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by JamesWith summer starting in the northern hemisphere, this is a good reminder about how to apply sunscreen. This idea to think about sunscreen as a second line of defense, not your entire defense is a good one. On those regards, I've been buying more UPF clothing (and can't live without my UPF jacket) and it gives me much more piece of mind when I'm out in the sun.
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Checkin to ๅขๅท้ๆฐดๅฐๅ ฌๅ
Hanging at the park with the fam. Great water area where the kids can run and play about it. -
Checkin to ่ฅฟใๅฒกไธไธ็ฎๅ ฌๅ
Probably the best park with the best long slide down a hill(!) in my area. -
by JamesThe Super Mario movie did not disappoint. Leo was smiling and thumbs upping the entire way through.
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Checkin to ็พ่กใฎๅบๅ ด ๅดๆฐด
Post Mario movie play outside on this clear spring day. -
Checkin to Yokohama Burg 13 (ๆจชๆตใใซใฏ13)
Finally time to watch Super Mario Brothers movie. Leo, naturally scored things, including a new bento box. ใใณใทใงใณMAX -
The Week #148
by James- 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 โ 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 ๐ฅฐ), I've only paid ยฅ2,500 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 โ just long enough for Leo to trip in the water and have a minor meltdown ๐ซ. But the idea was nice โ 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 asย 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 โ 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 โ stuff besides computers and outside of work. Well worth a watch if you have 30 minutes.
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Checkin to MOS Cafe (ใขในใซใใง)
Great minds think alike Michael ๐๐ป๐ -
The Week #147
by James- Last week I wrote about starting by walking instead of running. It worked. I closed all of myย rings for 7 days in a row! I've not noticed any real physical changes, but it's kept me positive. The main way I've been able to close them is a 2km walk in the afternoons. These walks have also given me good opportunity to think through work tasks without distraction (fidgeting to Slack), as an added bonus.
- On the "lets close my rings" kick, I did a couple of body weight workouts on Apple Fitness+ and it reminded me how much I used to liked lifting weights. When I was working with a trainer, my favorites were the kettlebell. Kettlebells are nice as they're compact, only require one piece of equipment, and can be used to train your entire body.
I looked at a local sports shop, but they didn't have any. Searching on Amazon, I couldn't quite decide. The reviews of the cheaper ones said they're welded together, so there's sharp(!) edges inside the handle. That'd be the absolute last thing you'd want when you swinging it / moving it about.
Further searching around the internet I found Ito-gen, a small local manufacturer in a foundry town in Mie prefecture (check out their workshop). I ended up buying a 16kg bell from them via Amazon (they have their own store there). All of the reviews were great. I feel a bit bad for the delivery guy for when it's ready. - In an effort to read about something that's not tech or climate related, I bought 4 issues of Grow by Ginko. It's a magazine about "synthetic biology" and it's really good and bending my mind a bit. While it would be great if we could eat and only grow heirloom plants/vegetables, that's not always possible in a globally connected society. For example, the American chestnut tree got mostly wiped out because a fungus that was brought over to America on a Japanese chestnut tree. They've made an American chestnut tree that's resistant to the fungus by putting in a single gene from wheat, which will allow the American chestnut tree to survive and live on.
