A Nuttycellist's Monologue
A semiretired pediatrician living in a countryside in Japan will describe what he thinks of his hobbies, life and the events around himself.
8/12/2025
Chicken seasoned with miso and salted rice malt
8/11/2025
A memory of the orchestra camp half a century ago
This is not a credible memory but I had my cello broken during one of the camps. That might be at a camp other than this place. Anyway, I had to bring the cello to exchange to another back to Tokyo. I was not caring about what to wear etc and was wearing "geta". At the station, my friends were farewelling me singing ”Grandfather's Clock". With a substitute cello, I used to get back to the camp on a night train on the return. Eary in the morning the day after, the train almost arriving at the station of the camping site, the valley has extened in morning mist, so serene and beautiful. I could not forget the scene.
8/10/2025
Tim VK3IM passed away
Last night, I have received an e mail from Dit HS0ZQE telling Tim VK3IM passed away 3 days ago. It was an expected news but still a sad one which brought me a big loss in my mind.
I have met him first in '60s when he was VK3AZY. After a long pause of QRT for 10 years, when I came back on the radio at the dormitory of a med school hospital in 1980, I started talking to him quite often. As I wrote in the other posts regarding him, he was commuting between Mt. Eliza, a suburb of Melbourne, and Melbourne.
On the way back home from his office, he often operated /M on his old Mazda. It was equipped with a home brew whip with a big loading coil and a top hat capacitor. I came back to the dorm after a busy day work. We started chatting on 40m CW. My antenna was only a vertical on the roof. But around or a bit after the sunset, the grey line path enabled us enjoy chatting for some time. Despite of having a kind of introverted character in a sense, he was a sociable experienced ham. He always enjoyed chatting friends world wide. It was amazing he used to work with Europe via long path on 40m or even on 80m from that tiny mobile station. I still remember his fast CW on a bit chirpy signal. That chirp was a kind of fascinating to me.
We shared old friends together such as Harry G3ATH, formerly 9V1MT in '60s, VK4CC, VK3XU and many more. We have not run out topics to talk about especially on good old days. It was an unforgettable QSO when he told me about his mother passing away. When he came home, he found her dead on a locking chair on the veranda. What a shock it was for him! We have talked for more than 3 hours, I believe. On the other time, he told me how he was washing cloths at home. He didn't have a washing machine and washed them in the bath tub. It was a fun to imagine him doing that. He used to visit Ara VK1ARA, one of my old friends in teen age days, in Canberra on a winter holidays. Ara was JA1RHL in the same town as I started radio and, later, managed a Japanese restaurant in Canberra those days. I don't know why but he could not see him in person and came home all alone. I bet he was hesitating to see him in eye ball. What a shy guy!
I might have recorded parts of our chats in the log. I should reopen those old logs.
When he reached home in Mt. Eliza, he often told me to hold on. He used to say " I would bring the radio into the house and, together with a glass of vermouth, go into the shack. Let's carry it on!".
With him passing away now, those good old days have belong to the memories in the past, which I could never reach again any longer. In his latest years, he has suffered from cause unknown illness of pain, which he should use opiates to relieve from. Without his beloving hobby at the nursing home, what days of grief he has had to spend! Now he is free from those agonizing time on the earth. I have lost an irreplaceable companion in the journey of life. I would, however, say "you have lived a good life in your way and take good rest in heaven now".
About 40 years ago, Tim on the bonnet of old Mazda.
8/02/2025
Decoration of the administrative data leads to...
When the administration intentionally sugarcoats, decorates or even hides the administrative data like labor statistics, it means the administration is destroying the country. Such administrative data is important because it is the basis to eavaluate the effects of certain administrative policy. Without the administrative data based on facts, the effects of any policy could never be evaluated. Then, the politics and administration would become a typical autocracy.
An example of such case in the history is the end of USSR. Most autocratic countries are still committing the same mistakes/faults. It is the people who would suffer most from sch administration, I am afraid. It would take a long time to recover credits from losing it with such manipulation.
This news is really shocking to me. The USA has been a country of democracy and righteous as well as fair administration in the past. It seems, however, to undergo a drastic change toward autocracy in this respect.
8/01/2025
Midsummer
7/31/2025
A trivial trouble, still serious one for me
As wrote in the previous post, I tried to listen to Beethoven's last three sonatas in bed last night.
Alas, in the 2nd movement of Arietta of Nr32, the most impressive movement, the CD abruptly ran abnormally. The same phrase has repeated endlessly. I asked myself if this CD had also undergone another aging issue. It is the CD of the last three piano sonatas played by Horzsowsky manufactured in Austria in 1991. A 34 year old one! So far, it is the best rendition of these sonatas for me. The cover triumphantly says it is digitally remastered. Remastering could not do with aging?! It must be no longer in production. I felt to be told to set up music distribution through the internet.
I thought I still could fight with the situation. Watching the disc surface carefully, I found tiny dust ball there. I cleaned it away with a soft cloth. It has worked. The CD has run without any trouble this time.
I have kept the disc within the player for several days. The CD must have got that dust there. The CD case is a much safer place to keep CD, I knew now. And cleaning the surface from time to time may be necessary for uneventful playing and for the player itself as well.
This CD is really a treasure for me. I was much relieved to have it work again with such simple procedure!
7/30/2025
Beethoven's last piano sonatas
The heat wave is so bad that it is almost impossible for me to work while sun is high in the sky. Luckily, the weeds won't grow too fast in this hot season and I won't be hassled with them so much.
Five days ago, it was father's 106th birthday. Working in the farm and garden in morning and early evening, I recalled of him having done the same thing here decades ago. As reiterated in this blog before, he has been deprived of his young days by the war. He was blessed, however, living with family members at this place in stead of that critical life threatening period in his young days.
Comparing to his life, what would happen to me?, I often asked myself. It is unlikely that such as the WWII father used to endure in his young days would happen to me so far. In my young days, it was an uneventful time for myself as well as our country. I have spent such a happy young days with ham radio, music and study in medicine. However, something serious is surely approaching to us without any apparent preceding sign, I feel. With the governmental debt being increased in astronomically large amount, they are still going on military expansion. Certain proportion of mass is approving it. Not too far before it gets bankrupted. A lot of people will suffer from that. Those living on pension including myself may be confronted with difficulties soon.
It might be a never experienced hardship, even qualitatively different, comaprable to father's time in WWII.
Thinking of such a thing and own personal failures in my life, I often could not fall asleep. My wife may say it is due to too much nap in the day time. Anyway, in such a case, I always listen to beloving music. One of them is this latest piano sonata by Beethoven. Horszowsky is weaving a relieving as well as soothing world with his warm touched piano. I often go through the last 3 sonatas at one time. They sure remind me of the last chapter of Jean Christophe by Romain Rolland. The days to be born. In my young days, it was only a time of imagination. It is becoming a reality for me for now.