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Checkin to Tokyo Dome (ζ±δΊ¬γγΌγ )
Letβs go Tokyo Gas! -
Checkin to Kamakura Pasta (ιεγγΉγΏ)
Cold pasta is my favorite summer dish in Japan. -
The Week #157
by James- I sold my car to Big Motor. Emptying it before I drove it made me realize just how big it was and how that lead to the bad habit of just storing stuff in it that we use "sometimes when we go park".Β I was extra cautious when driving it to the dealer for the last time. I really didn't want to get into an accident and then be unable to sell it / sell it for the agreed upon price.
Actually walking away from it without the keys for the last time I had a bit of mixed emotions. On one hand, it's too big and we never drive it because of that ( 7k km over 3 years), so it's better than someone else who can really appreciate it use it. On the other hand, it helped us keep sane during the pandemic as we could use it to visit larger parks, Saitama, and a friend's house in Atami...I felt a bit sad about just leaving it there...like I was abandoning a family member. The good news is that only lasted about 20 - 30 minutes. - Most days for the past month or so, I've been making Leo's bento. Most days we put a Japanese omelette (tamago-yaki) in it. Tamago-yaki are square, so they're usually made in a specialty pans. The one we had, a cheap aluminum non-stick has been starting to stick, which has made making his lunch a little stressful. A non-stick pan starting to stick makes you think, "Where'd that non-stick coating go", and the only logical answer is "into my food and into me". To reduce stress and the amount of questionable coatings I ingest I decided to go back to my roots: cast iron. I've used it 3 times so far and it's great. Long live non-non-stick pans.
- I bought an issue of Tarzan as the cover caught my eye. I used to buy Japanese books/magazines quite often in my 20's, but recently I rarely do. (Maybe as I had more time to sit down and concentrate uninterrupted then?) . The theme of this issue is "how to lose weight in your 40's". I'm not 40, but it's not too far off. The gist is that more than exercise it's diet that matters more as you get older. In the issue they create profiles for a few different personality types (gourmet man, busy man, go with the flow man) and how they typically think of food/diet/meals and ways to change your habits to make them healthier and match your current place in life.Β
Some of the advice is common sense e.g. No more sneaky midnight Chinese (sorry Derek)Β or pick a salad instead fries when you get a burger...and no cheese on said burger (π). The timing of me finding this magazine lined up perfectly with some other thinking I've been doing recently around food and diet, especially around ultra-processed foods...but that thinking needs to be distilled into a proper blog post. - Tanzawa's weight graph feature got a minor upgrade: rather than showing the last 10 points only, it now has a dropdown that lets you select from a few different durations. I posted a small video on the pull request on GitHub if you're curious. Related/unrelated, I'm also down 3kg from my high after coming back from America.
- We got some blueberries off the blueberry bush! There were alright! I think we're going to have heaps that turn blue in the next week. Our goya plant that I've mostly abandoned in the back has spread out massively and has 3 goya in process and they're starting to become a decent size.
- Speaking of garden updates, I was excited to see that Casey ( @tbeanpod@famichiki.jp ) followed me and started posting on Mastodon. Really enjoying seeing his photos of Beanpodville without the bird-site. Welcome to the fediverse!
- I sold my car to Big Motor. Emptying it before I drove it made me realize just how big it was and how that lead to the bad habit of just storing stuff in it that we use "sometimes when we go park".Β I was extra cautious when driving it to the dealer for the last time. I really didn't want to get into an accident and then be unable to sell it / sell it for the agreed upon price.
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The Week #158
by James- This week I have a couple of stitches in my face...thankfully hidden by glasses. Let me explain. For the past few months I've been monitoring a small spot on my face about 0.5cm from the location where I had a basal cell removed over a decade ago. The new spot hasn't been getting better on its own and is exhibiting the exact same characteristics as my first basal cell. I've heard horror stories of people going to the dermatologist (or any doctor in Japan, really) and the doctor ignoring what patients are telling them...so I kept putting it off (Though sometimes I wonder if the stories are partially as people are not proficient enough explain the situation?)Β
Either way, I couldn't deny it any longer and went to the dermatologist to get it checked out and...she listened to me , took me seriously, and did a biopsy. I'll have the results in 2 weeks, but I'm fairly confident it is a basal cell. Last time I had surgery to remove it and a plastic surgeon to sew me back up... this time I may go for a chemotherapy cream and see if it clears up before taking another knife the face. - Which is to say, I'm really happy that the kids as Leo's school noticed that Leo's not getting super dark like everyone else is, despite them both playing outside. This is because we're ensuring he wears his sunblock everyday and re-apply when we're out for extended periods of time. If there's any takeaway from the first two points this week it's please be sun smart: wear your sunblock and keep covered.
- I built out support for backfeeding my runs from Strava into Tanzawa. I put this off for a long time because I couldn't decide how I'd make the actual post in the db. Do I make a new "activity" type and try to microformat that and...ugh. That's when I decided to just make them a note/status post, relate the run to it, and have the template look for extra information (photos, run paths etc...).
Admin view
The results turned out ok, so far. This will allow me to save time from making blog posts with the same photos I just posted to Strava and then manually tooting about it. There are some limitations. Strava only makes the primary photo available in their API and there doesn't seem to be a way for me to backfeed likes / comments as webmentions. - Leo and I took Sophie for a walk after dinner on Sunday, after it started cool down.Β I've been looking forward to being able to walk Sophie with Leo for...since he was born. He's got enough endurance where he doesn't walk half a block and get tired / ride my shoulders.Β Walks are also great, if not the best, time to talk about life and communicate.
On this week's walk, forever obsessed with Zelda, we were pretending we were walking through Hyrule. As we're walking past creeks there's those little water blobs that throw rocks at you, which we were able to get with an imaginary bow and arrow. As we come along a straight stretch in the road Leo turns to me and says "Oh shit, rock guys!", and dutifully threw a bomb to take care of them. I look forward to our next walk around Hyrule.
- This week I have a couple of stitches in my face...thankfully hidden by glasses. Let me explain. For the past few months I've been monitoring a small spot on my face about 0.5cm from the location where I had a basal cell removed over a decade ago. The new spot hasn't been getting better on its own and is exhibiting the exact same characteristics as my first basal cell. I've heard horror stories of people going to the dermatologist (or any doctor in Japan, really) and the doctor ignoring what patients are telling them...so I kept putting it off (Though sometimes I wonder if the stories are partially as people are not proficient enough explain the situation?)Β
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by JamesI've made a few more tweaks and deployed my Strava run details to my site. Still a couple things remaining before I merge it into Tanzawa...but good enough for me to test it in prod. See my Sherlock homes run.
