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Checkin to ๅ่ฎๅฑ ๆนๅๅฐๅบ
Refilling my coffee stock -
The Week #277
by James- ๐โโ๏ธ We had sports day this week and Leo's school. Similar to last year he had a dance and a race. The weather played along where it wasn't super hot, which was nice as well. I took this opportunity to pull out my actual camera and, like every time I stop carrying it for whatever reason, I was reminded how much better the photos look from it than from any cellphone.ย
- ๐ We went to Chigasaki Satoyama Park, a favorite huge park that's only accessible by bus/car. It's been far too long since we went out to large park (i.e. has grass) with our sunshade and junk hung out for 4 hours. Now that it's cooler, we plan to visit more of the big parks around Kanagawa.
Big skies
Fresh off of the sports day the previous day, I brought my actual camera. I tried fiddling with the settings to take a shot when Leo was bouncing on the giant white bouncy thing that showed the motion and I was quasi-successful. I versions of him being nothing but a blur, but the best one has Leo jumping with his arms a blur and his face not blurred. It would have been better if he was at the very top of the bouncy bit so there was a distinct gap between bounce and the blur. - ๐บ I started watching Only Murders in the Building and I think it will hook me. Steven Martin and Marty Short โ you can't go wrong. They've been a favorite of mine since Three Amigos.
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Checkin to Starbucks
Post park latte and half-a-sweet. Been ages since Iโve been to this one, itโs huge and has a drive thru like America. -
The Week #276
by James- ๐ง The tooth fairy made another visit to our house. Finally. This last tooth has been hanging on by a thread for (what feels like) weeks. With 4 front teeth missing, now is the time to make sure I get extra photos of that smile.
- ๐ฝ Japan has a unique scheme called "hometown tax". Most people in Japan, regardless of where they're born, end up in one of the big cities because that's where the jobs are. This shift in population is making it difficult for rural municipalities to function without a tax base. Hometown tax lets you redirect a portion of your resident tax to any municipality in the country and the receiving municipality sends you a "thank you gift" in return. There's entire shopping sites setup for this โ even Amazon runs one.
For years I've meant to do it, but find myself on December 31st in analysis paralysis and miss the deadline. Finally, this week I took part. By supporting a few different towns around the country I am getting in return a year's supply of tissue, toilet paper, and a monthly delivery of seasonal veg.ย - ๐ฉ I started reading Enshitification and am finding myself nodding along. It really does explain the shift in computing from being useful utilities to always seeming to get worse. I looked at buying it on my Kindle, but besides being locked in to the platform (especially with the title of the book), it was a 1 dollar cheaper to purchase it directly from the author. While I won't need a new PC any time soon, it has started the "Ugh, I kinda don't like what macOS is becoming" andย and desktop linux threads in my head.... One day....
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The Week #275
by James- ๐ฅฐ Most kids sleep in when there's no school. Not Leo. He usually wakes up at 5:30 - 6:00. When his mom asked him why he likes to wake up early he responded "because I want to be like papa". Melts my heart a bit, but also, yikes I should start doing more things worth emulating.
- ๐ฏ๐ต More on Leo โ his English has been getting better lately. More small phrases here and there. He set a timer on the HomePod with Siri by himself (while adults weren't in the room). One mark of fluency when you're bilingual is to mix languages or code-switch. The other day he was asking something about Japanese and when referring to the Japanese language he said "Japanese-go" instead of "Nihon-go". We've never said this around him, so its neat to see him mixing his languages as he gets more confident.ย
- ๐ป I watched Season 4 of The Bear. It was far less intense than previous seasons. I didn't notice it while watching, but I think they tied up most of loose ends where it could be the last... but reddit tells they signed for a 5th season, huzzah!
