I have set myself a new mini-project (though I suspect it will develop into a fairly major project), to unravel the mystery of whether gluten-free brewing is viable in Japan.

The lack of maltsters and suppliers of gf grains, exogenous enzymes and yeast nutrients makes it sound like an impossible dream but I’ll pull some threads and see what I can do.

Have been considering learning to play the bagpipes, recently.

Any pipers here with some advice for an absolute beginner?

Been pricing chanters and they seem reasonable.

New phone received, was so excited to see the repairability of the Nokia G22 that I forgot to check the dimensions. It’s a behemoth!

Currently, de-googling as much as I can without a custom ROM.

What a bizarre evening.. one which would be a lot more convenient to explain with a keyboard featuring a more functional T key.. sigh

It all started when my fairphone 2 died, completely unexpectedly this evening when working completely fine earlier in the afternoon. No dropping or anything that might make it break.. have returned home and taken it apart cleaned, reseated everything and re-assembled.. still fucked. The last phone I was ever going to buy seems to have outlived that dream.. I am seeing some tech articles in Japanese about the fairphone 4.. wonder if it is supported here..

If I had any idea what the issue was with the phone, I could order spare parts, but would have to order for delivery to my parents in Scotland and then have them send here as there is no support in Japan.

Anyway, not the weirdest part of tonight.. when walking the dog at around 9pm, we met a snake.. only about 25-30cm.. not the bizarre part but wanted to mention it..

So.. I normally keep my eyes primarily on the ground when walking my dog in the dark due to the large wildlife population and me not wanting to step on frogs.. but tonight I looked up and witnessed something which I currently have no explanation for.. so, technically a UFO.. or UFOs as I will attempt to describe.

As I looked up, I saw a line of maybe 9-10 star-like lights, that is to say they looked like stars, they didn´t have perceptible spheres/cones of illumination that you might expect for a light source closer to land.. there is of course a lot of space between the elevation where that sphere/cone of illumination would be perceptible and actually being some sort of gas orb in space.

Strangely, they were moving.. in a line.. too slow, horizontal and linear to be explained away as fireworks (its firework season).. only white light, unchanging, unblinking.. and then after 10-15 seconds, one by one from start to finish the lights went out..

1. I am a very pragmatic, cynical, and logical person.
2. I was drinking some alcohol, but not a lot and on my return from my walk home I disassembled and re-assembled a mobile phone.. so not drunk in any shape or form.
3. I am certain there is some simple explanation for what I witnessed and am not suggesting that i witnessed anything extra-terrestial.

When I told my wife about this on my return from walking the dog, she mentioned that around this time last year her younger brother had a similar experience, albeit with less lights than I saw.

I m curious as to what it could be, I know a guy in the village who is a drone programmer and I would text him to find out if he was doing anything with a large number of drones.. but my phone is fucked.. so I guess I will just have to let my imagination run wild.

Some of the keys fell off the refurbished x1 carbon laptop that I bought and seem damaged so aren’t going back on. Were they less frequently used keys I would live with it but F5 and T are keys that I cannot live without.

Wasn’t able to find reasonably priced individual replacement keys but found a replacement keyboard..

.. I probably should have had a look at the replacement procedure before buying.. this is not going to be fun!

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X1+Carbon+6th+Gen+Keyboard+Replacement/154084

72 screws holding the keyboard in place.. and a whole disassembly adventure before getting to that stage. I am suddenly cognisant of why I stuck to desktop assemblies in the past.

Been meaning to try overnight oats for ages, but not a breakfast eater so didn’t get around to it. However, as my wife is concerned about her weight and we are both trying to improve our fitness, I suggested we give it a go and prepared a batch last night.

I may be a concert, my concern primarily the texture and perhaps if we went with chia seeds over flax seeds I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much, but it was very tasty indeed. Went for a cocoa, vanilla and maple syrup recipe and it seems like we will stick with it for a while.

Not sure if it was a result of eating in the morning or not, but this morning I doubled my distance on my second visit to the pool, tapped out at 1km, which was a fair bit further than my target.

Just ordered some dried cranberries in order to ramp up the breakfast decadence and found a Japanese soy protein powder manufacturer who doesn’t put dairy into the mix (you’d be surprised how common a practice that appears to be)..

Then finished a brewing book and started reading up on gluten free beer brewing..

All in all a good day.

Last day working at the brewery today.. (we miscounted and “gained” two weeks).. looking forward to being there, not so much looking forward to not being there..

I was fortunate enough to be invited along to a pre-opening event for a new craft beer brewery in our prefecture’s capital city. My friend/mentor Ken got me on the list and we attended together.

It was such a good experience,not just because I didn’t have to drive and the beer was free. For the first time I was with the small core of brewers here and completely accepted within the group despite not yet being a brewer. I loved having a chance to drink with my future peer group and look forward to many future occurrences, but we need to get our brewery odd the ground before I become a fraud!

What was pretty awesome also, was that the head brewer at the new brewery lived in Scotland for about 5 years, studied the undergraduate version of the course that I just (post)graduated from and seemingly work for Brewdog for 3 years.. he knew who I was when I introduced myself and I suspect we are going to become pretty good friends over the years ahead.

We are still traversing a very stressful period of location hunting but today reaffirmed that we made good choices when we decided to start a new chapter in our lives.

Returning after a long break to sweet home 3D has warmed me to one of the (for now) available sites we have been recommended..briefly met the owner who seems like he may be willing to sell it.. we’ll see.

Teetering on the edge of depression at just how difficult it is to acquire (or rent) land in an area of such abundance of unused land and empty properties that I am employed on a government scheme designed explicitly to combat this problem..