• 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 🥰), I've only paid ¥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.
  

  

• 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 as  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.

• Last week I wrote about starting by walking instead of running. It worked. I closed all of my  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.

• 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 😫. 
  
  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). 
  
  I can already regularly close the 30 minutes exercise ring because of taking Sophie for a walk and using my bike  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. 
  
  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. 
  
  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.

Steve Roberts may well have been the original digital nomad. Learn more about him and his fascinating computerized bicycles here...

I have a sudden urge to build a winnebiko. So cool.

 

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