Babies, Gaming, and Other Excitement

OK, so no posts in about 3 weeks. Not cool. But, April was a ridiculously busy month, highlighted (and caused) by the birth of my daughter, Erin Joy. She was born on Saturday, April 8th at 11:11am, weighing in at 7lbs, 11oz, and 20 3/4 inches. Click here to see some pictures. Hopefully I'll update those more often than my blog (but don't count on it). So, it's the season of diapers, crying, and little sleep. Erin's adorable, but she's definitely moody in comparison to Ethan. Maybe because she's a girl. This has really a much bigger transition for Rachel than for me, and she's been AMAZING. I know I don't deserve her, but I'm glad God decided to allow me to be her husband anyway. Having two children is quite a bit more challenging than just one, but we seem to be adjusting adequately. Ethan is being a very good big brother. In other words, he hasn't hit Erin with a plastic baseball bat or tried to feed her to the cat or anything like that. But, I can't imagine what it would be like if Ethan were younger. We have some friends who have kids that are only a year apart. Yikes.

On an unrelated note, we are also in the season of Gen Con event pre-registration. Gen Con is the largest gaming convention in the U.S., and it's in Indy every year in August. When I say gaming, I don't really mean video games, although they are modestly represented. I'm mainly talking about board games, card games, role-playing games, and stuff like that. There are over 5000 scheduled game events, combined with an enormous dealer hall. Jonathan and I went last year for one day and spent the whole day in the dealer hall. It was a ton of fun. So, I decided to be somewhat self-indulgent and attend the entire con this year. Event pre-registration started yesterday, and I got some pretty good ones. Highlights: my buddy R.D. and I are going to play in 2 different Magic: The Gathering tournaments in two different formats. And, I also signed up for a live action role-playing game (or LARP), based upon the Harry Potter series. As near as I can tell from what's been explained to me, a LARP is almost like improvisational theatre. Each player is given a character, and they have to stay in character and interact with the other players to solve a scenario that is set up by the game masters. There are some rules regarding conflict resolution and such, but it's much less rules-heavy than a tabletop RPG. In this game, we'll all be playing students at Hogwarts, and the game masters will be playing faculty. It seems like a pretty big endeavor, with 40 (!) participants, and several GMs. It could be a disaster, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Diet and exercise are not worth mentioning right now. I applaud my friend Dave for his April weight loss victory. I, on the other hand, have been hovering around the same weight for nearly all of 2006 (FYI - today I'm at 276). With the new arrival of Erin, getting to the gym has been a low priority. But, I'm not giving up. If I could drop even 5 or 6 pounds before going to Texas mid-June, that would be a nice victory.