• The Week #229

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    • 🛬 I flew back to Japan. It's good to be home, to be with my family, to sleep in my bed, and to get back to familiar routines. As one would hope, everyone was excited upon my return. And everybody liked their souvenirs. Leo saw the Scratch coding book I bought him exclaimed "yattaaaaa!" (hooray) while raising his arms. 
    • 🕹️ We made our first game using Scratch. It was a simple game where you try to get a character to jump up the screen to reach a door. Scratch is too advanced for him as it requires being able to read, but maybe this will provide some motivation.

      One very cool thing I realized is with his iPad we can easily add his own drawings to his games. We can take a photo of his drawing, then in the photos app deep press the character, this will select just the drawing itself, giving us a buffer with a transparent background, which we can then and copy/paste into a new png.
      Jump Link featuring Dark Link

      One unfortunate thing I hadn't realized about Scratch was that Apple removed the app from the AppStore. So while the webapp works for making the game, he can only play the game on a proper computer with a keyboard because it requires arrow keys. Perhaps an excuse to get an iMac to act as a family computer?!
    • 🏃‍♂️ I ran my first 10km in a very long time, at least for this year. It wasn't entirely on purpose but my hotel happened to be about 5km to the Eiffel tower and I didn't want to visit Paris for the first time and not at least see it. So on my final day I went on a photo run there and back. Long slow runs are the way to see a city.
      Eiffel tower as seen from the Seine

      The tower itself is quite impressive. On the way back along the Seine I saw a fantastic eco-houseboat as well. It had a green roof, solar panels, heatpumps...the works!
      Eco houseboat

      Back in Japan and jetlagged, I went out for a run at 4am and unintentionally ran a personal best 5k at 3 seconds below 30 minutes. Compared with the last time I ran a 30 minute 5k back in August, it felt easier this time.

      Lastly, I've now got 90 runs this year in the bag. My goal of 100 runs in a year is well within my reach.  LFG.

  • The Week #228

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    • 🇫🇷 I took the chunnel to Paris. I've was gonna say I had never ridden a train that crossed borders before, but that's false. I once rode Amtrak from Everett, Washington to Vancouver and back. Besides the quality and speed differences (no match with the Eurostar), you go through both passport controls back-to-back and customs before boarding, so when you get off in Paris you just go.

      First impression of Paris: the buildings are mostly quite similar (6 story) and the store fronts are very cute (the flowers!).

      When walking from my station to my hotel they were also cleaning the streets. Was very good to see the entire operation: leaf blower, street scrubber, and pressure washer all fully electric. It's still loud, but not nearly as loud and zero local pollution.
      Cozy breakfast nook
    • 🏃 I don't have much time to actually be a tourist in Paris, so I decided to see cities my new favorite way: long slow runs. I ran for about an hour from my hotel around to Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and the Louvre. One day I will go inside the Louvre and enjoy its art, but that day is not today.
    • 🍽️ I also learned in detail the phrase why "you don't want to see how the sausage is made" is the way it is. I got it in theory. But it never crossed my mind that a sausage could be gamey and like...still having bits come out when served. I couldn't finish it. Not enough to make me a vegi forever, but I think my new strategy when traveling might be to order vegetarian until you get the lay of the land. The smell is seared into my nose.

      Besides that one sausage the food has been incredible. I've been absolutely ruined on bread, butter, and cheese. It's all so good here. The best one was served to me at a friend's flat...it's butter, but it has like pockets of intense salt, almost like instead pop-rocks. I'm ruined. Going to need a specific category in my monthly budget labeled butter and cheese when I get back.
      Croissant and Pan aux chocolat

  • The Week #227

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    • 🇬🇧 I flew to London. As with last time a couple of years ago the flight went over Canada. The flight itself was the best kind, uneventful. Arriving in London I'm always amazed at how you can just walk-in. After the e-gate to show your passport, there's no filling out customs forms or anything. Don't even need to talk to anybody. Having been once before everything is a bit easier. I know more what to expect and how things work, which is nice.
    • 🏃 Last time I stayed in London, my hotel was next to the British Museum, which isn't super near any parks. This time I'm staying closer to Hyde Park, which makes it easy to run about. I must say I'm a huge fan of these big public parks. I reckon similar things exist in Japan (Yoyogi park in Tokyo, Yamashita park in Yokohama), but they're not quite the scale.

      The weather is perfect autumn weather (which is apparently a bit warmer than usual, a common theme as of late). Heaps of people are out running and walking on the paths. But as good as the running is, my favorite thing about the parks are all of the dogs running about, not on a leash, with their owners. They find big sticks, sometimes bigger than themselves, and carry them. I wish I could do the same with Sophie, I know she'd love it.
    • 🐑 I met up with my long time friend Jacob. We hadn't seen each other since I lived in Houston probably 8 years ago. So good to meet old friends.
      Looking down Regent Street at Piccadilly Circus

      Classic London

      Buckingham Palace

      We met up in Piccadilly Circus and walked (most of the way) to Borough Market. Borough Market was really good (tootling about last visit, I missed it by a block). All of the food looked so good. We ended up settling on a nice piece of fish & chips...which must have been at least 1500 calories. Which was good was it then proceeded to walk back across London to Hyde Park. 

      I was quite happy I could see Buckingham Palace this time around. Last time I came it was blocked off in preparation for the Jubilee. Getting up close to these buildings and walking through the parks (that were private at some point in history) gives you a real sense of the power and absolute wealth the family had/has. While big modern glass skyscrapers are impressive in their own right, they don't project the same sense of power that these big stone buildings do.

      In total I made just above 33,000 steps that day. Perhaps a record?

  • The Week #226

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    • 🥐 We went to Mokichi in Chigasaki for lunch over the weekend. I've talked about it before, but they took an old brewery, did it and the immediately surrounding buildings up  real nice with great lighting and food, and every time I visit there I think "man, I wish my house was this cozy".  I try to de-construct why it is and I always reach the same conclusion: wood, warm yellow lighting, and not covered with kids things.

      I had a choco-corone (a bread filled with chocolate creme) from the bakery and it was incredible. It was the first time I've felt like I could really taste the quality of the ingredients in the creme. No xanthan gum up in there faking textures.
    • 🎌 The LDP got a shellacking in the snap election. I don't remember much from my Japanese politics classes in uni, but they aren't my favorite party (I don't follow closely enough to have a team (and I can't vote anyways)) , but I know who it's not.
    • 🎃 The cafe next to a park in our neighborhood had a small Halloween event. We stumbled upon it last year or year before. This time Leo came prepared with a vampire cape and a mask we made from a paper bowl (we cut eye and mouth holes from it). Kids are supposed to run around the park and find the passphrase (give me candy, not trick-or-treat) to get some treats. It feels wrong to forgo the threat of a trick and all demand...
    • 🎒 I've got a work trip coming up very soon. Beyond flying, it will involve some train travel, so I decided that rather than my huge duffel bag, I want to carry a backpack. I bought a proper backpacking backpack in 2009 for "myself", but the only person that's used it was my wife during a month long trip to India in grad school. Finally my turn to use it and...the water resistant coating on the inside has dried and is flaking off 🫠. I think I got it all off and washed. Excited to finally use it...even if it took me...15 years.

  • The Week #225

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    • 🗳️ I voted by mail. To date, since living in Japan, I've always gotten my ballot delivered by email. This way there's no chance of it getting lost in the mail (especially a worry during covid). But getting my actual ballot printed and ready mailed is always such a faff. Post office isn't open on the weekends etc... Next time I think I will ask for them to send me the paper ballot as I've learned I can drop them off without postage at the embassy and they'll mail it for me. As my office is right next to the embassy it seems like far much less hassle. I hope the candidates I vote for win. I imagine the rest of the world (minus a few bad dudes) are also hoping the same.
    • 🏃‍♂️ Leo had his first Sports Day at primary school. In the days of old it used to be an entire day event. You'd have to stake out a spot, bring some bento. These days they gotten with the times and it was over by 11:30am. Parents came and went depending on when their kid was doing activities. I stayed for everything except the closing ceremony.

      The first years had a dance and a 50m dash. The dance was partially to Creepy Nuts Bling-Bang-Bang-Born. At the end Leo and a few other kids got to do a special part where they did the main dance move in the video. He nailed it.

      Leo was in the second group of runners for the 50m dash. He got 3rd. The first time he had to run a race like this in pre-school he was well in last and as soon as the first person crossed he started walking. Each year since then he tries a bit harder and, most importantly, he doesn't let the results get him down. Kids growing up...
    • 🚲 Because sports day was on a Saturday, Monday is a day off for school. I took the day off so I could watch Leo, but on Sunday he decided he wanted to go the grandparents house, so I had Monday morning to do whatever I wanted.

      The weather has cooled off (for good this year? 🙏🏻), and I took the Brompton out on a long ride to Enoshima. When I arrived, rather than turning right like I usually do, I turned left towards Kamakura for a bit of an explore. This was 100% enabled by Brompton and that I can get it ready for the train in 2 minutes, so I don't need to worry at all about riding out and back.
      Brompton at the beach

      While in Kamakura an old man came up to me and started speaking to me in English. He has been living in Kamakura for 82 years and worked in America when he still did that (seems like he oversaw operations of things?). He has 7 grand-children and the oldest is studying near Chicago now.

      When I got back to my station, I popped into the konbini and got some lunch. I didn't notice a different old man watching me unfold my bike. He tried to guess at the price (off by an order of magnitude). In the end he told me it was really great (I agree!). I've heard that people talk to you when you have a Brompton, and that seems to be the case, even in Japan!
    • 📺 Shrinking Season 2 started and it's so good.  I watched the first 2 episodes and am looking forward to the remainder of the season. The fact that the first episode is called "Jimmying" makes it all the better.

  • The Week #224

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    • 🚲 I did my first commute by bicycle and it was everything I thought it would be. I posted a small tootstorm (?) with some photos of my commute on Mastodon. Time saving wise – it's not as much as I was expecting, but I felt way more energized and better when I arrived to work. I think it's not going down 2 levels to go up 3 levels just to to go down 4 and up 3 i.e. riding 2 subways and an commuter train.

      When I arrived in Shinbashi the FujiTV folks were milling about in front of the steam train. I purposefully tried to hide from their view. What I noticed takes longer than unfolding the bike is actually putting the bag back into its case and securing it to the seat.
      A matcha green Brompton in front of a steam train in Tokyo


      There aren't that many options for coffee / breakfast open at 7am in Tokyo that aren't Starbucks or a Tully's. But I found one . At first I was wondering how they'd react to me trying to bring the bike inside. But it was perfectly fine and they didn't say anything. Also the breakfast and coffee were really good, so I'll probably go back again this week as well.

      Finding my way from there my office was a bit tricky as near my office the roads curve around a lot and I haven't memorized them yet. I'll find the optimal route soon enough.
    • 💤 A major milestone, Leo stayed the night at the in-laws by himself without his cousins being there. Just jiji and baba. The boy wanted to watch YouTube that much. For better or worse that's kind of turning into our routine. After a busy school week and swimming on Fridays, he wants to spend a day laying around. If he does it at the in-laws' then it means we can go out and...get lunch and have a break.

      The next day it enabled me to have a second run at just bringing my folded bike into a cafe (komeda0 and turns out, they don't seem to care. It slid right under the table easy peasy, too
    • 🌳 One of the reasons I wanted the folding bike was so that Leo and I could ride bikes together away from the house. Both bikes fit in the back of my kei. When I went to pick up Leo from in the in-laws and I took our bikes so we could ride some place new. We rode down to the major park and played for a bit. On the way back we stopped for some ice cream 😋. It's so  easy to go out and explore (especially as it's flat), I'm tempted to leave a bike for Leo at their house.
    • 🚲 I recognize this week's post has mostly been "James and his Brompton". I'd be worried if, a week after new bike day it wasn't.  On Sports Day, I took the bike out for a long-ish ride. I rode down to Sakaigawa and headed inland towards Yamato. I used to ride this direction a year or two ago on my cross-bike for a while. Rides along the river are always fun because there's dedicated paths sandwiched between the river and farmland.
      Brommie near the river in front of a harvested rice field

      When I got back, Leo wanted to go out on bikes with the 3 of us. It was getting dark so we made a bike-train and rode over to the bike shop (to adjust Leo's brakes), Ito Yokado (for some shopping), then to Chai, (a local Indian joint) before bike-training back home. It was a lot of fun riding together as a family and I hope we can do more of it in the future.

  • The Week #223

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    • 🐶 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.

      Matcha green Brompton folded up


      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.
      "Sitting" Brompton
    • 🏊‍♂️ 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 Week #222

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    • 🎂 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.
      A tunnel along my hike to Kamakura station
    • 🚲 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).

  • The Week #221

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    • 🍁 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.
      Minatomirai Yokohama
    • 🎳 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.

  • The Week #220

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    • 🍝 I tried my hand at making pasta for the first time. I don't have a pasta machine so I had to cut the noddles by hand. It's difficult to cut them all the same exact size, but man was it good. I think I may try making pasta the next time I make lasagna.
    • 🚲 Leo and I rode bikes to the 100 store for the first time. This is closer than our usual Ito Yokado ride, but it requires him to climb a hill and navigate with more cars about. He only pushed his bike partially up the hill and did a good job following me in the streets. On the way back we swung by the Onigiri shop. I've discovered that if you go early they have a much wider variety.
    • 🎡 We went to Minatomirai. I've had a mixed relationship with minatomirai. I love going and walking about. The water and shopping, it's so nice. But since having Leo it always ends in conflict and a meltdown. Two articles from the NY Times this week (gift links) inspired me to give it a try again: Parents Should Ignore Their Children More Often (Opinion) and Today's Parents: Exhausted, Burned Out and Perpetually Behind. The first one is ignore in the sense of it's fine if your gets get bored, you don't need to always keep their brains active. The second, I just feel it and am sharing in solidarity.

      The experiment this time was we're gonna let Leo get bored on the train. And he's gonna walk by himself. And we also made it clear that the reason why we're going is for me to check out a bike (more on that later), and that each person has a turn to do the thing that they want to do, then see what happens.

      While out and about we visited the Lego Store (the Zelda set is really cool!) and the Harry Potter store (even cooler!). For lunch we went to Bubby's, which used to be good about 15 years ago. This time it was disappointing. I don't think we'll be back 😔.

      Leo rode one of the roller coasters at Cosmo World. We also played this near AR game where you have a cellphone that has a gun attached to it and you shoot at ghosts in a room. It was a lot of fun. While in World Porter, we walked passed a zillion capsule toys and different areas that would have usually been a meltdown each.

      But this time, he walked right past them. Didn't even ask. We went out without a meltdown?! Are we getting close to the point where it's more than just exhausting to go out...where it's...dare I say... fun? Good job, boyo!
    • 🚲 So I said we'd talk about bikes. The reason we went to minatomirai was for me to check out the Bromptons. I've seen them before in passing, but never really up close to touch and fiddle with. I know roughly the size of the bike but photos, but my main concern was the weight. I picked up a P-line, it's not bad. The C-line 6 speed (the one I'm looking at) also felt really light? I can tell it will take a little practice to get the folding and unfolding down to second nature... 

      Colors. Based on photos online, the colors I like the most are: black lacquer, black, green, and unsure about macha green. But the match green looks really nice in person. I had this idea in my head (perhaps from smaller stores in videos taken a few years ago) that you basically had to pick a color in stock or wait months. Turns out it's just a 7 - 10 days. Post-pandemic? Larger store? Combination of both?

      On the subway ride back my wife asked a valid question: "Do you really need 3-bikes?*. The answer to that is "yes". They all serve a different purpose. The electric mama-chari is for trips when I need to take Leo with me. The cross-bike is for when I'm going fast and or long distances. And the brommie is for everything else. Leo will only be able to ride on the back of my mama-chari (legally) for another 6 or so months. And if push came to shove, I could get rid of the cross-bike (though I bought it used for 3-man 4 years ago or so, so I suspect it's not worth selling). Point is, yes.
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