why andy doesn't write anymore
(appointment surfing)

one of my dearest friends in the world, andy rickles, has not updated his online blog/journal/diary/whathaveyou in working on three months. why is that, i wonder. has he run out of things to say? has the "man" made him weary of expressing his innermost thoughts and ponderings online for fear that the "concerned" might make a stink? has, god forbid, andy had his hands chewed off by an overaggressive or just plain hungry raccoon and therefore lost the ability to type on his own? let's hope not. deep down, i believe the answer may just be that andy has been busy, but his lack of updates make me sad anyway.

why? because andy's journal is part of my everyday online surfing routine. i have noticed that my internet wandering is just about as broad in scope as my musical tastes, which is to say not very. every day or evening that i have some extra time to spend online, i go through pretty much the same routine as far as what i try to accomplish and what sites i try to visit before i call an end to my computer time. check my e-mail. respond to e-mail. write new e-mail. check my journal. check espn.com. check my fantasy site. check si.com. check dan shanoff's blog (you can never have too much opinion on sports, in my opinion.) check ew.com. check my various music websites. look at hannah's website. check andy's journal. check chris perry's journal.

and that's about it. now, certainly, there are other random sites that i will visit depending on what's going on in my day or the world in general. i am a big fan of rottentomatoes. i will check the weather from time to time. check cnn. or msnbc. for a long time, i tried to keep up with folks from huffman's journals to keep up with their away from church lives, but that seems to have almost played itself out. most have transferred their attention to myspace. or facebook. or college. or somewhere else. and i don't have the time or energy to dive into that pool. but for the most part, though, all of my time is focused on the content of the sites in the above paragraph.

it's kind of funny. i don't think i realized until recently how narrow my view of the world wide web was. and honestly, i suppose i don't have enough time to try and find just a lot more that may or may not improve my surfing experience. on a given off day or day that i may be closing the store, i can spend hours on espn alone.

and that brings me back to andy. his journal is one that i look forward to because he is, for one, my dog. but it's also insightful and pointed in the way he feels his life reflects god to others. most of the time, he would write about something that he and i wouldn't necessarily talk about in our own face to face conversations. and that was the fun part. a peek into his soul. i think that's what a good journal is anyway. i read some and think, "yeah, that was a good point, but that's something i can hear you saying anyway." give me something new. something you may be a little anxious for your world to know about you.

this isn't me calling andy out. both of our schedules are busy. and we don't get to do dreamland nearly enough. i guess it was a little easier to bridge the gaps between ribs when i got an occasional taste of the conversation we might have through his journal. hell, i wish i could write everyday, but family and work sometimes have to take priority. probably, more than anything else, this post is a commentary on me feeling like something's been missing from my life for a couple months and me just this morning realizing what it might have been.

as red from shawshank said to himself about his own andy..."i guess i just miss my friend."