My name is Andy, and I live in a western suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have been a Minnesotan all my life. I lived in Fargo, North Dakota for five years while I worked toward a degree in Architecture. Upon graduation, I returned to the Twin Cities. I lived in Granite City for a year, where I worked for two and a half years, but moved back to the Twin Cities to live with my wife after getting married on New Year’s Day 2005. I now work closer to home.

I am a Conservative Christian and take my faith very seriously. I try to reflect that faith here on my blog, but I don’t get too wrapped up in what others might think. My politics is very right-leaning, in the sense that the Founding Fathers would be considered far right today. I take the Bible seriously, and I take the Constitution seriously. I believe both are to be interpreted as written. I did not vote for George Bush in either the 2000 or 2004 elections. I do not trust the Republicans to run the country according to the Constitution, or even according to their own party platform. I tend to vote Constitution Party when there is a candidate running in that party and Republican when only the two major parties are represented on the ballot.

I started this blog in October, 2003 while experimenting with Linux. I had managed to get Debian Woody installed on my computer, get apache running, and get a dyndns address to constantly point to my home IP address. I tried once to install Movable Type with no success. The second time I tried, I got it working and have been blogging ever since. I struggled at first to come up with a name for this blog, having originally named it “Vapid Vitality”. I soon changed it to έχω ζωη (or Echo Zoe in English). The name came from some introductory study that I did in New Testament Greek. I should mention here that I am aware that some consider it incorrect Greek, and should be rendered έχω ζωην (Echo Zoen). I didn’t learn this until long after it was too late to change it. However, I ran it past my pastor, who is well versed in New Testament Greek, and assured me that both can be correct depending on the context.

I have always blogged for personal reasons, and will always continue to do so. While it is fun to get hits, get comments, and find other interesting blogs to cross-read, I blog just to get my ideas and opinions down. I blog to remember things in years to come, as I am like most Americans, I easily forget things months after they happen. For months after I started blogging, I had one reader. At first, my best friend was my only reader. Then he quit reading and my then-girlfriend (now gorgeous wife) became my only reader. I would continue to blog if it went back to that.

Updated: October 25, 2007