• The Week #267

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    • ☔️ It rained for the first time in at least a month and with that the temperatures dropped for a few days. It was actually pleasant outside around 6am. Unfortunately it seems like the heat is back on schedule for the coming weeks.
    • 💨 The air conditioner in my office decided to go kaput mid-workday. Thankfully it was on a Friday, but still not ideal. I think it failed because I (purposely) left it on to help regulate the temp in my office (where my home server and storage live) while we were in London. Nothing extreme either, keep the temp at 28c. I think just being on for that length of time is what did it in.

      Costs to repair ranged from "That makes sense" to "May as well just buy a new one", so rather than pay for someone to come out just to say "actually, I'm just going to replace it" (sunk cost fallacy perhaps?), I went to the local big-box electronics store and bought a new one. This time I went with Daikin a) they're the best, b) a buddy works there, c) it cost, after installation, what I was expecting. As the temp as dropped, I haven't really been able to test it out test it out yet, but the app to control it remotely is super responsive (and in English! A rarity for domestic appliances).
    • 💰 Interactive Brokers started offering NISA (retirement) accounts where, as a US-person, it looks like I'd be able to save in a tax advantaged way for retirement, rather than my paying taxes as I go route... (at least in the growth part, tsumitate remains off limits because mutual funds are PFIC).  I am probably unreasonably excited about this.

      👆 This prompted me to start thinking about budgeting and conscious spending plans and it's been quite cathartic (especially after having a major appliance fail immediately after a trip to one of the most expensive cities in the world (💸💸)). Re-thinking where money flows each month, how it could serve me and my current priorities better and how I can re-deploy existing capital to better prepare for the future is really helpful. I should do these reviews more than once every 5 years 😬.
    • 📺 I watched most of Ramit Sethi's How to get Rich (Rich in the sense of living a rich life, not in the sense of money, though financial stability is often core to that). Having read his book years ago the general advise (automate monthly savings (so it happens consistently) into tax-advantaged accounts at a low-cost provider like Vanguard and buy index funds and forget about it) is old hat to me, it's good reminders and it's fun to follow along as people sort their financial house to help them reach their goals. You can't help but root for them.

  • The Week #266

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    • 🦁 We went and saw The Lion King show at Lyceum theatre. It was fantastic. The opening where they sing the Circle of Life was just...wow. Well worth the price of admission.
    • 🍻 I can't visit the UK without a visit to the pub. This time was no different, except it was a day-time visit with the family for a meal. We had the usual pub-fare fish & chips, pies and mash, and some draft cider / beer. Leo had a burger and fries. I had a brief moment of dread when I saw his bun had poppy and sesame seeds on it, but he didn't have a meltdown or even say anything and just ate it. A first. He also dipped his chips in mayo – another first.
    • 🌳 Everyday this week we went to a different park for Leo to play for an hour. The quality of the parks and the playground equipment is super impressive. Yes, it is probably the best of the best as it's central London, but I feel like playgrounds in Japan don't compete. Compacted dirt, few trees, and perhaps a swings/slide vs Shade trees, bark/proper beachy sand/other soft materials, and various kinds of things to climb and play on.
    • 🛬 The flight back was smooth as could be and I quite enjoyed flying with British Airways. Although we arrived 2-hours before our flight, family checkin was delayed so we had  to rush to the gate. I was hoping for 15 - 20 minutes to check out duty-free or perhaps enjoy a coffee, but alas.
      Our flight path back to Japan

      I managed to watch a couple of films, both of which I enjoyed / recommend (A Man called Otto with Tom Hanks and BeatleJuice BeatleJuice (2024)).
    • 🏁 A few finishing remarks on the trip. Not having a strict schedule so we just could go and enjoy parks was definitely the right decision. Leo's listening and speaking improved. I'd ask him to listen for the station where we were heading to tell us when to get off and he did it. On the flight out he was so shy when he asked for apple juice the cabin attendant couldn't hear him, but on the way back, he ordered without hesitation. All in all, a successful trip and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

  • The Week #265

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    • 🇬🇧 We escaped the summer heat in Japan and went on holiday in London. It's fantastic – exactly as you'd expect summer in London to be. The highs are lower than the lows in Japan. I'm loving it. As is the family.
    • 🛝 Taking advantage of being able to exist outside past 8am we've been visiting all the parks and playgrounds. The Diana Memorial Playground was a real treat with its pirate ship in the middle. Leo had been looking forward to visiting it for months and I'm glad he could. He climbed up to the crow's nest and made it down again. He's slowly learning to be more assertive on the playground.

      While he's playing at the park he's starting to pick up more English from the kids. Afterwards he'll start mimicking them "Oh my goodness".
    •  🦍 We visited the London Zoo. We took the tube to Baker street and then the bus to get the rest of the way. This is my fourth time to London and my first time riding the bus. We got to ride up top in the very front.

      Meaning while at the zoo, the gorillas were my favorite, especially the baby. Both the lions and the tigers were taking their morning naps when we walked past, though perhaps that's expected as cats do sleep a lot.
    • 🧬 We visited the science museum. The permanent exhibitions at the museum weren't enough to capture Leo's attention and he complained a lot. Which is a shame as I wanted to read about the different engines and such.
      Zelda 64

      The visit seemed like a total failure until at the very back we saw Power Up, which had 50 years of gaming history, full of consoles you could play. Everything from Atari 2600's through to the Switch 2. That worked out swimmingly as Leo had said that morning during breakfast how he wants to touch a Switch 2 (and I had zero idea about the gaming exhibition at the science museum). We played the new Mario Kart, various generations of Smash Brothers, Zelda 64, Crazy Taxi and more. Well worth the price of admission. Now I'm tempted to pick up a Dreamcast on Mercari or something...

  • The Week #264

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    • 🌊 Monday was Marine Day, where I celebrated by not going anywhere near the ocean because it's 34 degrees and as humid as it can be. Thankfully a break (for me (sorry not sorry y'all)) is coming quite soon. I wonder, is it actually that much cooler in Karuizawa? One way I'll have to go and see.
    • 🇯🇵 There was an upper house election at a fringe rightwing party picked up a number of seats. I won't repeat the news, but they're a party that got their start via social media (YouTube and TikTok mainly?), which means they're targeting low-information voters and outrage. I am very much not a fan of their anti-foreigner talk. Especially that bit where if they had their way they'd strip purchased property from foreigners. Apologists claim they're only talking about Chinese or such, but that's how it always starts. I hope this trend does not continue. And thankfully I didn't see any supporter signs plastered on people's houses nearby.
    • 🕹️ Getting ready for a long flight with kids, the thing I worry about the most, besides making it to the gate on time, is keeping Leo from having a melt down about 7 hours in. We've downloaded some shows on to his iPad and the Switch is fully charged. The new entrant is that USB SNES controller I bought 8 years ago and thought didn't work on my M2 Macbook. Turns out does work and now we've got a nice catalogue of games to keep us entertained and I get to relive my childhood playing classics like Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure.

  • The Week #263

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    • 5️⃣ I missed it a few weeks back, but I hit 5 years of The Week without missing a week! Half a decade! 
    • ✏️ I received my Supernote Manta and I am in love 😍. It's hard to describe just how good and freeing digital paper is. No longer do I need to carry multiple notebooks with me. No longer do I have to decide to have a single type of paper in a given notebook.Write a note, two-finger circle it, new task managed in a central location. Flub a note, two finger on the sidebar circle to delete.

      I'm not sure exactly how my work notes will "end up" organizationally , but for starters I'm keeping it simple. Mostly I'm just separating  them out by product / person with an index page that lets me quickly jump between them. I haven't used the linking function much, but I've only had it for 1 work-day.

      For my personal notes, I've started doing Morning Pages. Each morning you sit and handwrite 3-pages of whatever is on your mind. Rather than having stray thoughts pinging around in my noggin, I can write them down. Then it's much easier for me to either action them, add a task to track it, or just get it out of my system. Working through why I am thinking certain things has been helpful. Do I need an e-ink tablet to do any of this? No. Does it lower the barrier to entry to nothing, yes. Starting a brand new notebook just for morning pages is a hurdle when you aren't sure you will continue while starting a new file is easy and free.
    • 💔 It's been a month since the Air India 171 accident and the preliminary report was released. The plane was operating exactly as it was meant until someone in the cockpit manually turned off the fuel to the engines. 10-seconds later (presumably by the other person) fuel was turned back on and the engines starting spinning up, but it wasn't high enough to have enough time to recover.

      It's tragic. If it were a mechanical failure there's at least a logical reason for the failure. But this? You don't want to accept it. Mental health is so important. We've got to check in with the people in our lives – not just a surface "how are you doing?", but "how are you really doing?".  And have the courage to model and be vulnerable and let them know that things aren't good when they aren't.  I'm fortunate that my work places a lot of effort to encourage us to take care of ourselves (physically and mentally), even having entire weeks dedicated to mental health. It's helped me tremendously this past month.
    • 🍔 A friend from uni I hadn't seen in years called me out of the blue and we went out for dinner and a coffee. It was a lot of fun. It's good for the soul to meet up with friends. I should do it more often.

  • The Week #262

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    • ✏️ I said I was falling down the e-ink tablet rabbit hole, let me elaborate. It's a fact that I work better when I write things down consistently. Spending time in a distraction free zone helps me think and focus better. Writing with my hand makes things stick a way typing doesn't. And I'd like to organize my thoughts/notes by more than chronological time.

      I feel I would benefit from writing things down outside of work as well. One thing that's stopping me is my notebook is mostly work, so mixing the two seems (is) very sub-optimal. The cheaper answer is "buy a second notebook", which is true, but then I need to carry two notebooks with me.

      While I was initially looking at a Remarkable 2 (and then the Paper Pro for color), I settled on a Supernote Manta.Why? The device is repairable – you can replace the battery, motherboard, and add storage. Notes are/can be made searchable. You can link between pages/note files. Lastly, the company behind it seems like they really care about their users. Oh, and they include a Kindle reader, so I'll be able read my books on it as well.

      There's even some Python repos that can like sueprnote-tool that let you convert .note files (supernotes's file format) to png/pdf/svg or extract text etc..which is very cool and expands the possibilities.
    • 🎶 This likely speaks to the my vintage, but Rip Slyme and M-Flo were on Music Day and it was fantastic. I don't listen to Japanese music much these days, but they're always in rotation..
    • 🌎 Al Gore gave a talk at TED called Why Climate Action is Unstoppable and "Climate Realism" is a Myth and boy was it good. The rate that China is deploying renewables and green tech is astounding. They installed 45GW of new solar power in one month, which is the same amount of power as 45 nuclear. Absolutely incredible. It would be great if all countries could deploy at such a pace.

  • The Week #261

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    • 🦃 I strolled a in a long park area in downtown Yokohama and to my surprise there was this guy walking chickens and a turkey. What's more is that after their walk along the river, he corralled them into a doggie-stroller, with the turkey perched on the handle. And he spoke to them like they were dogs and they listened. The entire time I thought where on earth do these birds live, there's nothing but high rises around here. I could have asked, but instead decided to enjoy the mystery.
    • 🫐 I watched the BlackBerry movie and really enjoyed it. It made me (again) a bit nostalgic for a time when life wasn't ruled by a rectangular glass handheld. And I'm not the only one. Gen-Z is also wants a BlackBerry.
    • 🏫 We went to see where one of the international schools we are considering is located. Not that a map isn't sufficient, but is a commute to it realistic. In this case, I think it is (primarily as it's on the way to my office). It might mean me commuting into the office everyday, which would be an adjustment, but as there's good reason, not unwelcome. I reckon it would also require a more structured morning routine on my part, but again, sometimes a forcing function is good.

  • The Week #260

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    • 🎮 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.
    • ☀️ 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....
    • ⛰️ 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.

  • The Week #259

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    • 💔 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 colleague  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.
    • 🎳 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).
    • 🌏 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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    • 🏀 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 ¥3300 – just over 3x what Leo had. We were about to get it and then I saw they had some black no-name basketballs for ¥1500. 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. 

      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 😀.
    • 🌳 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.
    • 🏫 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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