Camellia sasanqua

Again, these trees are the gift from my father. He has planted them years ago. Has he imagined it would come the days we appreciate them so much.

Among trees and plants dying this season, this ever green tree bears beautiful flowers. It is as if they told us it was not a bad season now when everything was going to die. Lives could shine throughout a year.

 

 

A close up of the flower.

 

 

Fallen flowers on the ground.

 



A small but substantial step

It has been a year since my wife started practising flute. In the beginning, she has complained that it was terribly difficult for her to remember fingering or to make good tone etc. Practising it for a couple of hours, literally, every evening and attending lesson every Tuesday, she could play some pieces now. I was impressed at her diligence for the instrument. i have not expected her such enthusiasm at flute. If she worked so hard at her profession as with flute, she would have been promoted at the med school. She might be able to devote herself to music since it was not her profession but her hobby.

She has brought me a score of flute trio, a tune arranged for 3 flutes, last night. It is the famous Disney tune titled "When you wish upon a star". I am supposed to play the 3rd flute part while our daughter would be forced to play the 2nd part with violin. Even if it is the 3rd part, the range of tune is pretty high. All notes are written in G clef. It is a good practise for me to sing in high positions. Confirming every note with a tuner, I found my scale was not so accurate as I expected. It is a good chance to learn the scale in high position again.

Tonight, before our daughter is cominb home tomorrow, we have made a secret ensemble with part 1 and 3 only. Some portion sounded like an ultramodern music with discordants. But it sounded pretty good as a whole.
A warm and peaceful moment.

It was my dream for a long time to make an ensemble at home. It is a very tiny piece that we are going to play now. My dream is, however, still being realized now. Our daughter has stopped playing her violin in her teenage days after practising for almost 10 years. This chance may let her start playing violin again  I hope this ensemble will grow and flourish from now. May we be able to play something like Bach, Corelli or Quantz in the future!

Another elmer, Bill, WA6YVT

Bill WA6YVT was another elmer for me. I used to work with him on 40m CW in my teen age days. It was usually early in the evening in our time when his sharp bug CW was coming in here. I can't remember what we talked. Only thing I could remember is that he used to tell me to come to his home and to study there. Even though it was impossible for me to go abroad for study, I was delighted to hear such an offer from him. I first knew how open minded and generous an American could be. This impression for American people has never been changed in my mind thereafter.

 

I have kep this photo of him at his shack. The receiver was Drake R2B while his transmitter/amplifier should be home brew. What a big consle on the floor! BC342 is on the shelf as well. The antenna should be a vertical. On the opposite side of this photo, he wrote his age was 65 years at this time. It also touches me a lot since I am now at the same age as he was at this time.

 

 

I haven't met him on the radio since I came back on the air in 1980. When I visited the states in '80s for the first time, I have given him a call. I wanted to thank him for his kindness to a teenage boy in Japan in '60s. His family was on the phone, telling me he could not speak on the phone but was thankful to me for calling. Few years later, I knew he had gone silent key.  

 

This is his QSL. He was a pioneer in ham radio starting radio in 1921in the era of spark as 9DWX. He was a member of QCWA. He might have loved CW so much throughout his life, I believe. He wrote in the remarks that it had been the longest QSO he had with any JA. I might already be oriented to ragchewing in those days.

Nowadays, such an old timer is decreasing in number. I sure miss him. Maybe, he would tell me it is my turn to be such an elmer for the beginners on CW.

MIsappropriating our pension fund by the government and the bureaucrats

The MOF, along with the policy of our government, has decided to have our pension fund invested up to 67% of the total into the stock market. It used to be 24% before. The amount of money that could be invested into the stock market is up to 87 trillion JPY, that is, 8.7 hundred billion USD.

They say it is aimed at the better investment than the bonds etc. But, needless to say, the investment into stock market could be risky. The MOF won't make any rules to do with the possible deficit from this investment. The pensionary in the future should be burdened with less pension and more tax. The MOF  as well as the government is too irresponsible for this decision.

What makes me upset is that it is believed to maintain the high stock prices. It is to pretend that the economical and financial policies by the government has been successful. The presently going on soared market is due to investment mainly by the foreign funds. I am afraid the pension fund invested into stocks would be taken away by those hedge funds etc from the oversea. Namely, our government is misappropriating the pension fund, which is precious fortune for the people.

Secondly, the mutual aid pension fund for governmental employees, which has been managed in the system independent from the pension for the other people, won't take this risk with stock investments. They say the stock investment should be remained to 8% of the total fund.
Clearly, the governmental employees intend to keep their pension fund safe. What a moral hazard! The bureaucrats inventing this scheme should be punished.

I could not help feeling our country is going to collapse from such an evil policy and management by the bureaucrats as well as the politicians in the government.

Just a moment!

Today, I could not access to "any" blogspot blogs all of sudden. It is possible for me to access to the other providers' blogs. I could post through the dash board of blogspot to this blog like this. The display says the present page can't be shown. I am trying to shoot the trouble. If you should have any suggestion, would you give me an e mail to nuttycellist2006 at yahoo.co.jp? It would be much appreciated. I could not reply to any comment here. Just a moment, please.

Shin

Harry G3ATH

When I happened to see the ham population density map in the US, I was surprised the hams are distributed mainly in the mid to eastern part of the US. Of course, California is a densely populated area in the West Coast. But the relative population is accumulated in the first two parts. It may reflect the population density itself.

When we look for English speaking hams on the air in order to train and enjoy conversation on CW, we should work with either Western Europe or the above mentioned parts in the US. They are exactly in the areas where the signal should go over the north pole. As you may know, the polar path is tough for a small set up station. The long path to the Western Europe is exceptionally good in fall. It's opening is only for a limited time in fall. It is still an exception in terms of the path suitable for ragchewing.

So the newcomers who intend to brush up comversational CW in Japan should overcome the difficulty of the path to those areas as well as of the language barrier.

In my beginners days, I have had quite some old timers in VK/ZL as well as such as 9V land, who kindly did with me with much patience.One of such old timers was Harry G3ATH. He was a great bug user with beautiful CW. Though my memory might be idealized as the others might be, his CW, beautifully fluent, is still in my mind. It was when I had studied a bit of English at school and had obtained a bit of command of CW that he kindly talked to me often. Those QSOs with him have motivated me to enjoy such conversational QSO throughout my life.

Later, when I became a member of FOC in 1988, I accidentally knew he had been a member many years ago, possibly immediately after the WWII. Some G member got in touch with him and let me know he had retired and had done well in a countryside in UK. I wrote a letter to him. He was pleased to hear from me. We have set a schedule on 20m. He was using a tiny 2element beam then, so that the condition was not very favorable to us. It was difficult for me to copy all messages  he sent to me. But I could understand he was excited to work with me again after a quarter century absence. We have tried further schedule for a few times. They ended in failure. And in several years from that event, I heard from a friend of mine in G land that he had passed away.

Without his kind patience, I won't bave been a conversational CW lover. i was lucky to have had such an elmer in young days. Unfortunately, there are less ragchewers in south north path areas from Japan nowadays. Such as John9V1VV is an exception. We should be courteous and thankful to him as always hi. 

Chrysanthemum

We have a few clusters of chrysanthemum in our garden. A variety of colors. I could not remember when and whom they have been planted by. My wife told she has planted some of them in the garden from the pots my father used to grow them. Yellow ones were a gift from a helper who used to care for our parents. I still feel thankful to her for her love to my parents. The latter looks great in the garden as if they were really golden flower as the ancient Greek used to name it.

 

The other varieties are white and purple red.

 

 

I know they have been alive with affection of the people. My father, my wife and the helper. There is a reason why they could bear such beautiful flowers every year.  

What could I leave for the next generations?