Indeed, you were probably well aware that surprises abound, this week especially – who ever saw HP bailing out of the PC business? I mean, I have owned nothing but HP laptops for the past eleven years!!! Of course, you know that’s not what this is about. But what else do you know? Knowing that something is not is a far cry from knowing what something is.

I’m rambling, and I’m well aware of it. Can you believe it’s been months, again, since I blogged about anything? Life is rolling right on along. I’ve been visiting all sorts of family and spending quite a bit of my spare time outside. Not to say that I have too much spare time…

Minnesota was gorgeous nearly the entire time that I was there. I bought one of those fancy state-park passes for a meager $25. The view from a 100-foot observation tower in one of the state parks was worth the price all on its own. My sister and I attempted to go canoeing at one of the state parks, but upon the realization that life-jackets were required inside any water vessel… we packed up the inflatable canoe and continued on about our day. (I wonder, if we were just swimming alongside of the canoe for a few miles down the river, would our chances of drowning go up? Because then we are not required to have life vests. Go figure.)

A piece of my past decided to make an appearance the other day, which was rather startling. It’s funny how we connect things in our minds. One little memory can cause an entire avalanche of flashbacks, reconsiderations, and reflections. Luckily, things went fairly smoothly this particular encounter. It is fun how you can never anticipate when something like that might happen.

On to other news… I’ve been reading Les Misérables for a good month now and am still only about half-way through. It is an absolutely fantastic read, and I highly recommend it to you. It positively grips the soul and then proceeds to force it to submit to an entire spectrum of emotions. The book is much less directly philosophical than most of the books I enjoy, but it still leaves plenty open for critical evaluation. If you do read it, just know that it’s slow to start and littered with painfully long asides. Have patience and read leisurely – it’s well worth it.

Last, but not least, on my list of basically meaningless banter topics – I’d like to tell you that I got a new highly-portable laptop. It’s the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4830T – and it is a truly fun little machine. I’m going to post a review of it soon over at my Computer Correct website, so keep an eye peeled.

You may have noticed that the domain name for this site has changed from AndrewDAnderson.com to AndrewAnderson.com. I’m terribly excited about it, despite the fact that it cost me the same as a trip to Thailand would have. Of course, the omitted letter probably doesn’t mean much to anyone else – my old email address works just fine, and you can get to this site via either address.

Hopefully, this new domain will allow me to capture more traffic for “Andrew Anderson” – since, I’m sure, most of those searches are in fact for me . Anyway, we’ll see how it goes.

On a side note, I want to write a little bit about the companies involved in the transfer. Especially since I couldn’t find much information on one of them when I was trying to make sure that I wasn’t being duped. OfferBase.com was where I first expressed my interest in the domain name. It allowed me to do the bidding on the name, and communicate with the previous owner. For the actual money side of things I used Escrow.com – and that all went very smoothly. So, as far as I am concerned, both companies are reputable.

That’s about all that I have to write about at the moment, but I’ll try to come up with something more soon.

If I could only say one thing about the past year, I’d have to say that it was an interesting one…

I got out of college, stuffed my philosophy degree in a box, moved out of my little apartment in Chicago, and hit the road with my uncle. Together we drove (actually, he drove and I rode along) all over the Midwest and some of the Southwest and Northwest. I got to see more country (and more freeway) in a short six months than most people see in a decade. I got to visit more casinos than most people visit in their a lifetime. It wasn’t always fun, and I can’t say that I anticipate missing casinos anytime soon, but it was nifty time nonetheless. There is something about living in a small camper for an extended period of time that makes you profoundly aware of everyday comforts such as well-equipped kitchens, full-sized water heaters, and plush couches. Most things in life begin to fall into place as luxuries rather than the necessities most people regard them as.

Over the course of those six months, I managed to obtain enough money to pay off my student loan debt… and am now completely debt free. It’s an awfully cozy feeling. Now, with breathing room about me, I am resolved to making a living on the internet. I have the domains, a reliable, basic server paid two years in advance, and a general direction in which I want to take things. All that I’ve got to do is make it happen.