Artemenko.org -- The Blog of Andrew Artemenko

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As an added bonus, I received a Halloween photo from my brother Bill. Here he is as Kevin Federline with a couple of ninjas! Bill is absolutely sweet, he lives the plush life in San Francisco. These other goofballs look like they just crawled out of a Chinatown garbage can. Naturally they are all wildly successful bankers -- and you think I'm joking.

Rewind 365 days back to when Laura and I were cool enough to dress up for Halloween. I know this is breaking the rules, but here is last year's costumes:

Laura is Dorothy, and I'm the Cobra Kai who whips Daniel Son in Karate Kid. Sweep the leg!

Why oh why has my Tivo recorded Erin Brockovich? This movie is actually pretty good... I might just watch it as I type. Dunkin Donuts Coffee would be perfect right about now.

Naturally, we have been up since 7am (6am if you count daylight savings), making us the worst hosts imaginable to yet another sleepy guest.

Oh well, I won't disturb anyone while I type. I need to take advantage of the fact that my web publishing software is actually working!

Thankfully, my trial of Dreamweaver isn't up just yet, so I can keep posting. We had a little scare yesterday when the program kept crashing, and I was forced to view this webpage in notepad in all its HTML glory. It's not pretty.

If it comes down to paying $399 for Macromedia Dreamweaver (which I use to publish this site) or $0 Microsoft notepad, I might give it a shot. I don't know, I'll let you know when the trial expires in 9 days -- or maybe you'll just get radio silence.

This weekend was fun because we could reconnect with Brian, Courtney, Maggie and Jason. When we are all in town we try to enjoy a nice dinner together. Friday we ate at a place called "Rick's Cafe." It's owned by a single chef/french guy and the bathroom is right next to his kitchen. Ironically the food he prepares never makes it very far from him.

The food was awesome, I got the steak Au Poive (sp?). I really enjoy our dinner group. One of the lessons of getting older is realizing that not everyone is "friendship material," and it makes you really value the relationships you have.

Another good part about the weekend is that it was Homecoming at Northwestern, which was a good enough excuse for my old college roommate Chris to take a break from medical school and hang out. We ended up going to Brian's apartment in Evanston to watch the Northwestern vs. Michigan spanking.

In the spirit of Homecoming, I'll post an image of me, Chris, Andy and Carl from the college days. We were all roommates back then, I think this picture is from our junior year. Andy is in Chicago, and Carl is in Africa. Chris is down visiting from med school, and this picture might as well be from outerspace -- it's only 4 years old but it seems much older.

Northwestern lost, but we had some good laughs and a much needed excursion to Burger King. I still argue that the Whopper Junior has the best proportion of meat/bread/condiments, and is worth the embarassment of being a grown man ordering it. While Chris and I were at Burger King, Laura worked the crowd back at the apartment -- with a knife!

The best view was actually Brian's saltwater fish tank, which beats the pants off of my tank.

Here's a pic of my Nano reef tank, it's a Nano Cube Deluxe 12 Gallon Acquarium. I have set one of these up before. And there are hundreds of pictures of it. I loved my old tank, it is the perfect "winter sport" for Chicago. I highly recommend starting a saltwater tank as a new hobby.

Tim said that he looks like "Dennis Quaid, not Randy Quaid." It's your world Tim, choose your idols wisely.

I narrowly avoided a root canal, but got drilled down to the pulp of my tooth in order to fill it. My dentist said he could see the blood vessel that carries oxygenated blood into my tooth.

I secretly believe that my dentist lacked the skill, nay the courage, to give me a full root canal. No complaints here, sensitivity to cold is gone and it chews just fine!

Oh and Adam and Tim have been griping about Laura's last post and it's apparent obsession with food and references to being too tired after a walk around the lake.

My best guess is that her target audience is the lovely ladies she works with. God bless them but I think they talk about food and how best to consume, and consequently shed it, the entire day. Either way I've given up the idea of understanding the mind of a woman. I happen to think she is an excellent writer, and I really like the pic of her on the bike!

Tonight we went to club "Lucky" for dinner. I think it should have been named "Italian Mushroom Explosion" after the labor and sweat it took to uncover the steak I ordered from underneath a pile of mushrooms.

We had dinner with Laura's work friends and their spouses. The only person missing was Patrick, but I'm sure I'll have pictures and stories to post about him later.

Andrew, Oreo and I just returned from a fantastic weekend at Elkhart Lake where Andrew's parents have a lovely home. While we were there, I ate like it was the end of the world at several meals, including a "Frappe," which includes: whole milk, espresso and blended chocolate. Needless to say, the weekend was wonderful.

Oreo bonded with a new friend -- baby James, 15 months, son of Amy and Jim Barber. The Barbers are our friends from Evanston.

Oreo watched James' food like hawk and was rewarded lovingly with scraps of turkey sandwhich and cereal.

That night, Andrew and I determined that Oreo was too hyperactive, so we decided to throw tennis balls with him outdoors. Andrew hit tennis balls with a golf club to practice his horrendous swing. During this time I rode a bicycle - a very rare event. A picture of this monumentus occasion is attached. I now know how to use hand breaks!

This morning, Andrew, Bill, his brother, Brian Adams, a family friend, and myself went on an adventure around the lake. We found a dead racoon that Oreo wanted to befriend, and a dead body in the woods! Just kidding. By the end of the five-mile hike I was dilerious and in need of some serious pampering. (Andrew, the loving husband that he is, did treat me to one heck of a oreo blizzard from the DQ.)

In closing, Elkhart lake is a wonderful getaway and we look forward to our next escape from the city. Thank you Sherry for building such a wonderful, homey retreat.

Humorless doesn't begin to describe his delivery of those five words. Yes, I am in the lowly category of individuals with cavities, fillings, and now root canals.

Tim's visit was much better. Tim is doing great these days. Here is a picture of us:

We had some beers, a pair of tequila shots and some nice steaks at Hugo's Frog Bar on Rush Street. We had some good laughs, and Tim announced that "chick's think I look like Randy Quaid." Right Tim.

After dinner we brought home a nice steak bone for the dog, who was in quarantine after another "accident." This time the dog manged to fire a stream of solid/liquid waste onto the carpet surrounding his crate while we were at work.

The full story will never be completely known to us, we were left with only forensic data -and a message from the dog walker at 1:00 PM saying "Rob did his best to clean, we think Oreo is sick."

We only know Rob from notes he leaves on our refridgerator. Rob's notes are infamously hard to read, but this time we could read the words!

It was legible, and some sort of logic-based decision making had occured. That balanced with the fact that he faithfully walked our dog that day means we owe him a sixpack or a Bestbuy certfificate.

Laura ended up leaving work early to take care of our dog toward the end of the day, God bless her.

She's a trooper! I steam cleaned the disaster zone after work today, I think that knocked out some of the smell.

Oh and you get a bonus today, a picture of my office! It's not really my office, I share it with an office mate named Cle. She said she blocks out my voice when I talk on the phone all day -which really shows how amazingly tolerant and kind she is.

Today, Andrew and I took full advantage of our first anniversary. We began by cleaning the apartment from top to bottom -- which neither of us was looking forward to -- and followed it up with a mammoth walk. We were so tired; I can only imagine how Oreo felt. It's that time in Chicago, however, where every minute outside is precious and must be taken advantage of.

After returning from our marathon, Andrew surprised me with a new bag from Louis Vuitton -- the Popincourt Haut -- which is just what I wanted. It's an amazing bag and he's a fantastic husband for being so generous. I've already tested it out at the grocery store and its the perfect size and fit for me!

Another weekend is wrapping up, and we're relaxing before the work week. I finally managed to send an e-mail to Carl Allen, one of my college roommates who is in Accra, Ghana right now with the Peace Corps. Carl is the man! I think he is going to be there for two years or so, I hope he comes back.

Two events of note coming up this week: best friend from home Tim is coming into town Tuesday night, and Wednesday I have my first dentist visit in over a year. Brutal, I'm definitely looking forward to dinner with Timmy. We should go somewhere nice. As promised, here is a picture of my new fish, it's called a peacock blenny:

Today marks the first day of the website. I just have a few images up, nothing fancy. We went out for dinner tonight to celebrate our first year being married. Our dog celebrated by relieving himself on the carpet before we left for dinner.

Oh well, Laura and I always enjoy a nice dinner out. We went to the Cape Cod Room at the Drake Hotel and we enjoyed a healthy dose of surf and turf! Dinner was only a few blocks away, so we braved the autumn weather by foot.

More will be posted tomorrow, I got a new fish that I would like to share with everyone. I'm sure a "Gallery" button would be appropriate for that sort of thing, but I'm too lazy and I'll probably just post the images in-line.

All for now.