• The Week #99

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    • This week marked over 1 week in London. We accomplished the main goal of the trip last week – and we didn't even bring down production 🎉. I knew we would meet the goal without any issues, but it was huge relief because sometimes you "know" something then an unknown unknown crops up and you're left scrambling.
    • One of the recurring thoughts I have about London is just how diverse it is. Going down the street there's people speaking every language of every ethnicity, you name it. Compared with Tokyo, even pre-Covid, it's nowhere near as diverse. ( I mean, Japan is kinda know for being quite insular, so it shouldn't be a surprise). I must say I'm really enjoying the easy access to meat wrapped in some kind of flat bread with veg and sauce. Sometimes I want an onigiri...but I'd usually rather have a falafel.
    • At the Tate this weekend I saw the tower of incomprehension, a tower of old and new radios, all tuned to a different frequency playing at the same time. No two visits are ever the same. I uploaded a short video on YouTube.  It made me think of the media and social media and how there's so much coming at you...you can't understand a thing. It all gets jumbled together and is just noise. And when I compare that to my blog, where I get a webmention here or an email there, how much of a calmer experience it is....and yet we still post and add to the noise.
    • Coming up on 100 weeks doing the week and I find myself questioning if I'll continue after I hit 100. Part of me thinks, yes I should continue writing these weekly roundups because they give me an opportunity to reflect on the week every week. The other part of me has been having trouble writing posts...remembering at the last minute and rushing something out. I guess I must continue until week #104, so I hit 2 years.

  • The Week #98

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    • The main event of the week this week is that I'm not in Japan. I flew to London for work for 2 weeks. It's my first time to the UK and my first time leaving Japan since I arrived in Jan 2017. 
    • One thing you notice as someone new to a city is the smell. For example, New York smells like trash. Houston smells like "god knows what but it's probably going to give me cancer so don't breathe too deeply" because of the refineries. London has a particular smell that I can't quite identify. It's almost kind of a sweet smell (mixed with occasional whiffs of trash). Maybe it's the smell of the common cleaners used in the shops/offices? Maybe it's the covid in the air (🤪)? Hopefully I can identify it before I get used to it (or before I lose my sense of smell 🥁).
    • One thing that stands out to me about London, compared to Tokyo, is how many cyclists you see. From bike messengers to people commuting via Boris bikes, to cargo bikes. And I love it.Heaps of people ride their bikes in Tokyo, too, but it feels like it's a higher percentage, at least where I'm at in Bloomsbury. I love seeing the cargo bikes. My favorite (and first!) sighting was a cargo bike in a separated bike lane along the Thames.
    • I made some progress in documenting how to run Tanzawa in a production environment on the plane. Considering I had most of the commands written down already in the packer scripts, it still took longer than I expected.
    • I'm seeing some gaps in my trip functionality that I want to fix, but maybe once I get back to Japan. I'd like to be able to link to a specific post in a trip, sometimes. This way I can share not just the post or not just the trip, but the full context of the post in the trip. This could be done (probably) by including some a id attribute in the markup, I presume.

      The other bit, and more complex, is I think it would be nice change the zoom of the map as you scroll down automatically. So when you're at the top, it shows the full zoomed out map. Then as you scroll down it zooms in to to whichever posts are visible.

  • The Week #97

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    • This week was Golden Week, and we were able to enjoy it a lot this year. We broke in the BBQ, which was great fun and quite tasty. The grill mostly lived up to its smokeless claims as well. I'm really looking forward to grilling some more.
    • Like last year's Golden Week, I took my bike out for a long ride. I think it's been about that long since I last really rode it. This time I went 40km down to enoshima and did a loop back. I tweeted the route I took. Compared to last year there were so. many. people. in and around enoshima. Thankfully I was on a bike and was able to cut through and take the quiet backstreets.
    • We went and got Yumi's and Leo's new passports. It's been a huge relief for Yumi as we got married right after she got her last passport and, although we updated her name, every time we flew there was a huge delay at check in. One time it nearly caused her to miss her flight. For Leo, now if something happens and we suddenly need to go somewhere, we can.

      As the passport center is near Yamashita-park/Minatomirai and that area, we rode the big ferris wheel. It's in the Guinness World Records as the largest Ferris wheel with a clock in the world...oddly specific...🧐
    • The trip I talked about last week to London, UK was made official this week. Tickets and hotel have been booked...and thinking of having to manually update all of my checki ns for 2-weeks made me prioritize trip mode. You can activate trip mode by selecting a trip in your site settings. When trip mode is active trip mode, all new posts made via the micropub endpoint will be associated with that trip automatically. New posts made via the web interface will have the trip pre-selected. 

      There's a lot of fun things I could do with this, like updating the trip list/detail/ site header to indicate that I'm currently traveling...maybe next time...

  • The Week #96

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    • We finally went to Tokyo Disneyland after we had to cancel our initial trip because of catching covid. This was the first trip I've taken since I built Tanzawa and was able to field test Trips in realtime and chronicle my Tokyo Disneyland Trip.  It worked quite well.

      Checkins with Swarm came in nicely. I had to manually associate the posts with the Trip afterwards, so going forward I want to add a "trip mode" which will automatically associate all micropub posts with a trip if it's active (GitHub issue). I still need to add the Twitter syndication links for the tweets that Swarm sent, but it's a pain.

      Long-term, I think I want to build checkins in to Tanzawa itself and syndicate them to Swarm/Twitter. Maybe it's about time I start thinking more about #84, Syndicate natively to Twitter & Mastodon. It fits in more with the POSSE philosophy, too. 
    • I went for coffee (and then a brew) with a friend who I hadn't seen since after the first wave in subsided in 2020. We agreed to meet at 16:30 at Kanai station. By about 16:50, he was nowhere to be seen...which is out of character for him and I was starting to get a bit annoyed, so I called him up to see where he was and he was also at Kanai station...JR. I was at the subway gates. All annoyance disappeared in an instant because of this simple mixup.

      It was really good to have a chat about life and the world. Slowly, it feels like things are returning to something that resembles the before times.
    • We bought a small (by American standards) Lotus Grill XL BBQ. I've been thinking about getting a grill for years, but never did because I worried about smoke. We used this one about a month ago at a neighbor's house and it is, indeed, "smokeless". It does this by completely covering the coals, preventing fat / oil from landing on them. Really looking forward to using it in the next couple of days.
    • It appears I'll be in London from the middle of this month for 2-weeks on a trip for work. Super exciting, but also makes me little low-key anxious. Mostly as a) I've never been to the UK before and b) first trip since/during the pandemic, and c) haven't left Japan in 5.5 years.

      Not entirely sure of my exact schedule yet, but if you're in London and want to grab a coffee to chat Python/IndieWeb email me.

  • The Week #95

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    • Went to the office for the first time this year. Not just because it was a Friday. And not just because there was a social event afterwards (though that certainly helps!). But also because I could meet some co-workers who I haven't met before...including some of the U.K. team who were finally able to enter Japan.
    • We rode our bikes to a local milk farm. This one is muuuch closer than Iiida Farm, but the route by bicycle is so, so much worse. There are no bike lanes (fine)...or even an uninterrupted  sidewalk. And once you're there's it's a complete clusterfuck for all the cars that are jockeying for parking spots. They only have a small area for bicycles, but at least we can zip in and out. I hope people noticed my #BanCars sticker 😈

      Compared to the other place that has bike parking, even for road bike (they hang them by the saddle?, I think?). And is along a great path along the river...you can't compete.

      The gelato itself was good...but I'm mixed if we'll go back. It's close enough and the parking was busy enough that I wouldn't want to drive...and the infrastructure to get there (or lack thereof) is bad enough...
    • Leo had his first full-week of preschool as part of his new grade. Getting him out the door the first day back was very difficult. He threw a fit all day before we left...and the entire way there. I imagine the neighbors could tell our proximity to their house by the Doppler effect. He was coming up with every excuse he could think of trying to get me to stop. "I have a fever.", "I want to watch TV", "I'm sick", "I want to lay down". Then we got there he was holding on to me like a kola and would not let go.

      He must have got it all out of his system on that first day, because everyday since then has been smooth. Carrying his backpack, everything. Even niko-niko days, when he stays late because we both have work. Maybe he's getting used to it and remembering how much fun it is compared to staying at home all the time. Either way, super grateful.

  • The Week #94

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    • I finished my time isolating and for the rest of the time I only went out in the morning for walks with Sophie. So very fortunate that my life didn't really change through the whole ordeal.
    • So Friday comes and I'm excited to go out, maybe work from the local Starbucks for a couple hours in the morning...and rain. So I decided to stay home instead. It's fine though, I like my proper keyboard and monitor setup at home more.
    • Leo was back at swimming. They're slowly teaching him different techniques. It was fun watching him trying to float on his back and not having any of it. I'm sure a couple more times and he'll be floating like duck...but on his back.
    • After swimming I was finally able to go out and buy a new pair of jeans. I've had a pair of jeans from Muji I've worn a hole in above the back pocket. I patched it once and bought another couple months out of them, but decided to just buy another pair.

      One thing I like about buying jeans in the Japan is that you can get them cut to length at the store. Part of this may be an inventory thing: it's cheaper to offer fewer longer sizes and tailor them, than it is to have a zillion pairs to get every combination of length, color, and fit. This time I was smart and bought 2 pairs and made a memo of the length, so I can buy them online next time.
    • On Sunday we went and rode the Monorail for a partial loop (we skipped the Enoden on the way back, thankfully). We got to ride the Ojico monorail, which has a fun wrap and when we arrived we could actually walk and checkout the shops and even walked to the island. Leo carried his water in his backpack and walked almost the entire time 🙌🏻.

      Ojico monorail


      On the way back we even went buy Kuwaina for a burger to go (it was too early for dinner). I didn't particularly want one, but Leo did and he'd spent the past 16-ish days inside, so we went with it.
    • I finished the first pass at layerizing Tanzawa and already it's making adding new features much easier. There might be a tad more code than before layerizing, but it's now super clear where the different bits of code need to go and exactly what their role should be, so overall it's much quicker.

      The new feature that I developed is the ability to add a "Comment by email" link to all posts in your RSS feed. This way people are invited to comment, even if it's not in a public manner. What's fun about this feature is that it's also a plugin. So now there's hooks for anybody to add whatever they want before or after a post in their feeds on a blog.

      I may extend it a bit further and have it add those same links to the meta section(?) of a post. Thanks to Ru for opening an issue.

  • The Week #93

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    • After Leo got Covid last week, I knew my turn wasn't far behind, sure enough, we all tested positive. While Leo is technically out of quarantine as of Sunday, since he's 4 and can't go anywhere, he's still quarantining until we're finished on Wednesday and Thursday this week.
    • Thankfully, because we were freshly boosted the effects have been minimal. I had a sore throat for a couple of days and a small cough. The day I posted positive, I felt a bit short of breath making my coffee, but by the time it brewed got some coffee in my system, it sorted itself out. And the pulse oximeter that arrived later that day confirmed it.
    • Which is to say we've all been mostly indoors since March 30th and, besides not running / making regular trips to the store, I'm surprised just how little my day-to-day has changed. Perhaps because we were already in a permanent state of social distancing.
    • Catching Covid, as much as it sucks, has also been a relief. The past 2+ years I've been second guessing  myself, worrying "what if" most every time I went out...and now I don't need to do that. I'll still do my part and mask up and so forth, but that background thread is getting bumped down the priority queue quite a bit.
    • My first batch of compost has been finished for a couple of weeks but I'd been delaying using it...and since I'm stuck at home, I decided to finally use it by replanting our rosemary plant. I think batch-1 needed to be mixed a bit better as there were still some onion skins remaining intact..but other than that it was mostly soil. My second batch got a small dose of starter and the next day when I mixed it, it was hot...the team is loving it and really breaking everything down.
    • The Linda Lindas' Growing Up album finally came out and it's great.

  • The Week #92

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    • It was bound to happen. After 2 and a half years of dodging covid like Frogger, it finally made it into the house. Leo caught it at his pre-school and is part of a cluster of people (15 and counting) who all got it. He was exposed on Monday or Tuesday.

      On Wednesday during the day, he was out getting visiting city hall to get documents/getting photos taken for his Japanese passport. He didn't have much appetite for at dinner time, but we assumed it was because he had a big snack around 4pm and was just tired out and about all day. Then we got notification about his potential exposure. Oops...

      That night he had bad (fever?) dreams and indeed when he woke up he was super hot. Checked his temp and he was running high 38. Took a test and he was positive. By Friday evening his fever started to drop and his appetite started to return. By Saturday he fully recovered.
    • Thus far, knock on wood, Yumi and I have both been able to dodge it within the house or our boosters are doing their job. I'm super grateful that it's come into the house right as our antibodies are at their post-boost peak. If we don't feel any symptoms, the city has asked that we isolate for 7 days, or until the 7th as close contacts. Leo is to isolate for 10 days. If we do feel symptoms, they want us to tack another 7 days on top of that as close contacts...I think.
    • We're isolating as much possible, but not entirely. The dog still gets walked (always masked before, still masked now). And we still need to eat, so I had to do some minimal grocery shopping after we were contacted by his school. I checked my temp before hand and was double masked. But that will be the extent to our "going out" for the next week.
    • Which is to say that we had to cancel our trip to Disney. With how light his experience had been i.e. he's fully recovered for 3 days and neither of us showing signs (knock on wood) of having breakthrough cases, I'm most disappointed about this. 

      We could reschedule the tickets for another day without issue. But as it was within 7 days, canceling the hotel still cost is about 200 bucks. With our trip to Atami this summer and now this stay being canceled last minute, I'm tired of donating money to the hotel industry without actually getting to stay anywhere. I think I'll always book last minute as a matter of policy from here on out...
    • I started listening to X Japan for the first time in ages and I forgot how much they rock. It's a shame the selection for them on  Apple Music isn't great. It doesn't have Rusty Nail, one of my favorite songs by them. The linked video is from, "The Last Live", their last concert, which I first saw in high school after downloading it off of Hotline and highly recommend.

  • The Week #91

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    • Cherry blossoms are blooming everywhere. Though it's my favorite time of year, I can't remember the last time I went (ever?) to a proper hanami (picnic under the blossoms...with booze!).  I had an opportunity once when I was exchange student, but it happened to coincide with the famous fertility festival in Kawasaki...and a college student can't not go and see the spectacle of large male genitalia being paraded around the street...especially as it wasn't well documented online at the time. I've got a great photo of me in front of a pink one as tall as I am...but I'm not quite sure I want to post that here...yet.
    • We signed a contract to get some solar panels and a battery installed on the house. After thinking and talking with different companies since October, I'm happy to have settled on a system / installer. We still don't know when the installation date is going to be, but it's a step in getting off gas. My wife has also expressed interest in maybe going all electric, so moving off gas for our cooktop and water heater...which I love...and consider another week.
    • It rained last Tuesday and I got to use my cycling poncho. This was my 3rd time using and I'm getting the hang of it. The trick is, instead of putting the thumb loops around your thumbs, as the name suggests, you put them on your handlebars. I'm almost looking forward to cycling in the rain more.
    • My grandma sent me a package with a bunch of photos of my grandpa (who passed almost 2 years ago), my mom when she was younger, my uncles...it's great. She also gave me permission in the card to toss anything I don't want, which is sweet and I love the explicit permission...not that I will.
    • I started using my double-edge razor again when shaving. Yumi got it for me 6+ years ago with a nice brush for putting on shaving cream etc...I used it not as much as I should have and fell back into the 5+ blade razor trap. Recently, each time I went to buy new razors I'd get annoyed at the price.

      Shaving is just a faff, even in the best of times. This time around with me DE razor I'm skipping the brush for shaving creams and just using the regular gel type I was using before. My hope is that if I lower the faff around using my DE razor I can continue using it and in the end throw away much less plastic, save a bunch of cash, and use nicer things (that I already own!).
    • I had a realization about why I post to Twitter more than my blog. Part of it is the reach of twitter vs my blog (probably for the better, that one). The other part is the simple form is 1 tap away on the home page.

      My goal is to make it as easy to blog as it is to tweet and I think I'm getting close with my "mobile blogging" page. It has a few different defaults that make it closer to twitter than a blog, too. Posts are defaulted as published and visible to everyone instead of draft, and you can only post statuses – no articles or bookmarks with this interface.

      Mobile blogging with Tanzawa


      Important though is the trip dropdown, which will allow me to travel blog in real time, which has been a long term goal / vision for my blog.

  • The Week #90

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    • After a few months delay I went and got my annual health check. I was able to go to the same center as last time, too. I'm always amazed at the efficientcy of these places as each person is directed from station to station and the nurses/technicians do their thing.

      Despite my best efforts I gained a couple of kilos and my blood pressure was slightly up (with the state of the world how could it not 😅). It's time to cut out that snacking habit I've gotten into as of late and cut down portions at dinner.
    • As Leo had a "forced" Tuesday off last week, since he wasn't sick, rather than be stressed at the house all day we went out and did our usual Monorail-Enoshima-Aquarium-Burger loop. He played the crane game with his own money once, but he didn't win anything, but he seemed satisfied.

      While we were walking to the Enoden after lunch, Leo decided he wanted some sweets from the coffee shop, so we dropped by Tully's as well. There's a great word in Japanese for exactly this situation, where you have room for dessert despite being full: betsu-bara. Betsu means separate/different and bara being stomach. It's the first time he's had dessert stomach that I can remember.
    • There was a big earthquake last week around 11:30pm. It was certainly the biggest and longest quake I've felt in a while. Thankfully there wasn't any damage around here and it was mostly an annoyance because it kicks off your adrenaline, which is not helpful when you're trying to get back to sleep.
    • I bought tickets for Disney next month during Leo's spring break. I've never been to Tokyo Disneyland, but I've been to Disney Sea twice.

      As a kid, we lived close enough that when we went to Disney it was just for the day, never staying at the hotels. And being honest, they were probably also out of budget, even if it wasn't so close. While we're still close enough here in Yokohama for a day-trip to Disney (trains rule), we're going to stay one night. I'm excited about it, not just because it's a surprise for Leo, but because I can do those family things I couldn't do myself growing up.
    • Unrelated to health check results, but after skipping a week of running not on purpose I got back out and ran 5km. I always feel so much better after running, no matter how long I go out. I need to remind myself when the main obstacle is me changing clothes. Sometimes I can't run in the morning or don't want a tight lunch run. With the days starting to get longer, I wonder if I could do short post-work runs every now and again...
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