It seems I owe you all an apology. No, not for being so absent over the last six months or so — while that is truly something I regret and lament, it has been genuinely unavoidable. Someday, I'll find a moment to tell y'all about my first year as a teacher. For now, suffice it to say that it is the most difficult and time-consuming job I've ever held, though also the most rewarding. I can't apologize for that, because as I much as I love it here, out there my contribution is greater, more meaningful. I can only look forward to a time when I will have this well enough under control to have a life again.

But I do owe you an apology, because I think of many of you guys as my friends, despite never having met you in person, and there is one major bit of news in my life that I have shared with all my friends — except those of you here, as my absence from this site has at times put it out of mind.

I'm going to fix that now.

My wife is pregnant (I am not); we are going to have a daughter in about two months. She will be our first kid, and I'm terribly excited about it.

The kid is due to arrive on June 8th — the day after school gets out, if she arrives on time. We do not have a name for her yet. She doesn't like my names, and I don't like her names, and we're at a stalemate. It's likely we won't know her name until we see her.

Anyhow, we're seven months along in this process, so you can see why I come with an apology. I know not everyone in this community shares every detail of their personal lives, but many of you have taken a genuine interest in my life, and been very supportive of me throughout, well, everything — even when it has meant me moving on from this community. I'm very grateful for that.

Anyhow, that's that. I'm going to try to be around, a bit, over the next couple weeks. My wife is visiting family out of state, which means I'm left alone at home with an unprecedented amount of free time. I've got plenty I need to take care of, and at least part of that is showing my face around here a bit. I've also got another announcement that I'll be sharing with you all very soon, hopefully within the next week or two — just waiting for the details to be fleshed out and everything to come together. So look for that!

Also, I got a Twitter. I like Google's Buzz platform much, much better, and I regularly chafe at Twitter's 140-character limit, but I've come to terms with the reality that no one actually uses Buzz, and Twitter is, for better or worse, the place to be. So you can follow me at @J0shTucker (that "o" is a zero), and I'll be posting about basketball, here and there. That's all I'll say for now.

Hope to see y'all around! And while you're here... do me a favor and use the comments to catch me up to sepeed, around here. What have I been missing?