• The Week #71

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    • This week marks 1 month being at Octopus. I've been enjoying my time at the company so far and I'm learning a lot. I know I'm working more hours than at BP. I think it's a combination of things, but mostly as there isn't a time sheet to worry about, just start and end whenever, it's easier to get into a late afternoon groove.
    • With the covid numbers down, after family dinner on Friday, I went out for a quick beer with a couple of co-workers. Another first in about 2 years (the last time I went out was 2019, after the last working day of the year). It was a lot of fun getting to know them better and being able chat without thinking "I should be working" in the back of my head.
    • One of the solar installers came out to measure our roof to see if the QCells 3.5KWh system would actually fit and turns out, it wouldn't. The south side could fit 9 panels, but the east/west sides can't fit 3 panels each. I'm having see if they can the smaller 185w panel on the east/west.

      Since we've now missed the deadline for a ¥19/KWh feed in tariff, the most we'll is ¥17/KWh. This is for the best though. As with the pressure off, we can better look into subsidies, and it looks like there may be city, prefecture, and national subsidies available to help purchase the battery and HEMS (Home Energy Management System).
    • Leo and I went to the Yokohama Tram Museum. I'd been wanting to go since I first heard about it after seeing a special on TV-Kanagawa about 2021 being 100 years of public transit in the city. I've been delaying going as it's a 20 minute bus ride from Kamiooka station (I like trains, not a huge fan of buses ( though they're better than cars)).  You also get a discount if you go via public transit, which was nice. I think it was ¥250 or ¥350 for both of us to get in.

      In addition to having a collection of trams, they have some dioramas you can drive and a tram simulator you can play. Leo just kept the tram going full tilt until it ran into the boundaries and was forcefully stopped ( about 5 meters after stop).

      The museum also had a separate building where they had a huge set of pura-rail setup and if you wait your turn you actually drive them! Leo drove Dr. Yellow once, and Hayabusa twice. Paradise for any young rail fan!
      Leo driving Hayabusa
    • We went to Satoyama Park in Chigasaki to play on the big bouncy things and ride the roller slide. This time we brought a tent we got specifically for these purposes (bringing tents to the beach / big parks where you're going to be for a while seems to be a thing in Japan).

      Small milestone on this trip was Leo finally decided to take of a proper sized rice-ball, rather than having bite-sized mini-rice balls. After he took a first bite he said "Oh, taking a bite of onigiri is delicious!", and beyond being relieved that he's eating his lunch was thinking "That's what we've been saying, dude!!". 

      We're likely going there again this weekend as we seem to have forgotten his little blue-bicycle in the rush packing and getting back to the car 🙃.

  • The Week #70

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    • This week was Halloween. For Halloween Leo dressed up as Woody and we had a friend over for lunch. I made a quick chili (although they wouldn't call it chili in Texas, as I put beans in it). Leo ate it up as we called it curry and put a little cheddar cheese on top.
    • Friday was a day off for all the Kraken devs in Japan. Leo's been wanting to take Yumi to the Romance Car Museum since we went together last month. So after kindergarten finished we took our bikes to the station and rode the train to Ebina.

      Despite there not being very many people at the museum, we lost the lottery the ride the simulator. Maybe third time's a charm and we can drive it next time we visit the museuem. Leo and I also spent 30 minutes in the play area, which was a lot of fun. There's a latter and nets that go across the roof, with a ball pit. There's also a big window where you can watch the Odakyu line and we got a good look at a train getting washed.
    • I want to start running more regularly (a regular theme on the week it seems...). But one thing that "stops" me is a lack of music. When I got my Airpods years ago it sustained  a solid 6 months of running regularly and doing long (~14km) runs.

      The battery started failing about a year ago. 20-ish minutes into a run they'd just die, taking with it my tunes and my beats to power on. With the cold in winter they'd last about...30 seconds. They can't even handle my commute to the office.

      I bought a pair of AirPod Pros to replace my old AirPods with my first check from the new job.
    • My first run with them was great. I'm trying a new strategy this go around; rather than always looking for scenic routes, which usually means hills, I'm going to try and keep my runs as flat as possible. This basically means running along a big road near my house.

      Before when I ran along this road, even a single truck going by would drown out my music unless I had them near max volume, which can't be good for my ears. With the Pros I enabled noise canceling and they sound like EVs going by (but they still smell like the stinky trucks they are). So far so good.
    • We had two more meetings with some installers for solar panels/a battery for the house. Their prices weren't too dissimilar, but they both recommended Sharp panels/battery and a 2.6Kwh system. An earlier quote 2 weeks ago recommended  Q-cells panels/different battery, which would let us get a bigger 3.5KWh system. While I like idea of having the same manufacturer for panels and battery, giving up a KWh of generation for the lifetime of the panels is a lot of electricity to forgo...

  • The Week #69

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    • I started watching The Billion Dollar Code on Netflix. It's based on a true story about a lawsuit around Google Earth between  a German startup and....Google. The origin story of Terravision (the Google Earth a decade before Google Earth) is really good. The early 90's techno-visuals really hits that Hackers spot for me.
    • Kanagawa hit single digit covid numbers ( 7 ). There's a number of arguments made for why this number is so low so quick. The cynics say it's because there's an election coming up. Others think it's Japan being good about masks and getting some high vaccination rates. I think it's somewhere in-between. Vaccination rates are really good in Japan, people generally wear masks when out and about, and you don't get an official test unless you're showing symptoms, and if your vaccinated the chances that you're symptoms serious enough to get an official test is much lower. Either way, the number of serious patients in the hospitals is also declining, so they must be improving.
    • I made some small improvements in Tanzawa. Nothing frontward facing, but some small bugs and quality-of-life improvements ( reordering menus and such). Been thinking about my priorities for Tanzawa development recently and I think I've figured it out, but need to work through all of my thoughts in another blog post.
    • Friday it rained which pushed Leo's Sport's Day festival to the Saturday morning, the same morning we were planning a trip to the Atami area to visit a friend. Leo' had 3 activities against : a game where his group tried to collect their color ball from around the ground faster than the other group, an x meter dash, and a dance.

      During the race he fell behind, realize he couldn't win, so he just walked the rest 🤣. Unfortunately, this soured his mood for the rest of the event and despite looking forward to the dance and despite his teacher holding him to try and calm him down, but it was a lost cause. In the end, everyone got a medal and we were able to make as planned.
    • Driving to a new place in Japan is always an adventure. Our destination had two possible routes: one along the ocean and one a bit more inland. The ocean route is closer to my house but my gps said it was going to take an extra hour over the weekend, so we decided to go the inland route. 

      Along the way I got to drive the Hakone Turnpike, which is a famous twisty road to get you through the mountains. There were a lot of motorcycles and a couple of super-cars as well. Driving all the twists and turns was a lot of fun.

      As we got  closer we switched from my car navi to Google Maps, as my car navi didn't have the exact address we were going. Remember how I said driving is always an adventure? It sent us one left too early to save maybe a hundred meters on distance. That left too early also tried to send us up a 1 way road through the middle of the forest. Which I tried until there were too much debree that I decided it's best to turn back. Thankfully I was near a bit of the road that was wide enough I could turn around. I wish I had taken a photo. Either way, this quicker route still took us 3 hours.

      Thankfully we arrived in one piece and we were able to meet some friends who we haven't met since January 2020. Also thankfully Leo and their son had no problems playing together that night.
    • On Sunday we went to a local farm? zoo? where you can feed the goats / cows / rabbits. Leo fed the rabbits and I fed the goats / cows. The cows were determined to lick me each time I tried feed them.

      After that we went to Jukkoku Touge (Ten Mountain Pass) to ride the cable car.

      Riding up the side of a mountain.


      At the top you can get some great views of Mt. Fuji and the ocean.  It's close enough and high enough that on a clear day you can see Yokohama Landmark Tower and even Tokyo Sky Tree.

      After a quick bite to eat at the bottom we got drove home. This time we took the ocean route and it was a great view. Leo's already planning his next trip and thinking about which trains he's going to take with him to play with.

  • The Week #67

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    • Technically from last week, Jacob linked me to this short video about Dutch continuous sidewalks. I never thought I'd become excited about sidewalks (other than them existing) until I saw this video. And it makes so much more sense: bring cars up to people level, not people down to car level and make cars a guest in human environment.
    • I went to the office to work for the first time (at Octopus) and the first time since early February 2020. I rode the train around 6:30 and arrived at the station around 7:30. The trains weren't super crowded either where I rode (in the very front).

      There's also a Tully's nearby in the IBM headquarters where I could decompress with a coffee and work for a bit before going in. I used to do this when I was going in to the BeProud office.

      It was great to meet part of the team in person. Going out to lunch in a social setting was a lot of fun too. I can't remember the last time I did that. Each Friday's is "family dinner", where there's a small presentation followed by beers at the office, which was also a lot of fun.
    • We got a second quote for solar panels on our home. 2 down, 2 to go. This time the talk was much better. Not just the price (about 10k less), but it felt like he was communicating when we asked questions, not just giving us canned sales responses.

      He recommended QCells panels and a Japanese battery. Overall kilowattage from his quote was a bit smaller as QCells (like most foreign solar panels) tend to be larger square (like foreign roofs) so they tend to leave gaps along the edges. Domestic manufacturers tend to make smaller / non-square panels, so you can get the most of your small roof. This company is also going to produce a quote for us with domestic panels as well. Will be interesting to see how they come out.
    • After last weeks' unseasonably warm weather (and two trips to the beach!), the temperate finally decided to drop. These times when the weather suddenly changes are the easiest to get sick, so I've got to take extra precaution to keep healthy this week.
    • Covid cases were down to 23 in Kanagawa and 29 in Tokyo Monday. Monday is usually a low count day, but it's the lowest they've been in over a year. At this rate I think we'll be down to single digits again soon...maybe next week? Let's hope it stays this way.

  • The Week #66

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    • This week was my first week at Octopus (well technically, Kraken Technologies). I think it went well. Co-workers are nice, too. I added a small new feature that got merged and released into production. As I've started wrapping my head around the code base, I've also been able to do code reviews and leave helpful feedback. 

      The only issue that I have is that since it's all new and I'm jazzed about problem we're trying to solve is it's hard for me to "turn off" after work sometimes. I'm sure that'll solve itself after I get used to it all.

      One thing that's impressed me is the extent to which the conventions are documented/ referred to/enforced. Without having them written down (in this case in a series of markdown documents in a git repo) and enforced via linting, it would be much harder to build a code base at such a pace (~50 deploys a day) in a consistent and maintainable manner.

      It's only been a week, but I know I made the right decision to join Octopus.
    • As I mentioned last week, Leo started back at school. With my current scheduling wanting a few hours of overlap with the UK, I switched from pickup duties to drop-off duties a few days a week. The first two times Leo had a meltdown and cried and was clingy. The last time (on Friday), I think Leo was just tired and mostly went off to school without a big scene.
    • There was a large earthquake Thursday night. It was was a 6.1. It shook our house pretty well. Nothing fell over...except some of Leo's legos. We (Yumi) did finally get some things to secure the fridge to the wall.
    • We made two trips to the beach. Saturday's visit was completely unplanned. While doing our monthly "loop" around Yokohama/Fujisawa on the Subway / JR / Shonan Monorail / Enoden / Odakyu line, we arrived at Enoshima before anything opened. When I started walking to Enoshima island itself. Midway down I look over and saw a guy walking (I can only assume) his pet monkey! Was about the size of Leo. As we got closer to the water Leo asked if I bought his blue water shoes (I didn't). He promised not to cry when his feet get dirty so we went and played just the two of us for 45 minutes. He did great.

      The next day after being really good while we listened a solar panel sales pitch, he asked politely, like he knew it was a big ask, if all 3 of us could go to the beach. So we went to a different beach (on the other side of Enoshima)! Taking the car to the beach makes it easier to carry everything, but it's not much, if any faster than the trains. I think this is the first time we've all gone to the beach and all gotten in the water to some degree.

      I finally broke down and bought a 3-person tent so we can have some good shade for the next time.

  • The Week #65

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    • I had my first day at first day at Octopus Energy.  Initially I was in rushing about as I still needed to do some initial setup so I could use my muscle memory again: move the dock to the left, auto hide it, remap caps to control, swap spotlight and language input changing shortcuts ( ctrl-space <--> cmd-space), pairing my magic trackpad, and so forth.

      We used gather, this J-RPG-esque video conferencing website for a chat with my new co-workers. Amazing the number of takes on video chat these days. 

      After that I mostly spent of the day reading docs and getting the project up and running locally. There was also a global meeting with the engineering team where I got to introduce myself to everyone.

      Working in English left me less mentally taxed at the end of the day, something I must have stopped noticing. I'm a bit afraid that my Japanese will deteriorate. Without a doubt this is the largest project I've worked to date and I know I'm going to learn a lot.
    • Covid cases returned to double digits in Tokyo for the first time since last November. Kanagawa was down to 51. Cause for optimism. Let's hope this trend continues 🙏🏻.
    • Leo's return to school was delayed as a super typhoon grazed Yokohama on it's way past Japan. No damage, just a lot of rain and a bit of wind. Though my bicycle cover did manage to blow away. ( Update: Found it down at the end of the street and halfway up a hill).
    • Love seeing Weekly blog posts picking up momentum on the IndieWeb.
      Saturday: Maquie publishes thingsThisWeek.
      Monday: Michael publishes Weeknotes and James publishes Weeknotes
      Tuesday: I publish The Week.
      Soon we'll have a weekly roundup for each day of the week.
    • I started (re)-watching The Lone Gunmen (a 13 episode spinoff from the X-Files). I don't think I've seen it properly since it aired on TV 20(!) years ago. It's a bit corny, but pushes a good message about computing, freedom, and surveillance/privacy. In the opening scene Langly is at a launch party for the Optium 4, a new super fast CPU that (secretly) has a modem embedded in it to "upload your files to the internet, and your credit history, and your tax bracket, and your social security number".

      While we don't quite have chips designed / hidden to invade our privacy (yet) we are uploading everything and other data that we previously considered extremely confidential is readily accessible to advertisers – and sometimes we even supply it. Amazing that this issue was raised on prime-time TV. How the times has changed.

  • The Week #64

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    • Today marks my 36th birthday. Happy birthday to me! 🥳🎉
    • This week was a summer vacation-like week - busy with lots of activity and going places. It's starting to feel a bit safer to do so because covid numbers are down to less than 200 / day from over 2,600 / day a month ago in Kanagawa and as Japan has surpassed the United States in vaccinations, something I did not see happening given the US' 3 + month advantage starting.
    • Tuesday, Leo and I went to Enoshima and visited the Aquarium. He's got a yearly pass and I renewed mine. As soon as we arrived he b-lined to the dolphin show and waited patiently for 30 minutes for the first show. Afterwards he looked at the sharks and tried to leave.

      I thought he was mistaken, leaving so soon, so I took him upstairs to the cafe area. I ordered some nuggets and chips (crisps) as they didn't have any fries (chips). Leo had a complete meltdown, despite telling him while we were waiting in line that they didn't have any fries.

      I managed to calm him down somehow and we went to the beach and played in the waves for a few before going to Kua'aina to split a burger and fries.
    • Wednesday, we cycled over to the grandparent's house and back. My battery was low when we left, but I managed to make it back with 5% remaining. I learned that below 20% and it starts to display the drop in real time. So rather than going from 30% -> 20%, it shows you 20% -> 19% -> 18% etc...
    • Thursday, a friend came over for lunch and a chat. This was the first time I've met any friend since the lull between the first and second wave in August 2020 and I haven't seen this friend since January 2020. It was really nice to chat. After we chatted for a while we took Leo to the park and to my surprise he walked the entire way there. If it was just me he'd be wanting to get on my shoulders or some such. I was amazed.
    • Friday was spent in downtown Yokohama in Minatomirai. Leo and I rode the new urban ropeway. It makes the trek from World Porters much easier, but it's too expensive (¥1,000 for adults, ¥500 for kids). It's priced like a tourist attraction rather than public transit. The staff must have thought Leo wasn't quite 3 yet, as they didn't charge me for him despite me saying 1 adult, 1 kid.

      We stayed the night at Yokohama Royal Park Hotel towards the top-half of of Landmark tower. Here's a time-lapse from our room. Leo does so well traveling. I look forward to when he's a bit bigger and we can go out on longer trips.

    • Saturday morning I went for a run along the bay, marking 3 times running this week. It was mostly flat, which was nice, but the views were totally worth it. I think it may be a good thing to do while traveling to better know an area.
      Minatomirai 5:42am
    • After that we went to the Nogeyama Zoo, a small / free (donations encouraged) zoo. They have all a lion, various monkeys, giraffes, zebras, flamingos, and more. Unfortunately, we couldn't see the tiger or the kangaroos as the the tiger moved to the Ueno Zoo and the kangaroo area was under construction.

  • The Week #63

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    • This week was my first full week on burning vacation days With Leo's school canceled it means we've been playing and hanging out everyday. It's been a lot of fun. One good thing that's come of this is he's being exposed to English all day long, so he's trying to speak English more.
    • Leo's also developed enough (as you do when you're 3 and a half) to have mostly regular (if not somewhat bizarre) conversations. He sees a knot on a tree while swinging on the swings have we have a full conversation about how it looks like an eye, grandma and how he likes trees. I hope to remember these days for long to come.
    • We had a going away zoom-nomikai with my old team. It was a lot of fun to just shoot the breeze. Kai found these games you can do together while on zoom. Simple things like someone has to draw a picture and the other participants have to guess. Or everyone is assigned a secret word that, if they say it they lose, and everyone tries to have a conversation to get that person to say that word. I was skeptical at first, but it was a lot of fun.
    • I went to Tokyo (proper) for the first since February 2020. When I got on the Shonan-shinjuku line at the front, to look out the window, the driver closed the screen so I couldn't see out of the big window. At the next stop, I sat down and he opened it back up. Maybe he thought I was going to record it or something and it made him uncomfortable? 

      One thing I missed, and I hadn't realized it, was how when walking around Tokyo, you're just minding your own business when suddenly a fantastic smell comes from some little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. You don't get that much walking around my neighborhood as it's mostly residential.
    • The reason for the trip to Tokyo was my first (and last) visit to the new BP office to turn in my laptop and pick up some personal items that I had left at the old Shinjuku office back in early 2020.
    • Jan reported some bugs in my microformats in Tanzawa, which I've since fixed. Yay!
    • I went to the Odakyu Romance Car Museum (just outside Ebina station) with Leo. The Romance Car is a limited express train that runs from Shinjuku to Hakone / Enoshima. I've only ridden it once a couple years ago when we took Leo to Shinjuku to meet some old US co-workers.

      The museum itself is a blast. Beyond 4 or 5 real Romance Cars (2 of which you can actually sit in), they've got a huge diorama of the Romance Car route with model trains running up and down. There's even a few that you can drive with real(ish) train controls. Leo drove the Enoden around. Totally worth a visit if you're in the area - or even if you're not.
      A retired Romance Car

  • The Week #62

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    • This week was my last week at BP. I spent it heads down trying to get one last (part) of a project completed and while I didn't get it polished, I was able to get the basics completed. Literally merged about an hour before I finished. It's nice to have a few weeks free and clear without between gigs.
    • 15 minutes after I finished, I had an on-boarding call with my employer of record (basically my actual legal employer until Octopus gets an entity in Japan), going over paperwork requirements to get fully signed up. It was nice to chat with them. The call itself was mostly in Japanese, but everyone on the call speaks English, so it was interesting to hear word replacement here and there.
    • Covid cases continue their decline and Leo's school was canceled until the end of the month. His school seems to be on the more cautious side of this, as not all schools are canceling in our area. The teachers have a 40-minute zoom activity each day, but Leo has zero interest. It's too much stress (for both of us) just to try and get him to watch or dance with it all, so I think we'll be skipping them.

      Assuming the state of emergency isn't extended beyond Sept. 30th and he goes back to school as per usual starting in October, I'm a bit concerned it's going to be a big struggle each morning again.
    • There's a local farmer's market(?) nearby where local producers can bring their veg for sale. The back wall has the names of photos of the farmers who sell their produce there. I took Leo there with the bike and bought veg that isn't usually in the local co-ops like red bell peppers (not sweet ones, same flavor as the green ones, just red) and butternut squash, as well as some super fresh leaks (negi) that still have moist looking dirt on them. Cutting the negi and it was so fresh it kinda oozed like when you cut some aloe vera to treat a sunburn. 

      Best of all, it's helping me live up to my values better by consuming more food that's made locally in my city, rather than some nameless farm in hokkaido or tochigi or even abroad.

  • The Week #61

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    • Grocery deliver is quite common in Japan (and has been for a while). We've had a weekly delivery of the basics for years, mostly since Leo was born to help us save time and ensure we always have something in the house. Due to an a couple of cases of covid in their distribution our vegetable order was canceled. Fair enough, it happens, no big deal.

      That combined with Fraser's post got me got me thinking about vegetable delivery, again. Besides grocery, some farmers will actually send you a weekly box of whatever is in season for a set price. I could get more local produce and perhaps more importantly, more variety, too.
    • It's been raining all week (again). But with the rain also brought consistently cool temperatures in the low 20's. It's been fantastic.
    • Leo is becoming more like me each day and it's kinda fun. On Sunday he looked outside and said (albeit in Japanese), "Hey look, it stopped raining. We could take our bike to the coffee shop. Let's go ride our bikes to the coffee shop".  I was thinking the same thing.
    • But rather than another trip to Starbucks we went and picked up proper Vietnamese food.  I haven't anything beyond the occasional pho since we moved to Japan, as there just aren't that many restaurants. Houston has a large Vietnamese population, so the food is everywhere and we'd get it quite often. So good and, man did I miss it.
    • JR announced they're retiring the double-decker Shinkansen. I've only ridden the Shinkansen a couple of times and rode this particular train a few years ago on an employee travel trip to Niigata.  I think it may be the only double decker bullet train? Either way it's an end of an era.
    • For Leo's second birthday I got him a talking Woody doll. A few months after he got it, he threw it and a wire came loose inside. I thought I could fix it if I soldered that wire back, but unfortunately I either botched the job or something else is broken. YouTube is full of videos fixing them, so it seems to be a common problem. I wish I had taken it to the Disney store when it first broke.
    • With Leo's school canceled for another week, I had to watch him on Monday. After his 40 minutes of zoom pre-school (which they're doing great, especially given the difficult circumstances) we went on a good loop riding the monorail and enoden. We had good luck and managed to see a limited express while on the Shonan-Shinjuku line, rode an Olympic wrapped mono-railed, saw the blue and green style Enoden trains, and rode the new Odakyu train. Only on the subway did the driver close the shades so Leo couldn't watch out - but I imagine that's because of the glare from the lights making it difficult to see while driving.
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