Cabbage roll

My favorite. The longer they be cooked, the more tasty they would become. Two of us have had 8 of cabbage roll in 3 days!

Is it a smart way of operation?

When someone calls me, he/she often gives me only his/her call. DE , K or even my call is omitted. It makes me puzzled from time to time. With a filter of 400Hz on as always, their frequency could be a bit off from mine. There could be a delay in timing they start calling me. In both situation, I am not sure if I am called by him/her. When they are not loud enough, it is even more perplexing to me.

Omitting such as DE, K or my call in calling me could spare time for him/her. I could hardly believe so. If I could not be sure I was called, we should spend some long time to confirm that. Or do they believe that omitting that way is a kind of smart and modern operation? They should be disciplined to send message in most understandable way in communication of this mode.

Sometimes, I am inclined not to respond to them at all. Could I cope with such callers in that way?

Giving my call and DE, K etc when calling me is an orthodoxical method. There are reasons for that. It enables me to recognize you calling me easily. Your signal might not be so loud as you hear me. Or your rig is offsetting the grequency from me a bit.

In addition, I hope them not to end their message in transmission with BK without any identification. They do that all of sudden. I am sometimes frightened listening them in relaxation with my feet on the operaating table. In such a case, I should rush sitting back on my chair with back straight again. Apart from that my move in the shack, I should get ready for next transmission abruptly. This kind of operator always starts with the above mentioned style. To those BK senders, I would finish the QSO as soon as possible.

Sending identifications in the beginning and ending of transmission is necessary for the audience to recognize you and me and for me to get ready for my turn.

There is time enough.

It was an earthquake that made my amp out of work.

The amp won't be turned on. After it has worked trouble free for almost 15 years, was it finally acting up? ......I should bring this heavy box for repair to a dealer....sighing.....To make it sure, I have looked at its power line code beneath the table.

The plug was out of the socket! There was a plaque for the JIDXC lying next to the plug on the floor. It had been hung on the wall. Some time ago, this afternoon, we have had a pretty big earthquake of Richter scale 4 here. It has made the plaque fallen, which hit the plug to be pulled out. No other things fallen on the floor.

Inserting the plug into the socket, I found the amp working OK. And, recalling there have been a couple of contests going on now, one in Eu and the other in USA, I smiled bitterly to myself. I won't need turnig on the gear today. The high bands were full of contesters with very strong signal. Looking at the plaque on the wall, I told myself it was a way of enjoyment for them. Nothing to be blamed.

We have had much more earthquakes for the past years. They forecast there could be another big one hitting western Japan or Tokyo. It could be a real big disaster for us again. It is not a matter of fallen plaque or something like that. Hundreds thousand people are expected to be killed by the quake as well as the accompanying tsunami. Are we ready for that? I don't believe we have any room in badget to spend for the Olympic games in 2020.

Squid with Japanese radish

Squid is boiled with soy sauce, sake and so forth. It should be for not longer than 5 or 6 min. Or squid could become firm. In the same seasoning, Japanese radish with a bit of ginger is cooked for some 10 min. Then, both of materials are mixed on a dish. Very simple. We love it very much.

 

I could hear some friends in foreign countries claim they won't try such as squid. They won't know one of the good things in the world throughout their lives. Sorry for that.

 

 

Punishment won't solve the problem

I stayed up very late last night. I was watching a video clip which showed discussions at a committee in the congress held in the daytime yesterday. The Ministry of  Justice would enact a law to punish severer to those who give rise to traffic accidents. The authority told they would take the symptoms as the important thing, but not the diagnoses themselves. But it is related with the punishment by criminal law, so that the factors composing the crime should be clearly defined, that is, they would regard each illness as the factor.

A couple of witnesses, who represent certain academic societies related with this matter, have told clearly against the authority in this way.

There is no evidence that those with epilepsy or psychiatric illnesses cause more traffic accidents than the other normal population. Nevertheless, millions of people will be badly affected by this law.

The article that defines those with illnesses being excluded from application of this law actually requires that a ceratin driver is illness free. It contradicts itself.

There are already prejudice worsened against those with the illnesses in the society. It is clearly related with the move toward this law. If the psychiatric illnesses should be related with any traffic accident, the relationship is the same as that in the other kinds of illnesses.

It seems that the authority has hastened to enact this law by "the public opinion" . There have been a few serious traffic accident cases reported by the mass media. They attracted public attention because they had been caused by alcoholics or an epilepsy patient without medication. They should have listened to what the professional doctors would comment on that before they proposed the draft.

They should withdraw the draft and go on discussing how to prevent such accidents. Punishment won't solve the problem.

A drive up to the mountains

 

I have made a drive to a high land marsh north west of here. It is named Senjyogahara, which means a battole field in japanese. An old legend tells there have been battles among the gods in the mountains over there. It seems what the name came from. It belongs to a national park.

 

I used to drive up there a few times in the past. Years ago when I was driving to my office, I often looked up there and, leaving all the duties behind, I would go for driving over there. Of course, it has never come true. It was the chance for me to do that now. It was not, however, so exciting as I had imagined since I quit my work for now. The more duties I had those days, the more fascinated I felt by the scenery in the mountain. That may be the truth.

 

I used to come this area once a month for work. I stayed at a hospital for all day from Sunnday morning to Monday morning. My duty was to care for all the outpatients as well as the inpatients. It could be a real burden to a young pediatrician. But I didn't feel that way those days. The hospital was still there on the way to the mountain area. It used to be a private hospital and has become a municipal one for now. Early in Monday morning, I used to buy some bread at a store on the opposite side of the street and rushed to the dorm house in a med school where my wife and our elder son were waiting for me. The bakery was already closed there.

 

Travelling in woods this time in a year is called as "hunting for the colorful foliage" here in Japan. The fall has been deepened there. The colorful leaves have welcome me. Some of them have already fallen on the ground. I went up steep slopes to a lake near to the marsh.

 

 

 

There is a big lake named Chuzenjiko at almost 3000ft of altitude. It was quiet on the lake even though the traffic was still terrible around it. There were a number of souvenir shops at a shore. Being off kinda season right now, some of them were closed. In summer, there should be many people enjoying boating on this lake.

 

 

A famous hotel restaurant along the beach. I gave up taking lunch there since it was full of people. The bakery I used to buy bread on the way home from the work at the hospital belonged to the same hotel.

 

 

Finally, I arrived at Senjyogahara. It is a marsh born by the activity of a volcano stopping flow of a river. It is about 3500 ft in altitude and has 400 ha of land in it. It was covered by dead plants of low height. Again, very quiet. It was late fall there. But the breeze over the marsh was a bit warm.

 

 

There were a number of trees standing in the marsh. The marsh was surrounded by high mountains. A river was running in the center, which ended as a big fall on the south eastern corner of the marsh.

 

 

White birch trees were beautiful there. There were clusters of the other kind of trees as well. There were groups of pupils taking lunch under them. A peaceful scenery.

 

Having gone up a mountain on a winding road, I got through to village on the opposite side of the ridge. There were much less tourists. It was much more favorable. I forgot taking photos. When I asked a girl at a souvenir shop if it was always so quiet without many tourists, she answered there would be more people when it got late fall. Uttering that it has been already late enough, I bought some apples there for a souvenir to my wife. I would bring her there next time.

An outerrise type earthquake

Very early in the morning of Oct 26th, a rather big earth quake has occurred in the Pacific ocean off Fukushima. The magnitude was 7.1. The quake has waken me up with the Richter scale rated 4 here. I could not fall asleep for a while even after a long lasting quake, reminding me of the big earthquake, had gone. An alarm for tsunami was published by an authority then. It seemed there had been a small tsunami observed near to the center of the earthquake.

The news told it had been caused by a mechanism of the outerrise. The ocean plate was freed from the friction with the continental plate by the big earthquake 2 years ago, so that the former could be lacerated pretty easily with the force pulling it under the continental plate. It is not negligible that a big earthquake of this type would occur in the near future.

The problem with this type of eathquake is that it could cause tsunami. The Pacific ocean off Fukushima is believed to be a center of such an earthquake. If a big tsunami would hit the damaged nuclear plant in Fukushima, there could be a further serious damage on it. The main concern is on the used fuels pooled at the 4th reactor. It still has a enormous amount of used/not used fuels. The pool is high in the damaged building. It could be very vulnerable to such a tsunami or an earthquake.

At present, they are struggling with the contaminated water and the influx of underground water into the reactors. They have not taken any measure against further tsunami to the damaged structures and/or the cooling system. If any big tsunami destroys them, the contamination of radioactivity would spreads all over Kanto plain including the metropolis of Tokyo. It is a matter of possibility. No one knows if it could happen or not. But the government should prepare for such a disaster.  They should have learned that almost impossible thing could become possible from the disaster 2 years ago.