Rain, Rain, Rain...Business Trip to Tokyo

I went to Tokyo on business yesterday and the day before yesterday. I attended a seminar of software development: that is about the standard of communication protocol between semiconductor production equipment. Learning new things is always fun to me and gives me power.

I’m working as a system engineer in my company. I had been in charge of a new project that would be completed in early 2008. But it was discontinued, judged by company’s top executives few months ago. It was sad not only for me but also for other members. Though, thanks to the cancellation of the project, I’m able to spend my working time more for learning, doing research and writing patents at my discretion.

Anyway, after the two-day-long fruitful lectures, I went to a photo gallery in Shinjuku one day and bookstores in Ochanomizu the other day. Those two towns are among my most favorites.
I took several pictures of rainy Tokyo.

A Bud of Morning Glory

I live on the 4th floor of a condo having a small balcony, where I keep several flowerpots. I can’t say I have green fingers, though I can grow plants all the year around: I love to see flowers there no matter how small and shabby they may be. Every year in this rainy season, morning glories put out their buds even I haven’t seeded at all. It’s really surprising. They have grown bigger and bigger as if they grow by 1cm per night since few weeks ago.

Morning glories have funnel-shaped flowers, open them in the morning. The flowers usually start to fade a couple of hours, last for a single morning and die in the afternoon.
New flowers bloom in each morning.

They’ll not only have beautiful flowers, but also have excellent vines for creating summer shade on the fence of our balcony.
I can’t wait for the clear blue sky summer and beautiful flowers in my balcony.

I promise every visitor on this site see pictures of beautiful flowers in August!

Clear Sky in the Middle of the Rainy Season

Meteorological Agency said last Thursday that Kanto area had been in rainy season.
Ironically, it has been fine since then. Thanks to the good weather, I played tennis yesterday with Yuzu Tennis members as usual and today with Smile Tennis Team members. It was the first time for me to play with Smile Tennis Team members.
One of my Yuzu Tennis members introduced me to Smile Tennis Team. Thanks Ms Kaneda! I enjoyed a lot today.

I felt somehow nostalgic when I found an azalea flower falling nearby the court. It’s the end of the spring.

Most of Yuzu Tennis members are very young. It is safe to say that more than half of them are high school students or younger kids. They like a powerful play style.
On the contrary, most of Smile Tennis Team members are senior. Some are already retired and the others are few years to their retirement. They rather enjoy the atmosphere of playing tennis and a conversation of their daily happenings than playing tennis itself.

My backache has almost gone but not perfectly. So, the play style of Smile Tennis Team is better to me right now than that of Yuzu Tennis.

A New PC and an Old PC Monitor

My PC monitor was not working properly. It suddenly displayed nothing on the screen after using it for few hours. In that case, I should turn the power off, wait for a minute then turn it on again. Sigh, I decided to buy new one.
I went to Yamada Denki, went up to the third floor of its building where PCs and PC peripheral goods were sold. PC monitors were on the corner far other side of the elevator, so I had to walk through the section where state-of-the-art PCs were sold. All new PCs looked very nice, so I just asked a clerk about new PCs on the way to the PC monitor section. While talking with him, I gradually wanted to buy a new PC rather than a new PC monitor. More than 30 minutes my questioning and his answering, finally I decided to buy a new note PC with windows Vista, Intel Celeron 1.46G Hz processor, 512Mbytes Memory and 80Gbytes HD.
Now I’m using the new PC. It works beautifully.
How about the PC monitor?
Yes, I decided to have the PC monitor repaired. It’ll be back in three weeks.



It has been raining or cloudy in Utsunmiya since last week. My backache has almost disappeared. Smile.

Mt. Fuji and My Backache

I suffered from a terrible backache at the week before last and took two days off the office.
I rarely take days off due to illness. It was so terrible that I wasn’t able to even walk and sit more than five minutes.
I suffer from a terrible backache in every two to three years, especially when I’m very tired and work too much or in the same situation I play tennis too much. This time, I took part in a tennis tournament with my colleague even I had a cold.
I felt much better last week than two weeks ago but couldn’t say it a perfect condition. Same as other people, I don’t realize the importance of being healthy before I lose it. I played tennis yesterday but, while playing, I thought I should have taken a rest at least one more week.
We are going to have a rainy season this week or next in Utsunmiya. I think it’ll be a good rest for me since our tennis court is outdoor type.


I went to lake Yamanaka near Mt. Fuji with my mother, brothers, sister-in-law and my family members a month ago. It was very beautiful. Mt. Fuji matches very well with cherry blossoms.