Daily Reflections

I love taking photos, and I tend to snap away innocently, so I've been taking an average of about 7,000 photos per year for many years now. That's why, nearly 10 years ago, I set up an easy RAID1 (mirroring) on a QNAP NAS to use it as a photo storage and backup solution. Even with cloud services becoming much more affordable lately, I still have a massive amount of data, so I've been using both. However, my NAS was getting old, and I wanted to migrate to a new model. But, being a decade-old veteran, the thought of the migration effort made me hesitate.

A large LCD TV at Rishiri Airport's small baggage claim area showed information about a "festival." What caught my eye the most was the "Uni Uni Festival" happening on August 11th during my stay. I looked it up and found there'd be a sea urchin eating contest, and at the food stalls, you could feast on "grilled uni" and "mini uni rice bowls." Besides uni, there'd be a lineup of fresh seafood unique to Rishiri... This sounded absolutely amazing, didn't it...?

The Hamamatsu Festival is unique because its atmosphere completely transforms from the daytime kite-flying at Nakatajima Sand Dunes to the evening parade of Goten Yatai floats in the city center. Each neighborhood in Hamamatsu seems to have its own Goten Yatai adorned with magnificent carvings of dragons and lions, and what's truly surprising is their sheer number—over 80, according to the pamphlet.

It feels like ages since I last watched a movie, and the one I saw was Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Evil Does Not Exist." The story centers around a talent agency that proposes a somewhat sloppy glamping facility project in a beautiful highland town, aiming for government subsidies.

It’s been over 10 years, but I once traveled around the Noto Peninsula, and seeing the disaster situation there really breaks my heart. Considering that the Nankai Trough earthquake and one hitting Tokyo are unavoidable, I’ve been thinking about living a life that is robust against disasters.

Growing awareness of disaster preparedness: Living in Hamamatsu, I’ve always been mindful of earthquakes and tsunamis. But after a series of heavy rains causing nearby rivers to overflow this past year, my concern has grown. Along with starting a rolling food stock [...]

I was really torn... Tiger's high-end coffee maker, the Siphonista, launched around February this year. I already have an espresso machine and a regular coffee maker, so it's a classic example of something I don't need, but I've been super curious about it ever since it came out.

Following a chat with Mr. Y, I decided to look into the University of Tokyo Foundation. I remembered how my friend Kosa supported the university with a generous donation and thought it was really impressive. Browsing through the various projects was surprisingly fun, and I ended up finding the CanSat project.

I was reminded once again what a great car this is. Lately, I've been using Times Carshare and hadn't driven a NOTE e-POWER in a while, but for our trip to Nikko, I specifically requested one for my rental.