• The Week #155

    • We went to the Nissan dealer so Yumi (and Leo) could see the car and we could test drive it as a family. The main reason we're even changing cars is so that Yumi can drive and not be dependent on me. She tried the automatic parking in the big box electronics store next to the dealership. Driving around it seems like the right size car for us. We've decided to buy it (in blue) and next week I'll go to negotiate a price.

      We also made a contract to sell our current car and our last day with it will be the 30th. When we were car shopping originally, the Freed, while nice, it always felt a little too big. But we wanted something with sliding doors that didn't look like a shoe and that was the option. There were also talks of being able to take everyone out, but those never really happened. We did use the seating capacity once or two to shuttle my sister-in-law and her family down from Tokyo to the family home during the pandemic...but really we had a 7 seater for 3 people + 1 dog.

      Kei's are definitely easier to drive around these narrow streets. With an EV there isn't this feeling of betraying my beliefs each time I use it – especially in the middle of the ever hotter summers.
    • I joined Leo on his last "Oya-ko Ensoku", or Parent-child field trip of his kindergarten years. This time we went to Tatara-hama beach in Yokosuka.
      Having fun at the beach

      At the beach kids can play in the water, but mostly go hunting in the rocks for crabs, fish, and jellyfish. We captured a jellyfish that fit perfectly into his little bucket, saw some crabs, and even a baby shark. Unfortunately the baby shark got up into the rocks, I guess at high tide, and couldn't get out before the water receded and died.

      After playing at the beach for a couple of hours, everyone ate our bentos on the beach, then we had 30 minutes to pack up and visit the museum next to beach. The museum had a lot of information about the local environment and the fish. And for some reason a section with a lot of Godzillas.
      Godzilla over the years

      On the bus ride back to the kindergarten the bus driver played some Tom & Jerry onΒ  entertainment system in the bus to keep the kids entertained.
    • Our blueberries are starting to turn blue! Not too much longer and I'll have at least a 50 dollars worth of berries from this plant. Yum πŸ˜‹
      Blueberries turning blue
  • The Week #154

    • The rainy season has arrived in Kanto...which means it's been rainy the majority of the last week and will be rainy the following week(s) as well. I generally like the rainy season as, while it's humid, it's the last days of the year before the summer heat really kicks in.
    • Depending on the severity of the rain, Leo soccer match had the potential to be canceled. We'd find out if it was cancelled by 7am when we'd need to leave by 7:15 to arrive in time.

      It wasn't cancelled and Leo had his first soccer match at Nissan Stadium...in the rain! It was a friendly with a bunch of other Kanagawa pre-schools and football clubs. The uniforms were supposed to arrive by the friday prior, but they didn't, so we received them at the stadium and changed there. Each kid could pick their own number, so we have a couple of duplicates 🀣
      Go number 1!

      The game itself was as you'd expect a game of football with 5 year olds to be, they looked like a swarm of bees chasing after the ball. The important part though is they now know what it means to be on a team and know what it's like to play a game, so they'll be ready for a real game this fall. In the mean time, they train.
    • While we were at the soccer match, my wife was at the Japanese archery grounds, taking the test for her sho-dan. She's been working towards this for 2 years and passing this would allow her to practice by herself, whenever the archery grounds are open. Until now she's always had to practice as part of a group when a teacher is around under their supervision.

      They don't tell you the results directly after the test. First, I reckon they deliberate a bit, but then they tell your teacher and your teacher tells you. Come Monday morning, Yumi comes downstairs crying and my first thought was "oh no, who died..." but they were happy tears! Yumi passed her test and, once she pays her dues, will be able to practice whenever she wants.
    • We started looking at perhaps selling our Honda Freed and getting something smaller / easier to drive on the narrow roads around (most of the roads in our neighborhood are only wide enough for 1 car). Also something that's easier to park/back into the small parking spots. As it is now, I'm the only one that drives our car. I don't like driving it much because...narrow roads aren't fun, but also it burns gas, which literally goes against everything I'm working for at work. It's actively making things worse.

      The main (only) contender is the Sakura, the EV Kei car from Nissan. Kei cars are small 4-seaters perfect for driving in the city. At the upper grade, it also ProPilot, so it will be able to automatically park (head first, back in, and parallel), which will solve the main blocker for my wife driving our current car.

      I went to the dealer to get a quote and with all the bells and whistles it's about 360-man ($25k usd). We can sell our car for between 190 - 200-man (not to the dealer) and there's an EV subsidy for 55-man, so that would bring our cost down to 105-man.
      Nissan Sakura

      While at the dealer, I got to inspect it and do a demo of the automatic-parking and it's pretty great. It's so quiet inside the EV. Since it's electric, too, it will cost us nothing / near-nothing for fuel because of our solar panels...

      I'm sold on moving forward, but now I've got to convince my wife that we should move forward with it...after all, it was her idea!.
  • The Week #153

    • I watched the final episode of Ted Lasso. I'm sad to see it end, but it really tied up the story quite nicely.Β 
    • Leo went to his first robot school class. Since it was his first proper visit (last time was trial), he got his own set of gears and parts. Parents are asked to stay the first time for a few minutes to put colored labels on various cords and setup the motor. The first task was a to build a (non-moving) robot following instructions from a book (I really like that it's a book and not an iPad). Once they finish the main task, they're free to try and customize it. Some kids have difficulty using their imagination to customize things, but not Leo. He dove right in and impressed the teacher with how quickly he started to customize his robot.
    • While Leo was building robot, I went to the McDonalds nearby for a cup of coffee and some time to work on Tanzawa. I haven't been able to run it locally since I upgraded and I wanted to sort it. There were two issues that prevented Tanzawa from running:Β 

      1) Python wasn't configured to allow sqlite extensions to load when installing with pyenv
      2) Python was using the system sqlite instead of the brew version (which had Spatialite installed as well)
      3) Python was referencing only non-homebrew directories when trying to load geographic libraries.

      It's running locally and I even made a couple of small PRs, including integrating Sunbottle stats into my homepage. So now if you load the top page and scroll down, you'll a couple of solar stats.
    • I found Slow AF Run Club ( I bookmarked an article about them in the NYTimes earlier in the week). I haven't posted yet, but having a community of runners that aren't fast and aren't focused entirely on speed and getting faster encouraged me to get out and go for a run. Embrace my inner-turtle as it will. It was a slow and fun run.
      Ajisai during my run
    • My 12kg kettlebell arrived and I'm happy to report that I can press it single-handedly above my head with both arms. Despite being left-handed, my right side seems to be stronger. After meetings or when I need a distraction for a minute from work, I've taken to doing a few presses with the smaller bell and some swings with the larger bell. I'm slowly turning programming into an active profession.Β 
  • The Week #152

    • I tend to avoid clothes shopping as much as possible, but I really needed a new shirt. I must have been cycling the same cheap uniqlo t-shirts for at least 2 or 3 years now. I've always heard goodΒ  things about L.L. Bean's clothing. They're an American company who's bread and butter is mail order (since before the internet) and it turns out there's a physical store in Yokohama.

      Shopping at L.L. Bean made me feel a bit like my dad (growing up he'dΒ  wear their shirts), which I'm not sure how that makes me feel. Not because of my dad, but because am I really getting that old? Answer: Yes.

      When I was ready to check out, I walked up to the cashier. She was helping the customer before me and I listened in a bit as she was explaining to the customer "the pants are cut this way because these are from America and American's have big butts".Β  I think she freaked out a bit she saw me standing there πŸ˜†. She:s not wrong, but still funny. In the end, I got myself a new casual button up shirt and a hat to replace my Astro's hat.Β 
    • Leo played in the fountains in front of the art museum. The mall had organized an event with food trucks, various workshops and some vendors. We had a napoleon style pizza for lunch and then went to Blue Bottle for a coffee. At this location, the walls are all glass and they open them up on nice days, and they were wide open.
    • Leo likes the smell of coffee. I had one sip of coffee left and I offer Leo to smell it. He said it smelled good, so I suggested he try it, thinking he'd refute. He drank his first sip of cooled hot-coffee, and he liked it! Attaboy! I don't expect this to become a regular occurrence, he's still 5.
    • We went to the Mitsubishi Industrial Museum, which showcases a lot of the heavy industrial/science products that Mitsubishi is involved it, including deep-sea research submarines, rockets, and airplanes. There's even a video about how they manufacture and launch their rockets. I finally understand why there's a lot of rocket engineers in Nagoya, that's where they manufacture them. The second floor was dedicated to electricity and they explainers for how wind turbines, solar and such like work. Really well put together and worth the Β₯500 entry fee.
      Leo checking out the wind turbine at sea level
    • I finally got around to deactivating my twitter account. As I said in my status, I haven't really checked it in months and I don't miss it. This post by Scott made me question what I was waiting for and so I did it. Ask me a year ago and I don't think I could've imagined getting off Twitter entirely, but I like Mastodon, the pace andΒ  the people I'm following there.
    • Out with Mario and in with Zelda. We've been playing Breath of the wind almost everyday and it's fantastic. What I like about it Zelda, beyond the escape-ism of roaming around Hyrule, is that I actually get to play quite a bit. Leo acts as a second set of eyes for items and baddies. It's a good bonding activity.
  • The Week #151

    • One for last week that I forgot to mention, so I'll mention it this week. Since getting his Lego Mario, he's been into building anything and everything. One of his friends at school attends a robot / programming school twice a month, and Leo went to a trial lesson. He had a blast, so we're signing him up for it. It means that twice a month we'll have an hour and a half kid-free and there's a Komeda Coffee across the street.
    • The G7 came to Hiroshima, Japan. A major point of discussion for them was climate change and electricity. We also lined up some announcements to go along with that including a plan to invest Β£1.5 billion in renewablesΒ  in APAC by 2027. To go along with that, we started an advertising campain in Hiroshima. This photo was taken (by not me) outside the Shinkansen gates. It's really cool to see our ads showing up at major train stations throughout Japan.
      πŸ™βš‘οΈπŸš…
    • The Super Mario Bros. movie was released on iTunes, so our pre-order went through and we can now enjoy watching the movie at home. Leo has watched it everyday. He's picking up vocabulary from re-watching it so many times, too. My favorite thing is that he tries to sing along with Bowser's ballad to Peach. Jack Black plays Bowser, so you can imagine what he's trying to sing along with.
    • I bought a second, lighter, 12kg Kettlebell. I don't want to injure myself by going too big too quickly. Alas, this one too will take a couple of weeks to arrive.

  • The Week #150

    • This is the first "The Week" on my new M2 Macbook Air. It's pretty great! The Japanese keyboard is still frustrating sometimes, like all of the keys have moved to the left one position, but I've almost retrained myself. PyCharm launches instantly. The battery lasts forever. The resolution is markedly improved from my retina before display before it. I'm still working on getting Tanzawa up and running locally on it – gdal library paths aren't cooperating.
    • I've been thinking about importing my Tweet archive into my website and what I want that look like. I think it will probably be a separate section of my website, rather than just integrated into my Status posts.

      When migrating data, I realized that my Downloads folder wasn't backed up / migrated over (and thus my Twitter archive).Β  Logging into Twitter for the first time since November so I could re-request/download my archive and...well there's no need to beat a downed horse, but there's not much there for me any longer. I might delete my account after I archive my tweets on my site, just because why bother?
    • The Kettlebell I ordered a few weeks back came in and it's a lot of fun to swing. I got a 16kg bell, which is the recommended starter weight for males. Swings aren't a problem, but anything with one arm and it's a bit heavy. It will take me a little while to build the core/upper body strength to be able to do exercises like Turkish getsup.
    • On Saturday morning I heard heaps of fire trucks...and then I smelled smoke. Upon going outside to investigate with Leo (still in his pajamas) we saw a large black cloud coming from a house a couple blocks away. Ash started raining down as we were walking back to our house. Thankfully the fire departmentΒ  got the fire under control quickly.
  • The Week #149

    • This week was Golden Week in Japan. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all public holidays and so many people also took Monday / Tuesday off to get a full 9 days off in a row. I took Tuesday off as Leo's school was closed for a day off in-lieu for an event last Saturday.
    • I took advantage of that day off with Leo and we went to Minatomirai to watch Super Mario Brother's Movie. We arrived far too early to the theater as Leo couldn't wait at home. We killed some time by looking (and buying) some of the movie goods: a new bento box, some Mario themed iron-on patches,Β  and clear files and by grabbing lunch from the concession stand.

      Leo looooved the movie. The entire time he was smiling and giving me a thumbs up when there was a scene that he liked. After the credits there was an unhatched Yoshi egg...I wonder if there's going to be a Mario Brother's Movie 2 out next year or so. With it making over a billion (with a b) dollars worldwide so far, I wouldn't be surprised.
    • After the movie we went to Blue Bottle Coffee and played a bit in the fountains in front of the Yokohama Art Museum. At Blue Bottle I picked up their little free paper to take home. It's written in both English and Japanese and about coffee. I "scanned" it using the notes app on my iPhone to share it on my blog...which came through as a pdf.

      Not being able to share non-images on my blog caused me to work a bit on Tanzawa so I could at least upload and select a PDF. PDFs still don't quite display on my blog how I'd like (using the default trix "attachment" styles), but it's enough. Including something heavier weight like PDF.js to embed them seemed a bit much considering how rarely I'll be uploading PDFs on my site.

      Blue Bottle Studio.pdf 1.93 MB


      One benefit of this work was that I was able to dive into some of the original code from Tanzawa that was a bit crufty and clean it up. Working on Tanzawa isn't much different than gardening – you've got to weed / maintain things.
    • We played at a number of parks that we usually don't play at. One of the parks had a "log house", which is a city-run log house looking building that kids can play inside. There's rope nets going up the wall to climb to the second floor with rope net bridges. There's also a slide, a good selection of books, blocks, a basketball hoop, and some other play things.

      I mention this because the city did a really good job of designing the street in front of this park. Instead of the usual narrow 2-way road without any trees, they put it a one-way street with greenery on both sides, and curves in the road.
      Traffic calming street design

      Behind this park and the log house was actually a 400 panel 100kWh solar farm! I know this, not because I'm a huge nerd (bethatasitmay), but they had a nice placard at the service door that detailed this / the installer.
      110mWh solar array in Yokohama
    • My trusty 2014 Macbook Pro's battery started swelling, which I noticed as my computer would open itself after I'd close the lid. Perhaps it was just the hinges were loose and they finally reach the point where I needed to open it up and tighten them. Indeed, they were very loose (my computer's monitor would shake sometimes if I was typing vigorously enough) and tightening the screws did fix that, it did not fix my self-opening computer problem. Upon further inspection I can see a (very) small bend in the bottom of my laptop.Β 

      Which is to stay, after almost 8.5 years of loyal service it's time to get a replacement. While I've mentioned and have been tempted by the Framework laptop for it's serviceability, it's not available in Japan. I'm also not entirely sure of making a sudden, unplanned jump from macOS to desktop linux...especially after multiple decades on macOS.

      I've purchased an M2 Air with 512GB storage and 16GB of ram. It boggles my mind that it's exactly the same specs as I got almost a decade ago in my current computer. While I'm excited for a new computer, I'm also bummed I'm losing a loyal companion.

      That said, I'm happy that battery replacement in January 2021 got me another 2 and a bit years out of the machine. That brought my costs down to about $0.87 /day ( $2699 (before tax) / 3090 days). I would've loved to have gotten a solid 10 years out of it, but it wasn't in the cards this time.
  • The Week #148

    • 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 – 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 πŸ₯°), I've only paid Β₯2,500 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 – just long enough for Leo to trip in the water and have a minor meltdown 😫. But the idea was nice – 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 asΒ  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 – 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 – stuff besides computers and outside of work. Well worth a watch if you have 30 minutes.
  • The Week #147

    • Last week I wrote about starting by walking instead of running. It worked. I closed all of myΒ  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.
  • The Week #146

    • For how off-again-on-again (mostly off) my running is, I sure do mention it a lot on The Week. I kinda feel obligated after spending all that time to make a Strava integration, only to use it for a month and just stop 😫.Β 

      I had this idea that perhaps changing my habits from never being a sports person to runner was a bit too far. A 30 minute run sounds like not a lot of time, but it's really an hour when you factor in changing, showing, and changing again. Going from "nothing" to hour+ of commitment per day is a drastic change.

      Instead I'm trying to just focus on becoming more active, make that habitual, then I can worry about running (or I can mix running in). A 20 - 30 minute walk doesn't require a change of clothes and takes exactly that long. For starters I'm trying to just close all of my rings consistently ( 12-hours stand/450kcal/30 minutes exercise).Β 

      I can already regularly close the 30 minutes exercise ring because of taking Sophie for a walk and using my bikeΒ  or walking most everywhere. It's the 450kcal ring everyday that's been elusive, even if just barely. This week I hit it 6 days and only missed the day it was raining heaps outside.
    • Speaking of 450kcals, we left a stick of butter on the table from breakfast before leaving for lunch on the weekend. While we were out, Sophie jumped up on the table and helped herself to the entire stick. I could tell immediately when we returned because instead of greeting us like she usually does, she was wheezing like a guy who overindulged pizza.
    • After overindulging on the butter, she wasn't feeling well. She went over to the tatami (why the tatami?!) and barfed buttery-vomit. We cleaned it up immediately, but the smell – it's taking a while to disappear. We might end up needing to replace that tatami.Β 

      Later that day she still wasn't feeling well (that's what happens when you eat a stick of butter(!)). She barfed a second time on Leo's bed (again with the barfing on soft, absorbent things). He doesn't use it, so we didn't have one of those protective sheets down, but boy do I wish we had. We cleaned it up immediately but it was already too late. It made it down into the mattress-foam. We took off the mattress cover and washed it and let it air dry outside, but it still smells. Air drying the mattress outside in the sun also seems to have not worked as much/quick as I'd hoped. It might slowly be getting better, or I'm just getting desensitized to it.

      I'm glad she's feeling better now, but what a mess.
    • While we were at lunch, we stopped by a vintage store. Inside they had a lot of cards from the early 90's: Ghostbusters (1984) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) with scenes from the movies on them. Having the cards immediately made Leo interested in watching these classics.Β 

      We watched Ghostbusters on Saturday night. Leo liked slimer and the marshmallow man at the end. Sunday night we watched the ninja turtles. He really likes that he's "in the movie" because of Leonardo. I had to repeat the two scenes where they say just "Leo" for him while he had the biggest of grins.

      I haven't watched TNMT since I was a kid, but I was surprised just how well those turtle costumes stood up. They don't look dated or clearly fake like CG would've. Good stuff.
Previous 5 of 20 Next