Finished reading: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson 📚

A good end to the first half of the series. I had guessed a few of the developments that took place, but other parts turned out to be a huge surprise.

As I was prepare for a work trip last week, I found myself cleaning out my travel bag and stumbled upon a pleasant surprise—notes from my travel notebook. One note, in particular, caught my attention: a reflection from my trip to Japan earlier this year.

During that visit, I had the privilege of exploring Sojiji Temple, one of Japan’s two main Zen Buddhist temples. While there, I witnessed a fascinating ceremony involving a woman doing calligraphy on a large sign. Intrigued but not fully understanding the significance of the event, I stood quietly, observing and listening.

After the ceremony, the event’s MC approached me, likely noticing I was the only foreigner in attendance. She kindly asked if I understood what was happening and then took the time to explain everything in English. To my surprise, she handed me a printed English translation of her script.

One part of it particularly stood out:

Harmony is to be valued, and an avoidance of wanton opposition to be honored. All men are influenced by partisanship, and there are few who are intelligent. Hence there are some who disobey their lords and fathers, or who maintain feuds with the neighboring villages. But when those above are harmonious and those below are friendly, and there is concord in the discussion of business, right views of things spontaneously gain acceptance. Then what is there which cannot be accomplished?

This passage, part of the first article of Prince Shotoku’s 17-Article Constitution, underscores the importance of harmony. The ceremony I witnessed was a commemoration of Prince Shotoku and his dedication to this principle—a value deeply influenced by Buddhism and enshrined in his vision for society.

What struck me then—and resonates even more now—is how deeply the idea of harmony is woven into Japanese culture. Having lived in Japan for three years, I experienced firsthand the kindness, politeness, and respect that permeate daily life. Even when people disagree or dislike one another, they prioritize civility and cooperation. Society functions smoothly because people take their roles seriously, no matter how big or small, understanding that everyone’s efforts are interconnected.

Of course, this cultural emphasis on harmony isn’t without challenges. The pressure to maintain outward politeness can sometimes suppress negative emotions, leading to mental health issues. Still, the overall atmosphere of mutual respect creates a unique and admirable social fabric—one that stands in stark contrast to many places I’ve been.

It’s hard not to reflect on how much the United States could benefit from embracing a similar sense of harmony. We often lose sight of the fact that we function best as a collective, working together with mutual respect. Disagreements—whether political, religious, or otherwise—don’t need to devolve into constant conflict.

To be clear, I’m not advocating for silence in the face of hate or injustice. Those must always be confronted. But as a society, we should strive to make respect and civility our default. Harmony doesn’t mean suppressing our individuality or ignoring our differences. Instead, it’s about finding ways to coexist, recognizing our shared humanity, and working together toward a greater good.

If there’s one lesson I took away from that day at Sojiji Temple, it’s that harmony is not just a lofty ideal—it’s a practical path to a better, more connected world.

Finished reading: Prequel by Rachel Maddow 📚

All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.

The above quote is not from this book, but it’s what I kept thinking the whole time I was reading it. I learned a lot of history I was unaware of and obviously Maddow was pointing out the similarities to today’s political landscape

Took Thursday and Friday off last week, went to 4 baseball games, enjoyed watching the Padres play the Nationals and Orioles. Dylan Cease tossed a no-hitter to start my long weekend and the Padres took 3 out of 4. If I am lucky the Padres will be back in October to play the O’s in the World Series!

On CNN

A second longtime adviser said the only way Biden would even consider stepping aside — a move that is still very much an open question — is if he was presented serious data showing that he would not only likely lose his reelection bid, but also endanger down-ballot candidates in House, Senate and competitive local races across the country.

Ego.

Its been a few years since I have been backpacking so I’m going car camping soon to make sure all my gear is still functional and safe. I can tell i am out of practice because I can’t manage to fit everything in my pack like I could have before.

The worst part about going to Japan is having to leave. It will always be my favorite country and I look forward to the next time.

Even though I am not afraid of heights, my little brain was telling me to walk softly.

I’m not sure how else to say this but a spa/hot tub/bath filled with herbs and tea is amazing. I am so relaxed now.

Beach!

Can’t wait to get inside!

Beautiful park near my hotel in Tokyo.

I am going to Japan next week and will be posting most of my pictures on https://zachstravels.com so that I don’t flood my normal site with posts. I will still post a few here, but that site will be the home for my travel pictures from now on.

I can never sleep when I need to and am always tired when I can’t. What punishment!

I was talking to a coworker the other day and mentioned the digital camera I had that used 3.5 inch floppy disks. He thought I was joking. I was not.

Took my boys to the game store to play the prerelease of the new Star Wars TGC. They had lots of fun and everyone was so nice to them.

I track the books I read on my blog and have loose goals of how many books I want to read a year, but I have been rereading the Stormlight Archive books this year in preparation for the release of book 5. Questioning if I should count them or not.

It took me a while to figure out how to configure an auth proxy on Grafana in a NixOS config, turns out it was really easy. I was doing everything right except wrapping auth.proxy in quotes.

services.grafana = {
      ...
      "auth.proxy" = {
        enabled = true;
        header_name = "Tailscale-User-Login";
        header_property = "username";
        auto_sign_up = true;
        sync_ttl = 60;
        whitelist = "127.0.0.1";
        headers = "Email:Tailscale-User-Login Name:Tailscale-User-Name";
        enable_login_token = true;
      };
    };
  };

Here are the books I finished reading in 2023.

Had a goal to read 24 books this year, going to fall four short as I have not read anything cover-to-cover since the beginning of the month. Hard to read for fun when I am trying to write a non-fiction book at the same time.

Finished reading: No Time Like The Past by Jodi Taylor 📚

Halfway through the series, still enjoying it.

Finished reading: A Trail Through Time by Jodi Taylor 📚

Finished reading: A Second Chance by Jodi Taylor 📚

Book #3 was action packed, I was surprised to find how much of the book was left when I thought it was nearly done (an ebook problem), but the story was great and the ending was worth it. Really pulling out all the stops in the time travel genre.

I recently setup fprintd on my laptop so that I could use the fingerprint reader for login and unlocking 1Password. It worked well until I plugged my laptop into the dock and closed the lid. It was unfortunately still prompting me for a fingerprint, even when I did not have access to the reader.

After a search I found an article about how someone disabled the usb device on lid close so that it would stop this from happening. I only needed to find the correct device to disable. It was not listed in lsusb as a fingerprint reader, but the Archwiki had the information I needed. After that I just needed to find where it was in the device tree.

$ grep 06cb /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/idVendor
/sys/bus/usb/devices/3-3/idVendor:06cb

After adding the the following NixOS config everything worked just how it should.

services.acpid = {
    enable = true;
   lidEventCommands = ''
    grep -q close /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
if [ $? = 0 ]; then
    echo 0 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/3-3/authorized
fi

grep -q open /proc/acpi/button/lid/LID/state
if [ $? = 0 ]; then
    echo 1 > /sys/bus/usb/devices/3-3/authorized
fi

exit 0
    '';
  };

My daughter’s soccer season ended today, the team came in first place in their division. My youngest season end tomorrow and a win guarantee the same. I had to fill in for his coach for a lot of the season so I was coaching both groups and am extremely proud of everyone.