Translated my 3 “move to Japan” related blog articles into Japanese on my site and posted the initial one to note.com

I’m not sure if it’ll get any engagement at all there, I’m not the biggest fan of the platform but I feel like I need to try and promote any writing about the 地域おこし協力隊 programme in order to justify the time I spend writing about it (over say, reading about and researching brewing science)..

for my own site, I don’t really care if I’m the only person reading my articles (to find the litany of typos I undoubtedly missed) but I need to justify my minimum wage efforts elsewhere.. though I don’t know of a similar platform for English blogs which aren’t built into or upon FB.



Going to work a bit on my website today and try to backfill some of the photo posts etc. from the past few months and now that it’s online again, I’m feeling more motivated to write again.

Also need to go out and buy whatever cheap cooling technology I can to stop me from spontaneously combusting at the weekend outdoor event.



After bathtime and bedtime for the kids I am going to go out for my first time driving at night and first time driving with no-one in the car.. will only be venturing as far as I can safely wall back.. just in case!



I like pixelfed but I’m wondering if I actually need it..

I’ve had success getting friends and family to use matrix (and xmpp before then) for quick comms but I don’t know that I’m going to manage to get people on to pixelfed.. and am not sure that I am fussed to try any more.

Being without it for so long and then syndication failing with it on my return is making it feel like a little more work than my new life will permit me.

Conversely, I’m very happy with gotosocial, I can syndicate images here from my site and it just works..

.. on an unrelated note, I started typing this on my computer then when I switched to my phone it was available in the copy buffer.. KDE connect rocks!



Good morning world!

Just a quick syndication test before my coffee.

Still a bit peeved that I couldn’t get my self-hosted quill to work since the move but not wasting another day on it.. will manually start uploading the backlog of blog posts, soon.



Had some Japanese friends (and their non-Japanese partners) visiting today and like with our first baby they were somewhat amazed at how much I as a dad do (I don’t think it’s especially amazing or even rare nowadays). Basically, aside from breastfeeding, I do everything, which is by choice and also because breastfeeding is exhausting and a near full-time job and my wife needs to recuperate.

Anyway, the visit reminded me of the challenge that lies ahead of me in rural Japan and the noses that I’ll be putting out of joint when we get there. Previous visits frustrated the hell out of me because my wife’s grandma wouldn’t let me be a parent, she would drag my wife out of bed rather than let me look after my own daughter. Unfortunately, her health has deteriorated and she is in full-time care but it is an opinion that is pervasive in the elder generations that live in rural villages in Japan (and probably beyond).

Thankfully, my mother-in-law is 100% on board with our parenting balance and my father-in-law knows better than to cross her 😆



So we’re rewatching MasterChef Australia 2019, currently episode 1 (after rewatching the previous season)..

.. it turns out I’m still inexplicably disgruntled about the final result of MasterChef Australia 2019 and it threatens to bleed into every one of the 60 episodes..