Sorry again…

Egor slipped into third place in the town chess championship this year which is enough to guarantee him an all-expenses paid trip to Kobrin for the regional tournament in November

I know I apologize too much for not keeping up. But listen, I am going to be doing something different here. Instead of letting the steam buildup and writing this amazing theme, I am just going to try and get a blog out every day. Is this too much to take onto one's self? I don't think so. I mean, I have enough stuff on my little desk here in beautiful Belarus, why not share a bit more about what's going on?

I have almost caught up with all of the work that has piled up. Only one essay remains, though there will be more to write about coming up shortly. I was up late last night and right at it again this morning. Am completely without Belarusian money. It is the first time in months that I have fell to such levels. But I don't seem to mind.. I mean, I have faith that my check will be paid shortly and that all will be well. And also Tanya reminds me that we are veritably flush with food right now so that even if we don't get paid, we are not going to starve.

So basically then, the question is: What has been going on here lately? Here is a rundown in no particular order:

• We have basically finished up with the farm for the summer. Our podvals are full now of potatoes and salty cabbage (sauerkraut), beets and carrots etc. And of course lots and lots of apple juice. The only thing left is to find a tractor to plow the land so that we will be ready to go at it again next year. Well, there are still a few apples out there and we have to clean up after the beans, corn and some weeds, but basically all of the serious and hard work is behind us.
• The issue with the doma provlenye people has not been a factor lately. I am not really sure why but our people decided simply to plant more perennials in the gardens. I had some idiot take two planks off of my fence, so I need to get them replaced. But unless they are planning some secret subversion, I don't know really what all is going on.
• Egor slipped into third place in the town chess championship this year which is enough to guarantee him an all-expenses paid trip to Kobrin for the regional tournament in November. He was riding high and in first place until he ran into Matuska, the highest ranked player in his group in game five. The loss broke his perfect record and apparently rattled him enough to where he lost game six as well. But on the last day of the tournament, he came through with a strong victory and because of a higher coefficient (He played stronger players in the tournament) he was granted the third spot. The Brestskaya oblast tournament begins in Kobrin on the 17th of November.
• Michael Miller, one of the greatest supporters of the BEING HAD Blog sent us what must be one of the greatest gift packages ever. The over-sized box which took longer than two months to get over was simply chock-full of Kool-Aid, candies, Jello, toys, games, a pair of shoes, video tapes and dvd's- none of which was of the first rank sort, so it was not really about money- but the sheer amount of stuff that went into the box made it like a fireworks show opening it and having a look inside. Now, all things considered, a lot of this was probably the sort of stuff I left the states to get away from, but the box brought so much happiness into the house; it was like Christmas and Chanukah and your birthday all rolled up into one. Oh, and Tanya wants everybody to know that if you drop some Kool Aid into your normal home made coffee cake recipe, you get florescent colored coffee cake. Now on the one hand, serving florescent food to people who have lived through Chernobyl can be a little unnerving, but on the other hand, Mike was right- it is possible to have "fun food" once in a while.

Other than this all is good. I have been working and you can see some of the things that have been happening by checking out the
BEING HAD Times or the
Karlin Gazette for more.

Thanks again for reading me. I have some stuff coming up about the case, about the proposed new website, bicycles, interviews and opinion from the center of Europe.

More soon…