Last Saturday night we were at an interesting and special concert. Despite all of the efforts of the organizers to advertise to the local Armenian communities, only about sixty to seventy people came and most of them seemed non-Armenian. I was very disappointed in the Armenian turnout but was very happy that my beautiful wife did not let me miss it. Ara Sarkissian had done a fantastic job organizing the folk-jazz ensemble…

I made a comment about the easy debt/credit cycle possibly ending to which someone responded with a long letter. The first two lines in it were “I’m appealing to you to use whatever influence you might have to take the first step in righting a great wrong. I know you’re an obscure member of an otherwise brilliant List, but seeing that your contributions are negligible…

It feels like a century since my last update. Today was a very special graduation day for me and must be celebrated by a line in the proverbial sand. With over two dozen bids, my 4×8 trailer was sold for $100 to the next slave of manual labor who will certainly get good value for his investment…

My beautiful wife runs the Armenian Sunday school at our church. Last night was their main annual fundraiser. This time I was helping an Armenian family originally from Iran make the koobideh. In the process I heard their story of running from Iran, walking fifteen days in a desert to Pakistan, running from Pakistan to Singapore, from there to Germany as refugees, from there to the United States…

After spending a few days in the mountains of the neighboring state with the distinguished motto “Live Free or Die,” we are back to our daily routines. The mountains and the fresh air seem to have certain healing powers… well at least for the mind and the spirit. Spending time with the family was definitely a treat forcing me to count my blessings more than once during the trip. Upon our return, I found the usual giant stack of blog posts, hundreds of e-mails, news articles and the never-ending list of projects waiting for me. One step at a time, one task and project at a time, I’ll get these completed as usual…