This whole fight for freedom thing in Iran really has me SO upset. I’m incredibly sad. For those of you who don’t already know, I’m a large part Arabic. My Mom was born in what was then known as Palestine. Well, it was a turbulant time and the Jews were kicking the Christians from their homes, so instead of staying and be homeless or die trying to save their home, my Grandparents fled. They said, “Screw you, I’m outtie!” They went to England…a little town called Staffordshire, where my Mom & Uncle were raised for a portion of their life. At some point, my Grandparents, Mom, & her brother ended up in Canada. They stayed there for a little while, but then my Grandpa suddenly died from a heart attack when my Mom was nine years old.

After losing my Grandpa, my Grandma moved my Mom & her brother to the US - California. (San Francisco) My Grandma lived there with my Step-Grandpa ’til the day she died. (Ironically it was the exact day after he died. Quite the love story.)

So, anyway, I guess that the fact that my family had to flee and whatnot….this whole Iranian thing just has my stomach feeling all weighted down. I HATE knowing that people like Neda are dying daily. All they want is their God given right to freedom. I’m so, so bothered by all of this.

So now comes the part why I titled this entry “First Hand”. I read an article earlier, and I really wanted to share it with everyone. It’s kinda long, but is awesome to get a first hand account of the goings on.

(Name removed by request) reports his own observations on the course of events of 15th June 2009 in Tehran (Let’s not forget that Amir is located in Tehran. Please keep him in your thoughts.)

I left my home in Tajrish along with my family at 3 p.m. We went down Valiast Street which is the main northern-southern avenue in Tehran and entered the Evin Exp’way which leads to Enghelab Street. We knew that people are supposed to gather in Enghelab Sq. (Revolution Sq.) at 4 and march toward Azadi Sq. (Freedom Sq.). From Gisha Bridge onwards, we saw people walking down. Cars were blowing their horns and people were showing victory sign. We went to Navvab Street and parked our car at the end of the street. Then we took a taxi to bring us back to the Enghelab Street.

On our way, near Jomhouri Sq. (Republic Sq.), I saw a group of about 20 militia with long beards and batons on motorbikes. My hand was out of the car window with a little green ribbon (the sign of reformists) around my finger. One of the militia told me to throw that ribbon away. I showed him a finger. All of a sudden, about 15 people attacked me inside the car. They beat me with their batons and wanted to pull me out. My wife and my daughter who were sitting in the back seat cried and hold me tight. I also hold myself tight on the chair. They wanted to shatter the car windows. The driver went out and explained that he is a taxi and we are his passengers and he has no fault. After about 5 minutes,they left. My elbow hurts severely. Then, a young man from their group came and kissed my elbow! I told him: You know, I don’t hate you. I am like you with the only difference that I know more and you are ignorant. He apologized and left.
We joined the crowd in Enghelab Street.

What I saw today was the most elegant scene I had ever witnessed in my life. The huge number of people were marching hand in hand in full peace. Silence. Silence was everywhere. There was no slogan. No violence. Hands were up in victory sign with green ribbons. People carried placards which read: Silence. Old and young, man and woman of all social groups were marching cheerfully.

This was a magnificent show of solidarity. Enghelab Street which is the widest avenue in Tehran was full of people. I was told that the march has begun in Ferdowsi Sq. and the end of the march was now in Imam Hossein Sq. to the further east of Tehran while on the other end people had already gathered in Azadi Sq. The length of this street is about 6 kilometers. The estimate is about 2 million people. On the way, we passed a police department and a militia (Baseej) base. In both places, the doors were closed and we could see fully-armed riot police and militia watching the people from behind the fences.

Near Sharif University of Technology where the students had chased away Ahmadinejad a few days ago, Mirhossein Mousavi (the reformist elect president) and Karrubi (the other reformist candidate spoke to people for a few minutes which was received by cries of praise and applause. I felt proud to find myself among such a huge number of passionate people who were showing the most reasonable act of protest. Frankly, I didn’t expect such a political maturity from emotional Iranians who easily get excited. My family and I had put stickers on our mouths to represent the suppression. Placards that people carried were different; from poems by the national poet Ahmad Shamlu to light-hearted slogans against Ahmadinejad. Examples include: ” To slaughter us/ why did you need to invite us / to such an elegant party” (Poem by Shamlu). ” Hello! Hello! 999? / Our votes were stolen” or ” The Miracle of the Third Millenium: 2 x 2 = 24 millions” (alluding to the claim by Government that Ahmadinejad obtained 24 million votes) , “Where is my vote?” , ” Give me back my vote” and many other.

We arrived in Azadi Square where the entire square was full of population. It is said that around 500,000 people can be accommodated in this huge square and it was full. Suddenly we saw smoke from Jenah Freeway and heard the gunshot. People were scared at first but then went forward. I just heard the gunshots but my sister who had been on the scene at that part told me later that she saw 4 militia came out from a house and shot a girl. Then they shot a young boy in his eye and the bullet came out of his ear. She said that 4 people were shot. At least one person dead has been confirmed. People arrested one of the Baseeji militia but the three others ran away when they ran out of bullet. At around 8 we went back on foot. On the way back people were still in the street and were chanting Allah Akbar (God is Great).

I was coming home at around 2 a.m. In parkway, I saw about ten buses full of armed riot police parked on the side of the street. Then I saw scattered militia in civil clothes with clubs in hand patroling the empty streets. In Tajrish Square, I saw a very young boy (around 16) with a club who was looking at the cars to see if he can find something to attack. I don’t know how and under what teachings can young boys change into militia.

I came home. Tomorrow, people will gather again in Valiasr Square for another peaceful march toward the IRIB building which controls all the media and which spreads filthy lies. The day before Yesterday, Ahmadinejad had hold his victory ceremony. Government buses had transported all his supporters from nearby cities. There was full coverage of that ceremony where fruit juice and cake was plenty. A maximum of 100,000 had gathered to hear his speech. These included all the militia and the soldiers and all supporters he could gather by the use of free TV publicity.

Today, at least 2 million came only relying on word of mouth while reformists have no newspaper, no radio, no TV. All their internet sites are filtered as well as social networks such as facebook. Text messaging and mobile communication was also cut off during the demonstration. Since yesterday, the Iranian TV was announcing that there is no license for any gathering and riot police will severely punish anybody who may demonstrates. Ahmadinejad called the opposition as a bunch of insignificant dirt who try to make the taste of victory bitter to the nation. He also called the western leaders as a bunch of “filthy homosexuals”.

All these disgusting remarks was today answered by that largest demonstration ever. Older people compared the demonstration of today with the Ashura Demonstration of 1979 which marks the downfall of the Shah regime and even said that it outnumbered that event.

The militia burnt a house themselves to find the excuse to commit violence. People neutralized their tactic to a large degree by their solidarity, their wisdom and their denial to enage in any violent act.

I feel sad for the loss of those young girls and boys. It is said that they also killed 3 students last night in their attack at Tehran University residence halls. I heard that a number of professors of Sharif University and AmirKabir University (Tehran Polytechnic) have resigned.

Democracy is a long way ahead. I may not be alive to see that day. With eyes full of tear in these early hours of Tuesday 16th June 2009, I glorify the courage and bravery of those martyrs and I hope that their blood will make every one of us more committed to freedom, to democracy and to human rights.

Viva Freedom, Viva Democracy, Viva Iran

p.s.: If you find this report of any value, please share it with as many people as possible. Facebook is filtered and internet is very slow in Iran. Please somebody put this on facebook.

You can follow the situation in Iran on twitter using the hashtag #iranelection

Remember: this isn’t about the candidates. It’s about a free peoples’ right to a fair election.

• Things are going really well lately. The weather is beautiful, the flowers are blooming, people seem happier, and everyone in my family is getting along really well. I certainly cannot complain!

• I’ve been playing a game called Animal Crossing on the Gamecube lately. I absolutely adore that game. It’s not only sooo cute, but it’s just so much fun! I’ve not got it hooked up to the Net, but I can imagine it’d be even more fun if it were.

• I dyed my Mom’s hair earlier. It turned out really nice. Better than usual for some reason. I think they changed their formula or something because the color of the dye when it was in the bottle was orange instead of the usual brown. Thank God her hair didn’t turn out orange! Hahaha     

• I’m now a Moderator of the Beta Testers Group on MyOpera. This happened a while back, but it’s been so long that I’ve written anything on my site; I’m catching up.

• Not only am I a Mod, but one of the Mods of the site contacted me and asked me to write up a quote as to why I like My.Opera so much…and also to include a picture. They are making a brochure and they want to include me in it. How incredibly awesome is that?! Seriously!!! I know it might not mean much to many, but to me it’s a huge honor.

• Lonnie is in bed behind me snoring right now. Poor guy. He’s been drumming for the church three days a week…and then another church in our area was basically begging for a drummer, so he offered his services to them as well. He’s been not only busting his ass with work, but he’s also been spending SO much time between the two churches. He’s flat-out exhausted.

• Our landlord came and rototilled a huge section of our yard the other day, so now it’s time to plant that garden. I dislocated my shoulder about two weeks ago which resulted in massive pain and a condition that I cannot remember the name of. So I cannot be out there using the ho or anything like that. It’s a total bummer. I was SO looking forward to doing all of that by myself. But now I’m going to have to rely on my family to help me.     I hate that. Oh well…once it’s been hoed up, I can plant the seeds and starter plants, water it, pull weeds, and all that sort of thing. I just have to take it easy with my shoulder.

• My feet are absolutely frozen solid. I can’t even believe how cold they are. I mean, they’re usually cold, but this is ridiculous!

• I’ve been playing a game on Facebook called Farm Town. Holy cow!!! I love it! It is SO much fun. If you have Facebook, I really recommend trying it out. It’s a bit addicting, but in a totally fun and harmless way.     

• I suppose I’ll wrap it up for now. I have some things I’ve got to do…like tend to my farm in Farm Town, catch up on My.Opera alerts, do some Photoshopping, and do a bunch of other junk. Have a terrific day!!!

I’m not in the mood to bullet point all of my babbling, so I decided not to create Random Randomness© this time. I’ll just type in paragraphs like ‘normal’ people do.

I’m doing fairly well lately. The flu came and finally left. My whole family is recuperating nicely. My Mom & daughter still have a cough, but that’s it. Their lungs are doing their best to repair themselves.

I weighed myself two days ago and was stunned…in a bad way. I don’t know how it happened, but somewhere along the way, I gained ten pounds! Needless to say, I almost had a nervous breakdown when I saw that and have been on the straight and narrow ever since. I’m just baffled as to how it happened. I hardly ever even eat…and when I do, it’s not generally fatty/high calorie foods. I swear - I could walk past a cupcake and gain two pounds. It’s so not fair. I think what happened was that I wasn’t getting the exercise my body was used to while I was sick, so everything I ate just sat on my gut and thighs. I’ll lose it and everything will be okay, but ’til then, I’m completely disgusted with myself.

In other news; I have an appointment with a new doctor in the morning. It’s concerning my neck/back injury. I had found a really good doctor in St. Helens, Oregon…but then something happened with my insurance, so I had to stop seeing him. I’m not happy about it at all, but there’s not much I can do at this time. I figure I’ll go to this new doctor tomorrow to see if she’s any good…and if so, maybe I can transfer my care to here in Vancouver. It’d be nice to not have to drive over and hour just to see the doctor. I definitely need one, though. I’m in a massive amount of pain lately. I’m okay…same ol’ junk. I flared it up, though, by lifting something I shouldn’t have lifted. Since then, it’s not been the same. That’ll teach me! (maybe)

I’m going to be baking cookies today. I feel like a horrible person. I signed up for a cookie exchange in December and my friend, James, sent me some totally awesome cookies. I was supposed to have sent him his cookies a long time ago, but failed to do so. So that’s why I’m baking cookies. I feel like I should bake 3294873 cookies just to make up for being so late. I seriously feel so crappy about it. I hope he can forgive me.

I need to get back to mailing cards and letters to my friends. I haven’t been doing that, either. This whole being sick thing brought everything to a screeching halt. I also think I’ve got some depression issues going on. I’m not interested in doing the things I used to love to do. I don’t even feel like making cupcakes! You know that something’s up when I say, “Meh” to making cupcakes. I’m on anti-depressants. Maybe I need to have my dosage increased. It’s been a couple years with no increase. I’d assume they lose their effectiveness over time. I’ll bring it up to the doctor tomorrow and see what she thinks. Something’s gotta give, though. It’s not cool to feel this way all the time.

Wow…I feel like such a whiner. All I’m doing is griping about stuff. I think I’ll go ahead and call it quits for now. I don’t want to come off as emo or something disgusting like that. Have a lovely day!

• I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last posted some Randomness. I apologize to all of my loyal readers who have been checking back just to find that my blog hadn’t been updated.

• I’ve been SO busy lately. I won’t get into all the details…just know that I missed all of my online friends SO much!

• I have my feet in the warmer/massager thingy Lonnie got for me. I love it! It’s totally thawing my tootsies out.    

• My cat almost attacked the cable guy when he showed up today.       She’s so awesome! I love how protective she is. She growls and meows her furry little butt off to people who come to our door.

• Only six days ’til Bush is no longer in office! Hooray!!!

• My daughter and I put highlights in our hair. I think it looks pretty good. I love the way her hair looks…and mine looks fairly cool as well. I’m so happy it turned out well!

• I talked to my Dad yesterday. He’s doing well! He sounded really healthy and energetic.

• I didn’t sleep last night. I pulled an all-nighter again. I’m starting to feel a little bit worn out now. It’s almost 5:30 in the evening, so I guess that’s to be expected.

• I wonder how much longer it will be ’til I need to mow the lawn. I know it’s way too early to even begin thinking about that, but I’m excited for Spring to arrive. It’s my favorite season. I need to plant a bunch of flowers and veggies. Our landlord’s husband is going to be coming over to rototill a big patch of the back yard for us so we can plant a garden. I cannot wait! It’s been a long time since I last grew vegetables.

• Lonnie and I started watching a show on VH1 called “Tool Academy.” We don’t watch a whole lot of TV, but this show looks like it’ll be hilarious. The name of the show alone cracks me up!    

• I love the Rye chips in Chex Mix! Mmm…salty, but really flippin’ tasty!

• My daughter and my Mom are both pretty ill with the flu right now.          I hate seeing both of them feeling so crappy. I hope they will get better soon…it’s breakin’ my heart!  

• I ran out of coffee filters this morning. That totally sucks! What sucks even more is that Lonnie just left to head to the bank and I forgot to ask him to stop at the store on his way back. Now I’m going to have to go get them myself. What a total bummer!

• I suppose I will wrap this up for now. Sorry if this edition of Random Randomness© is lame. I’m totally out of practice, so the words aren’t flowing out of me as easily as they normally would. I’ll be back to my usual babbly self in no time! I just need to rest.     

I just want to let my readers know I’m still alive. I’m really sorry I’ve not been active on my site over the past few days. Due to the fact that the holidays are drawing near and whatnot, I’ve just been busy doing things away from my computer.

My son’s birthday is on Christmas day, so it’s a double holiday for us. Even if that weren’t the case, though, our family tends to spend lots more family time together during this time of year. It’s something that we should always do no matter what, but it seems like the fact that the holidays are here just makes us really want to hang around each other more. Having the house all decorated up helps, too. Who doesn’t like sitting around in a winter wonderland being all nice and cozy and enjoying a nice conversation with someone you love?!

Anyway, I had better get back at some other stuff. I just wanted to make sure to post something so I won’t be given up on! I will go back to posting at least once per day once things settle down a bit. PLEASE keep checking back!

I hope everyone is enjoying the season! My best wishes go out to all of you and your families.  

• I got all my Christmas cards sent out tonight! I couldn’t have done it without the help of my beautiful daughter, though. She’s the one who actually ran them to the box while I video taped her doing so. We’re a tag-team of jolliness!

• Lonnie’s in some serious dental pain again. It makes me so sad. I wish there was something I could do. The last time, he had four teeth pulled on the right side of this mouth. This time he has a molar on the bottom left that’s really bothering him. He’ll either have to get a root canal or have it pulled. Either way…ouch.

• So, I found out earlier today that Pownce will be shutting down. I cannot even begin to explain how angry this makes me, so I won’t even try. All I will say is that they are money hungry sell-outs who should be ashamed of themselves.

• I’ve decided to do Christmas Cupcakes this year instead of Gingerbread Men like I did last year. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them yet. I’m either considering a standard frosting with standard decorations on them, or I might use Fondant and do something super adorable with them. The latter method will take much more time, so I just don’t know. I have a HUGE list of people to make a cupcake for. I’ll just have to weigh the pros and cons.

• We just ran out of coffee creamer. Now I’m steamed.

• I got some women’s daily vitamins earlier tonight. Lonnie sent me to Walgreen’s to grab some for him, so I figured, “What the heck?!” and grabbed a bottle for me, too. They were on sale, so they were super cheap…err…inexpensive. They’re Walgreen’s brand, but hey - same thing as the other junk they charge out the buttocks for, right? I’ll let you know if I notice a change in energy.

• I hate it when I’m sitting on the toilet peeing and I reach over to grab some toilet paper and I suddenly notice that there’s hardly any left. So then I have an angel on one shoulder and Satan on the other. The angel is saying, “Just use the last of it and replace the roll. It’s the right thing to do.” But Satan, he’s a big jerk who’s saying, “Leave two squares on the roll so the next sucker who uses the toilet has to replace the roll!” Well, it must say something about my character that I’ve never listened to Satan. I always change the stinkin’ roll…begrudgingly, of course.

• I’m sick and tired of people thinking that my son and I are either boyfriend/girlfriend or brother/sister. I know I should take it as a compliment…blah, blah, blah. I don’t, though. I hate having to explain my relationship with strangers. What the heck business is it of theirs? Next time I’ll just say, “My boyfriend? Is that what they call pimps nowadays?”

• No, I’d never really do that. GOSH!

• Speaking of “Napoleon Dynamite”, he was on TV again last night. My son was watching it. He used to loathe the movie. Now he loves it. How does one go from hating something to loving it? My theory is that he’s heard me doing Napoleon impressions and making reference to the movie SO much that he had no choice but to watch it a couple times just to see what the heck I was on about…which resulted in his enjoyment of the movie! Mission accomplished!

• I got an email from someone asking if I would be willing to link to their site if they would link to mine. After looking at their site in detail, my thought was something like, “Mmmm…..I think I’ll pass.” It’s a gaming site. Not like the cool kind of gamers….like the Pogo type of gaming. Flash games. First of all, I rarely play those things myself, and even if I did, how the Hell is having a link to my site on a site like that going to benefit me? HE is clearly the one who would benefit from it…not me. So nah - I’ll pass. I didn’t even bother to email the guy back. Rude, perhaps. But I figured that if I emailed him, he’d email me back again with reasons why it really would work…etc. Meh…nope. Not biting.

• I ripped my French tips off again today after being on my computer for ten minutes. I don’t get it. I used to be able to go literally months with those things on and type like nobody’s business. Now when I have ‘em on, they drive me freakin’ nuts. I just can’t take it. They last two days and then BAM! I snap and rip ‘em off…which, I might add, hurts like the dickens.

• Where did the term, “Like the dickens” come from, anyway? I’m assuming it’s an English thing. Silly blokes.

• I need a coffee refill (imagine that), so I shall return briefly…

• I’m back. Don’t get too excited. You might fall backwards off your chair and break something vital…like your CPU.

• I don’t like Beck one bit.

• It’s 3:50AM right now. I swore I was going to try to get on a regular schedule today. Darn it. I blew it again.

• Maybe I should go lay down in bed and attempt to sleep. I mean, an attempt is better than nothing, right? I have to be up in a few hours to wake my daughter up for school and whatnot, though, so it just seems kinda stupid. As soon as I fall asleep, it’s time to wake up. Duh. What’s the point in that?

• Our house is 3/4 decorated for Christmas. We have so much stuff, we have to decorate in shifts. Tomorrow should be the last day and then we’ll be done. It’ll look so jolly in here that Santa, himself, would be like, “Wow. These people need to learn moderation!”

• I’m feeling so sorry for Lonnie and his pain that I’m going to get off of here and go offer him a massage or something to take his mind off his tooth pain. The poor guy. It’s like just as soon as one thing is taken care of, something else pops up. I feel so helpless. All I can do is be supportive and sympathetic. At least I’m good at those things.

• Have a wonderful day, everyone! Remember to be nice. Santa sees everything you do.