Wow! What an amazing past three weeks it has been! You go to sleep one night thinking you have a week before the new addition shows up and you wake up the next morning driving your wife to the hospital. I have to say that being a father is one of the most amazing feelings ever! Wife and baby JJ are both doing well. I’m back at work and I feel like I’m missing so much. Believe it or not, this baby is even cooler than me.

Big thanks to everyone and their well wishes. Even bigger thanks to everyone with their cigar care packages. The biggest thanks goes out to Walt, Brian, Justin and Brian Hewitt for all pitching in and maintaining the site.

So to the most popular question at hand…what cigar did you smoke to celebrate?

Funny story…since we found out that JJ was going to be a boy we had the name already picked. I had an uncle on Guam who was a boxer named Mariano “One Punch” Cruz. We always wanted to name the baby Mariano. When the wife got admitted to the hospital we were told that it was going to take at least another 18 hours for things to start happening. They wouldn’t let us go home since the wife’s water had already ruptured. So I had 18 hours to kill. During those 18 hours I had to finish up some work since I had planned to replace my work’s file server that weekend. Thank God for cellular broadband cards! Anyway, I took a break and luck would have it that in the car I had a box of Don Pepin Garcia Series JJ. During one of the breaks I was deep in thought thinking that within the next 24 hours I was going to be dad and have to be responsible for someone else. I looked at the label and thought what a kick ass nickname JJ would be. Then it all hit me. Jeremiah Jr = JJ, I ran back up to the room and got the wife’s grunt of approval and there you have it, the cigar I smoked and the story on how JJ got his name. So I guess I need to thank Don Pepin for the inspiration.

Special thanks to ER Doc who is vacationing this week in the DC area. ER Doc took some time away from his family to meet up with me at JR Cigars. Not only did ER Doc enjoy a Montecristo White Label with me but he also gifted me a nice assortment of cigars that he won in a Thompson Cigar giveaway. I swear cigar smokers are the most generous people on the planet.

So the next most asked question is when will you start back doing reviews?

Well this question has a more open ended answer than the first question. In all honesty, I don’t know. I actually was foolish enough to believe that once the baby came my schedule would open up again and I’d be catching things on fire again. Pretty foolish huh? I wish I could give an exact date but it really depends on how soon JJ can start sleeping thru the night and at three weeks old, he’s really no where close. I’m going to start by sitting in on YQMA episodes, starting with Episode 17 and hopefully by September, things will become more predictable and I can start scheduling time.

I really appreciate everyone’s patience and continued support of The Stogie Review. Like I’ve said time and time again, this site is more your’s than it is mine. Long ashes everyone!