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…

I cannot get my childhood out my head in the past couple weeks. Nostalgia is an old acquaintance of mine whose visits are no longer welcome. This time my cousin’s death prompted it to pay me a visit. This clever magician has its distinguished seat at the table of our worst enemies such as worry, greed, hate, dishonesty, and fear among others. This one pretends to be a close friend, one who has only good intentions, but under the elaborate disguise is a ruthless controlling pig with the singular objective of getting in our way of living the current moment to its fullest. I have seen most of the tricks this one plays to trap us in its web. Once captured, it infects our lens through which we see life, the world, and ourselves and causes all kinds of distortions…

My surgery went well. I am now home recovering. I was reminded yet again how dependent I am on people around me. Words alone are not enough to describe my wife’s unending support and devotion during a time when I needed her most. Experiences like these bring us closer and make our small family stronger. She could be next to me because our whole family was there for us and for this I am very thankful.

Every time I am at a hospital, I am humbled by…

When I catch myself thinking about something worth sharing, I take down a few sentences to come back to them in a future post. A few days ago, I wrote “An interesting longer term cycle seems to be repeating. We all learn something new every day but from time to time I find myself having the urge to learn a new discipline, new subject, or a new profession. The learning process is very exciting as it brings renewal and new ways of understanding the world…