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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!  Update 9/30/06
Yesterday, Andrew and I received a special package in the mail from my Mother. It contained a very exciting housewarming gift...
Isn't it wonderful? I think it perfectly portrays Oreo in his puppyhood -- adorable, loyal, intuitive and good at math. Well everybody, the dust has settled on the major house projects, and most of the rooms have been accessorized to the hilt. I even made my own small contribution to the cause:
At nearly every chance, I try to blur the line between my life and the Internet. I'm not sure if Laura feels the same way, but she was very kind to let me "URL out" the new welcome mat. Owning a home is certainly thrilling. It is an incredible contrast to our Chicago apartment. I found a year-old picture from our former living room which you might enjoy.
This reminds me that we are nearing the 1-year anniversary of Artemenko.org. I think some sort of 'Top 10' list might be in order, linking back to various posts from 2006 and some of 2005 I'll spare you the head-exploding excitement until the official anniversary next month. And while we're reminiscing, about the dawn of the age of blog-enlightenment, that was right around the last time I went to the dentist and got the drilling of a lifetime. This week's visit was much more tame, I had only waited a year and got my 3-filling reward for it. My dental work took about 90 minutes on Monday. And when you have a gigantic chin like mine, it makes leaving your mouth open for extended periods of time very uncomfortable. Add on to that the fact that I was injected (sans warning) with some sort of synthetic adrenaline so I wouldn't metabolize the novacaine before the procedure was done. So there I am, big chin hanging there, with my heart beating like a race horse. When the dental assisstant accidentally vaccummed my entire lower lip into the suction tube I almost shot into the popcorn ceiling. Nonetheless, my out-of-network dentist supplies all of his victims with television enabled goggles. I found it fitting that Quantum Leap was on, so I just watched that most of the time. I tried to study up on the sports channels for my Fantasy Football Team: The Gloria Estefan Explosion, but that didn't hold my attention. Team GFE is an entirely different story, but I thank my lucky stars for Bret Favre every week! Lastly, there is a new addition to the blogosphere to announce: Sheila has blog! Project time! Well, I came home this morning from a quick business trip to Las Vegas to find our home mid-transformation. We are in the process of putting in some hardwood flooring and new bathroom tiles. Our contractor is a great guy from Chicago who recently moved here with his family. He and his son are a two-man team and we are really impressed with their efforts so far. We will keep you posted on their progress. We hope to have the projects finished by the beginning of next week! Here is a picture of all of our things stuffed into the family room.
Here is our bath room after the carpet was removed.
And, here is the foyer and dining room – prepped and ready to go!
Oreo is looking handsome as ever -- it's hard to believe he is over 2 years old.Laura's father Peter, also requested a lesson in cell phone picture-taking, and a primer in bluetooth technology. I think by the end of the 20-minute course he got the hang of it. Behold, the information age is upon us!
When we were out at dinner tonight we got a call from my brother Peter, his wife Katie's water broke! Looks like I'm going to be an uncle soon... possibly within the next 24 hours. After getting our guest bedroom together, Andrew and I would like to announce that the Artemenko Inn is officially open for business. Visitors welcome!
This room was fairly easily to assemble, however, the next bedroom is already proving to be more difficult. My parents are sending us my bedroom set from childhood next weekend, so Andrew and I decided to do a quick paint change of the bedroom below...
Honestly, do you blame us? What you can't see is that the ceiling is this same shade of pink-orange as well. :-) At this point, we are primed and ready to go for tomorrow. I can't wait for this project to be over! We've already been to Home Depot three times today. We even brought Oreo along...not such a great idea. He clung to the cart like his life depended on it and then started a fight with a golden retreiver puppy we met outside. On a happier note, last night Andrew and I ventured out of our cave and went to Uptown Charlotte to have dinner with my new co-worker, Kara. We had a great time, but forgot to bring the camera. The restaurant we went to was in an area of Charlotte called Dilworth that sort of resembles Evanston where we went to school. A lot of cute little restaurants and new condos. It was fun. Time to sign off, but expect more pictures tomorrow of our master painting! However, while everything remains in quasi-perfect shape, we are using every minute of the weekends to fill the house with crap. I believe females call this "accessorizing." I find it eerily similar to families of wild animals that forage for natural materials and weld them together with saliva. Rather than our own secretion, my mother Sherry was the cohesive bond to help us produce a fashionable interior. After dropping my parents off at the airport tonight, we both remarked that we had shown my parents every aspect of our life in Charlotte. We went to consignment shops, church, restaurants, hardware stores, furniture stores, downtown Charlotte and a baseball game in Greenville. We even managed to see Steve and Gail again, and also visit with our friends from Chicago: Amy and Jim. Here is a picture of my parents with Amy and her youngest (of two) son Sam:
Wow, I hope my kid is that good looking! After stopping off to see Amy and Jim (Amy is the daughter of Nate, who is pictured earlier in September), we went to a plant nursuery in south Charlotte. Maybe after seeing Amy's children I conceded that I too needed something to nuture. Plants will have to do in the meantime. Kids are on the list... somewhere. Here is the plant after we loaded it in the car, right in Laura's lap.
Here is a picture of the frog that jumped out and uriniated on my car after I tried to catch it:
Frog meet parking lot. Parking lot meet frog. After we removed our little hitchhiker we made our way home, had lunch and said our goodbyes. It has been a fun weekend. I even managed to mow the lawn. I don't recommend waiting 2 weeks and then trying to impress your parents by cutting grass on the "extra low" setting to show how the new lawn can be "like a green carpet." It took me HOURS on Saturday. And when the poor mower got stuck laboring over the extra burden of 1 inch tall grass, I was attacked by a rogue squadron of fire ants. My legs are covered in bloated bites covered in cortizone. Ant bites aside I'm a pretty happy camper. The inside of the living room looks a few degrees cozier, and it was great to have guests and share our new home with my parents. Here is a brief video which shows what it's like to have a meal with them.
The game was really fun. One of my parents friends, Nate, gave us a tour and treated us to an impromptu dance circa inning seven. I'd say the young man has some pretty good moves!
After the game, we drove my parents back to Charlotte to show them the new house, along with their inflatable accomodations. The last time we saw them was in Europe three weeks ago. Fortunately for them, the guest bathroom has much better hot water pressure -- compared with the single stream of water the size of a Philips-head screw in our bathroom. It works out better for me than Laura, since I use a single soap product for my entire body without any elaborate rinsing required. Hopefully the weather will stay nice so we can drive around town and maybe get a grill. The grill idea was scrapped -- we went to dinner instead:
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Update 9/27/06
Update 9/17/06
Update 9/09/06
