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The Week #324
by James- πΊοΈ My maps have broken on my site and I need to fix them. Truth is, it didn't just happen this week. But blockage was inconsistent enough where I wasn't sure if it was actually broken or a transient error. The mapping code hasn't changed in years, so will be a good one for me to dive into and upgrade while I'm there.Β
- βοΈ A typhoon came and went. It skirted along Tokyo and dumped 2.5x the usual monthly totals of rain in 24 hours. While we were fine, this amount of rain isn't normal. Naturally it comes during a 3-day string of public holidays.
- π Using ground meat to make sausage has been a new thing of mine (Doing something 3x makes it a thing). This kicked off by wanting American-style breakfast sausage patties and a) not being able to find them locally, no matter the shape, and b) wanting to lower the amount of processed meats in our diets. Using ground meat + seasonings, you know exactly what's in it and it's quick to make/store.
While we were stuck inside, I realized also I had all of the ingredients for Italian sausage (fennel, sage, oregano, garlic and friends) as well. So this batch of sausage got split in two. I immediately put the Italian sausages on a pizza and :chef-kiss:. I foresee me buying larger packages of ground meat to experiment more and freeze. - π§βπ» I spent some time cleaning up a maintenace PR for Tanzawa. It's getting close to being ready as I clean up the commits left over from OpenCode. I'd like to hurry up and get it in so I can point the robots at my maps. But also quality must be maintained.
- πΆ As much as I want to dunk on it, the freakin' algorithm delivered again (though as background music to a video) β Olivia Dean. I especially like her song "Nice to Each Other" (Apple Music, YouTube).Β
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The Week #323
by James- π‘οΈ I was very wrong to guess we had another month left in Tears of the Kingdom. We had a few more days. Which is to say, we beat Tears of the Kingdom after 2.5 years! When Leo first beat Ganon, he/we went in with a "this is just practice" mindset, and yet he kicked his butt. Such a good game.
- βοΈ Lining up with the 40th anniversary of Zelda, Nintendo has announced dates for and released gameplay footage of a Zelda themed Switch 2 and a remake of Ocarina of Time. I have never been more tempted to pick up a Switch 2.
- π This is a Nintendo heavy week. When we saw Super Mario Galaxy movie they gave you a collectable playing card and another card with a QR code to enter a contest. I completely forgot I entered it, but received notification this week that we won! Sometime early next month a question block cushion and Yoshi blanket should arrive π.
- π€ Leo spent a couple days back from school sick. He hasn't been sick for probably 6 months. Between school closing for rain and this, he only went to school twice last week.
- π I finished reading Crafting Engineering Strategy. I'll need to re-read parts of it as I go apply what I learned, but it's given me a lot of food for though for how I can approach my work in a different way. Next up I've started on Essentialism, a book I heard a lot about when it first came out, wanted to read, but never did.
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Checkin to Starbucks
Coffee and a pumpkin scone -
The Week #322
by James- π‘οΈ After a couple of years, but we finally got the master sword in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. I think we've still got another month or so in the game.Β
- π Always thinking how can we foster a love of reading, I don't know why it took me so long to realize I should embrace Leo's current boom and get books about that. Embracing the Zelda boom, I picked up an Ocarina of Time manga. And he's already finished it just 2 days. My next task will be to figure out how I can transition from comics to actual books.
- π We went to a friend's house for lunch and they made us some Sri Lankan roasted chicken and potatoes, it was soo good. I really need to visit Sri Lanka.
- βοΈ While we were at our friend's house we got notice from the school that due to the expected level 5 rain school would be closed on Monday.Β It rained a lot overnight, but not too much out of the ordinary. And on Monday itself. just light rain. I appreciate the caution, but also working while the boy is stuck indoors has its challenges.
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The Week #321
by James- π« As we're reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory before bed, I tried to see if Leo would watch the original and to my surprise, he watched all of it! He's a huge fan of the oompa loompas. As we're still reading the book, he's remembering the dialogue from the movie and repeating it.
- π We had the first states of autumn in Kanto over the weekend with a low of 20 degrees. It felt fantastic and, despite me not drinking pumpkin spice lattes, I found myself wanting a pumpkin spiceΒ latte. It's meant to cool down Friday this week, but I doubt it's for good.
- π« School is back in session. While it is nice to get back to routine, that routine also brings with it routine challenges. I know it's summer camp school vs regular school, so it's not fair comparison, buuut when he got home from school this summer he'd blurt out and tell us what he learned i.e. he was excited and having fun, while at his regular school even if you ask him what he learned he doesn't remember. Something must change.
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The Week #320
by James- β½οΈ Ted Lasso is back on (π). I'm very glad it's been renewed and given he's coaching the women's team in Richmond, it opens an entire new storyline. The first 3 episodes have been fantastic.
- π We had one of Leo's classmates and family over pizza and it was a success. It was nice to be able to talk with other foreign parents about school, raising families in Japan and the like. I also have a sudden unexplained urge to visit Sri Lanka. Maybe a good use for the miles I've been accumulating.
- 𧽠The dishwasher broke. During the dry cycle it just made some beeps and started flashing. As it broke on the weekend I had to wait for the manufactuer to open so I could call to get someone to repair it. I was expecting to have to do all my dishes by hand for a week, but they were able to come out and fix it same day. There was a leak somewhere in it that had been going for a while, so replacing a part fixed it up. They're meant to last 10 years, so hopefully this repair gets it another 3 to actually reach the target lifespan.
The repair man was fairly soft spoken. As we were finishing up, I got semi-nihongo jouzued, but it was in the context of when he saw my name and called he was nervous because...would he be able to communicate. And that I could communicate and communicate well, he was relieved. Recently he's been doing a lot of repairs for Chinese customers and that's been difficult.
Yay for me, but also,Β I can't help but wonder if experiences like his bubble up and is one of the drivers behind the surge with the far right in Japan and the increasingly strict requirements for permanent residency. (No idea where he stands on all of it, it wasn't a political conversation and just something he said in passing.)
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π They're Made out of Meat
by JamesRather than say something was/was not written by AI, should we instead say it was "made by meat π". I kinda like it... -
The Week #319
by James- π€ Jet lag coming back was brutal. Waking up at 2am after 5 hours sleep feeling fully rested is great...until about 3pm. Fully covered now though.
- πͺ Since Leo went to the British Museum and saw the ancient Egyptian artifacts, he's been on a bit of (his first!) history kick. To encourage this wider range of thinking, we found that a museum with high quality replicas in Yokohama called Mystery of Tutankhamen and made a visit. It was pretty cool. While looking about I also learned that Leo knows how to make a mummy/how you remove the braaaaiiins.
- π I finished reading Team: Getting Things Done with Others, a book co-authored by David Allen (of GTD) about applying GTD to teams (makes sense, right?). If you're a fan of GTD and work on a team, I recommend giving it a read.
- π€ Being a paying member of Kagi (it's great, you should subscribe to your search engine and such), I'm trying to use more of it. As of late, I am getting into(?)Β Assistant. Essentially it's an AI chat interface, but I can group them into chats if I want to save them longer than 24 hours. This is proving handy as I research various topics (as one does). Aaaand I just found out there's a kid mode, I may be upgrading to a Family Plan soon.
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