• 🐶 Sophie is getting old and has started developing a number of what could be balls of fat or could be something more serious. One in particular was worrying because it was on her stomach had gotten rather large. Left untreated it could result in her intestine going places it shouldn't. This week she went in to the doctor for surgery to confirm if these blobs were fat or cancer (and remove them). Good news is, it wasn't cancer. Sophie will be wearing a cone while she recovers. To a long and healthy life!
  
  On the "Japanese is hard, even for the natives" front, Yumi told one of her Japanese archery friends about the results "it was only a shibou (fat)" and her friend overacted because she understood shibou with its other meaning, "death" 🤣.
• 🚲 I went and picked up my matcha green Brompton. I had visions of a sunny New Bike Day which would enable me to ride around Minatomirai and take sweet photos of it to share. Unfortunately it was raining, so it went into my bike bag and I carried it around.
  
  The Brompton was fine to carry around, but after a while it got to be a bit heavy. Which makes sense, it's a bike. It's meant to be ridden and carried from the gates of a station and into a train. It's not meant to be lugged around for an hour.
  
  

  

  
  
  The next day I rode it to our local Ito Yokado with Leo. The small wheels and the riding position make it feel like it's an extension of your legs. What I mean by that is it seems like the perfect bike for last mile transport, which makes sense as that's what it was designed for.
  

  

• 🏊‍♂️ Technically last week, but Leo passed his test at swim class! For one reason or another he's failed or not taken the test for the past...what feels like 6 months. He's excited he passed and I think having this opportunity to have to work to overcome and succeed is good for his overall character development.  Even better is he's resumed taking the bus to swim class by himself, letting him build up his independence. 
• 🏃‍♂️ I maintained my run debt with 2 runs this week. The cooler weather is fantastic and I think I'm close to getting back to the mental state to bring my runs back to 3x a week, enabling me to get fully out of run debt. I'll make that my goal for October: get out of run debt.

The UK's last coal power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, is due to end operations on Monday.

1. Tagged with
2. renewables
3. climate change
4. energy

• 🎂 I made another revolution around the earth. For my birthday Yumi and I went out for lunch. Initially we tried to go to a French bakery I went to years ago in Fujisawa that had some amazing sandwiches. Unfortunately, we were too late and they were sold out. No bread for me. Instead we went to this really good Vietnamese place. Still a win in my book.
  
  For dinner we had tacos and chocolate cake from Canard over at the in-laws. Leo's cousins also came down for the festivities. I have yet to decide what my "major goal" should be for this revolution.
• 🏃‍♂️ For a variety of reasons (mostly commuting more and having work events at night?) I only ran once this week. This is the first time since April or May-ish that I've increased my run debt, rather than keeping even or paying the piper. This week I'll do my best to get back on the wagon.
• ⛩️ I could have run the day after my birthday, but I went for a hike instead. Like last year, I dropped by Verve in Kita-Kamakura to buy some beans (which comes with a free drink) and a sandwich. I spent some time reading and thinking. Then I hiked over to Kamakura station. My intent was to also visit this hippy bakery that has sourdough, but I ran out of time. Despite the influx of tourists, Kamakura really has the correct vibes.
  

  

• 🚲 I got a call on my birthday that my Brommie had arrived. Unfortunately it wouldn't be ready by the next day, so I've got to wait another week to pick it up. Just as well, there's a typhoon coming our general direction anyways. I still need to think of a proper name for it. I find myself getting annoyed riding the Ginza line as of late because I'm getting off and people just do. not. move. Hopefully a thing of the past in a week's time.
• 🖥️ The spinning disk in my MacMini (2012) has officially bitten the dust. The machine still boots, but it takes ages and is unable to login. I don't want to just replace the hard drive (as the CPU already struggles to keep up decoding some video). I also just bought a Brompton so buying a new Mac that is going to be (realistically) mostly idle is not happening. I've replaced it with our old 2014 MacBook Air that Leo used sometimes and hope the battery doesn't decide to swell on me.
• 🤓 I downloaded the app that Apple makes for learning Swift on to Leo's iPad as he says he wants to learn programming. The app is pretty good, but too advanced for him (mostly from a reading English perspective). The 3D part where you move the character around is the most engaging part for him (naturally), but it does seem to crash on a semi-regular basis. I reckon the app doesn't get much developer focus.
  
  But I can see him...not getting into flow (yet)...but really concentrating and it reminds me a lot of myself when I was learning to program. I'm thinking we may revert back to Scratch and Scratch Jr. for a bit, but I may make some props to help him think about boolean logic and looping and simplifying instruction count (probably too tall of an order when I write it out like that, but we shall see).