• The Week #269

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    • 🕹️ An hour a day and we've almost beat Mario Odyssey. It's turning out to be a much easier game than Mario 64, Sunshine, or Galaxy. Maybe it's because we can play 2 players (with me as Cappy (Mario's hat)) and that extra bit of help makes the bosses a bit easier? Or maybe the game is a bit easier than the others? 
    • 🫛 It hit #1 on the AppStore, so this isn't a hidden gem of an app, but Focus Friend is faantastic. It's a timer to help you focus by having a little bean that knits socks while you focus. If you use your phone while he's knitting he loses all of his work and looks really sad. But if you let him finish, you get socks, which you can exchange for decorations for his room. It's free and there are not any ads in the app. I will probably subscribe to it to support it so that it doesn't get ads.
    • 🏠 It feels like a new season (of life, not weather – summer isn't going anywhere 😩) is rapidly approaching. I'm starting to think that next time this year, we might not be in Izumi. As a physical structure, our house is fine and it has been great for these early years of Leo's life, but I'm not certain it matches me. I'm not a handy person nor am I interested in becoming one. I'd much rather pay a fee and let someone else think about and manage these things.

      More than the structure, I think it's just the location. Our focus when we bought this place was, we want a bit more space, being close to a primary school, and not being too far away from the in-laws so they could help while Leo was little. We nailed all of those, but it was the wrong optimization. Or at least it feels it now. Being somewhere closer to things, somewhere I could at least walk to a coffee shop when I need to get out of the house. Or be able to take out the trash whenever. A bit of actual convenience.

      They say (at least in the US) people typically own a home for 8 years, and we're on 6.

  • The Week #268

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    • 📝 We made a deal with Leo to motivate him to come back from behind and get his summer homework done. Once he finished it all, he could get a new game at Nojima (using the points I got from replacing the AC). After a brief period of just wanting to get the game now (nice try, kid!) the carrot worked. He finished all of his homework over the next few days and on Saturday we went to get a new game.
    • 🕹️ Watching kids try to decide which game to get at the shop gave me joy. No matter the game he picks, it's gonna be a good one. But to be in that position, lucky boy. Leo went with Super Mario Odyssey. The game is a lot of fun. In this game Mario's hat is actually a ghost name Cappy. 2 player mode lets the second player control  Cappy, which is a lot of fun.
    • 🏃 I went for a 5am run club run this week. My first run in 3 months. It felt good to just go and really potter about listening to Roderick on the Line (Want other things) . I will endeavour to start making it out on a regular basis again. Doubt I'll hit 100 runs this year, but we'll see how we go. There's 19 weeks remaining in the year and 75 runs to meet that mark. Very low probability.
    • 🗣️ I've now listen to my second episode of Unpacking Japan, so I reckon that makes me a regular. This time it was with economist Jesper Koll and the bullish case for Japan and it has me convinced. Fascinating listening. Some interesting factoids like rather than stay in elite jobs at the Ministry of Finance or elsewhere, the younger generation are quitting and starting companies. Average age of inheritance in Japan is 62. Give it a listen (or a watch).

  • The Week #267

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    • ☔️ It rained for the first time in at least a month and with that the temperatures dropped for a few days. It was actually pleasant outside around 6am. Unfortunately it seems like the heat is back on schedule for the coming weeks.
    • 💨 The air conditioner in my office decided to go kaput mid-workday. Thankfully it was on a Friday, but still not ideal. I think it failed because I (purposely) left it on to help regulate the temp in my office (where my home server and storage live) while we were in London. Nothing extreme either, keep the temp at 28c. I think just being on for that length of time is what did it in.

      Costs to repair ranged from "That makes sense" to "May as well just buy a new one", so rather than pay for someone to come out just to say "actually, I'm just going to replace it" (sunk cost fallacy perhaps?), I went to the local big-box electronics store and bought a new one. This time I went with Daikin a) they're the best, b) a buddy works there, c) it cost, after installation, what I was expecting. As the temp as dropped, I haven't really been able to test it out test it out yet, but the app to control it remotely is super responsive (and in English! A rarity for domestic appliances).
    • 💰 Interactive Brokers started offering NISA (retirement) accounts where, as a US-person, it looks like I'd be able to save in a tax advantaged way for retirement, rather than my paying taxes as I go route... (at least in the growth part, tsumitate remains off limits because mutual funds are PFIC).  I am probably unreasonably excited about this.

      👆 This prompted me to start thinking about budgeting and conscious spending plans and it's been quite cathartic (especially after having a major appliance fail immediately after a trip to one of the most expensive cities in the world (💸💸)). Re-thinking where money flows each month, how it could serve me and my current priorities better and how I can re-deploy existing capital to better prepare for the future is really helpful. I should do these reviews more than once every 5 years 😬.
    • 📺 I watched most of Ramit Sethi's How to get Rich (Rich in the sense of living a rich life, not in the sense of money, though financial stability is often core to that). Having read his book years ago the general advise (automate monthly savings (so it happens consistently) into tax-advantaged accounts at a low-cost provider like Vanguard and buy index funds and forget about it) is old hat to me, it's good reminders and it's fun to follow along as people sort their financial house to help them reach their goals. You can't help but root for them.

  • The Week #266

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    • 🦁 We went and saw The Lion King show at Lyceum theatre. It was fantastic. The opening where they sing the Circle of Life was just...wow. Well worth the price of admission.
    • 🍻 I can't visit the UK without a visit to the pub. This time was no different, except it was a day-time visit with the family for a meal. We had the usual pub-fare fish & chips, pies and mash, and some draft cider / beer. Leo had a burger and fries. I had a brief moment of dread when I saw his bun had poppy and sesame seeds on it, but he didn't have a meltdown or even say anything and just ate it. A first. He also dipped his chips in mayo – another first.
    • 🌳 Everyday this week we went to a different park for Leo to play for an hour. The quality of the parks and the playground equipment is super impressive. Yes, it is probably the best of the best as it's central London, but I feel like playgrounds in Japan don't compete. Compacted dirt, few trees, and perhaps a swings/slide vs Shade trees, bark/proper beachy sand/other soft materials, and various kinds of things to climb and play on.
    • 🛬 The flight back was smooth as could be and I quite enjoyed flying with British Airways. Although we arrived 2-hours before our flight, family checkin was delayed so we had  to rush to the gate. I was hoping for 15 - 20 minutes to check out duty-free or perhaps enjoy a coffee, but alas.
      Our flight path back to Japan

      I managed to watch a couple of films, both of which I enjoyed / recommend (A Man called Otto with Tom Hanks and BeatleJuice BeatleJuice (2024)).
    • 🏁 A few finishing remarks on the trip. Not having a strict schedule so we just could go and enjoy parks was definitely the right decision. Leo's listening and speaking improved. I'd ask him to listen for the station where we were heading to tell us when to get off and he did it. On the flight out he was so shy when he asked for apple juice the cabin attendant couldn't hear him, but on the way back, he ordered without hesitation. All in all, a successful trip and I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

  • The Week #265

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    • 🇬🇧 We escaped the summer heat in Japan and went on holiday in London. It's fantastic – exactly as you'd expect summer in London to be. The highs are lower than the lows in Japan. I'm loving it. As is the family.
    • 🛝 Taking advantage of being able to exist outside past 8am we've been visiting all the parks and playgrounds. The Diana Memorial Playground was a real treat with its pirate ship in the middle. Leo had been looking forward to visiting it for months and I'm glad he could. He climbed up to the crow's nest and made it down again. He's slowly learning to be more assertive on the playground.

      While he's playing at the park he's starting to pick up more English from the kids. Afterwards he'll start mimicking them "Oh my goodness".
    •  🦍 We visited the London Zoo. We took the tube to Baker street and then the bus to get the rest of the way. This is my fourth time to London and my first time riding the bus. We got to ride up top in the very front.

      Meaning while at the zoo, the gorillas were my favorite, especially the baby. Both the lions and the tigers were taking their morning naps when we walked past, though perhaps that's expected as cats do sleep a lot.
    • 🧬 We visited the science museum. The permanent exhibitions at the museum weren't enough to capture Leo's attention and he complained a lot. Which is a shame as I wanted to read about the different engines and such.
      Zelda 64

      The visit seemed like a total failure until at the very back we saw Power Up, which had 50 years of gaming history, full of consoles you could play. Everything from Atari 2600's through to the Switch 2. That worked out swimmingly as Leo had said that morning during breakfast how he wants to touch a Switch 2 (and I had zero idea about the gaming exhibition at the science museum). We played the new Mario Kart, various generations of Smash Brothers, Zelda 64, Crazy Taxi and more. Well worth the price of admission. Now I'm tempted to pick up a Dreamcast on Mercari or something...

  • The Week #264

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    • 🌊 Monday was Marine Day, where I celebrated by not going anywhere near the ocean because it's 34 degrees and as humid as it can be. Thankfully a break (for me (sorry not sorry y'all)) is coming quite soon. I wonder, is it actually that much cooler in Karuizawa? One way I'll have to go and see.
    • 🇯🇵 There was an upper house election at a fringe rightwing party picked up a number of seats. I won't repeat the news, but they're a party that got their start via social media (YouTube and TikTok mainly?), which means they're targeting low-information voters and outrage. I am very much not a fan of their anti-foreigner talk. Especially that bit where if they had their way they'd strip purchased property from foreigners. Apologists claim they're only talking about Chinese or such, but that's how it always starts. I hope this trend does not continue. And thankfully I didn't see any supporter signs plastered on people's houses nearby.
    • 🕹️ Getting ready for a long flight with kids, the thing I worry about the most, besides making it to the gate on time, is keeping Leo from having a melt down about 7 hours in. We've downloaded some shows on to his iPad and the Switch is fully charged. The new entrant is that USB SNES controller I bought 8 years ago and thought didn't work on my M2 Macbook. Turns out does work and now we've got a nice catalogue of games to keep us entertained and I get to relive my childhood playing classics like Boogerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure.

  • The Week #263

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    • 5️⃣ I missed it a few weeks back, but I hit 5 years of The Week without missing a week! Half a decade! 
    • ✏️ I received my Supernote Manta and I am in love 😍. It's hard to describe just how good and freeing digital paper is. No longer do I need to carry multiple notebooks with me. No longer do I have to decide to have a single type of paper in a given notebook.Write a note, two-finger circle it, new task managed in a central location. Flub a note, two finger on the sidebar circle to delete.

      I'm not sure exactly how my work notes will "end up" organizationally , but for starters I'm keeping it simple. Mostly I'm just separating  them out by product / person with an index page that lets me quickly jump between them. I haven't used the linking function much, but I've only had it for 1 work-day.

      For my personal notes, I've started doing Morning Pages. Each morning you sit and handwrite 3-pages of whatever is on your mind. Rather than having stray thoughts pinging around in my noggin, I can write them down. Then it's much easier for me to either action them, add a task to track it, or just get it out of my system. Working through why I am thinking certain things has been helpful. Do I need an e-ink tablet to do any of this? No. Does it lower the barrier to entry to nothing, yes. Starting a brand new notebook just for morning pages is a hurdle when you aren't sure you will continue while starting a new file is easy and free.
    • 💔 It's been a month since the Air India 171 accident and the preliminary report was released. The plane was operating exactly as it was meant until someone in the cockpit manually turned off the fuel to the engines. 10-seconds later (presumably by the other person) fuel was turned back on and the engines starting spinning up, but it wasn't high enough to have enough time to recover.

      It's tragic. If it were a mechanical failure there's at least a logical reason for the failure. But this? You don't want to accept it. Mental health is so important. We've got to check in with the people in our lives – not just a surface "how are you doing?", but "how are you really doing?".  And have the courage to model and be vulnerable and let them know that things aren't good when they aren't.  I'm fortunate that my work places a lot of effort to encourage us to take care of ourselves (physically and mentally), even having entire weeks dedicated to mental health. It's helped me tremendously this past month.
    • 🍔 A friend from uni I hadn't seen in years called me out of the blue and we went out for dinner and a coffee. It was a lot of fun. It's good for the soul to meet up with friends. I should do it more often.

  • The Week #262

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    • ✏️ I said I was falling down the e-ink tablet rabbit hole, let me elaborate. It's a fact that I work better when I write things down consistently. Spending time in a distraction free zone helps me think and focus better. Writing with my hand makes things stick a way typing doesn't. And I'd like to organize my thoughts/notes by more than chronological time.

      I feel I would benefit from writing things down outside of work as well. One thing that's stopping me is my notebook is mostly work, so mixing the two seems (is) very sub-optimal. The cheaper answer is "buy a second notebook", which is true, but then I need to carry two notebooks with me.

      While I was initially looking at a Remarkable 2 (and then the Paper Pro for color), I settled on a Supernote Manta.Why? The device is repairable – you can replace the battery, motherboard, and add storage. Notes are/can be made searchable. You can link between pages/note files. Lastly, the company behind it seems like they really care about their users. Oh, and they include a Kindle reader, so I'll be able read my books on it as well.

      There's even some Python repos that can like sueprnote-tool that let you convert .note files (supernotes's file format) to png/pdf/svg or extract text etc..which is very cool and expands the possibilities.
    • 🎶 This likely speaks to the my vintage, but Rip Slyme and M-Flo were on Music Day and it was fantastic. I don't listen to Japanese music much these days, but they're always in rotation..
    • 🌎 Al Gore gave a talk at TED called Why Climate Action is Unstoppable and "Climate Realism" is a Myth and boy was it good. The rate that China is deploying renewables and green tech is astounding. They installed 45GW of new solar power in one month, which is the same amount of power as 45 nuclear. Absolutely incredible. It would be great if all countries could deploy at such a pace.

  • The Week #261

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    • 🦃 I strolled a in a long park area in downtown Yokohama and to my surprise there was this guy walking chickens and a turkey. What's more is that after their walk along the river, he corralled them into a doggie-stroller, with the turkey perched on the handle. And he spoke to them like they were dogs and they listened. The entire time I thought where on earth do these birds live, there's nothing but high rises around here. I could have asked, but instead decided to enjoy the mystery.
    • 🫐 I watched the BlackBerry movie and really enjoyed it. It made me (again) a bit nostalgic for a time when life wasn't ruled by a rectangular glass handheld. And I'm not the only one. Gen-Z is also wants a BlackBerry.
    • 🏫 We went to see where one of the international schools we are considering is located. Not that a map isn't sufficient, but is a commute to it realistic. In this case, I think it is (primarily as it's on the way to my office). It might mean me commuting into the office everyday, which would be an adjustment, but as there's good reason, not unwelcome. I reckon it would also require a more structured morning routine on my part, but again, sometimes a forcing function is good.

  • The Week #260

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    • 🎮 We went to a trial lesson? demo? of an "eSports" after-school program that's based around Minecraft. Basically for an hour each week kids gather and (along with the teacher) plan what they're going to build, present it, build it and so on. There's also opportunity for group work where they have a vision of what to build and figure out how to divide the work and build. I can see it teaching a lot of useful skills. We're not going to join, but the idea itself was pretty neat.
    • ☀️ It's allegedly the middle of the rainy season in Kanto. And yet, last week it was bright blue skies and 35 degrees out. Each year I remember how miserable summer is because you can't go out and do anything. I need to find more hobbies around the house that aren't sitting in front of a screen....
    • ⛰️ I started on a new branch on Tanzawa over the weekend. For what? Comments. I'd like to have experiment with having comments directly on my blog, rather than relying on replies from social media or webmentions. No idea when it will be ready, but hopefully not too long as I'm using a django package that does commenting. Watch this space.
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