• The Week #248

    • ๐Ÿ“• Leo read his first new English word by himself, or at least that I've witnessed. He was looking at his iPad and the was some text (no icon) that said "Zoom", and he said Zoom. I looked at him and asked him how he knew that and he explained, well Zoo is z-o-o and there's an "m" at the end, so it's "zoom", that's how I knew. Color me impressed. English class is working.
    • ๐Ÿฅถ The week of spring was a false alarm and it's back to winter for a week. Booo!
    • ๐ŸŽฃ I went fishing...sorta! For a work social we went to Zauo, a sushi restaurant where you can fish in the restaurant! If you catch one they'll prepare the fish however you'd like (sushi, sashimi, cooked in a variety of ways)! I did not catch anything, but my mates did. When you catch a fish they celebrate with a Taiko drum, so it's quite lively around dinner time.Definitely need to visit with the fam at some point.
    • ๐Ÿ‹๏ธโ€โ™€๏ธ I started lifting weights again. Deciding on a plan, writing down/remembering what weights I used felt like an insurmountable problem, preventing me from even starting. I know it's not, but that's a lot of decisions to make. A co-worker suggested I useย  an app called Alpha progression. You put in your basic info, the equipment you have, and it will generate a plan for you, automatically setup timers and such like. 2 sessions in and I quite like it.ย 

      The yearly price is a bit much, but ifย  I compare it with working out with a trainer at a gym or just the gym, if it's able to keep me going and getting stronger, it's an absolute bargain. Bonus points for prominently including RSS icons with their social icons.
    • ๐Ÿ“ต These past few weeks with all of the ๐Ÿ’ฉ going on in the old country, I've been doom scrolling on Bluesky/Mastsodon. To be fair to Mastodon, the doom portion of the scrolling was mostly on Bluesky, but scrolling nonetheless, I turned my iPhone into a (mostly) dumb phone.ย  Mostly it was done by: removing all icons from my home screen, turning on grayscale mode, and setting up a text-only app launcher widget with 4 apps (messages, line, apple maps, and phone) (as per the instructions in dumb phone app). I didn't go all in and delete all-the-apps (yet).

      I think I like it? It's only been a day but the pull of my phone feels like it's less. I want to see if I can use this as a bridge to start taking photos using a camera when I'm out and listening to music on my iPod (besides when I'm on a plane).ย 

      Thinking about the camera aspect specifically, the reason we tend to use our phones, besides having it with us, is because it's quicker. But if something is really so important that we want to capture an image of it โ€“ what's the harm in spending an extra 10 seconds framing? I imagine all of the processing that phones do these days will be hard to replicate, but alas.

      Point is, dumb phone? Hell yeah.
  • Checkin to ๅ—่›ฎๅฑ‹ ๆน˜ๅ—ๅฐๅบ—

    in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
    Restocking and enjoying a cuppa of Bolivia ๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ด.
  • The Week #247

    • โ„๏ธ On Wednesday it snowed in Tokyo. From the office it was pure white outside and the snow flew past the window almost horizontally. It didn't last as it was nice and sunny in the afternoon.
    • ๐ŸŒธ The very next day we had offย  to celebrate Spring and, almost if on cue, the weather warmed right up with the highs being in the upper teens and low 20's. I am more than ready for spring, but already not looking forward for what's next.

      We spent the day in Minatomirai, which feels like it's been a while since we've gone there as a family. At the red brick warehouse they had, what I can only describe as a dog festival, because every other person had their dog with them. To quote the late great P.D. Eastman, "Big dogs, little dogs, red dogs, blue dogs, yellow dogs, green dogs, black dogs, and white dogs are all at the dog party!". I wish we had brought Sophie (and had one of the doggie backpacks people use to bring their dogs on public transit).

      Leo practiced jump rope while watching the dogs near the water. It's a pretty picturesque place to learn how to do double-jumps(?? where you jump once and the rope does 2 full rotations).ย 
    • ๐ŸŽฅ After jumping rope for a while we went to see the new Doraemon movie at World Porter. The theater was quite nice when it was built ages go, but it's starting to show its age. The arms didn't move on the regular seats felt andย  the rows felt quite close together, like I was in economy class on a long haul flight. It didn't prevent me from getting a bit of sleep during the film.
    • ๐ŸŽน Leo's been getting into his melodica/pianica and learned to play the theme song from Dragon Ball GT. Perhaps cooler than that was watching him think of a nursery rhyme, while figuring out how to play it, writing down the notes so he build up to the entire song.
    • ๐ŸŽถ A new Japanese Breakfast album came out (Apple music). I've only listened to it once in full, but ๐Ÿ‘ from me.
  • Lunch Run
    Calves were tight and never loosened up. Cut it short.

    3.5km

    23.1min

    18.2m climbed

    146.7avg bpm

  • Checkin to Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse (ๆจชๆตœ่ตคใƒฌใƒณใ‚ฌๅ€‰ๅบซ)

    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
  • Checkin to KUA`AINA

    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
    Avocado burger time
  • Spring Run
    Lovely spring day after hail and snow yesterday morning.

    4.5km

    31.9min

    30.4m climbed

    151.8avg bpm

  • The Week #246

    • ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง The week in the UK, as always, was over before I knew it. I'm glad to be home and with the fam, but London is growing on me. Maybe it's as I'm always quite central and it's possible to walk to work? Maybe it's all the Brommies around town makes me a bit jealous?

      I could see the cold/wet get annoying, but also I reckon one adapts by buying appropriate clothing? I'm looking forward to going back again sometime, maybe this summer?
    • ๐Ÿš— In 2016, wanting to be a part of the change I wanted to see in the world, I bought one share of TSLA. I would have bought more, but it was all I could afford. When I buy single stocks, I treat it as betting and if I sell it for anything over what I paid, it's a win. I got lucky on this one.ย 

      Through the years, I hadn't really considered selling my stock as they were still making good on their end of the electrification of cars and the grid. Sometimes I'd get annoyed, like when I found out that hyperloop existed solely to kill interest in public transit in favor of cars, but as a whole the good outweighed the bad. I could rationalize that away though, at least the end game was fewer fossil fuel cars on the road.

      The past few months I started to question if that was still the case. Rather than feeling like I was voting in favor of the change I wanted to see, I found myself feeling embarrassed and a bit of shame. Even if I didn't mention it to anyone, I knew.

      All of this to say, I sold it all. I considered keeping just 1 share, so that I was in the same position as when I started, but ultimately, buying it was purely emotional and selling was as well. Sure, I may lose out on some long term gains, but this stock was never about pure profit for me. Maybe at some point in the future I'll be able to buy a share again.
  • Checkin to Tokyo International (Haneda) Airport (HND) (ๆฑไบฌๅ›ฝ้š›็ฉบๆธฏ (็พฝ็”ฐ็ฉบๆธฏ))

    in Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
    Home ๐Ÿ›ฌ
  • Checkin to Singapore Airlines SilverKris Lounge

    Hanging at the lounge waiting for me flight back to Tokyo.
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