It looks that my logging is going to be hold for a week as my connection from Martuni to Stepanagert was cut due to I don't know what and when they restored it, it was so bad (from extra sounds) that my computer can't connect to the server.

Anyway, there is so much to write about and when things are back to normal, I'll tell you all about what has been going on here.

This is going to be a short log.

I just have a couple of things to say.

The rooster was great!!!!

And

I drank as much wine as the whole rooster was marinated in.

Oh, let me say one more thing.

I�m going to sleep in tomorrow and pretend that it is Sunday (my workers were pre-warned that I�m not coming to work tomorrow as I knew tonight was going to be a night that I was going to marinate myself in red wine). Could I have done this in America? Life is great here!!!

Tonight a friend of mine who is visiting from France came home with a live rooster, which he plans to cook for dinner tomorrow.



So here we were at 11 PM with a rooster that is screaming its head off and my friend who I so bravely had told a couple of days ago that I could kill and clean a chicken and he telling me how great it is that I can clean this screaming rooster, as he has no idea how it is done.

Well off came the rooster�s screaming head and in no time, I had the rooster in boiling hot water and feathers all over the place.

I really surprised myself as I guess by watching, I learned how to clean a rooster and take out its inner organs, knowing which ones were to be kept and which ones were to be tossed out. The whole thing brought back memories of junior high school and dissecting frogs in biology class.

So tomorrow night we will be having rooster in wine sauce.

I wish I could log more, but I�ve been so busy with work and entertaining my friend, who is seriously considering moving to Martuni within the next few months.

I hope his moving here works out, as it will be great to have a second Diaspora Armenian living here to help with work that we agree needs be done.

Today I went to the village of Jardar to look for a woman who is 106 or 107 years old. She was widowed 30 years ago and had no children. Her only support that she gets other than her pension comes from a grand-nephew who lives in Yerevan. Her neighbors report to me that she is very independent, but could defiantly use any kind of help that we can give her (they too all help her in anyway they can). So I found her house and learned that her grand-nephew came when the weather got very cold and convinced her to go to Yerevan for the winter so he would not have to worry about her. They say she will return in a couple of months. She will replace Vartush Myrig as far as the aid we receive for her.

I hope this picture didn�t frighten you as it initially did me. This is the old woman�s neighbor�s dog and he is not showing his teeth to attack or bite, but he is smiling. Once I figured that out, the dog, whose name is Sharig (which in Russian means �Marble�) and I played a little bit.

Today was an extra busy day, which I got only 30% of what I planned on doing completed.

This morning I went to Stepanagert to take Rosa Myrig to have some tests run to see what is the cause of her high blood pressure. After checking in with the diagnostic center and waiting a bit, we were told that since Rosa Myrig ate breakfast, she could not be tested and would have to come back in the morning on an empty stomach and have a bunch of tests run where she could then eat something around 11 AM. I dropped her off at her relative�s house.

After that I ran around from one place to another like a chicken with its head cut off.

My last stop was at a friend�s house to pick up some materials that he had brought with him from Yerevan for my factory, where I had my first meal of the day at 4:30 PM.

While we ate, they had the television on some Russian channel. It was some talk show that everyone in the room watched. It was the Jerry Springer type of show but worse. For those of you who don�t know who Jerry Springer is, he is a guy that has a talk show that is all about conflict between couples, friends and so on that is pure made up revolting junk.

Since I don�t understand Russian, I had to rely on pictures, which I�m quite fluent at. So this show was about 2 brothers who have learned to hate each other thanks to some girl. I knew this because the brothers boxed it out a bit and the word I picked up on was �orgasm� (in reference to what one of the brothers could not give her) and also because at one point, she started to unzip one of the brothers pants. It also helped that my friend explained it to me.

So now were all talking about what a stupid and harmful show this is and what business does it have being aired in Artsakh? I suggested that maybe it�s because we were picking it up from Russia and how can we block that? No I was told, it�s relayed from our very own television station and if the NKR government�s ministers of social security, education, defense, health and the President and Prime Minister had any common sense and cared about our well being, then they would not allow such garbage to be pumped into our homes for children to watch and get ideas (this remark was not made by me, but by a native who is younger than me). In fact I learned that there is one station that is aired here in Artsakh, but is banned from being aired in Russia because the content material is apparently harmful to some viewers. I guess this subject is going to be added to my list for the second time in 12 month, as I recall this subject coming up a few months ago by one of my mechanic.

Anyway, after a meal and long conversation I headed back to Martuni to find that we had no power and was told that Stepanagert was also in the dark. The power came on a couple of hours later.

Oh I would also like to report that I now have a cat, who I think belongs to the whole neighborhood and I also guess my mice got their eviction notice as I am now on day 3 of no mice noises.

A friend of mine was suppose to make me an electronic mouse/rat repellent device as I have a mouse living between my floorboards.

Well my friend didn�t come threw yet and a couple of days ago, I could hear my mouse has turned into mice who were arguing with each other and chewing on the wood floor under me.



Now I�m not sure if they are trying to cut a hole around my bed so I will fall threw to the room below me, but before things got to that point, I decided to send them an eviction notice.

I put in an envelope the eviction notice, which is poison coated wheat, which I inserted threw their mail slot which places the notice right in their living area.

I hope I�m not talking too soon, but I think my little unwelcome guests have got the message as there is no sounds coming from my floor today.

BBC Correspondent: Armenia - The Betrayed, was broadcast on Sunday, 26 January, 2003 on BBC Two at 1915 GMT

One of our readers wrote me:

Here is an article at www.bbc.co.uk that I think needs good attention since readers can have their say, and the link for the article appeared on the Headlines.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/correspondent/2572667.stm

I was following the BBC news for a while already and this is their best article so far on the subject.

If the number of the comments increase the article might stay online for a while.

May I also suggest that when you write to the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, in regards to the article by their Turkey-based "journalist" Amberin Zaman, that you reference the above link as reading material for them to better understand the Armenian genocide.

For those of you that missed the fight on January 24th at Crystal Park Casino in LA, then let me be the one to announce that Shawn Yacubian won the fight!!!

I know some of you are probably wishing you could have made it out to LA to see that great fight, but didn�t. Well guess what, your in luck thanks to modern technology. You can relive that great moment in your living room with all the beer and pretzels you can stuff your face with while relaxing in your favorite chair in your underwear, thanks to pay-per-view (note: I am sorry to report to those that live in the city of Martuni, Artsakh, that this service is not yet available, but there is really good Armenian made beer and pretzels for those that can only read about this great fight). For a schedule of fight times, you can click here.

Congratulation to Shawn for his win!!! I know you will keep on winning those fights and gain the world championship title you have been working so hard to get and deserve.

One of my neighbors has a hobby of making churches out of matchsticks.

This church is made of over 15,000 matchsticks and measures 30� wide, 14� deep and 22� high. It took her over a month to make. It�s quite detailed with miniature gravel and grass.

I asked her which Armenian Church it is and she told me that she saw it on television once and didn�t get the name. If there is anyone that knows which church this is, could you please e-mail me.

I had a very disturbing dream last night.

It took place on some street in Armenia. I had a house and just purchased a second house a couple of doors down from my existing house on that street.

I was having some work done on the house and my contractor from Martuni and some laborers that are also from Martuni were doing some cement work.

My contractor had agreed to purchase a cement mixer for $600 from some Turk and had taken possession of it without asking me if it was okay to spend that much and was trying to convince me that it was a great deal since I was angry at him for spending my money without asking and didn�t think it was worth it especially since it was from a Turk.

As they were working in the back yard of my new house with the new cement mixer, some Turk neighbors came over and asked my contractor if we could mix up some cement for them and my contractor agreed.

They gave us some unmixed cement in a bucket and my contractor told me to take it back to the guys working on the mixer to mix it up.

I took it back and before putting it in the mixer, I noticed how creamy it was and had to taste it. It was so sweat and smooth and I thought to myself that I just ingested cement and once it gets in my stomach, it will turn hard and clog my system. How stupid of me. I wanted more since it tasted so good and I was hungry, but didn�t because I also knew that it was not good for me. My workers said that we can learn from the Turks how to make good cement and it�s good they gave it to us to mix.

While the workers were mixing up the cement, I went back out front and it looked like the Turks were waiting for me. In front of my wall they had dug a grave where I guess we were going to be using their cement and I understood that it was for their son who had died.

Then I see a friend standing out front talking to the Turks. Next thing I see some guy of about my friend�s age (45) walking by. He looked lost, blind and maybe even on drugs.

My friend knew this guy and called to him. His name was Marat or Mourat. He didn�t answer to my friend and my friend asked him what was wrong and followed him, trying to see what was wrong with his friend.

They crossed the street and walked up an embankment. When they got to the top of the embankment, that Marat guy looked my friend in the eyes and it was clear that this Marat guy was just faking his condition and pushed my friend off the edge of the embankment so he would fall and maybe hit his head.

When Marat pushed, my friend jumped at the same time and landing on his feet. I can still see his hiking boots landing firmly on the ground.

My friend look at Marat in anger and said �is that the game you want to play!!?� Marat jumped down the same way my friend did and grabbed my friend by the hands. Oh and with my friend was a woman. Maybe his ex-wife, but I can�t really remember, but the whole time she was standing by him.

So this Marat guy is holding my friend and I immediately started to run towards my old house to get my gun. I was running as fast and hard as I could. I could also hear the Turks telling Marat to hold him for them and I could see one of them rushing up to my friend. I hear a single shot from a larger caliber pistol and my friend dropped to the ground.

I could still feel myself running really fast and extra hard for my gun so I could shoot at these Turks in hopes to save my friend, the whole time thinking that how could we be so stupid to let our guard down with the Turks. If I had only had my gun with me, I would have opened fire on that Marat guy the minute he pushed my friend and they would have all fled.

I felt so stupid that I was so na�ve to believe that I could trust the Turks and we can�t trust them and need to always have some weapon with us just in case. I was also thinking that maybe they had recognized my friend from the war and they wanted to kill him for that.

To say the least, I woke up and was not at all happy.

I�m not sure what this dream meant, but will say that it could have come on since a few people have asked me about where my friend is.

Oh, one other thing I�ve noticed is that I�ve been having more dreams of this kind with shooting and guns and even seeing people I shoot die. In America, every now and then I would have dreams of being attacked and for some reason my gun would always malfunction and not fire.

Any ideas what all this means?

If anyone is wondering what all this has to do with life in Armenia, at very least, the dream took place in Armenia and the subject was defiantly Armenian.