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The Week #231
by James- π For the first time in what feels like forever we went to Enoshima with Sophie and she was excited to get out of the neighborhood and sniff the salty air.
When we got close to the beach she started pulling on her leash and when we finally let her off for a minute and out came the puppy zooms, great fun. Hard to believe she's 12. Leo had the time of his life getting his feet wet and running from the waves. Sunny days where we visit the beach always makes me feel grateful for my family and the life we've built together. Fitting given it was the week of Thanksgiving.Sophie at Mos Burger - πΊ I started watching The Diplomat on Netflix. Very good and recommended. Reminds me how I once considered working for the State Department when I was in college. The reason I didn't was I knew that, despite speaking Japanese, it would be unlikely I'd be put in Japan. How different life would have been...
- π¦ I've joined Bluesky. I'm not entirely sure how (if) I'll use it, but fomo strikes again. I have yet to post anything to it. That it seems to have a nice open API is interesting to me, but I can also lean on my existing Bridgy integration to quickly / easily add cross posting ability.
- π For the first time in what feels like forever we went to Enoshima with Sophie and she was excited to get out of the neighborhood and sniff the salty air.
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by Jamesπ Lunch Run
Love a blue autumn day.4.5km
30.8min
29.6m climbed
148.7avg bpm
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by JamesMorning Run
Itβs not Hyde Park, but it has its own charms.4.6km
30.1min
25m climbed
157.1avg bpm
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by JamesLunch Run
Taking it slightly easy to test the waters after a light ankle roll last week while not running. Success!4.5km
30.1min
30.2m climbed
150.7avg bpm
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The Week #230
by James- π² I rode my Brompton into work for the first time in about a month (a long gap because it was rainy or I was out of the country). It was really good. I had gotten in the habit of going to the same cafe each time I went to work, which doesn't quite live up to my original "the Brompton will enable me to explore a bit before work". Tokyo Tower is near my office, and I found a place that opens relatively soon after my train in Shinbashi arrives. So I went.
While killing some time waiting for it to turn 7:30, I rode over to Tokyo Tower. It had rained the day prior, but the skies were brilliantly blue.Tokyo Tower
While climbing the hill up to the tower, I'm not entirely sure what happened, but my foot slipped off a pedal...my foot landed on the ground, and I rolled the spiky metal pedals directly into Achilles tendon and bloodied up my leg a bit. Chocolate croissant was worth it. - π The previous incident occurring on a Friday made it so I couldn't go running on the weekend (in addition to rolling the bike into me, I also rolled my ankle slightly). Run debt + 1. Only 9 more runs required this year to hit 100, so I'm still positive on hitting my goal.
- π I want to rely on my RSS reader more when reading things online. But, and I think I mentioned this some weeks ago, it feels like my Feedly integration is flakey. Every few months it requires that I remove / add the account back to NetNewsWire for it to start picking up feeds again. Enough. I've exported my feed list and imported them directly into NetNewsWire. If I ever want to change clients, I can always export my feeds to OPML and go from there. Open standards rule.
- π§βπ³ Warm thick soups are perfect for this time of year. These kinds of soups are not something you can easily find in my neck of the woods so, I made my own. I made creme of potato soup for the first time and it turned our really well. Leo even ate it up, so I was able to sneak a bunch of veg into him to boot.
- π² I rode my Brompton into work for the first time in about a month (a long gap because it was rainy or I was out of the country). It was really good. I had gotten in the habit of going to the same cafe each time I went to work, which doesn't quite live up to my original "the Brompton will enable me to explore a bit before work". Tokyo Tower is near my office, and I found a place that opens relatively soon after my train in Shinbashi arrives. So I went.
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Checkin to Le Pain Quotidien
End of the week breakfast. π -
Checkin to IKEA Restaurant & Cafe (IKEAγ¬γΉγγ©γ³&γ«γγ§)
Rare window seat -
Checkin to Starbucks
Cold and rainy day calls for milk in my coffee. -
The Week #229
by James- π¬ I flew back to Japan. It's good to be home, to be with my family, to sleep in my bed, and to get back to familiar routines. As one would hope, everyone was excited upon my return. And everybody liked their souvenirs. Leo saw the Scratch coding book I bought him exclaimed "yattaaaaa!" (hooray) while raising his arms.Β
- πΉοΈ We made our first game using Scratch. It was a simple game where you try to get a character to jump up the screen to reach a door. Scratch is too advanced for him as it requires being able to read, but maybe this will provide some motivation.
One very cool thing I realized is with his iPad we can easily add his own drawings to his games. We can take a photo of his drawing, then in the photos app deep press the character, this will select just the drawing itself, giving us a buffer with a transparent background, which we can then and copy/paste into a new png.Jump Link featuring Dark Link
One unfortunate thing I hadn't realized about Scratch was that Apple removed the app from the AppStore. So while the webapp works for making the game, he can only play the game on a proper computer with a keyboard because it requires arrow keys. Perhaps an excuse to get an iMac to act as a family computer?! - πββοΈ I ran my first 10km in a very long time, at least for this year. It wasn't entirely on purpose but my hotel happened to be about 5km to the Eiffel tower and I didn't want to visit Paris for the first time and not at least see it. So on my final day I went on a photo run there and back. Long slow runs are the way to see a city.
Eiffel tower as seen from the Seine
The tower itself is quite impressive. On the way back along the Seine I saw a fantastic eco-houseboat as well. It had a green roof, solar panels, heatpumps...the works!Eco houseboat
Back in Japan and jetlagged, I went out for a run at 4am and unintentionally ran a personal best 5k at 3 seconds below 30 minutes. Compared with the last time I ran a 30 minute 5k back in August, it felt easier this time.
Lastly, I've now got 90 runs this year in the bag. My goal of 100 runs in a year is well within my reach.Β LFG.
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by JamesβοΈ Jet lag pb π―π΅
Up since around 1am. May as well use the time to run. Accidental PB on a 5k. Below 30 minutes proper. π5.0km
30.4min
25.4m climbed
167.7avg bpm
