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The Week #142
by James- One of the "mistakes" we made when buying our house in order to save some money, was to not get kitchen cabinets installed (everything is an "option" when buying a pre-built house). Instead we opted to re-use the cabinet we were using from our apartment and get a longer cabinet to put next to it for storage. It works and holds our dishes, but it's not enough. Because there's no storage on the walls, things tend to overflow.
I started researching getting some proper cabinets installed. So far I've mostly been looking at IKEA as the quality / pricing seems to be about right. They also have some software that will let you plan it out yourself (before visiting the stores proper). It's nothing we'll be doing in the next month or two, but perhaps later this year. - Leo's officially no longer a pink badge and in a couple of weeks he'll be a blue badge, the top class. Which also means: spring break started. We were planning to visit the aquarium a couple of weeks ago, but we didn't, so we went this week instead. It was packed. The pandemic is/was the worst, but it was nice how empty these kind of places were before.
After the aquarium we visited our favorite burger joint and then went to the beach and threw rocks into the ocean for an hour. It was a lot of fun. Also, Leo walked a lot more than he used to (though there was still plenty of time up on my shoulders โ I gotta get it in while I still can). - Japan lived up to its robotification cred abroad when I went out to dinner at the local Jonathan's. For a while now ordering at Jonathan's is done via a tablet. ( Sidebar: A tablet whose camera turns on afterwards. I always put the menu in front of it we're done to block its view, but I reckon the mics are still on.). When our food came this human sized cat robot with 4 slots rolled up to our table with our food with blue flashing lights where our food was. After we unload it, it went back to the kitchen for its next load.
There might be a robot cat delivering your food
Using this robot and tablet ordering, they probably had about half of the staff in the front of the house as they usually would. In-fact, the only time we had to interact with a human was: when they picked up dirty dishes, delivery of dessert (I reckon ice cream needs to go to tables express), and to pay. But even paying, there was a self-checkout. As an introvert, this is a change I can get behind. - Greg Jackson, the CEO of Octopus, was interviewed at SXSW. I'm happy that full interview is up on YouTube, Working at Octopus, I know what we do / how it all fits together in terms of the energy transition. But there's always bits and bobs I didn't know
For instance, on-shore wind turbines must be painted white, so they blend in with the sky and such. Octopus has a "fan-club" (because wind turbines are effectively big fans) where people who live within a certain distance from an Octopus wind-turbine can get 20 - 50% off their electric when it's windy / really windy. To communicate this locally customers that the energy is cheap, they light them up green (for a period I reckon?), which I thought was pretty clever. - Media wise - I've been listening to Get On by Anuqram, not quite on repeat, but close enough. Ted Lasso S3 (the final season) came back and it's as good as ever. I also started watching Shrinking with Jason Segel and Harrison Ford. It's written (in part) by Roy fuckin' Kent and it's brilliant.
- One of the "mistakes" we made when buying our house in order to save some money, was to not get kitchen cabinets installed (everything is an "option" when buying a pre-built house). Instead we opted to re-use the cabinet we were using from our apartment and get a longer cabinet to put next to it for storage. It works and holds our dishes, but it's not enough. Because there's no storage on the walls, things tend to overflow.
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Checkin to Katase Higashihama Beach (็็ฌๆฑๆตๆตทๆฐดๆตดๅ ด)
Watching the wind surfers do their thing. ๐๐ปโโ๏ธ -
Checkin to Dolphin Show Stadium (ใคใซใซใทใงใผในใฟใธใขใ )
Watching the dolphin show. ๐ฌ -
by JamesMaking some overnight white bread. Going to cut the dough in two and bake half in the morning and let the other half chill in the fridge a couple days and sour up a bit.
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Capturing magic
by JamesWhen I first started blogging again and then building Tanzawa (the custom CMS that powers my site) a couple years ago, I forwent adding comments. People (who knew) could comment on my blog using webmentions from their own blog, or if I was backfeeding them from a silo using brid.gy.
My thinking at the time was that people aren't going to read my blog anyways, those that do probably have their own IndieWeb blogs, and backfeeding will take care of the remainder. And I didn't want to deal with spam. I'm not sure all of that's true. ( I still don't want to deal with spam.)
I've been searching the magic that was blogging ~20 years ago. You'd write posts on your site and somehow, through the magic of the internet, people would find it and they'd leave a comment. Often their message included a link to their own site (as a field in the form, not in the comment โ that'd just be spam). And you'd visit their site and leave a comment. And before you knew it, you had a new internet buddy in who knows where. I still keep in contact with some people I met this way (though via messaging apps).
The core enabler of this magic was that there was a no-fuss way to interact directly with the author of the blog you were reading. It didn't even require an account most of the time. Communities could form on any given site because of this one feature.ย
Maybe it's time I look into adding comments on the blog. I might capture a bit of magic. -
The Week #141
by James- All around good guy Japanese astronaut andย Koichi Wakata returned from a visit to the ISS. He's now (or maybe even was prior to this as well?) the Japanese person with the most time in space. Top story of the morning news was that he was coming back...but the evening news didn't seem to cover that he made it back safely? That seems like like it would still warrant top story in the evening...or at least a mention somewhere in the top 10? Nada.
- When we visited New York in 2016, we saw Matilda at the Shubert Theatre. Since then, I wanted to watch it one more time. On the train this week I saw adverts for Matilda...odd...and it turns out they performing it as well! In Tokyo it seems to only be for a couple of months. We bought tickets for early April.
I've shown Leo both the English version of "Naughty" and the Japanese version. He loves them. Both songs are great and an anthem to live by: If something's not right, sometimes you gotta put it right. - In employer related news this week, Octopus Energy announced โฌ1 Billion Investment in French Green Energy Market and New European Tech Hub in Paris. Nothing to do with me, but I do love working for a company that's driving actual change in the energy system. Something's not right (burning dinosaur juice causing climate change) and we're trying to put it right (electrify all the things with wind, solar, and storage).
- On Sunday we had a small birthday celebration for baaba and my nephew who's birthdays are both in March. We got to re-use some of the Mario themed birthday goods we brought back from America, which was a hit with the kids.
- Myย back / leg are almost back to normal. I reckon another visit or two and I'll be as good as new. You really don't appreciate not hurting with most steps until you've been having a slight pain with every step for a month.
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by JamesI feel like I've been a bit distant from the IndieWeb community lately (since I got back from Houston?). I should be reading more books, writing more blogs, and tweaking my website. Life happens and I reckon I'll be more active again in another few weeks.
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Checkin to ๅ่ฎๅฑ ๆนๅๅฐๅบ
When you buy beans they also give you a small cup. ๐ -
The Week #140
by James- Spring is on its way and it couldn't have come soon enough. Especially after getting so many warm mid-20's days in Texas. My inner-Dutchman is be proud that the tulips we planted are coming up. They're my favorite and for 3 years in a row I said "I'll plant some next year" and thanks to Yumi, we actually did. I'm looking forward to seeing them bloom.
- Leo came home from school on Tuesday early with a small fever and not feeling so well. Naturally when I go to pick him up, he's fine and bouncing around. He wasn't sick, but with spring in the air, he has allergies now. The next day we took him to the doctor and they confirmed this and gave us some allergy meds/eyedrops for Leo to drink twice a day.
- While back from school, he played a bit more switch than usual. He somehow discovered the e-store and downloaded the demo of Kirby. I haven't played much Kirby in my time, but it's a lot of fun. It also supports two-player mode, so we can play cooperatively. I wish more games had a cooperative story mode (I used to play Quake-2 pretty often in cooperative mode back in the day).
- With Spring means the end of school year and the start of a new. Next year Leo will be in his final year of pre-school, which means it's time to start preparing for a year from now: elementary school.
We went and looked at randoseru, the traditional Japanese leather backpack that kids use throughout elementary school. It used to be there was only two colors: black and red. Now days there's heaps of colors, though mostly for girls. I wish I could find it to link to it, but there's an episode of Japanology Plus about school satchels that goes into the history and how they're made and is really interesting.
Why are we looking now, a year before he needs it? Basically they're all handmade and you need to order it about a year in advance. They're also quite expensive. The bags we were looking at ranged from $500 - $1,000 dollars.The $1,000 backpack. One day I hope I'm adult enough to use something this nice.
We decided to buy from was Tsuchiya Randoseru in Kamakura, where Leo's cousin bought from, so we know it's a quality product. We decided on one of the less-expensive ones in a nice olivey-green that looks great on Leo. Thankfully it's one of the few options remaining for boys ๐. - On Monday had a bit of a meltdown before going to pre-school. We have a car, but try to use it as little as possible. It's a 7 minute walk / 3 minute bike ride to his school and he refused to sit on his seat my bike and instead take the car. I told him no, the weather is nice are taking the bike or we could walk. He had a meltdown and in the end I carried him while he's crying and screaming the entire way to school.
He's 5 years old now, this isn't acceptable behavior, so he lost his switch privledges for the night. Which he didn't realize until he got home from school where he promptly had another meltdown for 30 minutes.ย
There's a number of behavioral changes I'd like to address with Leo and habits I'd like him to form. Getting upset / fighting about them isn't fun and isn't solving them. You catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.
I'm thinking about creating a chart with various changes / things that Leo needs to do. e.g. go to school without fighting / having a meltdown, putting his bento box in the kitchen when he gets home from school, going to swimming with a smile (he's not a fan of the current teacher), trying to eat new foods, quitting the switch when his time is up etc...
Each time he does the desired change he gets a gold star to stick on the chart. When he collects enough stars total he gets Kirby. And to maintain access to Kirby, he will need continue those practices. My hope is that they'll become habit along the way and life becomes less stressful. - Recommended podcast this week is The Beanpod Podcast. It's life updates from @tbeanpod on twitter (and @tbeanpod@famichiki.jp, but he doesn't seem to post there ๐ญ mastodon needs his Ishikawa vibes). He often includes a song he wrote himself and sings them while playing guitar. A great listen while walking the dog.
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Checkin to Verve Coffee Roasters
Coffee and some cake. ๐
