Okay…maybe not “of justice” but it sounds good. But yeah…there were a couple things I actually meant to post about but never ended up doing so. Hence, winter update.

Anyway, I’ll start from the beginning. Back around Thanksgiving we got a dog (see picture to the left). His name is Chester. Now, you could be wondering how on earth Andrew ended up getting a dog…and sometimes I still wonder the same thing haha. Afterall, I think apartments are a terrible place to raise a dog, I get annoyed with them easily and I think they cost too much money (especially if you live in an apartment). But, when we were walking through PetsMart that one day in November and happened to see the animals from the humane society, I had a moment of weakness. And knowing Sarah really wanted a dog (despite my continuously saying we need to wait until we get a house) I said I’d consider the possibility if he could stay at her parents house (until we got a house). And that’s how it all started. My mom ended up giving him to us as a Christmas present and we decided not to keep him at Sarah’s parents house because we wanted to be able to train him and raise him ourselves. And, for the most part, he’s turned out to be a really good dog. Yes, we’ve had our share of “puppy troubles” that most people likely encounter in a similar situation but he’s a fast learner and pretty well behaved most of the time as long as he doesn’t get too bored. And while it was possibly too soon to get a dog…I think we’ll learn valuable lessons through training him…like patience!

Also, we had plans to go to California right after Christmas for a wedding in which Sarah was a bridesmaid. Well, for Christmas we ended up getting two tickets to Disneyland so we did that as well while in California. And it was my first time! We got to go on Star Tours, Big Thunder Mountain, a handful of Fantasyland rides, Innoventions (which happened to have ASIMO at the time…really cool stuff), Tower of Terror, California Screamin’, Mulholland Madness, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, Indiana Jones and Buzz Lightyear. Unfortunately, we never made it on to Space Mountain due to misplaced fast passes but I’m sure we’ll be back again seeing as you probably need at least two days to do everything.

I also got a handful of cds for Christmas…all of which I thoroughly enjoyed (and still enjoy). But one is by a new band I’ve never mentioned before. This cd is The Heat by NeedToBreathe which was an instant hit for me. I’d highly recommend this album to anyone who enjoys alternative rock.

Finally, you may have noticed that I got around to importing my posts from the old website. Unfortunately, none of the comments made it though as it would have been much too time consuming to add those to the old RSS feed. So if you happened to have a comment on one of those posts that you thought was really important…feel free to go back and re-add it. Ha.

For those of you that bring your laptop to work and use it alongside your work computer or have multiple computers at your desk for whatever reason, this may be your dream come true. At least it wast for me, sort of. For the longest time I wished there was some way I could control my laptop with the keyboard and mouse of my work computer but other than remoting in, nothing came to mind. I played around with remote assistance but, like remote desktop, a window comes up on the assisting computer which makes the whole process more cumbersome than it’s worth. So, after a little searching I came across this wonderful program called Synergy which was exactly what I needed. It’s actually designed for people who have multiple computers at their desk but don’t want to continuously switch between the two. It actually works like a dual monitor set up on one computer, allowing you to move the mouse to the edge of the screen on one computer to jump to the other. And it’s even platform independent so it doesn’t matter if you use Windows, Linux or Mac…you can still jump between the two as if it’s all one workstation.

On the music front, I’d like to mention that I recently purchased the much anticipated (at least by some) latest album by Coldplay, “Viva la Vida”. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t an instant hit for me. My first impression was this is noticeably different than the Coldplay I’m used to…a bit toned town…even a bit…weird lol. However, I still liked it and the more I’ve listened to it the more I’ve enjoyed it. I’d also like to mention an album that I meant to bring up awhile back…like sometime after Christmas. It seems most people have never heard of this band, Moses Mayfield, whose album “The Inside” was an instant hit for me. Unfortunately, we won’t be hearing anymore albums from this band as they broke up early this year, however the lead singer is still working solo. I’d also like to make note of one more album: “Dreaming Out Loud” by OneRepublic which is a nice blend of hip hop and alternative rock. At any rate, I’d highly recommend each album previously mentioned.

Its interesting how quickly things move sometimes…especially when there’s so much preparation for them. Take, for instance, my recent wedding. It (including the reception) lasted a matter of hours but seemed to go by in about thirty minutes. For all the months of planning it makes you wonder…but it was more than worth it. Not to mention the week before the wedding which mostly involved pre-wedding festivities and spending time with people visiting from out of town: it felt like a couple of days at best. So, by the time we were all settled in Aspen for our honeymoon we had to make ourselves slow down and remind ourselves that it was okay to just relax for awhile. Interestingly enough, our best man (my best friend, Danny) and maid of honor (Sarah’s best friend, Sarah lol) actually ended up getting together and finally it looks like there’s a reasonable chance Danny will actually move here. I’m honestly not holding my breath though…I won’t believe it until I see it.

Anyway…Aspen (and the surrounding area) was beautiful. We were able to enjoy great food, good times, an amazing hot air balloon ride (a first for both of us), and the famous Maroon Bells (as seen to the right). Let me just say that you have to see the Maroon Bells in person. If you think the pictures are spectacular, just wait until you see them with your own eyes. The pictures don’t even come close to doing them justice! On the way out we also made a pit stop in Denver and I got to show Sarah many places of my youth. I was happy to find that Sarah loved Denver (and CO in general) as I thought she would…but it’ll probably be a long time before we move there, if ever (even though we’d really like to some day).

Since then we’ve been getting settled at the new apartment. Right now we have a recliner and two camp chairs (for living room furniture), a folding table and folding chairs for the kitchen and boxes for night stands. It’s good stuff lol. This weekend we’ll be heading up to Phoenix to hit up IKEA (and possibly Target) and see if they can help us out…we actually would already have a kitchen table if target had the chairs in stock but maybe we’ll have better luck in Phoenix. Definitely big changes of late…but they’ve been much awaited and welcomed as far as I’m concerned.

As you can see I have completely redesigned my website…again. This time, however, I would go out on a limb and say it is probably bigger than any of the previous revamps. As you might have noticed, I decided to venture in to the wonderful world of WordPress to streamline everything a bit…and make the website a little more user friendly and less prone to spam attacks. I also made it a little more portfolio centric and am adding tons of content that I’ve wanted to put on here for awhile. I also have merged the web log and news section in to one (or made news a category in the web log) because, lets face it, the news feed on the old site was…useless. At least the lack of any activity on the old site might make a little more sense now. And this website has only been a small part of all the things keeping me busy. Anyway, please continue to check back as I hope to migrate the old posts over here fairly soon and continue to add more images to the portfolio.

Sometimes, lately, I find it easy to be immediately skeptical of something I hear in church. I want to reject it, saying “where’d that come from?” or “that’s not exactly biblical” or any other number criticisms. I forget though, that that’s how many people felt when Jesus came around. That’s not to say I think I should just get over it, shut up and blindly follow from now on…or that I know all there is to know about the bible (I’m far from it actually). I think wariness can be a good thing and by no means does God want us to be blind in our faith. But I think when it gets to the point that we’re worried and discouraged over some trivial little disagreement on a spiritual topic, it only opens the door for the enemy to come in and pull us apart.

We’re (read: I’m) missing the point.

I think that compared to one thing, God is not too concerned about our position on those things we get so caught up in debate over. Looking throughout the stories in the bible and past experiences, it becomes obvious that one thing is absolute. That one thing is the heart. Where is my heart? Is it focused on serving me or any other countless things the enemy would have or is it focused on serving others in love and growth in God? If it’s the former, I have bigger problems than whether drinking alcohol is ok or not. If it’s the latter, I can wrestle with the issue (and possibly should), but I needn’t let it be a hindrance from what’s really important.