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Looking Ahead to 2026

• 🎅 Christmas came and went. Leo woke up at 6am with excited to find that Santa had brought him Super Smash Brothers for Switch. He immediately played it for an hour (video games before school are usually a non-starter) and really enjoyed himself. Mere minutes before it was time to school (booo 👎), he got a stomach ache and was unable to attend. Silver lining, at least he had Christmas day off as it's meant to be.
• ♨️ We drove up to Saitama to visit Moomin Valley Park. The last time we went was during covid using GoTo Travel (a government program during covid that subsidised travel costs / gave vouchers for spending at localities (the opposite of what people were meant to do) –  I wish we had used that more).
  
  Compared with last time we were able to enjoy the park a lot more. Leo is older, so he could see and do more. He was too small to ride the the big slide at the jungle gym in the forest before and this time he could. The park had a winter wonderland attractions setup as well with (man-made) snow in a few different places, a small sledding incline, and ice skating.
• 🛷 Watching Leo ride sled gave me some mixed emotions. On one hand, he had a blast sledding the 3-4 meters at a go.  On the other hand, when I compare it to my sledding experience in Colorado (with snow from the sky!), it doesn't compare at all. All that matters is that he has a good time (which we both objectively did!), but I should find a place where we can go sledding here in Japan and take him.
• 🚗 The car made the trip without issues. We left the house at 100% and after a quick stop by the in-laws to drop off Sophie, we made it with about 33% remaining  – bang on what the navi was saying it would be.
  
  Based on our trip at the start of the year to Tsukuba, I got a charge card to make charging when out and about easier. I opted for a card from Eco Q-den, as there isn't a monthly fee (unless I am traveling, I always charge at home). But turns out it doesn't work with all chargers. It'll work at the ones along the highways and probably Eneos, but not with e-mobility power, the largest network. Which is a shame because emp is the largest network, but all of the cards require a monthly fee. However, it's far more cost effective for me to just pay the higher visitor charging fee. I wish public charging in Japan were like it is in Europe: open and based on actual usage, rather than being segregated into different networks and based on time (my little battery takes a fraction of the electricity but still I pay the same).

• 🛹 We went to the skate park in Yamato again with one of Leo's friends. Leo started learning how to ride on the half pipe going up a little ways and learning to turn around. I started practicing how to pump on the half pipe, which will probably take a couple more sessions to get it. I wish I had access to skateparks and especially half-pipes growing up as a kid. I think I would have gotten properly hooked on skating if that was the case.
• 🎥 I watched Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off and really enjoyed it. Like many kids who grew up skating, Tony Hawk was one of my favorite skaters. I seem to recall having one of his decks in silver for a period as well. Seeing the determination and drive to try and try and try until he landed a trick was inspiring.
• 🐶 Sophie's routine has changed as of late (since I went to Aus last month). She'll gulp down all the water when you refill. And as a result she's up around 3:30 - 4am every morning – either needing to go out or being super thirsty. We took her to the vet and her numbers are about where they were 5 years ago when she started drinking medicine. Her cortisol levels put her in the grey-zone for having Cushings, which tends to crop up in older dogs. Ganbare Sophie!
• 💤 Which also means my sleep has been all over the place. Just in time for me to upgrade to the new watchOS / iOS and get scores on my sleep each night. I've been wearing my Apple Watch to bed since I got it to track my sleep, but I didn't really review it but once every couple of months. Now with the notification / score each morning it's helping me correlate how I feel when Sophie decides it's time to get up and how I'm feeling so that at night I am preparing better.
• 🗄️ In preparation for my mom's visit in the coming months, I moved my home office into the smallest room so we can turn that room into a proper bedroom (that will become Leo's at some point). I'm excited to have a backdrop with a lot of Kraken / Octopus Energy plushes, so I am properly on brand at work.
• 🎶 This Boiler room set by Underworld is incredible. So incredible that it now lives on my iPod. Absolute legends.

• 🎥 We saw Zootopia 2 in IMAX. While the movie was really good, my intent was not to watch it in IMAX, but rather to watch it at a reasonable time (English showings were only at 9am or 9pm) and IMAX showings as 11am showings. However, in my rush / distracted state while purchasing, I managed to book the Japanese dubbed version of the film 🤦‍♂️. Be that as it may, we all enjoyed the film.
• 🍳 I showed Leo the Leidenfrost effect (where water beads up and bounces around the pan) on our stainless fry pan and he thinks it's a hoot. So much so that he's asking after I've done the dishes if he can put water in the pan to see it. At least he's in the kitchen....
  
  Cooking with stainless is far superior than non-stick.
• 🤘 I read this older article on Rolling Stone (I've maybe linked to it before?), "Life After ‘Deth: How Megadeth’s Marty Friedman Became a Japanese Superstar (archive.is)", and I was taken back to when I was exchange student, watching TV from the loft of my LeoPalace before bed and it was Marty Friedman teaching English via music lyrics. It also worked to help me learn Japanese.