5 years under the sun, and barely any time under a parking roof. My Audi A4 Avant is kept under the sky, no roof. It's s been exposed to rain snow, pollen, as well as powder sand coming from the baseball ground nearby, bird poo, sap and falling leaves from the tree above. I've trusted the glass coating that was done when I initially got the car and haven't done any serious body maintenance except water washing every month. I know I've kept a lot of grime left. So it's 5 years with 60000Km on the odo, and I've decided it's time for a major body coating overhaul.

I knocked on the doors of Keeper LABO, a shop which specializes in body washing and coating. Treated the car to a three layer coating called "W Diamond Keeper" consisting of two glass coating layers and one of resin. Also paid some extra to have my wheels, the engine bay and door sills coated too. I was told at delivery that they had to do a lot of polishing before the coating to get rid of the water stains and grime, which is my fault not doing the washing and drying of the body completely.

Beautiful looking at the refreshed car. I recognized how beautiful and glossy the car was at the beginning. The looks have returned to the original state, including the touch and feel of the smooth body. I also love the plump water drop that's created on the body. I can keep watching them for hours.

Japan is well known for being the atomic bombed country, but we must also keep in mind that the there was an atomic bomb dropped before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the United States.

Few weeks before the bombing in Japan, a nuclear bombing test took place at "Trinity Site", in New Mexico. 40 thousand people living in the vicinity were not informed of the experiment, and took radioactive water and food produced in the area for years, leading to radioactive poisoning.

There are no boundaries between civilian people. "Hibakusha" in Japan and "HIbakusha" the US share the same suffering, pressed against by their own "country": Government Power. Boundaries exist between the countries, which have become entities of their own, not for the people. Boundaries cause conflicts between the countries, and it is the civilians that have to sacrifice.

War....has always become a conflict between government power and its own civilians.
Even now.

About time "countries" acted for it's people. The people want their countries to sign the Nuclear Weapons Convention. Why can't it be signed ?

Decided to buy a Kindle PaperWhite for the #stayhome summer vacation which I plan on spending reading. Justifying my purchase since my iPad mini is too old and does not allow installing the Kindle application, and my Asus NEXUS first-gen Android tablet is just too outdated.

The backlight of my Apple Macbook Pro 2017 13" went DEAD. I originally purchased this machine as a programming machine, and now is my workhorse for translation work. Didn't drop it or soak it in water, and the system works just fine hooking it up to an external display, all except for the backlight.

My guess was "Flexgate".
This is said to be a design flaw of the backlight flex cable being too short and breaking with repeated opening/closing of the display. Apple initially did not admit this as a flaw until May of 2019 when it launched a repair program for 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ models manufactured in 2016 ONLY. This lead to a class action lawsuit demanding Apple to expand the models eligible for the program to 15"machines and 2017 models as well.

My Apple Care warranty is expired, and Apple tells me I'll be getting a 90k yen check for the fix. A new 2019 Macbook Pro is too much to pay for. Lastly, I can't be be waiting for years till Flexgate reaches a verdict.

I was on the web searching for Macbook repair shops and several of them quoted me around 60K yen for the display renewal. Less than what Apple charges, but still hurts the wallet. Darn.

A more extended search came up with a shop that quoted me 25K yen for a cable fix. They tell me this is a typical issue with Macbook Pros and they have a lot of experience fixing it. Figured this is the best way to go as of now, so I send my machine to this shop via "takkyu-bin".

Now as I am writing this post and about "Flexgate", I get an email from the shop telling me the cause of my machine backlight failure is NOT the flex cable but a defective chip on the main board. They quote me an additional 10K yen for replacing the chip which hurts the wallet, but there's not much else to do it it's what it takes for the fix so I ask them to go ahead with the repair.

It took a couple of days for the shop to return me a message that the repair is finished, with pictures of the broken chip and the fixed machine.

I must say I was lucky to find a shop with a trustful, nice attitude, and reasonable pricing. Nice to have my Macbook Pro back and running, but at the same time need to remind this was an unexpected expense....gotta save up on my coffee and snacks.

• MacRumors : Apple Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over 'Flexgate' Issue With MacBook Pro Displays - https://www.macrumors.com/2020/05/08/flexgate-class-action-lawsuit/

Find out what the #1 song was on the charts the day you were born on playback.fm. "Mr. Tambourine Man" by the Byrds, in my case. Makes you somewhat happy to learn that the # 1 song on the day you were born is quite a famous one.

While browsing the site, I came across Christopher Cross's debut piece :"Ride Like the Wind". It's a song about a worn out bandit on the run, still more to go till the Mexico border and "riding like the wind" to reach freedom.

Not in the same meaning as intended, but I send myself the words "Ride Like the Wind" on my birthday. At this time of drastic change and new way of life, one who cannot adjust to the changes will not survive.

Ride like the wind, go with the flow, and accept the changes that occur.
Sometimes difficult not being the smart and flexible type, but I need to work on it.
Still a bit to go, but the border is near.