• The Week #260

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    • ๐ŸŽฎ We went to a trial lesson? demo? of an "eSports" after-school program that's based around Minecraft. Basically for an hour each week kids gather and (along with the teacher) plan what they're going to build, present it, build it and so on. There's also opportunity for group work where they have a vision of what to build and figure out how to divide the work and build. I can see it teaching a lot of useful skills. We're not going to join, but the idea itself was pretty neat.
    • โ˜€๏ธ It's allegedly the middle of the rainy season in Kanto. And yet, last week it was bright blue skies and 35 degrees out. Each year I remember how miserable summer is because you can't go out and do anything. I need to find more hobbies around the house that aren't sitting in front of a screen....
    • โ›ฐ๏ธ I started on a new branch on Tanzawa over the weekend. For what? Comments. I'd like to have experiment with having comments directly on my blog, rather than relying on replies from social media or webmentions. No idea when it will be ready, but hopefully not too long as I'm using a django package that does commenting. Watch this space.

  • Checkin to ๅ—่›ฎๅฑ‹ ๆน˜ๅ—ๅฐๅบ—

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    in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, Japan
    Ice coffee tasting while picking up some beans. Balmy 31 out.

  • Checkin to Blue Bottle Coffee

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    in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
    Taking a much needed day off. Iced latte and a lemonade.

  • The Week #259

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    • ๐Ÿ’” Air India Flight 171 crashed shortly after take off. Usually when these accidents happen they happen far away with people I do not know. They're always tragic, but they're "just" the news. This time was different. Maybe you guessed that when I posted at 1:30am. This time I lost a dear colleagueย  and fellow Commrade (what we call members of the Comms team at work), Heer Baxi.

      Heer was my co-captain at work, my counter part on the product side. She was smart and kind and a diligent worker. We talked most everyday. She'd get on early calls with the team and clients in APAC. Even in the most difficult situations she remained calm and positive. Her influence at Kraken went well beyond the Comms team and she was loved by clients and partners alike.

      After her trip to India we were planning on a trip to Tokyo so we could plan out our strategy for the next ~year of work. Where did the team and products need to be and how are we going to get there. 30 minute calls at the opposite end of the work day make those kinds of discussions difficult. They call for zero-lag conversations and enough time and space so that all of the dopey ideas can come out. The next few years are going to exciting and I was so looking forward to leading the group together.

      It hurts. But the support I received from my co-workers helps it hurt less. All of the hugs. Walk and talks. To steal a quote, bad things shouldn't happen to good people, and Heer is the best of people.
    • ๐ŸŽณ I thought this week's post would be just the single point above. It felt so all encompassing. But then I remembered some advice from another co-worker about handling grief and how being present in the moment and finding something you enjoy can help.

      Sunday was Father's Day. Yumi and Leo got me this sweet elastic band for my bento box which has tako-san wiener on it. It goes really well with the dark wood of my bento box.

      We went bowling first thing in the morning. Leo has gotten strong enough that he no longer needs the little slide to get the ball down the lane. He also managed to get two strikes and his pure joy and excitement when he did is something I don't want to ever forget. After bowling we went for lunch as a family at Pepita Lion (so soon again!) and I thought going a bit early would mean we don't need to wait. But turns out it's father's day and all of the other families with kids also had the same idea, so we had to wait (but only for 10 minutes).
    • ๐ŸŒ I think I've switched to Vivaldi. I'm not (yet) using it any differently than Firefox, but that day will come soon. Why? Mozilla seems to be shoving AI and random things into Firefox and it seems like they're just not focusing on making a better browser. I kinda hate that using Vivaldi gives Chrome more rendering engine dominance, but alas.

  • The Week #258

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    • ๐Ÿ€ Leo has been asking for a basketball for weeks. He didn't have enough to buy one, but I told him I'd help him. We went to the sports shop and looked at the basketballs. At first I went straight for the basketball I had (orange Spalding), but it was ยฅ3300 โ€“ just over 3x what Leo had. We were about to get it and then I saw they had some black no-name basketballs for ยฅ1500. I showed them to Leo and told him this was closer to his budget and...to my surprise (as it's not orange) he agreed.ย 

      We went to the cash register to pay and, turns out, they take points and I had just enough points to get the price down to where he could afford it! So Leo bought his basketball by himself entirely with his own money! He's proud and telling everyone ๐Ÿ˜€.
    • ๐ŸŒณ With basketball in hand, the next day we went to the closest basketball hoop we know of Shonandai park. It's too high for Leo to be shoot and make a basket, but we had fun anyways. In typical Japanese park fashion, the hoop doesn't have a proper court, just hard dirt, but I look forward to the day when we can play some HORSE. Leo is determined to get big and strong and tall so he can get that ball into the basket.
    • ๐Ÿซ We started exploring the possibility of sending Leo to an international school rather than local public schools. The catalyst for this is we don't feel like the system is providing the kind of education and thinking we want to encourage. There are some good parts of the system as well, school lunch, responsibility for the classroom spring to mind first.

      Japanese schools are always teaching for the next test. Junior high entrance exams, high school entrance exams, college entrance exams and those exams often encourage/require kids to attend cram-schools. For international schools he'd attend the same school for all 3-levels so that entire system just doesn't apply.

      However, the thing I'm most skeptical about is the commute to the school. We bought this house with the idea being he'd be a nice easy 3 minute walk away. The potential schools are all in Naka-ward in Yokohama so they'll require 30 minutes to an hour to get to. Which I think I can handle in the mornings. But how about the evening pickup? The logistics make me question the long-term viability of living where we do. Families move to be closer to schools all the time (at least in the US), but also it's not an immediate concern. We haven't even applied (and hence got a spot).
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