local park which has a fountain to refill my water bottle and a clean-enough restroom. I probably shouldn't be, but I can't help but be amazed by mundane things here in Japan like community access to free clean water and toilets. It  should be normal, humans looking after humans, but it isn't.

Sancha seems to be a fantastic neighborhood that embodies all of the great qualities of Tokyo. Compact, lots of small and local businesses, so much going on in every direction. I had just enough time for a cup of coffee at Obscura (co-worker recommended (😋) before I had to call time.

Pottering around Tokyo reminded me how cool Japan is. This year I'm going to try to take advantage of all of the gaps in my schedule to go and potter about on my Brompton, in search of great coffee and mundane joys.

Welcome to my year in review post...a few days into the new year. See previous editions for 2023, 2022,  2021, and 2020.

Spending more time in front of my computer was de-prioritized this year. Like last year, I did not start any new side projects.

Tanzawa
I didn't do much work on Tanzawa. That said, I still managed to make some small quality of life enhancements:

Sunbottle
The site that powers solar.jamesvandyne.com (and the Solar widget on the top page) did not see any commits in the past year. Which is problematic as I should update the fuel adjustment costs monthly-ish so my savings are calculated accurately.

I finally found a way to run consistently, squeezing out 101 runs totaling 458km. Running consistently has been a boon to my mental health. If I'm grump, going for a run usually solves it. It gives me time to think deeply about things away from screens. I ran my fastest ever 5ks, with the fastest being a few seconds under 30 minutes (I did that one while jet lagged, too!). Hitting the 30 minute 5k feels like a major milestone. I also discovered just how great running is for seeing a the sights of a city by running in Waikiki, London, and Paris. Technically Valencia is on that list, but I ran when it was dark, so I didn't see much while running.

I had two annual health checks this year. The first was in February, just before the end of the Japanese fiscal year and the second was in December. Despite the running, my weight and waist circumference stayed the same.. I hope that won't be the same when I write this report next year. Thanks to running though, everything else improved. :success-kid:

Leo started primary school. The first semester was really hard. Everyday was a struggle to get him out the door. He asked good question like "Why do I have to sit down and listen to adults talk all day? That's boring.". I think letting him spend his 3-years of pre-school at a school that let kids be kids and play was worth this struggle. He now mostly goes without issue.

We went on a trip to America so Leo could meet G-pa, my dad, for the first time. Communicating in English wasn't as smooth as I was hoping it was going to be, but they still got along. On the way there we stopped in Hawaii for a few days and Leo could meet some family that live there as well. Everybody is genki.

I read more books this year –mostly on my (new? I forget when I got it) kindle paperwhite. Trying to change my default from staring at my phone and scrolling for dopamine to staring at my kindle has been good for me learning new things and for living a more intentional life.

Kraken continues to be fun and exciting. The impact we're enabling is really motivating. I went from leading a regional team of 15 to a global team of just over 50. This firmly put me in the position of "person who writes documents  in Notion" instead of "person who writes Python in PyCharm". I still manage to sneak in a cheeky PR when it's a 1 or 2 liner when I'm able. Leading large teams is a much different challenge, but I find myself really enjoying it.

In classic James fashion, after writing my goals for the year last year I didn't look or think about them after posting. Still, I managed to achieve them. I will take the same approach this year. One difference is that I'm going to introduce a keyword to keep my centered. This year that keyword is "health".

Read More Books
Reading books on my kindle makes me feel better than endlessly staring at my cellphone when I'm bored or need a dopamine hit. There's an opportunity to learn from the greatest minds in history (often for free!) and I should do that more. It keeps my mind healthy and sharp.

Run 100 times
Same as last year. Setting this goal last year helped me run consistently. This year I'd like to run at least 100 times as well. I'll also introduce two stretch goals: 120 runs in a year and 550km distance.

Weights and Yoga
On the days when I don't run, I want to do some other exercise. I think those will be weight training (using my kettlebell) and yoga. Last year (or was it the year prior?) I bought some nice kettlebells. I want to use them consistently. Yoga should help me with general mobility and limberness. It might even help a bit with my next goal for 2025...

Balance
Work was my main focus last year. This year I expect the intensity of work will continue (🎉). While there isn't a specific measure for this goal, I'd like to be more intentional and balanced approach to work this year. I'm setting up habits already to enable this (e.g. putting my phone on the charger downstairs at night so I don't look at Slack when I first wake up... and then inevitably peak in regularly until work starts at 8:30 - 9am).

Using regular and consistent physical activity and reading books to create a better and more balanced self. This focus will be key to keeping me present and positive and able to do good for those near me when it could be so simple to wallow in despair given <gestures all around himself> everything.

Less Snacking
All of the points above are adding things. You can't have balance if you're always adding, so I'd like to remove something too. I have a (bad) habit of snacking between meals. Especially when I work from home. I'd like to, ideally, not do that at all. However, absolutes set you up for failure because there will be that day when you do it... so I'd like to snack less. My main strategy for this will be to wait until 7am when the rest of the eats rather than eating when I first wake up...as that puts 7 hours between breakfast and lunch, which is long enough that you're gonna want a snack.

Introducing a new piece of technology into our lives has the ability to change us in ways we didn't foresee and don't notice until we have the opportunity to live without it. Smartphones are an obvious example, but this isn't about smartphones (entirely).

On a trip to Spain I misplaced my Airpods. Until they turned up 3-weeks later in my backpack (in that one pocket you never open because it's too small for anything...except a pair of AirPods), I had the chance to live as if I never bought them. While my runs were a bit harder...but I could actually think and sort my thoughts without music distracting me. 

I slept better, too. I hadn't realized that I had gotten into the habit of watching videos on the internet for ~hour most nights before bed on my phone. And since I was on my phone, I'd ultimately peek into Email or Slack. But without my AirPods, I couldn't watch YouTube in bed, so I'd just sleep.

I didn't expect purchasing AirPods would result in me losing an hour of sleep a night.

What about reintroducing older technology into our lives? I've found it can have positive affects in our lives. I recently refurbished an iPod Classic. I grew tired of streaming music –finding music is difficult (much easier to scroll around than type on virtual keyboard or tap through 4 different screens one handed) and it buffers.

With my iPod, on the train, my mind can wander like it used to. When I want to change a song, I just change a song. I don't get distracted by unlocking my phone, searching for the Music app, waiting for attempt to reload its state...before ultimately dumping me at the top of the navigation. When I start or stop a song there isn't this fear that bluetooth has messed up and I'm about to play music into a rush hour train (only works with wired headphones and there isn't a speaker on the device). I can relax and just enjoy the music.

When we buy new tech, we often only think about the promises of the product, and we don't think about the unintended changes that these products might bring. If we do not consider these and are not intentional when introducing tech we may find ourselves anxious and sleep deprived and without an understanding why.

Welcome to my year in review post...a few days into the new year. See previous editions for 2022,  2021, and 2020.

I didn't start any new side projects this year.

Tanzawa
Tanzawa has been under development for about 4 years now. This year saw a large number of gaps between development of features, but I still managed to ship:

On December 31st, I also snuck in a PR to remove Turbo from the Tanzawa admin, a major goal for the year. There's still a lot more I'd like to do with Tanzawa and I reckon I'll continue chipping away it.

Sunbottle
Sunbottle was mostly in maintenance mode this year. It works... Sharp (thankfully) hasn't changed their HTML or Javascript so my scraper hasn't needed to be updated. The only feature I added was a comparison of the previous year's generation / consumption and a small API that I can use to fetch generation totals to display on my homepage.

I ran less than 2022. While the year stated strong I had a 2-week break when we went to America (I didn't feel safe running along traffic that's moving at 60 - 80kmh (40 - 50mph)) and I wasn't able to get into a groove until 6 months later. I noticed that when I frame running as a way to manage my mental health and not weight loss or such, I maintain motivation.

I had some surgery on one of my legs to fix some veins. My leg used to feel heavy when going for long walks or going up long flights of stairs...I thought this was normal / me just not having muscle or stamina. Turns out it was poor circulation. Once the doc fixed me, I now realize how much it was affecting me. I regret not doing it sooner.

Basal cell carcinoma made a reappearance after ~10 years. Thankfully I know what the early stages look like this time, so I was able to goto the dermatologist and get some cream to get it, rather than waiting faaaaaar too long such that it required surgery to extract it. Happy days. 

Leo is in his last year of pre-school and next year he will start primary school. He's still a picky eater, but he's eating more variety of foods. He probably eats too many french fries, but we are able to go out and eat at a variety of restaurants now.

We went to visit Texas for 2 weeks in February. It was Leo's first trip to America and his first time meeting a lot of different family members. We had a lot of fun, but the trip was hard. Traveling with kids is draining. Having to drive everywhere is also draining. The expense of hotels/cars/flights and me becoming a taxi driver....I'd rather we visit places where there's public transit.

I went from only buying physical books to reading books on my kindle again. I'm reading more books this way. This will be my default for now and for books that I really care about, I'll also buy a physical copy. Ultra Processed People has changed how I think about food. Having a 5-almost-6 year old in the house makes it difficult to truly cut them from my diet.

I'm not a big gamer, but this year saw me and Leo play the heck out of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We got 3 divine beasts down and 1 to go. While Leo's friends at school are into Pokemon, Leo's hooked on Zelda...it also gives us something we can chat a lot about in English.

Working at Kraken continues to be a blast. We're growing like crazy and literally moved offices because we couldn't all fit. For a while the conference rooms were turned into hot desks and we event had passes to a nearby co-working space as overflow.

The new office is in Roppongi. It's a major step up and fun to work out of. Though I'm still mostly remote so I can help with the boy in the mornings (and it didn't get any closer, so it's draining to go multiple days in a row).

Somehow I went from leading a team of 4 (including myself) to leading a team of 15 (including myself). We shipped so much work this year and migrated a large client to Ink. I'm really proud of what we've accomplished and looking forward to more this year.

Last year was by all means, a good year. I hesitate to call these resolutions, but here's some things I'd like to change or do in the coming year:

Run 100 Times
For real this time. I can get a good month or two of running, but there's always something that creeps up. With a fixed leg and an eye towards mental health, I'd like to achieve that this year.

Take more time off work
We have unlimited time off at work. I don't use it as often as I should...which I realized after taking my first full-week off since February at the end of December. The team has grown and has enough experience that things will still get done in my absence. And I know I'll work better if I'm better rested.

Travel again
An upcoming trip for work has reminded me how much I like to travel. The past few years...we had Leo...then the pandemic...and we got out of the habit of going places we don't always go. I'd like to go explore more this year.

Embrace being a dad better
My hobbies have generally been things I do by myself or require stretches of uninterrupted time. At the same time Leo's not going to want to hang out with me forever, so I should seize the moment. I want to focus more of my attention on doing things with Leo, not always for Leo.

Be more present and embrace calm
I've known for a while how distracted smartphones make us (me). This year I want to be more present and take concrete action towards calm. This will mean carrying more dedicated devices. But each device will not have the internet. I want to go back to listening to my mp3 collection on an iPod, take photos with a point and shoot, and way finding without a gps. If I replace my iPhone this year (it's already 5 years old), it will likely be with a Galapagos phone.

When the iPod was released it made a single promise: all of your music in your pocket. With great software and this promise, it sold like wildfire. Over time our music collections grew and with it, the max capacities of iPod also grew.

After a good run, the iPhone came out. Unlike the iPod, the iPhone used smaller faster solid state drives. Our music collections no longer fit on the device. We now had to pick and choose in advance which albums we'd take with us.

However, the iPhone had one thing the iPod didn't: cellular internet connectivity. This  made a new reality possible: access entire label's catalogs for the cost of a CD per month. No music taking up precious storage (which now also houses our photos and data) and constant access to the latest releases. Win-win.

Or is it? How many artists did you forget existed because the albums you owned were hidden behind recommendations for the masses? How often have you been unable to change songs or buffer because of connectivity issues? And when your subscription expires or the service is shut down, what's do you have for all of the money you've spent? Nothing. Nada.

Maybe it's a sense of nostalgia. Maybe it's longing for software and devices that just work. But I'm switching back. I've re-purchased an iPod Classic so I can keep my entire music collection with me again.

I've started using my point and shoot camera when I'm out with the family. Not only are the photos sharper, but I can stay focused and more in the moment.

Using my camera made me realize a difference between blogging today and blogging back in the day.

Back in the day, your photos were stuck on your camera until you got home for the day. This forced you to wait until the end of the day to blog. You could collect your thoughts and write a good post.

Today, your camera (phone) is directly connected to your blogging platform (website, mastodon, instagram etc..), there's a temptation to live-blog everything all the time. We post immediately for the likes and reactions. Who can blame us, though? It's right there bundled in with your camera.

Maybe we should do that less. Maybe I should do that less.

Give your point and shoot camera another try. You'll notice the difference in quality and connectedness.

When was the last time you left your phone at home? Or in the car? And how did it make you feel?

I went to dinner the other week with my family and I forgot my phone in the car. My first instinct was to get it...but this is Japan, not America, nobody is going to smash in my window to get a cellphone, so I left it. And I'm glad I did.

Maybe it was the warm light in the restaurant contrasting with the cool and clear autumn night, but, during dinner, I found I could relax and focus on conversation. After I finished eating when there's a lull in the conversation, there was no urge to cycle between the same 3 sites to check if anything had changed since the last time I checked 3 minutes ago.

It reminded me of when my wife and I were still dating and we'd grab a meal. We had phones and they were connected to the internet, but data was slow and expensive, the screens were tiny, there weren't push notifications from corporations selling their wares. 

You could just be.

I think I'll forget my phone more often.

We all have booms in our life. Periods where we get really into something. My current boom is overnight oats. "Ugh, an entire blog post about  oats, pass!", I hear you say, but stay with me.

Why overnight oats? They're easy for one. I spend 2 minutes each night and breakfast is ready in the morning. Buying some pop-tarts would be even quicker, so it's not about the time. It's more than that. 

Overnight oats perfectly encapsulate some life tenants.

You can't make overnight oats without time. It's right there in the name. Life is the same. All around us – society, the media, entertainment, they all encourage us to rush. Don't miss out! Final sale! Get  yours before it's all gone.

But I don't care. Embrace "missing out". Final sale? They've had a "going out of business" sale for the last 3 years. Takin' a while, innit? They got theirs? Good for them. I didn't need or want it anyways.

Overnight oats are easy. Put some oats and milk into a container, cover it, and whack it into the fridge. Done. Life should be the same – keep it easy. This doesn't mean to be lazy and don't challenge yourself. Rather, take those hard things, put systems so they become your default and easy.

It's hard to keep trim (still working on that) when you have a house full of unhealthy snacks tempting you. Easy is stocking healthy foods in a way so they're accessible when you need a snack.

Make healthy easy and healthy will become your default.

Making oats I'm able to control and pick exactly what goes into them. Organic oats, (almond) milk, organic chia seeds, organic cacao, some honey or (real) maple syrup. All things that our bodies have been eating for hundreds of years. As much as possible, we should prefer food to be as whole as possible. 

It's not a breakfast cereal or supermarket bread with gums and pastes and powders to make it ship and store well on a shelf. It's not a lie.

For my 38th revolution around the earth I hope to continue being like my overnight oats: Slow, easy, and whole.

An internet buddy of mine posted in a private Slack group we're part of about how the weight of climate change is affecting his mental health. With the wildfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes coming for California(!), it's easy to feel despair. This post is my (slightly edited) reply.

Having a child was a kind of catalyst for me and climate change. Action is how you fight the weight of climate change. None of our individual actions will solve the climate crisis alone (as it’s largely a systems problem), but action breads action from those around us.

In Saving Us (great book, highly recommend), one of the things the author talks about is how one person’s actions influence their neighbors. For example, let’s say a neighbor sees you doing X that’s positive for the climate (composting, getting solar installed, switching to electric transport / cycling).

This in turn influences your neighbors

It does feel like we’ve passed a tipping point. Be part of voices that demand the system changes and encourage those around you to do the same.

This said, the energy transition is also happening at an incredible pace. We’re deploying more solar, wind, and batteries at a faster pace than ever before and it’s not slowing down. For me personally, joining a group of companies that’s fighting climate full stack was how I deal/dealt with the weight of climate change and the future I want for my kid. I am but a cog in the machine, but everyone around me has the same sense of urgency. And when it feels hopeless, I can see / hear about new wind farms/solar farms we’re deploying or see the number of people actively working on it, and I feel like…we (humanity) got this (energy transition).