We were driving by real fast when I saw it, but I took this photo and Nugo decided to take me to it, once there I saw

An Orthodox priest, I did not want to get to close to him though because all Georgians kiss priests hands and have him bless them, so if I went up to him and did not do this then it might seem like I was insulting him.

I was unsure how much I could go onto the grounds of the place so at first I just had Nugo take a picture of me in front of it. Then I examined the doorway closer

Finding more signs of (likely) Soviet era defacement. I should note that this is really nothing compared to what happened to most religious buildings here in Georgia, thousands were totally destroyed and many "re-purposed".

This pic is of a window with the shape of the distinctive "Georgian" cross in the window, this is the one of the things that marks it as being a very old building, the usage of such crosses died out by the time of the late medevial period. Next I took a pic into a darkened, but opened doorway

It was only by looking at the photo that I could see that there seemed to be a table with literature inside and a donation box, but before going inside I wanted a pic of the

bell tower, I actually took several of it from a variety of angles and when I was done I almost stumbled over

this lamb, it was kind of spooky how just seemed to come out of nowhere and creep up next to me, next I went

inside, after making a small donation, I went

down the dark corridor until reaching another

archway, with this picture carved and painted into the wall above it, from the very dim light ahead I could tell a large room was up ahead

I entered the main chapel area and snapped a bunch of photos so I could actually see where I was, the only other light came from the 2 small windows
(1 pictured above) &

another on the other side of the room, after this I snapped a bunch of pics of the ceiling here are


two more of them, it was really weird being in there, in the dark silence, snapping photos and then looking at them in the camera so I got out of there pretty quick

seeing the sheep again before I left..

that was my destination a couple months back, we drove most of the way in Nugo's "Lada - Neva" then parked near the

radio & satellite towers near the chapel, from there it was a short walk

to it, the first thing I noticed was that the cross on top had been

hacked off, you see this at a lot of religious sites here, but I suppose it is to be expected in a country that suffered under Soviet domination for more than 70 years

next was the view down, which was pretty far, that was as far as I planned on going, but then

Nino and her cousin walked around the edge of the chapel(and the cliff it is situated on), I walked around too and planned on walking back the way I had come, but then they made it clear to me that I was not supposed to go from left to right, only right to left, and you are supposed to do this 3 times before entering the chapel, so I did that.

Once inside, it was pretty small, I took a picture of the small altar, but it was blurry for some reason so this one &

this one of the curtain in front of it will have to do, maybe its for the best, I don't think Nugo wanted me taking pictures in there anyways...

See the Georgian 4th Infantry brigade was on some kind of winter exercises, I took a bunch of photos, mainly of a bunch of them doing PT, while 2 crews were limbering one, what looked like a 75mm? howitzer, and another crew was loading one they had already set up. Once I had as many pics as I wanted we got back in the van and Nugo drove off. Not half a click away a cop stopped us, ordered me out of the van and demanded to see my camera. I refused to give it to him and just kept saying "Amerikeli, Amerikeli" This has gotten me out of most problems here, I walk where I want, when I want, take pics of what I want, all under the guise of "Amerikeli, Amerikeli." It seemed not this time though, eventually Nugo convinced them to send for someone who spoke English, this turned out to be some "Special Security Police" guy in a Mercedes, who had spent a year in New York about 20 years ago, needless to say, his English was not very good, but he did follow along as I deleted all the Army photos I had taken, then before he left, he took a photo of me and had Nugo take one of me with him!
He did let me keep the one of the sign for the base though, I guess this is the extent of current Georgian-American cooperation, at least here in Georgia, I bet this will change if Obama sells thems some Stingers(A-A weapons) & Dragons(A-T weapons) So come on dude, get with it!
Anyways, speaking of Georgia and war, every classroom has

this poster up in it, its the local war dead from the 92-94(mainly) civil war, by local I mean more than this town of 2000ish, its for the province, which still means a lot for an area of about 50 to 100 thousand people.
After the episode with army and cops we were caught on the road in a blizzard, and the car started running badly, we took shelter in a semi-abandoned building while Nugo and Giorgi did some repair work, I did some wandering and photo taking:

This is the panel of a big huge sheet metal press machine, I look this photo because it says "CCCP" on it! near it were a whole bunch of pipes that had been cut off and now

trees were growing up through the holes in them, this was a pretty "12 Monkeys" moment for me and just to show somebody was indeed here in the early 90s?

this poster of Mariah hung on the bathroom door, still lookin good baby!
Now usually after going to the bathroom here, I must make do with near freezing Georgian water to dry my hands with, but in this building there was hot water to use, which was nice. However, I should have made sure not to lean my head on any of the pipes

I can tell you, that hurt a lot, and this photo of the mark it left was taken just today, or a week after it happened. Shortly after that, we headed back on the road, but the van broke down again. This time

the took the whole thing apart and

found the problem, after replacing that, it was another 2 hour drive to my current home of "V-town"

As you can see, I work with kids in a wide range of ages. These classes are really taught by a Georgian teacher (I work with 2 right now) They meet either 2 or 3 times a week, different times on different days, I am still getting a handle on the schedule, but it basically means 24 classes a week for me.

ps: The school is a restoration in process, it was badly damaged during the civil war and closed for years after that, I've sent a letter to a couple of top officials asking if they could get the classes new blackboard, here's hoping...

OK, so this post was going to be a long winded post about how I rediscovered my inner vegeterian, but I just slipped on the ice on the way to buy a pack of Georgian ciggies and my back is killing me, so anyways
You see that little piggy on the left there?

He got slaughtered

before my eyes, I've skipped all the pics of his long bloody death rattle, followed by the long drawn out carving of him up(after being moved to a different location)
but I think this was one of blood on the snow just says something else or

this one of Leo, Nugo's father holding up the pig's head, this old timer was born during WW2, to a war widow, the last of 9 children, but she lived into her 80s.
Now Leo took an immeadiate disliking to me becuase of my German last name, given some German killed his Mama(thats Georgian for father, I know, how crazy is that!) during the battle of Stalingrad whilst he was still in his Deda's(Deda is Georgian for mother, yes, I know, its all backwards here) womb.
However, after drinking enough wine with him and toasting to their victory in "The Great Patriotic War" he seems OK with me now.
Oh yeah, more about the pig, while they were carving him up

His parents looked on from the other side of the fence, this moment was a little heart breaking for me and when

Giorgi showed me some of the meat he was going to cook, I swore to myself I would not eat any of poor Mr Piggy! Even though, I had not eaten since the night before, I was cold, and we had trekked 6 km up to an altitude of about 1400 m. However, once

the pork was cooking over the hot coals, Mr Piggy was transformed to something delicious smelling that I just had to eat, and I did, a lot of him.
None of Mr Piggy went to waste though, there are still jars and jars of him here in one of the buildings, eventually all that was left was his

bones...


ps: Look, to me, its brutal here in many ways, but its all tempered by necessity, I mean I would not want to live like this for more than a year, but it has already been an eye opening experience for me. Still, I will try and make my next post(whenever that may be) more uplifting, cheers!

It all started out tamely with me writing my name in the snow and

Nino taking a picture of me, then Giorgi threw the first snowball @ her &

dared her to strike back, it escalated from there with

(cousin) Giorgi becoming involved, snow started to get

all over the place and

disaster loomed, with the struck window

Nugo came out and called an end to it, all that was left was for

the clean up. There are no real "winners" in a snowball fight, however, I think the real loser was

Loma, unable to defend himself, he seemed to take strikes from all quarters(especially his house) war, it is always hardest on the innocent, aint it?

Thats Nugo and Giorgi chopping down a tree for firewood.

I wanted to get to use an ax or maybe even a chainsaw, but Nugo, wisely decided to limit me to

stacking the wood, however, I, sort of got the last laugh on this score about who would be the most danger to oneself when

cousin Giorgi(about half of all males in Georgia are named "Giorgi")
cut his toe with an axe. This after I warned him, as best I could, to get some boots on. It was weird though, after he hit his slipper(and the foot in it) with the axe, he did not cry out and seemed more concerned in Nugo not finding out than about stopping the blood flow. I helped him hobble back to the house. Eventually showing him the scar on one of my toes where I cut it with an axe when I was a little younger than him.
However, I screamed and screamed when I cut my toe. Next up for me was

branch clearing, at this point, the branches are behind me in a haphazard mess and must be taken to the

top of the hill &

stacked, this done, I rested...

I wanna go back
To the man I use to be
My gosh, he was a fine fellow!

The worst he had to fear
A bug called Y2K
Let's go to that eternal yesterday
Before bitterness began

The world before that pussy Gore
Gave us all to that dick Bush
Before the towers fell
Before fake WMDs
And all the horror which followed

Before Obama bailed out Wall Street scum
To being in my 20's
Not near 40
I just wanna go back
Don't you?
Its the yesterday I long for...

So I spent a bunch of lari(their $ here) to get internet access I can live with. And well, so far, my email loads quicker, but FB does not load right still, oh well, I will just stick to less complicated sites and use most of my bandwith to upload photos. Here are some I already put on photobucket:

Let's start with the family dog, "Loma" when I first came here a month ago, he tried to bite my arm off when I went to pet him, but after 2 weeks of talking to him nicely and feeding him scraps he loves me. If only people were like that, huh?

I discovered this image of Lenin lying face down, but I recognized the outline and turned it over and lo and behold, there he was, then man himself, like the people here I have conflicting feelings about old Lenny, all be it for likely totally different reasons.

This is the school I am teaching English at, on a closer inspection there is a plaque partially in English next to the front door:

From here on out I shall just refer to the town of 2 thousand people I am in as "V-town".

The house I am staying in.

A photo of my room from the doorway leading to the kitchen where at least one person is in at all times. Also, from this angle, you cannot see the big desk they have provided me with, I use its drawers to store a lot of my clothes and a bunch of my other stuff, books, papers, electronics, etc, etc, is spread out on top of it, of course.

The road into V-town, if the Russians were to invade the rest of Georgia from their forward positions in "South Ossetia" this is one of the roads they would come down about 80 or 90 km from here. Most of the country around here is like this, beautiful too and well, easily defendable by the incredibly hardy & tough Georgian people. However, the Russians would simply crush them with air power. Really, all we the USA would have to do in order to ensure Georgia's survival is give them air defense support, such an assurance would be enough to dissuade any more offensive action by them(the Russians), no matter who is their current tyrant, hooah.

Now back to scenic Georgia, it really is a beautiful place and I intend on exploring it more once the weather is better, especially up at

it pronounced: buh-zen-iv-e, this 6 km hike is one that climbs to about 1500 meters and I made the trek already once up, it almost killed me, I won't go into the details, but it was a truly harrowing experience, one I will not be forgetting anytime soon. I have since been back up by 4x4 and am likely to be visiting it again since that is where the Nugo's(the father of the family I am staying with) father's home is. They killed a pig up there, the 2nd time I went up there, I have photos of that too. I have so many photos already, over 600, many still to upload. However, this posting process has become real tedious, copy and pasting the html for each of these photos is as buggy as accessing Facebook, so I am unsure how many more posts like this I will be making from here, it is just so annoying, I am trying to keep from getting angry by continuing to type.
Anyways, it seems to have worked, here's another photo:

There he is, good old "Uncle Joe", who, many here, actually still hold in quite regard here, mainly because he was Georgian not Russian! I know a lot of people in "the West" do not even realize that.
And now one last photo, just for some "compare/contrast"

I just thought the 2nd to last photo might have given the wrong impression about the women of Georgia, many are just so darn dreamy, you know?
However, don't get any ideas about the above beauty she is only 16, oh well...

Once upon a time I was filled with so much belief.
However, the world I encountered was one filled with an indescribable amount of woe
and well, how shall I put it?
"randomness"
Thus did

nihilism and confusion result, then, unexpected came

love, the kind for people rather than ideas, but I never really loved me, so inevitably that too ended

badly, from there, things only got

worse
but since hitting that bottom though, I have been endeavoring not just to "start over" again, but begin again much like a

baby...

saw these in a Mexican grocery story, sick, huh?
&
So it really looks now like I will be teaching English in the Republic of Georgia for a year, come December 5th. It appears to be a

beautiful country and I am looking forward to going there for some time...

I listened to all of my Moz CDs and watched a bunch of episodes of "Boardwalk Empire", the result was a lot of strange dreams involving me being his sidekick(Watson) as he solved crimes.
So basically I have decided this is poem and post worthy:

mmm

peeping through windows
dead girl on a floor
eww
not that I really care
but have I got anything better to do?
simply singing
such a bore
so instead
I'll just ask and ask and ask
because I think its time for a
Morrissey Murder Mystery…

*
MPDG

All dressed up with nowhere to go
My manic pixie dream girl
Striving be of use
The perfect muse
Because of you
I learned things I never knew
I never knew
But you said you had no inner life
How was I supposed to know?
Hell, I even believed you a happy wife
In spite of our life of strife
At the end there though
I was so damn lazy
And you were just plain crazy
Leaving me forever
Oh manic pixie dream girl
Where are you now?

*=there were many images I thought about putting above this text, but once I decided to use none of the uhh, "her who inspired it", I realized it was best to use one of an imaginary person, since that is really the best way to see the "MPDG" she is a being of the imagination and woe betide those that seek out such woman or who seek be like an "MPDG" even with the best of intentions. For that way lies disaster & madness, for both I believe now, hooah...

You see the chicken off to the right not by the other three? Well, when the owner gets back from his trip, he is probably heading to the chopping block, and I share some of the blame for this.
First some background, I take care of the owner's chickens and cats when he goes away on his frequent trips.
And well, the hens have been producing less and less eggs, the one on the far right has not produced any for a long time now. Also, she pecks at the other chickens and seems to be somewhat "in charge" In my mind I had dubbed her "the lesbian chicken"
And on the phone with the owner yesterday(he likes to check up on me) I used this term and the line went dead for a minute.
Now I know it is not right for me to call a chicken a lesbian on oh so many levels, insensitive and all that, but hey, this guy I was talking to is basically a gun toting right wing nut so I thought it would be no big deal to say that, I mean the only good thing I can think to say about right wing crazies, is you don't have to be "super pc" around them, but it turns out you do, just not for the reasons I thought.
So after he hears me say something about the lesbian chicken, he starts talking about "getting rid of it" when he comes back, then he works himself up into a little frenzy about how it might be better to just replace all of them. By that he means kill them and I can tell from the way he is talking that he is so homophobic that the very idea of a gay chicken is just too much for him to take and he thinks that that one chicken could somehow infect the other hen's with her gayness, its absurd, but this really is how these people think. I am just wondering if his prejudice will extend to not eating a chicken because he thinks of it as a gay now. I am thinking of other things now too, like what if I tell him that his cats behave in "gay ways" will he get rid of them?
Not that they do or do they, fuck man, thats thinking like him, but I am intrigued at the idea of fucking with him some more, just to see how far this homophobia thing goes.
However, I would hate for something to happen to the cats as well, so other than this blog post, I'll keep my mouth shut...

I just stumbled on to her music a week ago and wow, do I love it.

Its just an added bonus that she turned out to be a halfie goddess
also, I like to watch the sunset under some powerlines a couple miles from where I live and a couple of days ago, I found

this underneath them, and just had to take a picture
lastly

Here comes October, the hardest of months, filled with so much for me, of me, both good & bad.
In an effort to add more good to this mix of memories, this coming "monolith".
October 4th marks 1 year clean for me, which is quite a milestone for me in these oh so hard last 7 years...

and why I went up the side of it, was to investigate

these, I think they are spent shell casings from some WW2 era artillery piece, my guess would be a 75mm howitzer.
Anyways, so with my fingerprinting not being able to get done until October 6th, that leaves a very narrow window to finding one of the teaching jobs that starts by the end of the year, I fear all this extra crap I have to do may mean I have to stay here far longer than I want to...

So I am sitting in my room reading the Big Book, and I have this revelation that how can I not believe in God if I hate him so much.
Just then I look up and notice the face made by some stacked boxed, and its as if it is saying to me:
"duh"
not quite a white light moment, but close enough for me

I saw this on one of my walks, I did not use it though.

This is near the railroad tracks, what happened to this guy? I wonder whenever I pass it.

Took this pic during our recent storm, the desert storm!

I am tempted to try and get this thing open.

One thing there is an abundance of along the river is old recliner chairs, here you see two together, lovers I supppose.

this is the "fruit of mojave" scary, aint it?

these signs keep the river/waterway clear of the timid
lastly, its poetry time, often it just comes to me unbidden on my solitary walks:

Dressed in red
In a sea of black
She floated into view
Just as Bauhaus began to play
My gaze fastened to her

Smoke swirled away from her
Though she moved shyly
If I concetrate now
I can still see her beauty

That radiant glow
From all those years ago
But time takes its toll

For while she remains fresh and clear
As the memory fades
She becomes smaller
As if seen from further away...

I tried watching your speech, but its like getting dental work and whats the point? There 0 chance of enough Republicans passing any legislation sponsored by you, even if they wanted to, most of them report to their "super rich masters" & I suspect those guys simply hate you and are quite happy keeping the American people poor, angry and unhappy. All of that plays into their desire for corporate profits and pointless wars. You gotta get that by now, right? So next time you wanna try and help, don't go to Congress, meet with them, they gotta be in some book like a modern day "social registry" a good starting point might be with the "Forbes 500 American Richest Families" talk to them, beg if you have to or cajole, whatever it takes, what have you got to lose

It aint like they are going to let you have second term now, and even if they do, without enough the "American Super Rich"(plus some Chinese for good measure) on your side, absolutely 0 can get done in America since "the Civil War".

You think Lincoln could have got income tax through if the South had not seceded?
(not to mention some other amendments to the Constitution)

Please, those slave and plantation owners were the most greed driven, hateful people in American history, til, til, well til the post 9/11 "powers that be/own everything" that we have now

but hey, I could be wrong, I pray to be wrong.

So see if you can get 251 of those people to do the right thing, who knows, maybe behind closed doors they might behave in a less evil manner. I mean you never know til you try, hell, it worked FDR.
OK, well, I am going to go drown my sorrows in a big bowl of pasta now.
Then go look for a job somewhere outside of the USA, because really, I feel like this place is dead to me at this point.

I was up at and out on the riverbed by 6 am yesterday, but still the sun had not come up. I wanted to find more flowers like

these I had found a few days before, pick one this time and find out what kind they were.
but I was impatient for the sun to get past the hills miles way, while waiting I had my last smoke
that was then I found
*
the perfect stick, for fending off snakes, using like a golf club to hit things with & carrying like a

guidon, which inspired me to march towards the rising sun, my journey took me

along the side of the highway, and after 40 minutes of double timing I still could not see the sun, would it ever rise over those pesky mountains and hills in the distance?
I thought to turn around or at least get rid of the stupid stick, then I saw something on the ground

immeadiately I heard an old sarge's voice in my ear and I was back on the march, sweat and tired arms be damned!
Next I took the new found energy given to me by phantom sarge and I attacked the first hill I came to along the side of the highway, it was pretty steep one and without my boots and stick I might have tumbled down it, possibly into the road as a car sped by, but after a rough minute or 2 I was rewarded with

the sun
once over the side of the hill, I found a roughly hewn dirt road that took me to the top
once there I drank some water and bask in the rising sun for a few minutes, then looked back down on the way I came:

the highways was pretty far away at the end of the road I had taken and there was the sheer drop near it to negotiate
however, I am not in the shape I was 20 years ago, so in the spirit of discretion being the better part of valor
instead falling down the side of the hill, I intended on taking the winding road down to near highway, but towards the bottom of it I saw

a tunnel, of course being me, I had to go through it, before going in it though I picked up
*
this rock, its heavy and fit perfectly in the palm of my hand, I think its the sort of rock that neolithic man would have cherished
"good old rock, nothing beats rock"
then once on the other side of the tunnel I was confronted with another obstacle

I could see, the highway on the raised impression of the highway on the other side of it
where's some mech or armor when you need them?
nevertheless, I skirted the obstacle as I was trained to do and from there it was a short march home with the the sun at my back...

since finishing my course a few weeks ago, I have been having even more trouble than before getting good sleep, however, since I started going on my early morning walks I have slowly been raising the time I sleep til from 3 am to 6 am today, also, the dreams I have had the last few nights were incredibly vivid!
usually I only have super vivid dreams which involve one particular person from my past, but these dreams involve do not involve her, instead they are either completely made up from what I can gather or involve my time in locations like San Francico, which I miss like hell. Also, even New Zealand makes an appearance, in some of these dreams I feel like I soar through them, its intoxicating, and now that I think about it, that feeling of soaring may just be from successfully battling the overwhelming sense of being paralyzed that has plagued my dreams for years, I now make a real effort to wake myself when this happens, sleep be damned!
A little while ago, I just realized that bad sleep is worse than no sleep, its weird to sleep less but feel better, yet that is where I am at now.
Anyways, it way past time for my morning walk now, today I've decided to add

music to the mix again, this time with my new mp3 player, I think Combichrist will be perfect to marc, erm walk to...



*=this pic taken later in the day when the sun was brighter