Christmas present

(Army cemetary)
(Fort McClellan, Alabama)
(Canon 7D,Tamron 18-270mm F3.5-6.3)





Santa Claus came to us a little bit early this year.

It was not because Santa was suffered from jet lag, or Santa developed senile dementia. It is just because my wife and children will be visiting our family in Tokyo, Japan during this holiday season. School finished last Friday. They will be departing early next week.

When I send presents, or wish some presents, all I think bout is “something you don’t actually need but you want it.”

For example, toilet plunger is a something you need but you don’t particularly want it. Therefore, toilet plunger doesn’t meet my criteria for present.

My son got an electric guitar, Epiphone Les Paul model. It is very nicely made and sounds good. He has been playing it every day ever since he got one.

My daughter got portable 3-D game player. It was a top of her wishing list this year. The game soft she wants is only available in Japan. She, therefore, is looking forward to trip to Japan even more than usual.

My wife hasn’t got anything yet. But I know what she is going to get. You can’t go wrong with jewelries with ladies. I know she will like it.

Well, let’s talk about me. I put iPad on my wish list this year.

Santa Claus left me a little box. I opened the box slowly, wondering what is was. What I found was a back scratcher! Wish list doesn’t simply means it will come true, just like a anything else in your life.

This back scratcher is neither made by Tiffany, nor of pure gold, nor has diamonds around it. The only thing stands out is this is extendable, just like some ball point pens.

It is pretty rare for me to have itch somewhere on my body. It may happen once in every leap year. In addition, I never asked my family member to scratch my back to intensify skinship.

Well, then. Why the heck Santa gave me a back scratcher? This is something “I don’t need and I don’t want.”

Thanks, Steve

(From http://imgur.com/gallery/SCoJ0)

August 15th

(Berman Museum, Anniston, Alabama)
(Olympus PEN E-P2, M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F3.5-5.6)




August 15th was the day the WWW II ended. Every year, August 15th reminds me of the following story.

It happened about 15 years ago when we moved into Cleveland, OH.

As you may know, Cleveland is the biggest city in Ohio. There are always many people moving in and out. We were one of those people.

When we moved in Cleveland, we came to know about “New Clevelanders’ Club”. It was an organization to help new Clevelanders to start smooth and easy start of their lives in Cleveland. You can get to know people and obtain a lot of useful information. They were very helpful.

After a while, my wife made some friends in the club. In my mind, I secretly call them “delinquent wives’ group” in jest. But they did not know about it. They gather from time to time and had a good time.

The members of what I secretly called “delinquent wives’ group” included my wife (Japanese), a German who married to an U.S citizen, a New York Jew, a Yankee from Pennsylvania, and a Southerner from North Carolina.



One day, (then young) 5 wives got together as usual. Had a chat (or complaining of their husbands, I guess). And for some reason, they took a photo of themselves, with biggest smiles they can do in front of a camera, like a Hollywood stars.

A couple of days later, one of the members (New York Jew) showed the photo to her father to show the friends she had made in Cleveland.

Her father looked at the picture for a very long while. Then he eventually said “what a beautiful picture!”

When I heard this story, I was awakened.

The world used to be divided into two and killing each other until only several decades ago. And before that, even U.S was divided into Northern states and Southern states, and battling.

I had taken peace of the world as granted, and I did not realize what that photo of five “delinquent wives” meant.

National Geographic TV

(Hase Temple, Kanagawa, Japan)





Although I don’t read it regularly, “National Graphic” is one of my favorite magazines. I also love “National Graphic TV”.

They really have grate photos and movies. I always wonder how they shoot those beautiful pictures.

What I heard was that getting assignment from National Graphic is a dream for many photographers and videographers. There is no dead line. They can keep shooting until they are completely satisfied, which could take many months and years. In addition, they are paid well. No wonder that is the dream job. Needless to say, however, you have to show them you are the cream of the crop.

Despite my admiration, Nat Geo TV broadcasted a really poor quality video the other day. That video could ruin the reputation of Nat Geo TV.

「The show was titles “witness”. It is the program about tornados that brought devastating damage to many southern states. One of the video clips in that program was very cheap and cheesy. Why the heck they needed that kind of video?
The video goes like this ….. There is a boy hiding in the closet with is cat, being afraid of tornado nearby. He is shooting himself with a video camera in his lap top computer, and mumbling about how scary it is. That’s really it. As simple as that.

I actually know how this video came to TV. This boy uploaded this video to YouTube. That is where Nat Geo found the video. They got release form signed from his parent and the video was on the nation-wide TV show.

It was me who signed the form, and the boy means my 12 year-old son.

It wasn’t a dream job since he did not get paid. His name, however, was credited at the end of the show. Well done, my son! I am proud of you!


It has been a while since internet became part of our lives. You can never assume what will happen in your life.

What a great surprise!!!

It was on March 11 when we had earthquake and tsunami. This means it has been already two months since then.

We felt some urge that we wanted to do something for that devastating disaster of the country in where I was born and grew up.

After some discussion with my family, we decided to raise money for the recovery fund through Red Cross. We passed bracelets to people who made donation to us.

As well as I do this campaign in the hospital where I work, my children said they wanted to do it in their schools. This is how our activity started.

So far, we collected astonishing $5000! This is a pleasant surprise that we never even imagined. People are so caring and generous. I can’t thank them enough for this generosity.

Now we have our own disaster from tornados in Alabama. We have work for that issue as well.

What I learned this time is that people do help each other globally. By doing that, I strongly believe that recovery from any damage on anybody in anywhere could be easily possible.

Sleep tight

( TtV )
( Kodak Duaflex II, Olympus PEN E-P2, Zuiko Digital 35mm Macro F3.5 )





It was a simply awful night.

For some reason, I just couldn’t sleep very well. There was almost none if I had a little.

I had a lot of nightmares one after another. If I would have kept sleeping despite my nightmares, I would have been a problem. No matter how much I am insensitive, I was not able to ignore those nightmares. Every time I was just about to go sleep, I woke up.

It lasted whole night.

In the morning, I dragged out my body from my bed. I told my wife that I could not sleep at all because of never ending nightmares.

Well, she didn’t pay attention to what I said. She said “It was an awful thunderstorm last night”.

I kind of had an impression that she was trying to change the subject all together.

Thunderstorm? Which thunderstorm? I had no idea what she was talking about. According to what she said, we had a severe thunderstorm at night.

Now I understood. When I was having nightmares one after another, my wife was having a dream of thunderstorm. I sort of felt sorry for her and looked outside through the kitchen windows. There were a lot of fallen twigs and leaves. Our drive way was wet.

The thunderstorm she was talking about was real! I, however, had no recall of it.

I realized how deep my sleep was.

Come and go

On looking back to my life, there were many women came and went.

Well, I wanted to say this once. The fact is that my life has nothing to do with that sort of life style. My comment above is the biggest lie of the century.

If I changed the word “women” to “ cameras”, it all of sudden would becomes real truth.

Cameras that came to me without me seeking it intensively. Cameras that I fell in love at the first sight. Cameras which somebody else beat the hell and abandoned. Cameras that I imagined they are my dream cameras, but later only to have found out they are not my type. Cameras which has the most gorgeous looking, but are not really good as they look.

Well, writing in this way, cameras and women have something in common. (Sorry, this is another lie again.)

It is only February, but many cameras have left me already. In addition, there are some more cameras that I can foresee they will leave me soon.

My favorite camera of this year so far was made in 1930. Yes, she is 80 years young! Still looks wonderful and works fine. It even has a very nice feel to touch. You put ubiquitous 35mm roll in the camera, and voila, you are ready to shoot.

It is a real beauty of mechanical cameras that you can still use it after 80 years.

If you have old mechanical cameras, have a fun with them.