Merry Xmas!

It says in today's Yomiuri Newspaper that only 16 percent of 6th grade elementary school girls, 13 percent boys of the same age believe in Santa Claus. Do you agree to the article? One of my daughters is in 6th grade now.

Only One Week To The Year 2007.

Time flies really fast. I think I need thirty to forty hours in a day.
I know I cannot do everything what I want to do, but…
To console myself, I have collected sayings while reading books or doing netsurf.
I show you some.

1-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Diligence is the mother of good luck.
Benjamin Franklin　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.
Herodotus
Never to repent and never to reproach others; these are the first step of wisdom.
Denis Diderot
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Thomas Jefferson
All our dreams can come true --- if we have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney
If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember this wholething was started by a mouse.
Walt Disney
The more I learn the more I realize I don't know. The more I realize I don't know, the more I want to learn.
Albert Einstein
To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
John Dewey
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Harvey Fierstein
In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.
Vince Lombardi
2-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Buddha
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
Oliver Wendell HolmesI don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
Bill CosbyBe happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.
Scottish Proverb
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
Josh Billings
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
William James
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi
The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues.
Marcus Aurelius
The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.
W. M. Lewis
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.
Indira Nehru Gandhi3-*-*-*-*-*-*-
If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money on them
Abigail Van BurnHe who believes is strong; he who doubts is weak. Strong convictions precede great actions.
Clark
Man errs so long as he strives.
GoetheI am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward
Edison
Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.
Helen KellerI am not concerned that you have fallen. I am concerned that you arise.
LincolnIt's good to have money and the things money can buy, but it's good to check once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
Lorimer
We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.
Malesherbes
Don't find fault. Find a remedy.
Henry FordI have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
Galileo4-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.
Oscar WildePain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed eath other.
SterneA good laugh is sunshine in a house.
ThackerayThe best way to make children good is to make them happy.
WildeThoughts make actions. Actions make habits. Habits make future. Future makes life.
Mike or other forerunnersTrust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
EmersonI never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
EinsteinTomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it's turn.
Hal Borland5-*-*-*-*-*-*-
You cannot do much about the length of your life, but you can do a lot about its depth and width.
AnonymousThere is only one success -- to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Christopher Morley
The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.
LambThere's no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant day.
Alexander WoolcottEven though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
Martin Luther KingYou can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.
LincolnWe cannot control the tragic things that happen to us, but we can control the way we face up to them.
Anonymous
Every man's life is a fairly-tale written by God's finger
AndersenExperience is the best of schoolmaster, only the school-fees are heavy.
Carlyle
Someone once said:
What goes around comes around.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like no-one's watching.
Sing like no-one's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
K.Leipold
6-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life.
Brecht
If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
Gail SheehyThe best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Mark TwainWe can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision.
Gary CollinsAny change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.
Arnold Bennett
The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.
Ben SteinAccept everything about yourself -- I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end -- no apologies, no regrets.
Clark MoustakasObstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry FordIt is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
Marcus AureliusExperience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.
Huxley
7-*-*-*-*-*-*-
I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Edison
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
ChamberlandNever to repent and never to reproach others; these are the first step of wisdom.
DiderotNew opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
LockeThe best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
John DeweyPeople only see what they are prepared to see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
Jean-Paul Sartre
We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.
R. D. Laing
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

Showa Era Still Exists In Ohimachi, Tokyo.

I had been working for Nikon at Ohimachi plants in Tokyo. I left the company about ten years ago. Even I live in Utsunomiya now, I sometimes meet friends who are still working there. The other day, I met Mr. Abe, one of my friends who worked for Nikon at Ohimachi. There were many small drinking bars and old “yakitori shops” in the east area of JR Ohimachi station.
Mr. Abe is also a software engineer who is a specialist in the image analysis field. We were doing research of artificial intelligence together at the same department of the camera division in Nikon.
People drink “sake” or rice wine and eat “yakitori” or grilled bird, Japanese type of skewered chicken while standing.
Recently, this type of shops have disappeared and been taken the place of by new modern restaurants.
We were walking here and there in every street near Ohimachi station in search for the places best reminded us of Showa era.

Everyone has the days believing in Santa Claus.

I took this picture in December 2001. My younger daughter Rina was still six years old then. We went to the forest near Utsunomiya Museum of Art to make Christmas wreaths using tree branches and vines there.
She was excited to decorate our house door with them to welcome Santa Clause and wonderful presents.

My wife, Emi, Rina and I prepared a glass of milk and a cookie for Santa Clause on the table in the kitchen.
In the morning of Xmas day, Emi and Rina got up few hours earlier than usual, though it was still dark, and found presents near their pillows.
They ran into the kitchen and found an empty glass and a half-bitten cookie. They yelled, “Santa Claus had come. Santa Claus had come.” with joy.

Now, Emi is fourteen and Rina is eleven. They know everything. Not only kids but also parents miss, , , no, no. Parents miss the days of welcoming Santa Claus more than kids.

Rina wrote a message to Santa Claus in Japanese and put it near the window to be seen by Santa Claus placing a small gift for him beside the message.
It says,
“Dear Santa Claus,”
“I want a crocodile toy game.”
“I want to become a medical doctor in the future.”
“I give you a small present.”
“From Rina.”

Will hybrid cars become ubiquitous in the near future?

I think two basic features of hybrid cars are:
First, when the car is stopped, hybrid gasoline motors can shut off.
Second, hybrid cars recover braking energy and use it to charge the battery.
Those two are very simple and everyone can easily think upon them as a way to save energy. The great thing Toyota has done is that it turned the very simple ideas into the mass production cars at reasonable price.
I know there are more than two and faaaaaaaar difficult ideas. (^_^);

Will hybrid cars become ubiquitous in the near future?
I think it does not take long before the number of hybrid cars overtakes that of none-hybrid cars’ one. Then, thanks to the mass production, the price will decrease more and more simultaneously. Right now, hybrid cars are still minorities though, some local governments own them as official cars and not few taxi drivers are changing their cars into hybrid ones. Pictures were taken last week in Utusnomiya-shi, Tochigi, Japan.

A guy who is a taxi driver in Canada shows pictures of his cars and he gives us comments on the web. Every Prius owner can enjoy visiting his site.