REUSE!

It will not be long before next year!
In Japan, it is time to clean rooms! I cleaned my room and car today.

We cleaned our study room the other day. The dumping ground of our school was covered with heaps of rubbish. I found some things from the heaped trash. One of them was very big rucksack for climbing mountains. It was broken a little so I repaired it using something in my lab. They are a plastic chopping board, some bolts & nuts and a sewing kit. The improved rucksack must be stronger than before but a little unshapely.

The other things were a mouse and a tennis racket. They were not broken and not so old. They are enough for me.

Japanese culture before seeing in New Year
The object made of some bamboo and pine tree is “Kadomatu”. It was put outside the front door of my home now. It is said that it is the mark when the God of this year come our home and the place that the God dwell. The object was given to my dad by his friend.

I wish you a happy new year!

ChristmaSnowboard!

I snowboarded in a skiing ground, Fujiten, near my city with my friends in my lab for 3 days, Dec. 22, 23, 24. This skiing ground had Christmas event that gave us free lift tickets for this 3 days only if we wore clothes like Santa Claus! It was the best event for me because I had no money and no girlfriend and I was able to practice snowboard as hard as I could. Actually, there were a lot of families and couples and so many Santas were skiing. Incidentally, we bought the Santa cloth by about $4 in one coin shop. How cheep it was! We were able to enjoy it so much. Two girls in second photo spoke to us on the lift on the first day and asked us to snowboard with them. They were so talkative, loud and cheerful. Finally, we snowboarded with them whole day. Their dad thanked us when we went home.

Christmas is also one of the biggest events in Japan. Now, everything is Christmas, Christmas, Christmas! Many shops are decorated with so many lights and illuminations of some parks are very beautiful there are couples who are dating and families who buy presents for children.

Recently, some normal houses became to be decorated with so many lights! Some of them are competing with each other for illuminations. Sometime some people go to the area to see it because it may be more beautiful than some decorated parks.

However, my family thinks Christmas is not so important. My mom bought nothing but Christmas cake in our friend’s cake shop yesterday because she likes it very much and we just ate it but my dad didn't because he doesn’t like so sweet cake. For my family, Christmas is only for my mom.

Some of my friends seemed to have a good time with their girlfriends. I envy them a little but I don’t want to think so. I am writing my article and my thesis form now and I want to finish them as early as possible and go to snowboarding!

Did you have a good time in Christmas day?

The 9th Eco Products 2007 - Eco Style Fair

I took part in The 9th Eco Products 2007 in Tokyo Big Sight to see various news of Eco Products with my friend on last Saturday. The hall of Tokyo Big Sight was so large that I was sometime confused and lost my way.(^_^;) There were so many booths of various companies and organizations and a lot of products and thinking for our ecology. Example, eco-car, FCX, of HONDA, PRIUS of TOYOTA and biomass energy, organic products, wind and water electricity and so on.

I was impressed with technology of superconduction. Applying it to a train seems to have initial cost and running cost pretty low and applying superconduction element to computers seems to be able to consume lower amount of electric power. I think these technologies may be more and more important in industrial world. My company, FANUC, is also no exception. We had better improve the existing technology, products and systems for care environment as a company on the earth.

There was Earthwatch booth so I went there and gave the staff my photos of Walking with Rhinos because I was supposed to furnish them to Earthwatch.

There was the booth of hand-made chopsticks so I tried to make my chopsticks. They were unshapely, too thick and not so good but I’m going to use them when I take a meal in my laboratory. The mark on one of chopsticks is Japanese and means Eco. In Japan, disposable chopsticks are frequently used at many restaurants and they are made from woods. I don’t know details about disposable chopsticks but there are two thoughts, one is that disposable chopsticks is bad because using so many chopsticks causes consuming large quantities of wood and destruction of forests. Another one is that disposable chopsticks is good because they are made from scrap wood when timber dealers saw up logs and using them is to make good use of scrap wood. I think both are right. Anyway, I should use everything as well as these chopsticks with care.

The friend who is next me is Yumeko. I met her in Dubai airport when I went to Kenya. Then she also went to Kenya to take part in Study Tour and seemed to go to Massai village, Kibera slum, Elephant orphanage and so on. She is so nice and cheerful as well as interested in care environment and volunteer work. She invited me to take part in this exhibition. The wall behind us was made from so many milk packs and the booth was recommending us to recycle them.

The last photo is my eco bag. I got it there. Do you have eco bag? Eco bags are for shopping at supermarkets and it is for to reduce CO2 as well as shopping bags made from oil. It is recommended in many places in Japan but few people use it. It is not enough, I think. I want to make eco bags that have the mark of our snowboard team, Snowbird.

The 34th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Clinical Biomechanics

There was "The 34th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Clinical Biomechanics" on last Friday. My friend and I took part in this as public speaker. What I presented was the influence of that clamping force of screws gives fracture healing in plate fixation for diaphysis fracture. My friend’s presentation theme was "Comparison of 2D analysis and 3D analysis on the femoral trabecula distribution".

I was nervous because there were so many people in the room that we presented those in. Almost of them were medical doctors as well as much older than we and strict. We managed to present about our study in that. Doctors of orthopedics might be not so interested in our study because there was no question that I thought important. I thought doctors were interested in practical methods of clinical tests or advice rather than simulation of bone remodeling for fracture healing or trabecula distribution. So we should consider about how to use this simulation technique with medical doctors who know about clinical test well.

There were a lot of presentations that day. They were about total hip replacement, artificial knee joint, fracture, tissue, rehabilitation, sports biomechanics and so on. They sounds very interesting but we was unable to see all of them. So, we saw presentations about only orthopedics and talked with medical doctors then we got some hot information, some advice for my study and some clinical problems of implants and operations. We should have keep in touch with medical doctors more. I thought, if I had known about those advice or problems two years ago, the direction of my study must have changed a little and my study might be more useful. I regretted that a little. I will study along the advice as possible as I can from now and tell about that to my younger friends in my laboratory.

There was lunch seminar in which one professor explained about operation of total hip joint with special machine. Some movie of tests were aired, cutting skin and scraping bone… It’s gross!!! In that, doctors were eating normally!

I’ll be busy. I have to write an article and a thesis and analyze for them. In addition, I want to snowboard!

Your preparation of Christmas is good?
In Japan, though almost Japanese are Buddhism, so many people observe Christmas with their family, girlfriend or boyfriend. So couples may be busy to plan the special day but I don’t have girlfriend. I’m free! I don’t have to plan. But I’m a little lonely. Maybe I’ll drink with friends who don’t have a girlfriend! No! I just have to get a new girlfriend by Christmas.

This photo is main stage not us. I forgot to ask someone to take pictures of us.
Next photo is a small party in my lab last week. The friend is traveling Taiwan now!

Fuji Safari Park

There was a year-end party of soft volleyball team on Saturday. Everyone enjoyed singing songs with a Karaoke! Karaoke culture seemed to begin in Japan. Do you have a karaoke? Are you used to sing a song with a karaoke in a party? Almost of my friends likes a karaoke.
I found the guy who paid $300 for our drinks. He was my dad. It’s very nice and a little disappointing. I didn’t expect that because he usually doesn’t appear in my friends as well as meddle in my activities. I found he agreed with my activities and appreciated him very much.

I went to Fuji Safari Park on Sunday with my friends. I was looking forward to seeing lions because I was unable to see it in Kenya. We were able to see many kinds of animals as well as lions there but lions were the most impressive. They had so fearful face and made me remember the bone of lion’s face in Morani’s protected area. There were white rhinos but not black rhinos.