Notice of uploading

My album "Alcatraz" has been uploaded.

I'm home!

I’m home!

I came back from family summer vacation. We were on 7 nights Disney Cruise in Caribbean.

The weather was very good whole week. All of us got nice tan on our faces.


Our children have already started requesting that they want to go again next year. Well, kids. Don’t you remember this is the second time on Disney Cruise. We just did it last year. We will go somewhere different nest year, kids.

Our first port of call was Key West, FL. When the time came for all guests to come back on board, there was a guy who was missing. They over-head paged him in the ship, but he did not answer.

If there was a kid missing, it would have been a big deal. But this missing guy was an adult. He should be able to take his own responsibility. The ship set sai on time, leaving this guy behind on Key West.

I imagined if this was in Japan. The ship would never set sail until this guy comes back. Well, first of all, everybody would come back on board from the first place.

He practically had three choices. 1) go home by himself. 2) take a plane to go to the second port of call to rejoin the cruise. 3). Become a resident in Key West.

I am very curious, but I do not know what he did.

Anniversary

Well, May 28th is our anniversary.

We got married in 1993. This means 16 wonderful years have passed already.

My marriage this time is going very well. I have been breaking my record every day. Very good indeed.

I met my wife in Britain. On thinking back, when I proposed, I was married. Not only that, she was married too.

Every time I say this, people, especially young ladies, start showing interest in our story. Yes, they are interested in our “immoral relationship”.

Actually, it was not as interesting as you might think. It is rather quite boring story.

At that time, I was getting divorced anyway from the reason that was not related to my wife. My wife was in a similar situation. It is not as romantic as some movies.

Thereafter, I stayed in Britain and my wife went back to Japan. In those days, having an internet at home was beyond imagination. International telephone call was still expensive. And to add insult to injury, my salary was very poor. There was no way I can afford frequent international phone call. During these years, we wrote letters almost every day. Just like uploading blog every day. I have and will never write letters that often.

The only good thing of our previous marriages was we did not have any creatures who carry our DNA.

After more than 10 years after we got married, our memories are fading. We actually forgot our anniversary. We successfully noticed about one month later. We laughed off. Thanks God, I was not the only one who forgot it!

I learned in a hard way. I gave a bunch of flowers and a present to her this year. On the exact day of anniversary, not one month after that.

Thank you very much for being with me for the last 16 years. How much longer we can be together? 10 years? 20 years? Or 30 years?
You make me happy. You make me a better man. You are my wonderful better half.

San Francisco

I made a small business trip to San Francisco. I love San Francisco. I is a great city to go out shooting.

I have visited San Francisco twice in the past. The first time was before we had kids. At that time, photography was not my hobby. The second time was last year. I shot some photos but they unfortunatelly all came out bad! I wasted many rolls of films last year.


Here are some shots. Please enjoy. As always, any constructive suggestion would be appreciated.

Goin' digital

My new year’s resolution is to get dSLR. I have been researching which model to buy. There are too many nice ones to choose. In addition, during my research, new models come out one after another. I was pretty much convinced that my research will never end.

My decision was Canon 50D. Yes, this is my firm decision.

The next research I had to do was to figure out from which shop I should buy. Again, my thorough research went on and on. I aim is, of course, to buy as cheap as I could. But I found out that there are many shops rum by scam artists. There no such thing as free lunch.

One night, I was researching as usual after my supper. I must have clicked something by mistake that I did not even pay attention to.

The page that I opened accidentally carried Canon 30D, which was a dead stock from 2006. Of course dead stock means something that nobody bought and was left over at a corner of a warehouse. Workers in a warehouse must have been kicking the box to kill their time when they had nothing to do.

It was a real bargain. The web site was well known. I thought I could trust them. The price was about a quarter of Canon 50D. It was actually cheaper than used 30D in other web sites.

The moment I found this 30D, I started thinking about a lot of things. “It would be nice to have a family trip during summer. We will go to a restaurant. I would like to order a jog of beer in a restaurant rather than ice tea”. All in all, I thought I should not spend a lot of money to by a camera. For me, 50D is a lot of money. After all, I am not Donald Trump.

My firm decision to buy 50D has gone quickly. My firm decision is, as always, as firm as this.

Now I have a body of Canon 30D in my hand.

What is sad about is the fact that I do not have lens! This is just like I bought a car without steering wheel. I can run an engine but I still can’t go anywhere. With my 30D, only way I can enjoy at the moment is to show the menu. That’s it. That's pretty much it!

I have never thought that camera without lens is only worth paper weight.

Obviously, lens that goes with my 30D will be the next project. But this project will be after my next pay check. Now I have something more to research about.

Grandma's Corvette

In Japan where I come from, their public transport system is lust like human body. There are nerves, veins, and arteries everywhere. You do not need to drive in Japan, especially when you get old.

On the other hand, there aren’t many cities where have good public transport systems. You have to keep driving as far as your eyes are seeing shadows and lights.

This is a story of a grandma of my friend.

She is eighty-something year old. She has been living alone for many years, since her husband passed. As you can imagine, her best days were in 1940’s to 1960’s. The golden era of the U.S. Her dream car was, and has been red Chevy Corvette. She, however, was no way able to afford driving Corvette.

Now she is an octogenarian with bad knees. She needs to have a walker when she walks. Even with her walker, she walks at a snail’s pace. The car she drove was 15-years-old Lincoln Continental. A conservative old American sedan, as we all know.

She came to realize that there won’t be many years before she will leave us and take an eternal residence in the better place. She made a big decision. One day, she drove up to a car dealer in her old Lincoln, of course, to buy a red Corvette. I am pretty sure that a sales person was shocked.

A grandma waking in the parking lot of a supermarket with her walker at a snail’s pace. She folds her walker and slides it on the passenger seat. She drives home in her red Corvette.

One time my friend asked her if she could give him a ride. Her answer was “ it is for may walker. Not for guys”.

How cool this grand ma is!

Here goes her red Corvette through our town in rural Alabama. Nobody has heard about a lucky guy who sat on her passenger seat.

IndyCar Open Test

Sometimes I am lucky.

I obtained a press pass for IndyCar open test at Barber Motorsports Park(Leeds, AL). I need to mention just in case you might wonder, I did not obtain the pass by stealing or extortion. I got it legally.

I arrived at the Park at 7:30 AM. No need to pay an admission fee. Great! Parking in the press parking was without hustle. Great!

Press meeting started at 8:30 AM. They told us what not to do, where not to trespass, etc. I wore a yellow vest that they provided for our safety.

The weather was fabulous.

Now I was ready to shoot. I was allowed to go into pit area with this press pass. It was like a photographer’s dream!

Since I was lucky enough to have a press pass, I wanted to make a most of it. Shots of the cars from distance using ultra telephoto lens would be good, of course. But this time, I spent most of my time in pit with my ultrawide zoom (19-35mm). I was rubbing the tip of mu nose to Indy cars to shoot.

It was an all day event. However, I used up my 8 rolls of films just in the morning. I wished I could have had a digital camera. It is not always good to be a worshiper of reversed technology.

I actually have never watched motor sports on the circuit. I was so excited about the fact that my first experience of Indy Car was with my cameras and press pass.

Here is my photo site.