* 🇦🇺 They do not lie that the coffee is a thing in Melb. A local let me that I should try a "Magic" coffee, a Melbourne / some places in Sydney coffee. It is a double ristretto served in a 5-6 oz cup, topped with steamed milk. A coffee with milk where you can taste coffee. They're great. View from the office Happy/sad I flew back from MEL via SIN on Thursday. I look forward to visiting Aus again. Hopefully next time it's for more than 3.5 days. * 🛹 We went to the Sky Hiroba in Yamato, a public skatepark. It's much much smaller than our usual park in Enoshima, but also it's much closer and most importantly free (entry _and_ parking). Leo rode the box (while holding my hand) and up a bit on the quarter pipe. This park will be a better place to practice by yourself as it's much lower traffic. * ⚫️ I took part in a couple of Black Friday sales, my first time. One was moving from a monthly subscription to a lifetime subscription to Plex (media server software so I have my own Netflix) and the other was an entry-level espresso machine. I've probably opened a rabbit hole with the last one, but I'm looking forward to trying to make a Magic at home (but not on day one).

* 🇦🇺 I traveled to south of the equator for the first time to Melbourne. It seems like a pretty great city – though the lack of a train from the airport to the central business district is a shame. Having your (my) introduction to the city be taking an Uber along a massive highway to some massive 7 lane roads really reminded me of being in Houston more than London. Living in Japan and mostly visiting places with excellent public transit, going to a car centric city is always a shock to the system. The trams do exist, but the barrier to riding them as a visitor is quite high. They're free within the central business district, but if you leave then you need to pay using a transit card. Which you'd then need to charge or something. They're in the process is upgrading so you can use a credit card / your phone, but it's not there / everywhere yet. Food and Coffee has been great though. I am looking forward to drinking as much coffee as I can while I'm about. * 🦘 I have yet to see any kangaroos. * 🎧 I charged up /synced my iPod Classic and so glad I did. Traveling with your entire library on a device that works without internet access is so good. On the plane listening to Green Day's Dookie album reminded me that I did the same exact thing as a kid flying between California and Colorado. Except the only album I had with me was Dookie and it was a (not Sony) Walkman. I must have listened to it 3 times in a row. The opening of the album remains my favorite of all time.

Brb. Popping to Melbourne via Singapore. 🇦🇺

* 🛹 We made another trip to the skate park. This time Leo had an intro to skating class. They went over the basics like the parts of the skateboard, identifying the tail vs the nose, and riding and pushing. Leo's riding stance is much cleaner now that he had an authority (not me) tell him how to ride it. My skateboard with Enoshima While Leo was taking his class, I rode around the park. I taught myself how to ride up the quarter pipe, turn around, and come back down. Being able to ride on the ramps a bit unlocked the real fun of the skatepark. Growing up skating it was always street and shit ollies at best, so I finally get the real fun of skating. New life achievement unlocked 🎉! The middle-aged skate/surfer guys looked like they were having the time of their life shredding the pool. My new goal in life is to be able to shred it in the pool with them. The pool I intend to shred * 🎓 We visited another local international school. It was nice and offered the education that I'd like Leo to get. Try as I might, I cannot quite figure out how getting there and back 5 days a week would actually work. Maybe it's something we can consider again after things settle down a bit. But it is good to have at least done the research and visited the schools so we know what they're about. * 💈 I went with Leo to get haircuts in the evening (which is the time to go, zero waiting). I went first and had an uneventful cut and shave. After I finish I look over at Leo as he's now getting his haircut, and he's laid back in the chair getting a shave! I wish I had taken a picture. They don't usually give 7 year olds a shave, but he knows his barber and he asked for one.

* 🛹 Leo and I skated both days on the weekend. And for 5 minutes after school on Monday. While he is frustrated that he can't ollie yet, he is getting better control over the board. I expect he'll smoke me at skating in a month or two time. Still the dream of riding a half-pipe together persists. Unfortunately it rained on Sunday, so his skate class was cancelled. * 👀 Last week when we went to the beach the wind blew some sand into my eye. Usually you wash it and at most the next morning at the latest you're better. It wasn't the case for me this week. My eye felt like it was getting a bit better each day until it didn't and, being American, I am (still) not in the habit of _just_ going to the doctor. I went. And it turned out there was a tiny piece of plastic or something hooked itself into my eye. 30 seconds with some anesthetic eye drops and scraping of my eyeball the doc got it released. Instantly my eye felt better. Microplastics, the gift that keep on giving. * 🥔 Since teaching Leo how to make instant mash potatoes and him writing down his recipe, I feel like he's gained a super power. When he's hungry and or has a craving, he just gets on with it and makes them. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

* 🏖️ We had the first of long weekends in November. Despite it cooling down, we decided to visit the beach with Sophie, the popup tent and some coffee. I've resolved to get some decent pegs that can hold in not just grass at the park as the thing nearly blew over (but it still provided shelter). Coffee with Fuji * 🛹 While at the beach we had the idea of walking down to the skate shop directly connected to skate park. I had been thinking off-and-on for about a year about getting back into either skating and or blading, so I was quite keen see what the selection was like. Part of the selection Absolutely massive selection of decks and trucks. Larger than any of the skate shops I visited as a kid. Leo had mentioned wanting to get a skateboard a couple of times and I am keen to find another physical activity we can do together. I also think learning to skate will be good for building one's frustration tolerance up. And that it's a sport that has a large degree of freedom will be good for him (unlike, say, baseball). Which is to say, we got Leo a complete (early Christmas present) and paid for entry into the skatepark. Watching the kids (and adults!) shred it on the pipes and ramps was really great. So great that we went back the next day and I bought got a complete for me and we skated for 3 hours. I now have a new life goal to ride the pipe next to the ocean. ( Also what a fantastic place to learn to skate. And the fact that skate parks exist today generally. And to have parents that will take you to the skate park. What a lucky kid.) Flat area of the park * 🎧 The only unfortunate happening of the week was that while we were at the beach Yumi's AirPods left the case somewhere. We had a bit of hope because they showed up on FindMy 2 days in a row, and despite our best efforts looking for them, we could not find them. It will cost almost as much as a new pair to get replacement buds... maybe it's worth getting wired headphones...

* 📚 We made a visit to our local Yokohama city library and I think I want to make it part of our weekly routine. There is a English books corner in the kids section which is nice (though I think we'll read them it in no time). It's amazing the transformation of people by place, incuding boyo. While he didn't suddenly sit down and start reading heaps of books, his mind seemed to open up towards reading. In some ways, we're clones of each other, me and Leo. In others he's entirely different. I was always stuck in books, organized a library in my room, and read the most number of books in my class at his age. * 🐉 One of the reasons why this could be is the _format_ of a physical book. When you're struggling reading a book it can be quite discouraging. Turning each page you see how little progress you're making. Realizing this I experimented by putting the Kindle app (where we had a Dragon Ball manga sample) on his iPad and Leo sat down and read the entire 33 pages. Success! Building on this, I've taken an ancient iPad Mini that's been sitting around discharged and loading some manga into the Books app. This will become Leo's e-reader for now and I hope it will enable him to enjoy reading more. I also started loading kids books on to my Kindle so we can read them at night before bed. Surprisingly, it's the first time he's actually listened to chapter books in English when I've tried to read them. I _think_ it's the format. We shall see if a new routine and an easier way to read without the discouraging affordances get him over the reader hump. Captain Underpants

* 🏃‍♂️ We had sports day this week and Leo's school. Similar to last year he had a dance and a race. The weather played along where it wasn't super hot, which was nice as well. I took this opportunity to pull out my actual camera and, like every time I stop carrying it for whatever reason, I was reminded how much better the photos look from it than from any cellphone. * 🛝 We went to Chigasaki Satoyama Park, a favorite huge park that's only accessible by bus/car. It's been far too long since we went out to large park (i.e. has grass) with our sunshade and junk hung out for 4 hours. Now that it's cooler, we plan to visit more of the big parks around Kanagawa. Big skies Fresh off of the sports day the previous day, I brought my actual camera. I tried fiddling with the settings to take a shot when Leo was bouncing on the giant white bouncy thing that showed the motion and I was quasi-successful. I versions of him being nothing but a blur, but the best one has Leo jumping with his arms a blur and his face not blurred. It would have been better if he was at the very top of the bouncy bit so there was a distinct gap between bounce and the blur. * 📺 I started watching Only Murders in the Building and I think it will hook me. Steven Martin and Marty Short – you can't go wrong. They've been a favorite of mine since Three Amigos.

A Northern California aquarium has raised more than $2 million for sea otter conservation in just two days. All it took was Taylor Swift wearing a vintage T-shirt.

* 🧚 The tooth fairy made another visit to our house. Finally. This last tooth has been hanging on by a thread for (what feels like) weeks. With 4 front teeth missing, now is the time to make sure I get extra photos of that smile. * 🌽 Japan has a unique scheme called "hometown tax". Most people in Japan, regardless of where they're born, end up in one of the big cities because that's where the jobs are. This shift in population is making it difficult for rural municipalities to function without a tax base. Hometown tax lets you redirect a portion of your resident tax to any municipality in the country and the receiving municipality sends you a "thank you gift" in return. There's entire shopping sites setup for this – even Amazon runs one. For years I've meant to do it, but find myself on December 31st in analysis paralysis and miss the deadline. Finally, this week I took part. By supporting a few different towns around the country I am getting in return a year's supply of tissue, toilet paper, and a monthly delivery of seasonal veg. * 💩 I started reading Enshitification and am finding myself nodding along. It really does explain the shift in computing from being useful utilities to always seeming to get worse. I looked at buying it on my Kindle, but besides being locked in to the platform (especially with the title of the book), it was a 1 dollar cheaper to purchase it directly from the author. While I won't need a new PC any time soon, it has started the "Ugh, I kinda don't like what macOS is becoming" and and desktop linux threads in my head.... One day....

* 🥰 Most kids sleep in when there's no school. Not Leo. He usually wakes up at 5:30 - 6:00. When his mom asked him why he likes to wake up early he responded "because I want to be like papa". Melts my heart a bit, but also, yikes I should start doing more things worth emulating. * 🇯🇵 More on Leo – his English has been getting better lately. More small phrases here and there. He set a timer on the HomePod with Siri by himself (while adults weren't in the room). One mark of fluency when you're bilingual is to mix languages or code-switch. The other day he was asking something about Japanese and when referring to the Japanese language he said "Japanese-go" instead of "Nihon-go". We've never said this around him, so its neat to see him mixing his languages as he gets more confident. * 🐻 I watched Season 4 of The Bear. It was far less intense than previous seasons. I didn't notice it while watching, but I think they tied up most of loose ends where it could be the last... but reddit tells they signed for a 5th season, huzzah!

* 🇯🇵 I made it back to Japan after a week in the UK. This time I managed to time my trip to the airport perfectly because as soon as I arrived they started bag checks for ANA. Then there was zero line in security. Compared with my prior visit with the fam, where it took an hour to check-in and we had to dash to the airplane, it was a welcome change. * 🛰️ While in London I bought the Lunar Outpost Lego Technic to build with Leo and it's great. It's the most complex build we've started doing thus far. I wish we could drive it. ( I've since discovered the Lego Spike sets, which replaces Mindstorms, and can be programmed using (!)...maybe one for Santa...) * 🥳 I arrived back in Japan just in time to to spend my 40th birthday with the fam. For the day itself, we kept it simple, having a pizza and cake at my in-laws. Turning 40 is a good time to do a "mid-life" checkin and review things. What will the "theme" for my next decade be? What should I start doing? What should I stop or change? How can I create the systems that ensure change/growth is lasting? My gut (metaphorical and actual (😅)) tells me it should be health... but they're all questions I need to start pondering on...when I'm no longer jet lagged.

* 🇬🇧 I'm back in the UK, this time for a week for work. It's the first time I've made any trip back-to-back so close to another and it's a bit odd – wasn't I just here?! The weather is fantastic as per usual (not being cheeky). * ✈️ I rode with ANA this time around and the flight was the best kind, uneventful. Although rather than my usual aisle seat, I had in a window seat. While I enjoyed being able to look out the window when we were taking off / landing, not being able to get up when I want was a bummer. The entire flight I got up 1 time, which can't be good. While the plane ride was smooth sailing the trains were classic UK trains. Midway to Paddington on the Elizebeth line, we're about to depart the station and the train lost overhead power. We were stuck for 30 minutes while they sorted it out. Thankfully it has a battery on it so it was able to keep the lights on and open the doors. * 🗿 I finally did a proper visit to the British museum and it was fantastic. I'm not sure what my favorite relic in the museum was, but I did quite enjoy the Japan exhibit. Maybe it was because I live there and I could relate to it more. You get so used to these things just being around (on TV, books etc..) that it sort of becomes like the air, but seeing an explicit collection after seeing collections from other parts of the world/eras, if gives you a greater appreciation for the culture.