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).

• 🍁 Autumn 👏 Finally 👏 Came 👏. This year it waited until the very last moment, the autumn equinox, to make its arrival.  Not a moment too soon. This week we had a day with an overnight low of 28c. And now, 3 days later we have overnight lows around 19c. Finally.
• 🚲 Leo wanted to ride his bike. It was getting a bit late, but I caved. The reason why I caved  was because he said "I want to climb hills". How can I say no to this? I put my light on his bike and we made a reason to ride our bikes to the local coop. Sometimes I get the sense that he's gonna be the kid that's in the local road bike clubs, not baseball. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.
• 🚲 I bought the bike. I went for a C line 6 speed in matcha green. Unfortunately it's in Kobe at another shop so I had to pay for shipping + wait a week. Super excited for it. If I wanted one day-of I would have had to picked black and that's boring.  On second thought though, perhaps it's better I didn't get it today as I didn't have a bike bag to take it on the train and would of had to buy whatever they stock.
  
  For lights, I went with a CatEye 300 lumens that charges via micro-usb. I also got the mount so it is fixed below the block, so any bag won't block it and I won't need to take it off each time I fold it. The rear light will replace the rear reflector. There isn't a rack on the bike, but I reckon I won't need one immediately (though the extra stability would be nice (from what I hear)).
  
  Leo went with me to buy it (and make some Lego people afterwards if he was a good boy and was patient). Before going in to the store we had a picnic lunch of Onigiri and fried chicken on a stick. My chicken was in a tomyom sweet and spicy Korean sauce. With the cool weather, some shade provided by a tree, and the view pictured below, life is pretty good.
  

  

• 🎳 We went bowling. It was crowded and so we had to wait an hour. I was not on point and got my but whooped. Leo had a meltdown (🫠) because he didn't get any strikes and wasn't naturally good. Kids...
• 🏮 The neighborhood festival happened after we went bowling and I was in no mood to have fun and be merry after the meltdowns. That said, Leo got his cotton candy, something he's been talking about since he first had it a year ago. The main occurrence this year was a vendor that was selling bb-guns and airsoft guns...at a freakin' neighborhood festival. Kids milling about the park taking them, pointing them at each other, their own heads, and pulling the trigger. I get it, they're "toys" and this isn't America, but Christ. This is how tragedy occurs and kids loose sight in an eye. I plan to bring it up with the neighborhood association.