It’s official, Andrew is leaving WWU and heading to the mothership (aka Microsoft). His work in higher ed. has been put on hiatus for the time being while he plays Bill’s game. This announcement has caused me to think back and reminisce on Andrew’s run as the “Web Armada” of Western, it was definitely quite a run. There were good times and there bad…and in between he found time to kill some lizards, a tree frog, and a parking checker or two. Allot of people had their lives touched by the man known at the beginning only as “Charcoal Andy”. I think it’s safe to say that we ‘Hamsters, have effected him as well.

Andrew made the most of his time in Bellingham. He had a chance at Western to make a positive impact in the minds of the youth while they were in the midst of figuring out who they are, and he made the most of it. This was no more apparent than in his dealings with his student workers, me included, throughout his tenure. He showed a young student named Christian (Awsome Nossum), whose sole life ambition was “to own things, like, just own stuff and make money”, that he had absolutely no freakin’ use for someone with that type of attitude. He showed another young student named Angela (Wintona) that she spoke so loudly she needed to use her “indoor voice” anytime she was in the office because it would drown out the music we had playing. Hell, Andrew was so compassionate and open-minded about his student workers, he came dangerously close to hiring an ex-anime porn webmaster (you sooo should’ve done that). That’s love. These students left web services with valuable leasons learned, no doubt.

We shared many good times, and I feel instead of mentioning only a few, it’s appropriate to do one of those rattling-on lists, such as one would see in the inside of an album cover, so here goes: laughing fits, oystein driving us to Pet Co., Zwan, the plan to get Marshak laid, kickin’ sack, Casa, dean, Sim’s captions, Soprano’s, Ali G, ESPN Football, Halo, snoring, “It’s in it’s clutches!!!”, the breast grab, Willa’s pants, Radiohead, crashin’ on the couch, shaving your head out back, Lyrics Born, John’s pool parties, Kevin’s guitar playing, blue whales with my Dad, the street ‘a dreams, Willa and Nick’s badmitton duels, Kung-Fu Chaos, Osaka, Christy, Pyon and 6k, Robbie, Mallard’s, Macromedia Fireworks, the cat video, Sully’s SomethingAwful pic, afternoon lunch meetings…

I look forward to a new chapter with Andrew in Seattle, he’s done pretty good for himself. I see good things ahead…