Andy Laub

I did this before. Here it goes again:

As January hit Wisconsin, we were running down the middle of the street trying not to fall on our asses. Now that I think about it, that’s a pretty good metaphor for the year.

February took us to Chicago with some friends who used to live there, and we did all kinds of good stuff.

In March I bought a camera and took some pictures.

April was not so great, but in retrospect it was actually not so bad either.

I read a lot of books in May.

In June I loved the iPhone 4. And I still do.

I relaunched this site in July. (Side note: wow, that was only July?)

I rode my first ever half-century in August, which dovetailed nicely with my first ever 500 miles run in July.

On the subject of running, I ran a 10K race (off road!) in September. So much fun!

I accidentally another play in October. Is that bad?

In November, Conan came back and I made a pie. Both were delicious.

December. Miami.

I’m just going to put this out there: April of 2010 will go down in history as one of the more tumultuous months I’ve basically ever had. A lot of things happened very differently than I would’ve liked and there were a number of times where I was contemplating what would’ve amounted to a total reset on my life, even up until this week.

Thankfully, I think my coping mechanism has finally caught up and kicked in, and I’m feeling substantially better than I have been for the past few weeks, and I’m able to look at April as a month of “silver linings” versus simply being bad.

The biggest news is that I’m now officially self-employed. {hire} became my full-time pursuit at the end of April, and has been going about as smoothly as you can expect a sudden transition to freelance work to go. I’m very excited about both existing and potential partnerships, and also for the freedom allowed by my new schedule. Suffice it to say, it’s both the most and least stressful job I’ve ever had.

As a result, my daily routine has changed dramatically, as have my priorities. The awesome weather has made running every morning a joy, as has the fact that I now have the time to run every morning (instead of afternoon or evening). I haven’t been on the bike nearly as much, mostly because my commute now consists of walking up the stairs, but I’m trying to fit a longer ride in here and there as a break (ha!) from running.

Maybe it’s because it’s summer, but I’m also not gaming much right now. The Saboteur and God of War II are both sitting, unfinished. The only console game I’ve really enjoyed lately is Borderlands, and that’s because it’s a social activity. Instead, I’ve been reading a lot more; something I hope continues even as I slowly run out of books around the house.

Finally, I’ve decided that it’s time to take a break from theatre. I’ve had a lot of great opportunities over the last few years, but more recently it’s been taking its toll on my mind, my self esteem, and my schedule. Now is a good time for a hiatus, especially considering the aforementioned career change.

Well, here is the sixth iteration of my site, the second of LaubJournal, and the first created in Dreamweaver. Fun times. I’m happy to say that I have once again been blessed with G5 at work, this time a dual 1.8Ghz. I also have Studio MX 04 at work which is awesome.

Now for some sad news: not one, but two people in my department are leaving. My boss left to pursue another job opportunity locally. He was–well, he still is–a fantastic guy, and we had similar senses of humor and taste in television. I’ll miss seeing him at work and hopefully we’ll still have chances to hang out. The other person was in the same position I am, and he’s going to North Carolina, which kind of makes me jealous. I didn’t know him quite as well, but was getting to. It will suck for them to not be around.

Of course, that means more work for those of us left, but that is an exciting prospect in that I get more responsibility again. Anyway, done writing, time for dinner.

1. Futurama
2. Grand Theft Auto
3. getting promoted
4. the Internet
5. pizza.

In all seriousness, though, I am sitting and thinking and thinking and sitting. I came across this recently which has me mildly inspired. What I’d really like to do is create a similar one for the Central Wisconsin area. I have no idea where to start – if anyone has suggestions or would be interested in some sort of collaboration let me know.

Also, as you may have gathered from above, I got promoted. That’s nice for me. I also had pizza for dinner last night, which was also nice. I also watched Futurama and played Grand Theft Auto, so theoretically, yesterday was possibly the best day ever – or maybe Monday was, I don’t know.

I can’t believe there was a time when I typed these in all lowercase. That was dumb.

AS of last count I’m currently in possession of over 100 Ben Folds/Five songs. This is rather exciting and I’m willing to go so far as to name him my favorite artist. I am infatuated by his piano skills, and all his music is darn fine in my book. I got Ben Folds Live today, much to my surprise (I ordered it on Friday) and enjoyment. I bought it off of Half because, rather Cheap Oakley surprisingly, it was less that it would have been from iTunes. But iTunes – have I mentioned how much I love that program? I hate to sound like an ad (well, not really), but everything clicks with the iPod and iTunes, something that absolutely could not be said about MusicMatch. It’s not a bad program (yes it is) in and of itself but there’s just no comparison. As usual, I probably thought I was going somewhere with all of this but I am, once again, out of stuff to say (no I’m not).

Interestingly, or perhaps not, it snowed yesterday, all day. That was real fun. I probably would have been way more upset about this if I still had my 45-minute commute to Point, but fortunately, those days are behind me, and so I can be happily apathetic now. I would imagine that, were I still in school and taking the classes I registered for, I’d be really strung out and frustrated. But alas, it was not to be, and so instead I sit here with nothing to do but write (yes! yes! yes!).