• 🇬🇧 If you follow my full RSS feed, you'll know I was in the UK last week. As I was busy with work I decided to combine the past 2 weeks into a single post.
• 🖼️ Despite all of my visits to the UK over the years, I never managed to make it to The National Gallery. I wish I had gone sooner. It reminded me of art history in college. Such a concentration of great art from throughout the ages and they just let you see it. I found it quite moving.
• 🇯🇵 Outside of the museum on that day in Trafalgar Square was a Japan festival. I didn't go in (because I was in Japan 24 hour earlier), but it was good to see the Japanese community out there. 
  
  On the 3DS there's a feature where if you pass by someone that also has a 3DS, they exchange Miis and you can collect them. I had my 3DS in my bag and got my passing by friend!
• 🏃 I haven't been running lately. A bit burned out, a bit bored. I don't know exactly why. I brought my running stuff to London with the intention to run. And I told my co-worker to also bring his running stuff. I didn't go running when I was jet lagged as it's quite dark when you're up and jet lagged and thought I wouldn't go out. Then my co-worker messaged me about going for a run, and so we did – a 30-ish minute run around 5:45 / 6am. It's nice to be able to talk with someone while you run. We also got some good photos of Tower Bridge at night.Very  happy we kept each other accountable. 
  

  

  
  

  

• ⭐️ I flew enough this year to get Star Alliance Gold, which gives me lounge access and priority bits and bobs when traveling. Perhaps more importantly, I was able to apply to upgrade my ANA Card with the Super Flyers card, which will let me retain status even if I don't fly enough and with a family card, get all of us into the lounge even when flying economy.

If I ask you “can you own this?” or “can you take care of this?” or “are you on it?” — what I’m doing is I’m asking you to own it, to own the solution of a problem from end to end. From “we have a problem” to “we don’t have to think about it again.”

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2. development

• 🪙 It was Silver Week last week, like Golden Week, but in September instead of April, and not every year, only every 4 - 6-ish years. I bridged the gap with holiday and had, including weekends, 10 days off in a row. I needed that.
• 🎂 I turned 41. We went for separate cakes rather than whole this year because a whole cake is too much cake for 3 people. I went for a Mont Blanc and while it was really good, it was so unbelievabely rich. I only needed half.
• 🎮 Growing up and in college I owned a few different Gameboy systems – the original, a blue Gameboy Pocket (blue), an Advance, and a DSLite (white). Much to my chagrin, these have all disappeared over the years for one reason or another. I never owned a 3DS. For my birthday present to myself, I bought a used (and promptly modded, super easy) a Nintendo 3DS (colbalt blue). Why? I'm glad you asked.
  
  I wanted a small game system I could take around with me – something to do on the train/airplane etc.. when I don't feel like reading on my Kindle and isn't scrolling on my phone. Maybe a bit of an odd choice as I don't play games on my phone. 
  
  Gameplay can also be paused in an instant by simply closing 3DS, no need to press a button and navigate to a menu. Physical and reliable. Unlike a Switch, it fits in your pocket and can be thrown into your bag as the screens and buttons are protected.
  
  It could be just the games I am picking to play (Ocarina of Time mostly, a litle Animal Crossing),but the games feel like the're designed to be played, not to get your addicted. The pace and depth feels a bit slower and a bit deeper. 
  
  And the games that aren't deeper are just silly fun – AR shooting game where it uses the camera to make you/something a flying monster and you shoot at it with balls all around you.
  
  It's a bit nostalgic of a simpler time for connectivity. The 3DS has Wifi, but when you turn it on it doesn't have ads like the Switch. It's used for the eshop (now closed) and detecting other 3DS users around you. ( There aren't many, I took mine with me into Shibuya at night and not a single one, maybe I'd have better luck with Akihabara).
  
  The 3DS subreddit and YouTube are full of videos about people going through a similar jounrney – slowly unbundling what we bundled up with our phones. Finding the right level of technology in our lives.
• ✍️ The 3DS/DS also sported a collection of educational software, not just games. Leo has taken to these like a fish to water and willingly practices his kanji and math using the Doraemon games. 
  
  Yes, similar things exist on tablets and or dedicated education devices (android tablets), but then you've got all of the problems that tablets bring or a something that requires a subscription, internet connection, and cancelation fees when none of that should be required. Finding the right level of technology in our lives. Or maybe just fully embracing un-enshittified tech?

• 🗺️ My maps have broken on my site and I need to fix them. Truth is, it didn't just happen this week. But blockage was inconsistent enough where I wasn't sure if it was actually broken or a transient error. The mapping code hasn't changed in years, so will be a good one for me to dive into and upgrade while I'm there. 
• ☔️ A typhoon came and went. It skirted along Tokyo and dumped 2.5x the usual monthly totals of rain in 24 hours. While we were fine, this amount of rain isn't normal. Naturally it comes during a 3-day string of public holidays.
• 🍕 Using ground meat to make sausage has been a new thing of mine (Doing something 3x makes it a thing). This kicked off by wanting American-style breakfast sausage patties and a) not being able to find them locally, no matter the shape, and b) wanting to lower the amount of processed meats in our diets. Using ground meat + seasonings, you know exactly what's in it and it's quick to make/store.
  
  While we were stuck inside, I realized also I had all of the ingredients for Italian sausage (fennel, sage, oregano, garlic and friends) as well. So this batch of sausage got split in two. I immediately put the Italian sausages on a pizza and :chef-kiss:. I foresee me buying larger packages of ground meat to experiment more and freeze.
• 🧑‍💻 I spent some time cleaning up a maintenace PR for Tanzawa. It's getting close to being ready as I clean up the commits left over from OpenCode. I'd like to hurry up and get it in so I can point the robots at my maps. But also quality must be maintained.
• 🎶 As much as I want to dunk on it, the freakin' algorithm delivered again (though as background music to a video) – Olivia Dean. I especially like her song "Nice to Each Other" (Apple Music, YouTube).