Update: 1/28/07

Here's a link to a video of the dogs playing outside today. As the saying goes "a tired dog is a good dog."

Update: 1/25/07

Thursday is here, or as I like to call it "Friday Junior."

I've taken up jogging again in an effort to lower my blood pressure and cholesterol. I'm also eating a lot better. That means actually looking at nutrion facts!

I haven't been gobbling down Take Five candy bars every day and slurping up my favorite microwavable Miso Soup (900mg sodium btw).

I was slightly tempted by the office vending machine this week. It had a quarter stuck in it, and was giving away free Skittles. It's the kind of machine that gives you about 7 Skittles at a time and says "turn slowly for maximum vend" -- and still gives you 7 Skittles.

Thankfully, people noticed very quickly and depleted the sweet rainbow colored cache. It only took about a day:

So that leads me to my latest running regimine. My current trek through suburbia is just under 2 miles. I know this from using G-maps Pedometer (link credit goes to Adam).

Click this link to see the map.

With a fully functioning Ipod, I can run it in pretty good time. Without any music, I get psyched out by the sound of my own breathing and go much slower.

I wonder why no marathon runners have Ipods?

...Here's your Friday Video.

Update: 1/21/07

We're hanging out with our laptops and the dogs, enjoying the Bears game on TV. There's not much else to do in this weather.

It sure does rain a lot in North Carolina, but I'll take this over snow any day. For me, Chicago has the "slush period" from January to April where there is a constant brown ice/dirt mix on the ground. Step into a pile of that stuff at 7:00 am, and you'll find a stimulant that rivals coffee.

We were finally able to get our eager hands on a copy of The Illusionist on DVD, starring Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.

Despite having a pair of our favorite actors and a decent plot -- the movie really fell short at the end. I won't ruin it for you, but in Chapter 27 of the DVD, entitled "realization" Paul Giamatti makes a face that had Laura and I laughing out loud. He goes crazy with delight, in realizing what we thought was a pretty obvious "twist."

The movie is worth the rental price... but I'm no longer curious why it zipped through theaters so quickly.

Sadly, I put my Xbox 360 up on Ebay this weekend. I figure the Nintendo Wii is more fun, and I have barely enough time to play video games -- let alone two separate game consoles.

Some guy named "Mike Jones Numba One" excitedly bid 7 times in a row. Unfortunately I think he is just trolling to see my reserve price. To make matters less than great, he has a feedback rating of "2". Something tells me Mike may not buy my Xbox, but I've been surprised by Ebay before!

OK I'm off to try some experimental low fat brownies that Laura made.

Update: 1/15/07

Happy MLK day. Yesterday I was painfully reminded how my brother is exceedingly athletic. Here is a side by side comparison of our golf swings:

Notice how I caught the ball just as it leaves the club. I'm much better at taking the pictures than swinging the club. As you can see, I'm a little tense in the shoulders. And I don't know why my elbow is touching my stomach.

Here's a link to the video.

Update: 1/13/07

Everyone arrived yesterday. Bill, Courtney and a new dog named Holly from the shelter. We had been talking about getting a new dog for a few months, and Holly is the perfect fit. She is a 12 week old border-collie lab mix.

She is getting along very well with our other little beast, Oreo.

So far, Holly has shown a lot of energy and interest in all the activity going on in the house.

After a lot of playing around, we left the two dogs at home and went out to dinner at Village Bistro in Ballantyne.

The only drama so far is when Oreo attacked Holly while he was eating some peanut butter that Bill gave him. Oreo will fight to death for peanut butter, we already knew this.

Update: 1/11/07

I'm excited about this weekend. My brother Bill is flying in from NYC and Laura's college buddy Courtney (C-dawg) is coming from Chicago. We'll have a good time showing them around Pineville. It's doubtful we'll have three days worth of activities, but I'm hopeful that television will bridge the gap.

Tonight I feel like a cup of water thrown onto a hot grill. The sizzle of stress is steaming away and I'm starting to feel myself again. Today I had to get an echocardiogram... my second ultrasound this week!

The humor in this experience was summed up in the amount of goo they had to put on my chest to get an accurate image of my heart. To put it mildly, Austin Powers himself would be jealous of my chest hair. If you have seen the movie, you are familiar with my gift/affliction.

What have I gotten myself into?

I feel like the first test this week rattled my nerves and snowballed into a second test. That's right, I may have sabotaged my health exam, and I would make a terrible international spy.

Rest assured, I feel like I'm OK and have only received good news. If anything, I've learned to embrace change and try to roll with the punches better. For goodness sake, I'm not dying!

The beginning of 2007 has carried with it a little more excitement than I anticipated. However so far it has proved more cathartic and valuable than traumatic, and I'm truly thankful for it.

If you're curious how and why I feel this way, I'd encourage you to look up a book I've been reading. It was definitely not on my reading list. This month I was supposed to finish Howard Zinns "A People's History of the United States," but I got sidetracked into Dallas Willard's "Hearing God Through the Year."

It's funny how things turn out. Here's your friday video.

Update: 1/9/07

Apologies for the long break in posts. I've been undergoing a barrage of medical examinations. Who knew so many fun referrals could come from one annual physical? Let me be the first to tell you that a scrotal ultrasound was not part of my new year resolution list. Not by a long shot.

It just so happens that I found myself seeking particular treatment from a condition that caught me by surprise at the most unlikely moment: Christmas day.

While everyone was enjoying champagne momosas and crawfish stuffing, old Andrew was withering away with a fever because something was wrong with his plumbing.

Luckily, my father-in-law and sister-in-law saved the day with antibiotics and medical advice. I am living proof that one cannot die from embarassment while celebrating Christmas with the in-laws.

They sent me home with enough single-dose sample pills to tide me over before my scheduled doctor's visit. And that my friends, should close the loop on this story which you are entirely too well informed.

Anyways I'm fine now. I just got word I am 100% OK, and I know a few friends and family members were concerned. I just wanted to let the good news fly.

Life is too short to get embarssed over these types of things.

Incidentally, I have to go back for a few other small tests for completely different body parts, but I'm confident after this firedrill that I'm in good (albeit highly conservative) hands.

Update: 1/1/07

Happy New Year!

By now you might have noticed a few new things about the website. I got the CSS for the site menu above at Exploding Boy afer surfing around, I thought Christopher Ware's stuff llooked the best.

I also decided to update my avatar in the above left because I thought taking a new picture of my head every year would get old (besides it's cliched). I thought picking a Transformer would be timely considering the New Year is here. And who among us doesn't desire a little change, or love the timless Saturday morning cartoon The Transformers?

I'm not talking about turning myself into a car, or airplane like the cartoon. Although in outer appearance I have tacked on a few lbs.

I am talking about a few things I genuinely want to accomplish in 2007. Looking back at last years goals, I can see in the subtext I was concerned about being underweight and adding more channels to our glorious website. Looks like I fired two arrows from my quiver and only one hit the target. I gained weight since I've come down to Charlotte -- which my boss says was in "brain power," but the website still lacks any diversified content other than a sprinkling of Youtube videos. Amazingly it didn't stop us from registering 11,819 visits and 24,753 pageviews in 2007. Do the math and you'll come to the sad realization that people skip off the site after an average of 2 pageviews... we're not exactly "sticky" yet.

This year I'm going to double my odds and establish a single goal: go on a vacation with Laura, no family invited! Sorry Artemenko and Perry clans, but we need some "q time" away from overseas terrorist threats, thin moutain air, and viruses. Although you are all welcome to come visit us in Pineville!

A vacation with just the two of us will be tough. I'm already facing an uphill battle getting Laura out of the house. She has a habit of staying in and cooking most of the time (this is not necessarily a bad thing, and may be loosely correlated to aforementioned weight issues). For example, this weekend she cooked some delicious treats made from pretzels, rollos and pecan halves...

There are only three main ingredients (above), and the instructions are pretty straightforward: lay out a dozen or more square pretzels and put a rollo on top of them. Then pop the cookie sheet into the oven for 3 minutes. Remove the cookie sheet and squish pecan halves into the semi-melted rollos. Refridgerate for 15 minutes so everything sticks together, and then eat as many as you can/want.

What you're looking at is a rip-off of Hershey's Take Five candybar with a pecan on top... but for the simple cost of ingredients I highly recommend you try making a batch.