New to Blogging, New to Potential Dad-dom

On many occasions over the past four months, I've said, either to my wife or to myself, "I ought to start my own blog." The concept is not unfamiliar to me, since I work in education and technology. While I have the longstanding belief that there is a special place in Hell for people who ramble on endlessly about themselves, I feel compelled, nevertheless, for a few reasons. The overarching motivation to start a blog is that my life seems to be undergoing a significant number of irreversible transitions, rites of passage, and journeys into the unknown. There's probably a great German phrase (or, more likely, single word) for this, but I don't know what it is. For brevity's sake, I'll just make a list.

1) I just made tenure at my university.

2) My wife was just admitted to a Ph.D. program.

3) This same wife is 16 weeks pregnant.

4) She also plans to continue working full-time (incidentally, at the same institution where I work).

5) In addition to our current home, we are in the midst of purchasing a condo closer to her grad program.

Actually, looking back over the list, these all seem like pretty good news for '06. The first two have been long-term goals for both of us, #3 looked like it couldn't happen, and then did (more on that), and #5 is designed to make numbers 2 through 4 easier to manage.

We'll see. Grad school starts at the end of August, the condo (they say) will be built by September, and The Peanut will be here in mid-November.

The coming observations, musings, rants, links, and photos will all likely be inspired by one of the 5 items on the list above.

If you happen to be reading this, thanks! My intent with this blog is to work against my tendency to self-censor, with the obvious goal of keeping this journal as fresh, straight-forward, and honest as possible. I'm looking forward to seeing where this will go.