Hannah

• Last weekend’s prerelease was rather disappointing with the new prereleases-everywhere format. Attendance was extremely below our expectations, and a lot of the players seemed rather unhappy with the changes as well. Hopefully, Wizards will wise up and figure out a better approach.
• I bought a Super Nintendo at a yard sale over the summer, and I finally bothered to hook it up and it works great. I thought that we still had a bunch of games for it at my parents’ house, but apparently they got rid of them at a Historical Society Yard Sale at some point. So, I’m slowly working on buying controllers and games on eBay. But if anybody has any old SNES stuff they’d like to get rid of, let me know.
• Speaking of getting rid of stuff, we may be selling off portions of our Magic card collection that are worth anything soon. To a large extent, the cards are just sitting around our bedroom taking up space. If anyone’s looking for anything in particular (like Judge foils?) before we sell it to a store, let me know.
• Hannah ate her first “solid” food yesterday evening. (That is, baby-rice-cereal-mixed-with-breast-milk.) She did a wonderful job with it.
• I’ll be head judging a PTQ at TJ Collectibles on October 18.

• Last weekend, I head judged a Magic PTQ with 161 players, which is rather large for this type of event, and the second-largest event I’ve ever head judged. There was a lot to do (including dealing with a table collapse), but our staff dealt with it rather well.
• A few weeks ago, we signed up with Netflix, primarily to continue watching Star Trek past the Next Generation series. I’m quite impressed with the service so far.
• We’re continuing to go monthly to Scrabble night at the Charlton Library. We may look at going to a more competitive event at some point (primarily for Jessi’s benefit).
• For the Shards of Alara prerelease, I’ll be head judging at some store in New Hampshire (I don’t know the name or specific location offhand) on Saturday the 27th, and at Rising Phoenix Games on Sunday the 28th, as part of the TJ Collectibles network of prereleases.
• I have Jury Duty in 4 weeks.
• Hannah is growing quickly. She can stand with support, and smiles when she sees me, and I’m sure that before long she’ll have the run of the house. She started sleeping in her own room last week.

A week ago, I would never have thought it possible to be so tired that I could sleep right through a baby screaming right next to me. :)

Jessi and I are proud to announce that Hannah Jane Cooper arrived right on schedule yesterday, May 15, 2008, at 10:01pm.

Statistics about her at birth that people often ask:
Weight: 8 pounds, 2 ounces (or to be specific and metric, 3678 grams)
Length: 20¾ inches (or 52.5 centimeters)
Hair: Lots, brown
Eyes: Dark (blue?)

Hannah, Mommy, and Daddy are doing well, although tired (as one might expect). Mommy and Hannah should be coming home from the hospital Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Interesting events in January, past and present:

• January 1: While at the annual New Year’s party and my aunt and uncle’s large house in Middlefield, MA, my wife tumbles down a flight of stairs while carrying our luggage. “Luckily”, she landed mainly on her head and shoulders. She and Baby seem to be doing just fine despite the experience, although Jessi did suffer a pulled rotator cuff in her right shoulder which is slowly healing.
• January 8: I stopped by the town hall on my way home from work to get information on an upcoming public hearing on the town’s contact with Charter Communications. I would like to send in my comments ahead of time, as well as attend the hearing. I may even try to get on one of the Cable Committees in town at some point.
• January 19-20: The Morningtide Prerelease. I’m scheduled to be the Head Judge on Day 2, which will be the largest number of players I’ve ever head judged for at once.
• January 29: The aforementioned public hearing on Charter.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3

The pictures don’t show the baby nearly as well as seeing the screen in person.
Unfortunately, the baby did not allow us to see his or her gender.

class Child : public Pete, public Jessi {};<br /> Child* baby = new(jessi.womb) Child(); //TODO: rename