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Hello time traveler. You've found the REALLY old stuff.
Use the links below to navigate around, and
have fun browsing! Remember how I said I was going to watch Chronicles of Riddick this weekend? Well I did, and within minutes of starting it, I had movie déjà vu. That's right, my brain was percolating with another amazing "movie call." It all started when the Necromonger army took over a planet called Helion Prime looking for the last living Furyan, played by Vin Diesel. Incidentally, these thrilling plot developments had me squirming in sci-fi bliss. Laura couldn't flip on her Ipod and reach for her US Weekly fast enough. Anyways, this guy called the "Purifier" walks out, and I know I have seen him before, like within 2 days ago:
Between Laura's intermittent comments to bash the film, I made the connection. This guy was in Batman Begins! He's Bruce Wayne's father!
Buya! I got you Linus Roache!
The Perrys are gone and tears have been shed -- not just the crusty dog kind, but also a few human ones too. It was great to have them here. We took long walks (in true Perry fashion), went on many shopping trips, visited art gallerys, enjoyed lavish breakfasts and great conversations over dinner. Oreo was particularly sad when Peter and Anne left, because they showered him with attention.
And we miss them too!
Peter had an ice cream sundae with chocolate sauce every night at 8:30 pm. He carved his vanilla scoops with the delicate precision of a surgeon.
Oreo made fast friends with Anne, and followed her everywhere. Today, Laura and I are doing our usual Sunday routine. We are having my favorite for dinner tonight: beef stroganoff hamburger helper. When I took Oreo out for his post-dinner walk, I noticed it was much, much lighter outside. Maybe spring has finally sprung in Chicago?
In the picture above, you can see the shadows of the taller buildings behind our's stretching over the water.
My grandfather, Gene Artemenko was a lifeguard on North beach, pictured above. And in the picture below, you can see Navy Pier, which we can only see on the clearest days.
It's a much different scene from December, thats for sure!
After two weeks... we're back. For those of you who know me, it was a personal decision to take down the site, rather than a technical one. In hindsight, it may have been a little paranoid to take down Artemenko.org, because of all the Google traffic we are receiving. As you will see below, this site "for family and friends" is attracting quite a few new visitors. For example type this into Google: "It's another Van Dam Friday!" While I was away from the site, I still checked my Google Analytics report daily. Here are some quick facts about the website in March: Visits are a unique person visiting the site, Pageviews are the number of multiple pages viewed by a single person:
Some interesting things happening here... The video section (most of the links are still busted, sorry) is gaining in popularity AND my little brother is typing his name into Google and then visiting our site. Thanks for the clicks Pete!
And lastly, my favorite report to check is the geo-location of visitors... the big orange blob is over Chicago. That's because the site's biggest visitor (me) checks in pretty often to make sure it looks ok.
I've really only missed 2 updates, last weekend and some sort of post in the middle of last week. Trust me, nothing happened. Well, nothing happened until Wednesday, when Laura's parents arrived. The Perrys are great. Peter is in town for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) annual meeting. We went out for a nice dinner on Wednesday night. Afterward, Peter prescribed me 500mg of Cephalexin for what he diagnosed as "an infected toe" on my left foot. It has been bothering me, so I showed it to him after dinner. We walked to CVS down the street, and they asked me who wrote my prescription for antibiotics. I pointed to Peter and said "My doctor, he goes everywhere with me." Obviously, I was nervous about taking the pills. I trust Peter, but I'm not accustomed to such personally tailored diagnosis and treatment. Never in my life have I seen someone pull out a prescription slip from their wallet. Nonetheless, I woke up Thursday morning and my toe felt a lot better. I rose from my inflatable bed on the floor and went to work, leaving Laura at home with her parents -- the scene looked something like this:
The rest of the week has moved by pretty quickly. To stave off my cravings to post snippets online, I made my own Myspace page. Careful, it has music. Myspace is pretty cool for seeing what highschool and college friends are up to. And it's also good for just seeing the people that you never talked to, but always wondered what their life was like behind their yearbook photo. Laura, who has had 4 cups of coffee this morning, would also like to note that she has a Myspace page too. You can find her in my "friends" section. Tim asked for an updated picture of the fish tank. It's the same one that's on Myspace, but here it is:
Chronicles of Riddick came in the mail from Netflix. I can pretty much gaurantee I'll be watching it alone. I can't help it if science fiction is part of my genes.
Yes! Braveheart is on Bravo right now. For some reason, I'm willing to shun my own DVD collection for basic cable. There is just something more special about capturing a good movie on live TV. Tonight we went to Tsunami, which is about 2 blocks west of our apartment. We went super early, so early that we walked in while the entire wait staff was having a meeting about the dinner specials. This did not deter us from being the first guests to dine tonight.
Laura had her usual glass of wine, while I enjoyed an especially large Mai Tai with my sushi and teryaki glazed beef tenderloin with lobster mashed potatoes. It was seriously one of the best dinner/conversations we've had in Chicago. To top it off, we ordered a delicious dessert with sorbet, chocolate, white chocolate cheese cake and chocolate cake. It was incredible!
Afterward, we took Oreo for a walk and I snapped this shot of the Hancock building, which had green lights to celebrate St. Patricks day.
Earlier today, after an ill-fated, rental car enabled house hunting trip to Deerfield, we enjoyed the 60+ degree weather with a long walk in our neighborhood. Here you can see another shot that has the Hancock tower, along with the rest of the Chicago skyline.
Laura took the picture, I think it's a pretty good shot of the city.
I shaved my head today for St. Baldrick's!
Thats me in the background on the right. I was very proud to be a part of team A.J. Renner, whose team graciously adopted me in the last month. A.J. Renner is an insurance company run by Allison Renner, who is pictured here in the green shirt holding a large check. Allison is a cancer survivor.
Game time.
When asked if I wanted to use a Gillette razor to "clean up" the shaving. I enthusiastically said "no."
Afterward, I felt light-headed and asked for a beer. Laura mouthed the words "I have no money." I found enough cash in my wallet for a $5.25 Miller light. Back in the real world, I could have bought a 6 pack of Strohs, a candybar and a train ride to anywhere in the city with the same amount of money. My aim was to dull the pain of looking in the mirror -- and that's just what my overpriced beer did. I edged sideways into my pale, round reflection. It was awkward, but I felt something come over me that was a lot larger than vanity. I thought about the weirdness that all of the kids with cancer must feel when they get stares or long looks. And I thought, what brave little souls. Here's one last picture of Laura kissing my bald head! I am a lucky man.
Maggie mentioned this weekend that her company is blocking Artemenko.org. There is hope Maggie! Lucky for you, this nerd has registered alternate domain names, and pointed ALL of them to Artemenko.org. Yes, in what I believe is a modern day gold rush, I have prospected a few semi-precious domain names... such as www.reallysimpledesign.com, www.truthidentity.com (how profound), www.mediabeggar.com (awful) and www.rss-hub.com (useless). If you type in any of those URLs into your browser, you will be re-directed to Artemenko.org. My most valuable domain name, www.viralvids.com, now points to the Hall of Fame where we have links to funny videos. Still with me? It's a form of gambling. DO NOT GO TO domains.yahoo.com to see what is available. About a year ago, at my last job I was charged with finding available website names for a video game site that we were going to produce. The excitement of searching, combined with the dregs that was still available, led me to this luke warm suggestion: "gamefetus.com" If you look, it is still available. For $3.99 it could be yours. Let's just say my old boss wasn't keen on naming his site Gamefetus, so I never brought it up. Why do I remember these things? Tonight we finished the fourth Harry Potter movie: The Goblet of Fire. It was pretty good. We need to send this back to Neflix. Next on the menu is Jarhead!
Oh and I want to remind you all that I'm going to be shaving my head on Friday for St. Baldrick's. It's a fundraiser for childrens cancer research, where the participants shave their heads in support of kids who lose their hair battling cancer. So far I have raised around $600, and my team has raised over $25,000! This makes us the top Baldrick's fundraising team in Chicago! Laura wants give me a mohawk before I go completely bald, we'll see if that happens :)
Buenas dias. I'm back. Last night, we spent the evening with Maggie and Jason and Brian and Courtney. The fiesta began at our apartment, where the girls tried on our bridesmaids dresses for Anne Mary's upcoming wedding in Lexington, Kentucky on April 8th. Below is a picture of Courtney showing off her gown and looking so darn cute! We are really excited for the event!
After the fashion show, we headed out to dinner.
We went to Luxbar, which is around the corner from apartment, and supposedly, the new hot spot in Chicago.
We indulged in upscale bar food that was pretty amazing. Below are some pictures of us enjoying the meal.
Andrew and Brian ordered the same buttermilk fried chicken sandwhich -- with bacon! Andrew managed to finish the monsterous sandwich, while still sampling sides of tangled onions and macaroni and cheese. In hindsight, it's no wonder he was moving so slowly after dinner.
On to more important things. Here is a picture of me with my new watch!
After dinner we returned to our apartment for a night cap. This meant finishing the wine we opened earlier, while Oreo gently removed our guests' socks. To us, this is a normal occassion, but for Brian, it was a delightful experience that he summed up in two words: "remarkably gentle."
In like a lion, out like a hormone-infused super strength lamb! It's Chicago, don't bet on any early relief from old man winter. It will make Adam happy to know that the ads are coming down... all of them. Right now I'm too lazy to take them off the older pages, which I prefer to keep frozen in time. *Newsflash* Laura thinks the website has become "lame." Let me invite you aboard the cruise ship Evenmorelame... Put Wikipedia on your Ipod! This site tell you how to do it:
A smarter man would call it a day and go to bed, but I feel compelled to watch one of my Netflix movies so I can get it in the mail tomorrow and a have a new one delivered by Saturday. So I'm watching Murderball.
It's a fun movie to watch, I prefer the personal stories more than the wheelchair rugby games. I think to myself "I'd be pretty good at wheelchair rugby."
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Update 3/27/06
Update 3/5/06
