I just finished many days of hard work, destroying the quality of my website. Why would I do such a thing? To prevent theft. I was proud of many of my high-resolution, beautiful shots of Armenia which were plentiful in my tourism section, but they just proved way too tempting apparently and many sites stole my pictures to use themselves... never even asking. I worked hard to make a great tourism site without thinking of getting paid, and these are mostly businesses that chose to steal from me. Now that all of the pictures have been shrunk and have big, ugly cilicia.com's on them, I will begin the next waste of time, which is contacting each of these people and telling them they have been caught and must remove the photos. What a pain in the butt! I could have spent all that time adding new, useful stuff to my site...

Yesterday the air conditioner was installed, which was quite an event. They brought in a massive crane which was juuust a touch too short, so the installer was standing on the top edge of the crooked basket at the top, perilously screwing things in, lifting, etc, giving *me* a heart attack! Installing the two units involved the guy complaining about the delivery guys and the salesmen, asking if he can change in the bedroom since he didn't come in his work clothes, later asking if I was from Iran, then complaining about America, then asking if I can get his friend a visa to America (to which I asked if he had mentioned to his friend what a horrible place it was) then asking me what I do, then asking for help lifting this and that, carrying this and that, then leaving a massive mess of dust and boxes and going home. What a difference from a service guy visiting your home in America! I was very tempted to mention that although America has maaany things wrong with it, I would never in a million years have to help a service guy so much and clean up such a big mess. But instead I kept my mouth shut and gave him a nice fat tip, less because I was impressed by his work than just because I usually stick to the mentality that if I would give a person a tip in America, I should do it here too. I do not give to beggars here, so this is the best way to help those who are already helping themselves.

There is a little lunch place I go to now and again (I used to go there all the time) and I tip there too. For me it is a normal restaurant, but locals for some reason know that in a place like that you don't tip. Ever. I found this out because a local I often go there with tried also to tip when he was treating me, and they refused to take his money... they told him later they only accept tips from me! Well this waitress has such a big smile whenever we come and is so helpful and nice, it really goes to show the original idea behind tipping... extra money for extra nice service.