The Week #148

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  • Thanks to an email from Colin, I realized it's been 2 years since I switched to using Tanzawa as the CMS for my website. I haven't had much inspiration to work on it lately, but having a site that works exactly as I'd like using the tech stack I'm most familiar with is comforting. I have a couple of smaller integrations I've been thinking about (stats from Sunbottle on my homepage) as well as some larger (re-work all of my posting UIs to have smaller, focused interfaces – why can select a location on a bookmark? Do I need to fill in the text areas for bookmarks? Why can't I just save the link and go? )
  • Speaking of Sunbottle, I generated my second megawatt hour of electricity.Right now as the sun is staying out a bit later and we don't require heating / air conditioning, my battery is lasting me through the night and into the morning. Today's coffee is brewed by yesterday's sunshine. When combined with a friend referral to Octopus Energy (which we split 🥰), I've only paid ¥2,500 for electric in the past 3 months (and that is offset by selling excess generation).
  • We went to MOS Cafe (the fancy version of MOS Burger) on Saturday as they are across from the beach and it was lunch time. We brought our dayshade quick-up tent as well so we could relax for a bit and enjoy the view. Unfortunately it was very, very windy on the beach. Against my better judgement, I still put the shade up (as I saw a couple others and some large rocks to anchor it down). We stayed only 20 minutes or so – just long enough for Leo to trip in the water and have a minor meltdown 😫. But the idea was nice – maybe when it's less windy.
    Only the surfers are out in the water
  • On Sundays, one of my neighbor's and their son, who is a year older than Leo, play outside in the field next to our house. Leo's taken to going out and joining them , so we all end up playing "baseball" or riding bikes/trikes and so forth. I'm glad that Leo's been able to make friends in the neighborhood 3 doors down, as they'll be going to the same school for 5 years together. I can already picture them getting up to many shenanigans together.
  • I watched this video from Kevin Smith, Trauma is Trauma, where he talks about his experience and mental health. It really resonated with me. Particularly the story about one of his traumas and (and what allowed him to make "the other guy" (the public persona of Kevin Smith)) when one of his teachers looked at him with disgust and commented on his gut. It reminded me of a similar comment to my from one of my uncles growing up and how much that hurt and how it echos in your head. How, years after losing a lot of weight, you still see yourself as the fat kid. Even today, every photo I see of myself, the first place I look as  not at my face, but at my stomach.

    I'm not certain if I realized it at the time, but my escape from this was my computer and the internet. Especially in the late 90's early 2000's – everything was text based, so it didn't matter how you looked, just what you knew. And so I got really good at computers and passable at programming.

    One thing he talked about in the video is how this escape comes to define you. The moment you wake up you turn on and start working. It doesn't seem bad because you're making things and people like it, and that's good, right? But what is there beyond that? Outside of one's work? That's something I'm going to work at and try to get better at doing – stuff besides computers and outside of work. Well worth a watch if you have 30 minutes.