Rob KD7H

I have known Rob KD7H since '80s. Late in '80, he and his wife Denise have come to JA7 area working as an English teacher. Getting a 7J call, he was quite active and seemed to get acquaintance with many hams there near Sendai. We were talking about meeting in eye ball sometime during his stay. But no chance for us. In our trip to Seattle in 2012, where he lived near to, I have met a lot of his friends but not him yet.

He, a great calligrapher with a fountain pen, has sent me a wonderful hand written letter. A classical old fashioned style. He let me know how he and his family are doing now. Sorry to hear he is still on rehab. for the hip surgery. But it is an illness bound for recovery even if not so fast as he would. It might be not too long before he will be a grandfather. I always share his thoughts of liberalism and respect his ethical way of life being with those handicapped and marginalized people in the society.

This is the envelope of the letter he sent to me. It says the photo is honoring fire fighters in Washington in 1974. A beautiful and impressive photo.

This is Rob back in '80s. A stout young guy. Now both of us have lost some hairs on head and have added white things there. Let's live healthy and meaningful lives together.  

 

Midsummer

It's in real midsummer here. It is hard to stay working outside for longer than an hour. I am still enjoying doing with weeds, flowers and vegetables in morning/early evening. Luckily, the weeds are growing slower nowadays due to the heat. I mow the grass with an electric mower my wife has given me for a birthday present this year. Does she want me to work even more?

The flower bed next to the gate. There is a grass place, or exactly, a weeds place ahead of the hedge next to the flower bed. A few trees of apple and of plum. Vegetables like pumpkin, corn and tomatoes are growing among them. It's a small farm but big enough for this old man. 

Mary gold is flourishing at a corner of the garden. There are a few more clusters of this flower. They live pretty long and please us until the beginning of fall. The seeds will be taken from them then.

Tomatoes are in the heyday at present. Fresh fruits are harvested almost everyday. 

Mowing the lawn under an apple tree the other day, I felt something hitting the mower blade. It was an apple fallen on the ground. The outlook was not very gorgeous but the cut surface was fresh with juice oozing out. I thought the tree was too young to bear a fruit. But it seems ready to do so. In addition to these apple trees and plum trees, I would plant some fig trees there. There might be a lot of fruits enjoyable some day... maybe, the next generation....

 

Abandoned people

Yesterday, our Prime Minister has announced that only those COVID19 patients, most severe and complicated with other precedent chronic illnesses, could be hospitalized and other patients should be cared at home.

The minister of HLW today tightened the condition of hospitalization saying those with precedent illnesses should be excluded from hospitalization.

The patients with moderate severity should stay at home cared by family members. According to the definition of moderate severity by MHLW, it includes respiratory insufficiency requiring oxygen administration. 

Respiratory failure due to pneumonia is a real harsh condition for a patient. Within the range of a few hours, COVID19 could deteriorate to fatal condition with cytokine storm. The patient could fall fatally sick. How could the family members care for such a patient. The anxiety he/she has due to respitatory failure and expectation of that aggravation is above our imagination.

What The PM and the Minister of HLW told is that the medical system won't function any longer and they will be abandoned by the government. 

There is a sharp rise of trajectory of the infected cases. The situation is getting worse day by day. The vaccination is not progressed compared with the other developed countries. It seems not to be the gamechanger as well. 

Some people try to convince themselves that the mortality rate is still so low that it won't be a serious issue. They don't know the increase of the dead cases follow that of severe cases. They also omit the problem of long COVID, which is developed by 30 to 50% of the patients irrespective of their severity. The latter is increasing steadily since the end of last month. The others are enjoying the Olympic game not paying attention to this critical situation. They seem as if drunken with "this circus". The government won't discontinue the Olympic games even though there are about 20 infected cases found in the personnel. Even though the Olympic games would work as a deteriorating factor to the pandemic.

The people is abandoned here while most of them are not aware of that.

What will happen next to our country? What a mess! 

Two old friends gone silent key

 Two old friends in ham radio have passed one after another recently. Both of them were active from mobile.

I have met Ed K8RD quite often on 40m in his morning hours. It was from '90s to '00s. He was commuting to Santa Barbara. I was imagining him driving along the beautiful beach there. It is the place I have been when visiting Merle K6DC. Remembering of the scenery there, each QSO was really pleasant. His CW was always correct and neat. It's been too long since we talked on the radio to remember each QSO. However, it was unforgettable that he would move to Arizona once retired. He must have wanted to be settled down there and to operate radio as much as he wanted. No chance for me to hear from his new QTH. But he has sometimes operated radio from his car or from certain club station. He was planning to attend the FOC gathering in Seattle in 2012 but his wife's accident has prevented him from coming there.

The other guy was Red K5ALU. He was also a mobile operation CW man. I can't remember when we started talking on CW. Maybe, in '90s. The conditions were terrific and easy to work those days. He always called me on 20m. His CW was fast and piquant as if his pickup truck pulling that big trailer was running through breeze. At the FOC gathering 2012, I had pleasure to see him and his wife Linda. Honestly speaking, his southern accent was a bit hard for me to understand. But he kindly proposed to bring both me and my wife to the luncheon restaurant at a pier. He has made an adventurous trip to Alaska with a couple of friends after that. It seemed he had lost his wife in a tragic way. When I heard he had given up struggling against cancer a few months ago, I was sure this day came so soon. He seemed to be surrounded with his family members and ham friends until the last day.  

Sorry to have them passed away in succession. But I believe they are free from all worries and anxieties in this world for now. Thinking of that, I wish them rest in peace with their most beloving ones in the heaven.  

Red and his pickup. A big mobile whip was set somewhere in the rear. He has driven around all the US on this car tugging a big trailer for his business. A cheerful and kind person. 

At our age, it is inevitable to lose those friends, rather not to add new friends. Unavoidable thing in our lives. That is why each moment being with friends is so precious and be treasured in our lives. 

RIP, good friends of mine, Ed and Red.

"The War Has Changed"

 The Washington Post has reported about the delta strain epidemic titled "The War has changed".

The inside information from the CDC based on the unpublished data seems to tell the following points;

1) The delta strain is more contagious as well as toxic to people than the other strains. 

2) There are non-negligible number of "the break through" cases in the fully vaccinated. The fully vaccinated people infected by this strain could infect the other innocent people. They shed as many viruses as the unvaccinated people do.

However, there are still reports against the virus load the vaccinated break through cases shed. We need carefully examine the data CDC may publish in the near future.  

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.28.21261086v1

3) The precautions against SARS CoV2 should be strictly kept even if you are vaccinated.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/?fbclid=IwAR1o8a8ZCl53n-3slk7qJ2xlthpty_ODXspm9uWG29-DJTSgZZZU0QhjCV8

There have been discussions how the present mRNA vaccines could work for the delta strain. Pro et contra in the real world so far. According to some studies in vitro, such variants as the delta strain could evade immunity or lessen antibody production. 

This preprint paper says the currently available vaccine boosting induces more neutralizing antibodies but does not broaden their spectrum not like the natural infection does. 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454333v1

We may have to run boosting with the vaccines newly developed against new variants like the delta strain. 

We should keep it in mind the vaccines are not perfect in protection from the virus. It is mandatory for us to keep the ordinary precautions.

Grass mulching

Under relentless heat of sun ray, I do with the garden and pull the weeds. Since I learned those pulled ones could be used as grass mulch, I am encouraged to do this hard work.

Grass mulching is one of the main thema in natural farming in our country. I could not help smiling at the same idea in this youtube clip.

https://youtu.be/dZkT77JHxxY

It works in a few ways beneficial to us. It would maintain moisture and keep the temp of the soil stabled. It prevents weeds to grow. And lastly, it could be natural compost in some time.

In natural farming, they won't plow the soil but build a ridge with soil covered with grass. They believe not plowing the soil would help microbacteria etc grow stably. I am not a farmer of natural farming but believe their way of farming could be ecologically right and appropriate. The only issue for agriculture as an industry is that it could hardly produce mass of crops like conventional farming could.

Anyway, I feel comfortable and calmed down when doing with grass in the farm. I might be pretty good at concentrating on such a simple thing. Even though I don't think I could go on such a task as a duty like a work in real farming or a simple procedure at certain factory. 

In an hour or two, I always get back to cooled own room and enjoy something else. 

This is the harvest from the garden farm yesterday. 

Fresh tomatoes for salad. Egg plants for grilled egg plant and other dishes. 

Persistent and relentless efforts have materialized the BioNtech vaccine

 A very interesting as well as impressive discussion between Nobel Prize awardee, Prof. Tasuku Honjo, and BioNtech CEO Prof. Ugur Sahin. 

From this discussion, we could learn the persistent efforts for cancer vaccine in tumor immunology has made the mRNA vaccine against SARS CoV2 achieved so quickly. Needless to mention of their relentless efforts Sahin called "light speed" project at his lab has made it as well.

Both of them sound very honest and open minded as for their research. Both of them have approved the open mindedness in the science community recently realized such as discussion through preprint papers.

Discovery of PD1 by Prof. Honjo was also epoch making. But he is not satisfied with it yet but is looking ahead for further collaborative study of anti PD1 with the other measures of treatment for cancer. Prof. Sahin is aware of the limited span of effectiveness of the vaccine for antibody production. They may elucidate how many boosters and the intervals of them are necessary soon. There are people who insist of the side effects of the vaccine. As Prof. Sahin says, the merit and demerit must be judged based on their balance. The balance seems to favor absolutely for the merit. 

Human body, as they told in the concluding remark, is such a complicated system. It is also influenced by the environment etc. Single chemical molecule or single kind of cell won't solve the problem. Flexible and open minded attitude for research could do that in the future.

Here.

https://youtu.be/ysVaz4APGvw