Life at work is still coming back to normal after we adjust to OnMilwaukee.com, post 2010 redesign. While I'm only about halfway through the pile of tasks sitting on my desk that fell by the wayside in the past month, a handful of thoughts -- most fleeting -- are swirling around my head right now.
In no particular order:
Baseball is my Valium -- As excited as I was for baseball season to begin, I found myself tuning in and out of the game from my couch on Tuesday night. Not that I wasn't absolutely delighted to be watching the Brewers again, but even two games into the season, my baseball-starved brain knew I had 160 games left to enjoy. I can drift in and out of focus during Brewers games, and even leave for an hour and come back. Even when I'm working on something else, baseball is the ultimate relaxing background music.
Bring it, Mother Nature -- I don't like this cold (and dare I say, snowy) stretch of weather, either, but I've already tasted spring -- both in Phoenix and here in Milwaukee on Opening Day. Thus, in a style uncharacteristic for me, I'm not complaining. Flowers are starting to bloom in my garden. It's getting darker later. I hear birds in the morning. I'm draining the snowblower this weekend.
iPad haters and fanboys, chill out -- I bought (and subsequently reviewed) the iPad on Monday for two reasons. First, as an online publisher, I need to be aware of the hub bub and what it means for my industry. Secondly, I plan on using it. Since then, I've talked to a whole bunch of people who think the iPad is the second coming of Saddam Hussein, for some reason. Yet, when they see it in person, they're giddy as schoolgirls. As far as I'm concerned, I continue to get more used to it every day, and despite its shortcomings, it's a pretty good mainstream alternative to a $1,000 laptop. Not perfect, fairly amazing, not cheap but certainly not over-the-top expensive. Get it or don't, but save the vitriol (in either way) for something more important, like Jeff Suppan.
I still don't care about Tiger Woods -- Particularly his personal life. I'm sorry for wasting the previous two sentences on the topic.
I love "Lost" so much that I want it to end -- My guiltiest of all guilty TV pleasures has to be "Lost." And I can't wait for it to be over. After five years of watching each and every single episode, I can no longer keep every detail straight in my head. In its final season, the writers are bringing back obscure strands of plotlines, as well as characters in alternate universes that I just barely remember. I just hope, nay pray, that they wrap this amazing series up in one neat little package on May 23. Or else I'm going all "smoke monster" on someone.
Speculation on Midwest Airlines' new name -- Does a brand name matter? Definitely, and not at all. When it's a civic powerhouse like Midwest Airlines, it's not so easy to make that call. While plenty of people still call the former Milwaukee-owned company Midwest Express, I'm guessing it'll be called something else after Tuesday. My gut says it won't be Frontier, Republic or Midwest, but will be something entirely different. I predict they'll keep the cookies.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
