Son

I am the son of Joseph P. Laub Jr. and Doreen M. Laub. My parents are both originally from Wilkes-Barre , PA in the northeastern part of the state. My father, who earned a business degree from Wilkes University , moved down to Philadelphia in 1983 after getting a job at the Naval Depot in Northeast Philadelphia . He provides logistics and support for naval helicopters. Soon after, my mother, then a substitute teacher, moved down to Philadelphia .
 
On April 3, 1984 , I was born at Rolling Hill Hospital in the Northeast. We lived in an apartment on Oxford Avenue until I was about 5, when my parents got the house where I grew up thereafter. I grew up at 6248 Oakley St. , a usually-quiet lane in Lawncrest.

Brother

I have only one sibling: Mary Therese Laub. She was born on December 10, 1985 , and so recently turned 20. Although we rarely got along when we were children, we've come out of adolescence in a state of benevolent truce. This is principally because I live downtown at Drexel and she still resides with my parents.

Mary Therese is a typical 20 year old female, but she is also a big fan of Broadway musicals. This love was instilled in her by our father, who entertained us as children with VHS tapes of his favorite plays. She currently attends the University of the Arts in Center City Philadelphia. Her major is Applied Theater Arts, and hopes to one day find a job as a professional stage crew member, and eventually a theater manager.

Friend

I have the good fortune of being a friend to a large number of individuals from different areas of my life. I have my school friends, my work friends, and my home friends. My school friends consist mainly of people who I knew freshman year, especially those with whom I shared the same dorm. We've stayed pretty close over the years. While I don't usually socialize with my colleagues outside of the office, I still consider them very good friends. I've known my friends from home the longest. I don't get to see them as much as I would like, but when we do get the time to spend together, it's never disappointing.

I've known my oldest friend, Eamon, for more than a decade. We met while performing in a local community theater group's production of “The Sound of Music” in 1994. He began performing at my father's own theater group (“The Actors' Group”) in 1997, and that is where I met my two other best friends: Kevin and Marcus.  Eamon, Kevin, and Marcus are pictured at the right.

Boyfriend

I have been with my current girlfriend, Michelle, for more than 2 years. We met each other through an online chat room that Drexel Honors students in our class had set up so that classmates could become acquainted before entering college. We were fast friends and met in person less than a month after our first conversation. We actually grew up less than 2-3 miles away from each other, so meeting in person was easy. We were just friends for the first year of college, but we began dating shortly after sophomore year started.

Michelle is now a 3D animation student at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, having transferred after switching her major from Computer Science to Business, and enjoying neither. She hopes to one day work for a major 3D animation studio on a feature film, but would also like to do freelance graphic design work.

Writer

I've always been a writer. I used to write little scripts during my late elementary school years for fun. During high school, I wrote comedic scripts and other pieces with my friend Eamon, and we eventually put them online for all to see. I had been taught to write by several excellent teachers throughout high school, and I improved my writing skills immensely during that time. In college, I eventually switched my major to Global Journalism (see “Student”), with the goal of someday becoming a political columnist. I currently work at a law firm, writing press releases and doing copyediting work.

TV Connoisseur

I will admit it: I watch a lot of TV. Possibly a lot more than I should. But there are many great shows on television that many miss out on because they don't watch TV often enough. TV as a means of entertainment is superior in many ways to books or movies, because it allows very intricate, visual plotlines that last longer than movies and contain much more developed and real characters than books. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing like a good book. But there's also nothing like a great TV show. I think TV gets the short end of the stick because it seems so temporary and devoid of cultural impact, but to me, that couldn't be farther from the truth.

Some TV shows that I really enjoy are: 24, Alias, Arrested Development, Battlestar Galactica, The Colbert Report, Entourage, Family Guy, Lost, and The West Wing. These shows all try to make statements about current American society, but above all, they tell good stories.

Philadelphian

I've lived in Philadelphia my entire life. I may be a bit biased, but I like living here. It's just the right size for me. It's not too big or crowded like New York , but it's not too small and slow like Wilkes-Barre or many of Philadelphia 's surrounding towns. It's very easy to navigate; especially downtown which is a simple grid pattern. The transportation system, while overpriced and often unreliable, is extensive. If I wanted, I could easily go from any section of the city I wanted to any other section in about an hour. The temperature is admittedly cold in the winter, but summers are very tolerable.
 
There's a lot of history all over this city that other places don't have or don't make as prominent. Finally, this is where my family and friends are.

Student

I have been in school for more than 3/4 of my life, so it is easy for me to label myself a “student”. When I was 5, I began attending St. William Elementary School in Northeast Philadelphia , which was 2 blocks from my house. I remained there from kindergarten to 8 th grade. In 8 th grade, I had a choice of several college preparatory schools in the city, and I chose to attend La Salle College High School in the suburb of Wyndmoor. After doing well at LaSalle, and with the desire to one day become a physicist for NASA, I began applying to colleges. Drexel had a very promising physics program, along with the co-op option, so I decided to enroll at Drexel.

At the end of my freshman year, I was dissatisfied with physics as a major. Though I was doing well, I wasn't enjoying myself at all and could no longer see it as my career. After convincing my parents, I switched to Communications with a Global Journalism concentration, and I added a Political Science minor. I've continued in this major for 2 years, and am about to embark on my 3 rd co-op. I will be returning to Duane Morris LLP, the law firm where I co-oped last year. I hope to be able to graduate and beginning working there full-time in June, 2007.

Computer Aficianado

My grandfather always was, and still is, interested in computers. He worked with them back when they took up entire rooms. He always used to show me the latest program he'd gotten for his desktop computer, and encouraged me to learn how to type and work on a computer. This gave me a healthy knowledge of how computers worked and how to fix them if they stopped working. When I lived at home, I was the resident PC fixer. When I moved down to Drexel, I still spent many hours on the phone trying to fix computer issues my family had. My knowledge of computers also helped me immensely last year when I decided to build my own rather than purchase a pre-built one.

I'm comfortable with a very wide range of software, including Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and Pagemaker for desktop publishing, Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver, and various other applications.