Update 12/28/05

Last night was a bit of a special occasion, I got to see some of my college buddies for the first time in a while. The guest of honor was Carl, who has been in Africa working with the Peace Corps for the last 6 months. We met up at a place called the Lennox Lounge, which is underneath the loft where Andy lives on Lincoln Ave.

We left the bar and walked up to Andy's place, where we talked, drank a few more beers, and I put on a "Fat Elvis" costume which has an internal fan that hooks on to your belt. If you've ever felt the need for a climate controlled halloween costume -- this is the one for you.

Carl shared more stories and pictures about Africa while we were at Andy's.

Unfortunately the picture above came out looking like Carl was about to shoot death rays from his eye sockets. It was great to see him though, Carl is a great friend and the students from his math class in Africa are very luck to have him.

Oh and here is an extra special picture from my wedding in Martinsville, Virginia. Carl and Johnny had to share a bed at the hotel. I got the picture from Chris, who originally named the picture file "Strange Bedfellows."

Back to Top

Well, Andrew and I returned home to Chicago today. We arrived to our apartment at around 9 a.m., after enduring a 2-hour flight sitting in front of a screaming toddler (if that wasn't birth control I don't know what is). After dropping off our bags, we headed to the grocery store to pick up some essentials (for Andrew that means cookies, chips and ice cream), before going on a long walk with Oreo and then coming home to catch up on some things.

Among my tasks was making Oreo dog treats from scratch. My mom gave me a recipe book for dog treats and entrees for Christmas, so I was anxious to try it out. I made the "Peanut Mutter Nibbles," which are basically peanut butter cookies for dogs.

Andrew and I both tried them out and they are pretty good. Oreo paws down loved them. He begged and wimpered for a second taste -- which I of course gave to him.

Here is Oreo being a good boy.

It was a nice afternoon and we are so happy to be back with our baby! Thank you Sheila and Patrick for taking such good care of him. You all are the best!

Back to Top

After my dad came back from his flying adventure yesterday, we grabbed lunch at a little market and brought our food to the mouth of Southport Harbour to eat and play with the dog.

Afterward, we relaxed before going to a round of Christmas Eve parties and then an 11 pm Church service. We enjoyed a wonderful buffet of chicken, ham, biscuits and a wide array of sweet chocolatey desserts.

Laura played "dessert inspector" with a few of her hand-picked favorites: chocolate bomb cake and chocolate truffle.

Yes, the dessert inspector has a whipped-cream mustache!

The Church service was nice, but I'll admit it was a little hard to stay awake after getting our fill of holiday spirits and sweets.

This morning, we woke up and enjoyed a nice session of gift-giving, which culminated with the Artemenko tradition of finding your final gift after reading a series of clues hidden around the house. Mom is keeping this tradition alive, otherwise it would have died a natural death years ago.

Here is mom with the orchid that Bill and I bought her. She is also wearing the top to the pajamas that Laura and I gave her.

Here is Duke hanging out with dad. This is after he hid the bone we gave him in the dining room.

Ah yes, four magical clues from mother! Oh the mystery!

Laura and Andrew both received winter coats as rewards for successfully locating all of their clues.

The rule is that everyone must follow around the person looking for their gift until everyone has one... but the group usually tapers off as people tend to stay put after they get their gift -- a real lesson in human behavior.

We tried out our jackets this afternoon in the rain during a misty Christmas day walk. Again, we went back to the harbour -- a pattern that I really only began to notice after looking over the last few days of this blog.

After walking around in circles, oggling the old captains homes and commenting on the colors of shudders and roofing material, we went to Sikorsky Airport. This is where my father takes off and lands in a delicate vortex of wind currents and public tax dollars. The place was pretty quiet, so we got to walk out onto the runway to see the private planes.

Here is my dad sitting in the cockpit with Bill:

And if you're wondering just how big this little plane is, here is a picture of it with my mother hanging out the side to give you a sense of scale:

When we got back from our rainy walk and trip to the airport, I got an email from my Uncle, whose family is gathered in Costa Rica for the Holiday. I'm not sure if you have checked out my cousin Mark's blog with his wife Ashley, but you should check it out! Mark and Ashley have been living in Guatemala since they got married in May '05. They have been very giving of their time and talents to the people of Guatemala, and I'm glad Mark could take a break and make it over to Costa Rica to visit with his twin sisters and parents.

Anyways, I think it's pretty remarkable that while they were in Costa Rica, my uncle Bill caught a 400 lb black Marlin! Here are some pics from Mark's website:

That must be her!

This is Mark, he is a stud. I'm sure he will filet that fish into a delicious meal for his wife, and use it's tail and eyeballs for hand-made tools.

OK, one more pic from Mark's fishing trip so you can see everybody. That's Julie in the back (she's a senior at Duke University), Uncle Bill in the middle, Ashley (Mark's wife) and Kelly (currently living in Brazil -- her blog).

We mostly bummed around the house on our last day here in Connecticut. Adam and Tim came by to hang for a bit before Laura and I pack and go to bed.

Tim came by with his girlfriend, Danielle. Here is a picture of the lovebirds, which I'll use as my final picture of this epic Christmas post!

It has been a very restful, pleasant stay in Connecticut, and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Tomorrow morning we fly back to Chicago to see Oreo, a few thirsty plants, one hungry (and or dead) fish, and a refridgerator that desparately needs groceries.

Back to Top

Just as I finished my post this morning, I heard a noise outside. It was my father flying over the house. I snapped these two pictures before he tipped his wing, and flew west out of sight.

And here is a picture my dad took from the sky... That's me in the blue sweater, the one who looks like he is a speed skating pose. Laura is behind a tree somewhere.

Similar to the fish tank pictures, I'm going to reference a dedicated page to the pictures of Southport, which are a little larger.

Goose: No. No, Mav, this is not a good idea.

Lt. Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell: Sorry Goose, but it's time to buzz a tower.

Back to Top

Good morning gentle reader. That's a nod to my friend, and excellent writer, Ben. This Wednesday, Laura and I found ourselves back in Connecticut for the first time in over a year. The last time we were here, we drove (read: 18 hours) to stay only 4 days for Thanksgiving.

I will never do it again, and the experience has worked wonders for my fear of flying.

I am starting to appreciate my hometown a bit more these days. However, I have always appreciated the free meals that my parents have been providing here for the last 21 years.

On Thursday, we had a nice lunch after doing a bit of shopping in the morning. It was on this fabled consumer excursion that I bought Laura a beautiful ring. Said ring came from a liquidation sale in Westport and I got a phenomenal deal on it. I'll tell you more about that later.

At lunch, Bill blamed my parents for not buying him braces as a child, and performed minature hops up and down in his seat. He was still just long enough for this picture. Laura adores Bill.

In contrast to this serene photo from the restaurant, Bill has the energy of a melting fission reactor. If you come near him (and you happen to be me) expect to be squeezed, lifted off your feet, and manipulated into the human rag doll du jour for this 6-foot-4 former collegiate athlete.

That night we went to Narnia. We experienced the excitement of an empty theater, where one can easily confuse the luxury of a private showing, with low public demand for an average movie.

As movie ticket prices approach DVD prices, I can hear myself saying "I'll wait to rent it" more and more. In the case of Narnia, I will never see it again. It wasn't bad, but it's not something I will see twice.

Back at home, I fulfilled my compulsion to build a fire and burn something -- luckily it wasn't the dog, who likes to cuddle up near the fire.

I love building fires when I am at home. Usually I overdo one of the 3 elements (paper, kindling, firewood), and my dad has to come fix it His favorite method is just blowing really hard on the fire. We need to get him one of those pokers that you can blow into while the pointed end is under the coals.

Later that night while Laura and I were in bed, I heard a whisper. "What does the ring look like?"

I made the mistake of giving her a few details about the ring that I had bought her. Ultimately I caved and said something remarkably dumb: "OK, stay in bed, I'll let you feel the ring in the dark, and then you'll know if you like it or not."

I held the ringbox in my hand, and I could feel it being picked at, inspected in the dark.

Minutes later the light was on, tears were pouring, and an insultingly low appraisal was made on what Laura _thought_ I paid for the item.

Since Laura and I never went to counseling of any sort, I have a mental recorder of cliches and parables with which to reconcile difficult situations like this. For this occasion the recorder told me "Never let the sun go down on your anger for your spouse."

Before I could offer some kind words or concession, Laura said "We're going to fix this first thing tomorrow, we're going back to the jewelery store."

Then we slept.

After returning to the liquidation sale, I was able to exchange the bauble for a necklace that was twice the price of the original item, all while hearing from the salesman that he was only doing the exchange because I was "such a nice guy."

Before going to lunch at the nice deli pictured above, Laura had doubled her bounty and wore a smile from ear to ear -- even when we went to the beach in near-freezing weather.

There she is with my mom, all bundled up in an 80's CB ski jacket. Her neckace is underneath there somewhere, keeping her warm!

Of course, Tim came along to the beach. Whenever we are home, we basically hang out like we are family. It was always like this growing up. Adam showed up in the afternoon, we'll have to get a picture of all of us together before the Christmas vacation is up.

Ah yes, Goose and Maverick.

Here is an old 7-up bottle that my dad found shored up from Long Island Sound. Dad has a life mission to collect particles and fragments equal to, and not less than, his exact body mass.

Not tempted by a Christmas cookie or even imported beer,

He's a veteran not a rookie, ready to ride in high gear.

Dressed warmer than a Star Wars wookie, a racing bike he will steer,

The tightness of his outfit shook me, with laughter and jovial cheer!

Oh and sometime after dad's bike ride, Bill disappeared into New York with this highschool buddies to a pub crawl. Only one picture escaped (he's on the far right), but it's a classic!

Not bad eh? OK here's one last picture that I snapped this morning (Christmas Eve). My coffee is almost up,and I am trying to be more social!

Back to Top

I received a pretty funny email from my parents, who are visiting my grandparents in Naples, Florida. Apparently my grandfather, who we call "Papa" got his hands on a Santa Claus suit and lead an impromptu tour of the lunch room in Bentley Village where they live. If you are a Seinfield fan, think Del Boca Vista.

Here is a link to the script for the Seinfield episode that mentions Del Boca Vista. It also has one of my favorite scenes where Kramer and Newman purchase a black market shower head when their apartment building cuts back on the water pressure to save money.

Last night we went to a Christmas party at Patrick and Sheila's house, they are the surrogate guardians to our dog, Oreo, and will be watching him while we are in Connecticut. This is really a huge favor, thank you Patrick and Sheila!

Patrick cooked "Beer Can Chicken" and it was delicious!

Sheila and Laura have been fast friends since they started working together two and a half years ago.

If there is anything Laura likes better than a night at Patrick and Sheila's, it's getting her photograph taken at Patrick and Sheila's. Here she is!

As promised, here is a picture of the new crab that I got. I hope it survives while we are in Connecticut for Christmas for 6 days. That's really pushing the limit of days without food for my aquatic friends. I may just feed them their special cocktail (frozen brine shrimp, fish eggs, bioplankton) early Wednesday morning before we go to the airport. Everything should be fine.

You can click on it if you want, I'm going to keep a separate page for higher resolution pictures so I can track the progress of the fish tank.

Back to Top

Thanks to a healthy zip from Starbucks coffee this morning, I set out to make some design changes to this page. I would be lying if I said that the end result is 100% deliberate. I got inspired by the site CSS Zen Garden. I even went so far as to buy the book that is tied to the website -- there is no reason to read it, it is essentially a $40 print out of fthe webpage.

Laura went off to "The Mothership," her loving name for the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, Illinois. She calls it the Mothership because "it's like going back to the place where I was born, it feels like home, I feel safe." Those are her words, not mine.

Fine by me, I had a caffeine infused, hobby filled morning of web design and plant & fish nurturing. I got a new crab and brain coral today, I will share pics of those tomorrow.

Anyways, I spent several hours trying to do computer things that are completely beyond my skillset. This image has been pretty much burned into my memory:

Dreamweaver fought me the entire time, crashing 3 times before I had made a single change. I feel like I manged to accomplish a few artistic touches though. We've come a long way since October.

Please email me if something looks fishy. One caveat of CSS is that not all browsers support it, it's actually a huge caveat. My personal preference is that you view the page (and the rest of the web) with Mozilla Firefox.

I don't know why I try to dress this site up with visual bells and whistles. It's really just a photo-album with text blurbs. And when I think about the massive collection of photo albums my parents have at home, I have a long way to go. Their collection would make the Library of Congress blush. For those of you who aren't on the "Artemenko Holiday Hit-list," here is our family Christmas photo, cropped to perfection.

The picture was taken back in July during my brother Peter's wedding. He is the guy with his arm around the bride, whose head is about to explode with happiness (that's actually a misplaced modifier, where the verb "explode" is meant to describe my brother's head, not his wife).

That was one hot weekend down in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was hot enough for Laura to allow me to boogie board in the ocean. Boogie boarding as an adult, no matter how successfully you ride the waves, makes you look like a tool. Although, I still had a lot of fun.

Now that winter is here, I wake up in Chicago to what looks/feels more like Reykjavik, Iceland. You're looking at a frozen Lake Michigan.

Speaking of far away places and keeping in touch, a while back I suggested that visitors to Artemenko.org visit my Frappr page. It's a nifty mapping tool that let's people place a tick on the map over the city they live in.

You'll notice that Tim put himself in Australia to be funny and ironic. At this point I just would like people to participate.

Go ahead, give it a shot it's easy!

Back to Top

Update 12/12/05

We just got back from my company holiday party in Vegas. I've never seen so many hotels in all my life, and that's basically all they have there. We managed to fly out of O'Hare airport during a snow storm Thursday night, with only one round of de-icing. On the same night, a less fortunate aircraft at Midway airport slid off the runway and onto the highway, crushing a car and killing one of its passengers.

Nonetheless, we made it safely above the clouds, but not without me first polishing the armrests with nervous sweat. I hate flying.

You would think that acceptance of flying would be a base requirement for being hired by a travel company. I'll tell you this, it has influenced the way I think about it. I mean, travel is supposed to be fun. And that is what we set out to have.

Thanks to my employer, we stayed at one of the newest hotels on the strip: The Wynn Hotel and Casino:

This place was fantastic. Even the bathroom had a flat panel TV, which I thought was pretty sweet. Laura had plenty of time to enjoy that while I spent all of Friday in a meeting.

Here's a picture of the room:

OK so the view wasn't incredible, and it wasn't facing the strip. We didn't care, because we weren't paying for the room. "If it's free, it's for me."

After the meeting Friday we saw some sites and had a chance to explore the casino downstairs -- which magically finds it way inbetween you and your destination, no matter how you decide to exit the building.

On Friday night we went out to dinner and hit the casinos. I was determined to make some sort of gain to balance the 25 dollars I instantly lost at a roulette table in the Wynn. I could almost see the dollar bill weaving itself into the garish carpenting. That was it for me, it was cheap, low-limit casinos, or no casinos at all from then on. So we gambled for a bit at Stardust down the street.

It took me until 2am to win 23 dollars, and I quit because Laura was disintegrating into the chair behind me. I'll admit I was holding out hope that one of the drink girls would reward me with a libation for being a risk taker. I later discovered that Laura was devouring my drinks before they got to me, hence her disintegration.

On Saturday, we took a trip to the spa inside our hotel. I got a massage from a portly cherub who wanted nothing more than to fill the silence with the following topics: growing up in Las Vegas, rising housing costs, the knots in my back, and the surprisingly high arches in my feet.

Since I sit at a computer all day, I gather knots between my shoulder blades like billiard balls. Every 6 months someone needs to go in there with a pool cue, or an elbow, and break them up. Thankfully, the rounded limbs of my masseuse proved to be more useful tools than they appeared.

Laura got a manicure and a pedicure after her massage and we went to the mall. On the way back we passed the Sigfried and Roy monument and took this picture:

Afterward, we saw a real tiger at the Mirage, another Hotel/Casino/Mall. It was pretty amazing, as I have never seen a cat swim before.

It looks pretty fun!

We spent a short while in the mall, where Laura met a Darth Vader impersonator, but refuses to allow me to post the picture. After some browsing around we walked back to the Wynn and got ready for the holiday party. I was ready in 7 minutes. In this amount of time, Laura discovered the complementary q-tips and shrieked with delight.

The people, food, and music were all great. It made me really appreciate my employer, who was generous enough to pay for us to fly to Vegas and stay for the weekend. Thanks!

That about wraps up the weekend. Oh and we we finally got our couch delivered from Virigina, so it made it a little extra comfortable to return home. We can now toss the pink folding chairs we were using, which were were purchased at Walgreens for $4.99 each. They were quite a find.

I sat back and relaxed in my tempurpedic slippers from my mother in law (Hello, Anne), and enjoyed it. I am thankful that the movers were able to bring the couch on time on Thursday, so we could make it to the airport on time.

As for design choices on the room layout, it really all came down to Laura's "vision." Of course, her vision originally appeared to me as a narcotic wasteland of twisted chairs and tables... but that was when they delivered everything in pieces 3 months ago, with no couch.

You seriously don't know how ironic and uncomfortable a room can be that has no chairs to sit in other than decorative dining chairs. Oh well, the three months of waiting was worth it, I think she did a great job picking things out.

Oh and before I sign off, check out my brother's blog, it's cool. He has an incredible talent in photography. Go Pete!

Back to Top

Well, Andrew has put me up to writing yet another post, so here we go. As you all can probably tell by now, this site is more his baby than mine. At any rate, this weekend was really nice. I feel like we accomplished a good balance of things we wanted to do and needed to do. On Saturday, we began
the day by taking Oreo on a long walk. He did pretty well considering the temperature, which made me finally feel justified in spending the small fortune we did on his sylish jacket. The afternoon was spent visiting the aquarium shop and the dog store and just lounging around.

In the evening, we dined at Smith and Wollensky, a good steakhouse in the area. It's a bit pricy and we would typically not go there, but we had a gift certificate thanks to our credit card rewards points, so we got a chance to live it up. For all of those Perry readers out there, I have to tell everyone just what we ate. We started with Ceasars salad, followed by Filet Oscar, followed by key lime pie. It was pretty darn good.

After wrapping up dinner, we heading to Michigan Avenue, where we took in some holiday cheer. Below is a picture of yours truly with an elf we met. The sad part is, I don't know if she was hired to dress up and entertain at the mall or just doing it for fun...

These are some of the decorations we saw on our walk... Pretty extravagant, right? Pretty creepy in person.

Today, we cleaned and did about seven loads of laundry in the morning and shopped in the afternoon. What started as lunch and a trip to the grocery store, ended up being a shopping spree. I don't know what happened, but in a matter of an hour, we had purchased three books, two pairs of shoes and the entire line of Kiel's grooming products. Christmas just came early for Laura and Andrew.

To sign off, below is a picture of Andrew's peace lily and beta fish. He's pretty proud of it. We learned today at the plant shop that the whole lily/beta thing was big in the 70s...cutting edge, Andrew.

Back to Top

Laura says I need to remember to keep my posts "short and sweet." So here's a tribute to Andy for getting a job offer today!

Back to Top

Yes it's going to be a record 3 posts in a single day, or at least that's how history will judge me. George Bush doesn't seem to be worried about that, why should I? Don't roll your eyes, I've spared you political punditry for over a month now, don't worry -I don't intend to start.

I will try to start publishing an RSS feed of the site. You can read more about this technology here. It is worth reading, because this is going to be a very big part of the Internet in 2006.

So I'm going to try and syndicate this "site." The irony is this is not much more than a blog, and most blog providers are free and syndicate their users' blogs for free. I get neither benefit. Oh well, all I have to do is write a simple RSS file. You can find it here when I'm done.

Undaunted by the girly-sweet martini I downed on the way home from work, it looks like my ability to code XML has gone untaxed. All credit goes to this guide.

Back to Top

So I set the December site live this past weekend, in late November. The consequence? I theoretically have to wait until Thursday to actually post December content.

That's not going to happen, I refuse to go back. I refuse to post into the coded nightmare that is November. That, and the fact that I went to a Depeche Mode concert last night that I need to tell you about it.

Laura loves Depeche Mode. For those of you who aren't hip to 80's Euro-pop, here's the wiki to catch you up to speed. All in all, it was pretty entertaining. The lead singer was like a marionette on PCP with a baritone voice and leather jeans. I swear his feet never touched the ground at the same time for 90 minutes.

Laura thought the lead singer was "sexy."

I felt my ear drums aching, so I left briefly to buy her a T-shirt and stuffed some notebook paper into my right ear before re-entering the arena. Nothing says loser like business casual attire and notebook paper in your ear at a concert. It was a school night, was I the only one dreaming about going to bed?

In all fairness to Laura, who ended up wearing her new concert tee to bed... Depeche Mode put on a great show, and I whole-heartedly admit that I bounced my knees and swayed to their music (that's me dancing).

We went to the show with Maggie and Jason. God bless them for getting us out of the house and to a concert. Sometimes we can be pretty isolated homebodies. Maggie and Jason are really our top resource for new restuarants and fun things to do in Chicago.

Back to Top

Andrew and I just returned yesterday from Thanksgiving in Florida, where we had a fantastic time with my family, celebrating the holiday, eating great food and just being together. Below is a picture of my father on his way to the Thanksgiving festivities -- ready to go with scotch in hand. Doesn't he look happy?

Andrew informed me that Cutty Sark is the kind of scotch they drink in Goodfellas the movie... As Ice Cube says "Keep it gangsta y'all, I want to thank you all!"

Here is a picture of me, being greeted by my cute litte nephew, Matthew, who is three and full of energy.

In typical Perry fashion, we ordered Thanksgiving in rather than making it ourselves. I don't remember ever making turkey and stuffing from scratch at home, which is probably one of the reasons why I don't know how to cook, however Andrew still happily eats everything I make.

After celebrating the holiday at my brother Mark's house, we went back to my sister's condo, who lives about ten minutes away, and went on a walk -- another Perry tradition. If there is one thing us Perrys are crazy about -- it's going on walks. Andrew got a few nice shots (below) of the view that my sister gets to enjoy everyday.

The next day we headed to the beach, but not before a healthy romp with my sister's dogs first. Below is a picture of my daddy egging the girls on...In this photo, Tazzie (the Chow mix) has just finished humping Lila (the lab mix) -- one of her favorite pastimes. My mother tells me the behavior is not sexual, she is just expressing her dominance. Thanks, mom.

Here is a quick pic of Andrew and dad on the beach. Hard to believe it's late November.

After going on yet another walk and soaking up some much needed vatamin D, the fam headed to downtown Dunedin, the small town where my brother lives, to go shopping and indulge in some fried ice cream.

We wrapped up the trip with some more family time at Mark's and a fun-filled dinner at the local Japenese steakhouse. All I can say is, isn't Andrew a great dad in training?

Happy Perry kids...I have a good grip on my bro in this pic.

Andrew thinks this picture is hilarious...I almost didn't put it in, but it is pretty good.

Bye, bye Florida fun...Back to the grind and cold weather.

Back to Top