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bySnow!βοΈ
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byMorning Run with Leo
Heβs been looking forward to running together all week.1.0km
14.0min
10.8m climbed
111.6avg bpm
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π A huge battery has replaced Hawaii's last coal plant
byItβs one of the first real-life examples of how to shift critical grid functions from fossil-fueled plants to clean energy plants. And eventually, the kind of grid services Kapolei has pioneered will have to scale nationwide.
Fantastic news. The faster we can turn off coal the better.- Tagged with
- climate change
- energy
- infastructure
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Checkin to Starbucks
by in Minato, Tokyo, JapanFriday morning before the office coffee. -
bySuccessfully installed a new battery and swapped the bad hard drive for an sd-card.
128GB iPod -
The Week #184
by- π IPv4 addresses are a scare resource. As more and more devices are connecting to the internet there aren't enough addresses to go around. Fly.io, the hosting platform I use for my site and sunbottle , had a bit of a kurfuffle where they started charging $2/month for dedicated ip addresses without telling their customers. As dedicated IPv4 addresses were the default for all new apps, this resulted in a bit of a surprise, especially people who had multiple apps.
Thankfully, they did the right thing and held off billing, emailed customers, and linked to a post for how to switch to a shared ip address. I migrated both of my apps to a shared ip address, so I won't be affected by their new charges. - πΆ As I mentioned in Reclaim your music collection β, I bought an iPod classic. Once I get it setup and running, I think I'm going to pare down my Apple subscriptions. Right now I'm on the Apple One which has everything, but the cost is about $40 USD / month. I got it because we needed more storage, was using AppleMusic, watching Ted Lasso and wanted to give Fitness+ try...but I haven't watched anything on AppleTV+ in about 6 months, runs using Fitness+ have been frustrating with sync / start, and I plan to reclaim my music collection. This should bring my total cost down to $10 / month (just for storage).
While the iPod arrived, the hard drive is/was toast. The listing didn't call that out but it said "think of it as junk". Bummer as I was looking forward to using it a bit before putting an sd card kit / changing the battery. The parts should arrive today, tune in next week to see how that surgery went. - ποΈ With the remove-Turbo branch merged, I'm trying to focus more on small features and tweaks to keep momentum. This week I made it so you can click on the photos on the top page and a larger version will pop up in a modal.
- π While driving back from the in-law's house, Leo dropped a marble in the car. It promptly fell between the seats where the seat belt clip sticks out. Wanting his marble, he immediately started digging for it and promptly got his arm stuck and screaming. Naturally this occurred when I was stuck at a light and not somewhere where I could turn around / off to the side. A few minutes later I was able to pull off into a neighborhood and inspect and free his arm...no damage done and I hope he won't be doing that again.
- πββοΈ One of my main motivators when I started running on/off again before Leo was born was that I wanted to be a good example. I wanted him to see his dad trying to take care of his health. Maybe, just maybe, it would rub off and he'd grow up different than I did. I thought Leo didn't like running, he said as much to his classmates when preparing for sports day earlier this year.
Imagine my surprise when, out of the blue, he said he likes running and wanted to join me(!). So I laced up and we ran 0.5km to the local park. Even that short run (with 2 short breaks) with him was a lot of fun. I hope we get to run more together in the future. My efforts seem to be paying off.Warming up with Leo
- π IPv4 addresses are a scare resource. As more and more devices are connecting to the internet there aren't enough addresses to go around. Fly.io, the hosting platform I use for my site and sunbottle , had a bit of a kurfuffle where they started charging $2/month for dedicated ip addresses without telling their customers. As dedicated IPv4 addresses were the default for all new apps, this resulted in a bit of a surprise, especially people who had multiple apps.
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byRun sans Leo
Fuji looking grand. Running without music really increases perceived effort.4.6km
30.2min
26.8m climbed
155avg bpm
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byRun with Leo
He wanted to go running with me. So we ran to the park.0.5km
4.8min
2.4m climbed
103.9avg bpm
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Looking back on 2023 and ahead to 2024
byWelcome to my year in review post...a few days into the new year. See previous editions for 2022,Β 2021, and 2020.Side Projects
I didn't start any new side projects this year.
Tanzawa
Tanzawa has been under development for about 4 years now. This year saw a large number of gaps between development of features, but I still managed to ship:- /runs page that shows the shape of every run I've made
- A photo gallery to my homepage
- Graph for showing weight over time
- Improved bookmark page design with tagging
- Added Sunbottle integration on my homepage
- Sharing posts to Mastodon via Brid.gy
- Better open graph support (so things look nicer when shared)
On December 31st, I also snuck in a PR to remove Turbo from the Tanzawa admin, a major goal for the year. There's still a lot more I'd like to do with Tanzawa and I reckon I'll continue chipping away it.
Sunbottle
Sunbottle was mostly in maintenance mode this year. It works... Sharp (thankfully) hasn't changed their HTML or Javascript so my scraper hasn't needed to be updated. The only feature I added was a comparison of the previous year's generation / consumption and a small API that I can use to fetch generation totals to display on my homepage.Health
I ran less than 2022. While the year stated strong I had a 2-week break when we went to America (I didn't feel safe running along traffic that's moving at 60 - 80kmh (40 - 50mph)) and I wasn't able to get into a groove until 6 months later. I noticed that when I frame running as a way to manage my mental health and not weight loss or such, I maintain motivation.
I had some surgery on one of my legs to fix some veins. My leg used to feel heavy when going for long walks or going up long flights of stairs...I thought this was normal / me just not having muscle or stamina. Turns out it was poor circulation. Once the doc fixed me, I now realize how much it was affecting me. I regret not doing it sooner.
Basal cell carcinoma made a reappearance after ~10 years. Thankfully I know what the early stages look like this time, so I was able to goto the dermatologist and get some cream to get it, rather than waiting faaaaaar too long such that it required surgery to extract it. Happy days.ΒFamily
Leo is in his last year of pre-school and next year he will start primary school. He's still a picky eater, but he's eating more variety of foods. He probably eats too many french fries, but we are able to go out and eat at a variety of restaurants now.
We went to visit Texas for 2 weeks in February. It was Leo's first trip to America and his first time meeting a lot of different family members. We had a lot of fun, but the trip was hard. Traveling with kids is draining. Having to drive everywhere is also draining. The expense of hotels/cars/flights and me becoming a taxi driver....I'd rather we visit places where there's public transit.Media
I went from only buying physical books to reading books on my kindle again. I'm reading more books this way. This will be my default for now and for books that I really care about, I'll also buy a physical copy. Ultra Processed People has changed how I think about food. Having a 5-almost-6 year old in the house makes it difficult to truly cut them from my diet.
I'm not a big gamer, but this year saw me and Leo play the heck out of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. We got 3 divine beasts down and 1 to go. While Leo's friends at school are into Pokemon, Leo's hooked on Zelda...it also gives us something we can chat a lot about in English.Work
Working at Kraken continues to be a blast. We're growing like crazy and literally moved offices because we couldn't all fit. For a while the conference rooms were turned into hot desks and we event had passes to a nearby co-working space as overflow.
The new office is in Roppongi. It's a major step up and fun to work out of. Though I'm still mostly remote so I can help with the boy in the mornings (and it didn't get any closer, so it's draining to go multiple days in a row).
Somehow I went from leading a team of 4 (including myself) to leading a team of 15 (including myself). We shipped so much work this year and migrated a large client to Ink. I'm really proud of what we've accomplished and looking forward to more this year.
Looking Ahead to 2024Last year was by all means, a good year. I hesitate to call these resolutions, but here's some things I'd like to change or do in the coming year:
Run 100 Times
For real this time. I can get a good month or two of running, but there's always something that creeps up. With a fixed leg and an eye towards mental health, I'd like to achieve that this year.
Take more time off work
We have unlimited time off at work. I don't use it as often as I should...which I realized after taking my first full-week off since February at the end of December. The team has grown and has enough experience that things will still get done in my absence. And I know I'll work better if I'm better rested.
Travel again
An upcoming trip for work has reminded me how much I like to travel. The past few years...we had Leo...then the pandemic...and we got out of the habit of going places we don't always go. I'd like to go explore more this year.
Embrace being a dad better
My hobbies have generally been things I do by myself or require stretches of uninterrupted time. At the same time Leo's not going to want to hang out with me forever, so I should seize the moment. I want to focus more of my attention on doing things with Leo, not always for Leo.
Be more present and embrace calm
I've known for a while how distracted smartphones make us (me). This year I want to be more present and take concrete action towards calm. This will mean carrying more dedicated devices. But each device will not have the internet. I want to go back to listening to my mp3 collection on an iPod, take photos with a point and shoot, and way finding without a gps. If I replace my iPhone this year (it's already 5 years old), it will likely be with a Galapagos phone. -
byTook a nap and made cafe misto (half coffee/half warm & foamy milk). Perfect Sunday afternoon.