July was a month of changes. Laurie was "home alone," Eric was "at camp," and many decisions were made that changed our outlook on life in LA. Our friend, Sally (see April), moved here from Pittsburgh and offered some relief to Laurie's lonliness, adding to our adopted family circle here.

FIREWORKS

So many of our journal entries have focused on one or the other of us, we wanted to tell you about one thing we were able to do TOGETHER this summer on one of Eric's few days off. For the Fourth of July, we decided to watch fireworks at the beach over the Pacific Ocean, or more precisely over the Marina in a section of town called Marina Del Rey. We packed a picnic dinner, walked along Venice beach to the rocks where the marina empties in to the Pacific, found a comfy rock and enjoyed the view immensely!

QIAGEN

While at the beach with her family in June, Laurie spent one morning at the local library on the internet, checking on her job search-engines and online resumes. That evening she got a call from one of those companies, and scheduled a long-distance phone interview, which went extremely well. Soon after returning to LA, she spent an entire day with all of the key managers in one intervew after another, and delivered a "test" presentation.

The company is called Qiagen (ky'-a-jen) and it produces and sells laboratory equipment and supplies for working with DNA, RNA, and protiens. The day after the interview, she was offered a position as a corporate trainer. Initially she will be training all North American employees (they all come to LA for their training) on a new Customer Relationship Management software program, and then she will expand the topics on which she trains to other areas as well. The job has been great, and the Training Manager is wonderful. The 2 down-sides are: 1) It's a long commute to Valencia, CA, which is 34 miles away and at least a 45 minute drive with no traffic; 2) She had to take a step-down in pay from what she was making at PPI. Otherwise, we are grateful to have the income again and it seems like a good place for Laurie to be right now.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

In the month of July Eric found himself smack in the middle of his ten week apprenticeship with the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company at California Lutheran University. And although he got the position with the company that he desired, namely the undestudy to Hamlet, he couldn't help but feel out of place on a college campus again with three roommates and no wife. As the month rolled on, Eric was able to find his groove. He gained the respect of the other apprentices and some of the younger students from his Camp Shakespeare classes, and took pride in his accomplishments both on the stage with the Equity actors and in the final creation of the stage itself. By the way, we have a DVD of one of the live "greenshow" (improv) performances which we will try to add to the website sometime in the future.

The first month of rehearsals, Eric was very dedicated to learning all of Hamlet's 1200 lines in the event he would have to "go on" as the understudy, especially since he knew there would be no rehearsal for the understudies. After Hamlet opened, Eric realized that Brett, the actor portraying Hamlet, was very good and very reliable. And so Eric thought it would be all right to spend less time studying Hamlet's lines, and more time socializing. At the very end of the last Saturday performance, Brett fell on stage and threw-out his knee. And so, for the final performance, Eric would play Hamlet. Sort-of.

Eric spent all of the remaining hours on Sunday (minus 3 1/2 hours of sleep) rigorously studying the lines. An emergency rehearsal was called for Sunday afternoon during which Brett arrived on crutches and discussed with the director what their best options were. It was decided that the performance would be split between Brett and Eric. Brett would do the majority of the early work with a cane and less physical action. Then at the beginning of Act 5, Eric would enter the stage in the Hamlet costume and conclude the play with the active scenes of the swordfight and final death scene. We were all concerned that the audience would reject the idea of 2 actors playing Hamlet, but to the contrary, when Brett handed Eric the "Hamlet Prince of Denmark" Medallion, the audience burst into applause.

Although he struggled with some of the lines in the beginning, by the time he had gotten half-way through the duel, he'd made the role his own. Everyone in the program was incredibly complimentary and supportive. A thousand people in the audience gave a standing ovation when Eric and Brett took their combined bows during curtain call. He'll never forget the opportunity and hopes someday to do it again.