The one thing that modern social networking companies have not figured out is channel oriented, real-time chat. IRC is still the best tool for this (supplemented with a program like screen, for non-interrupted access). Google Wave might eventually serve this category, but it needs more tools for notification. Native Android and iPhone apps would be a great step.

If there was an IRC replacement, I would possibly retire my ssh/screen/irssi/emacs sessions and operate almost exclusively via point-and-click interfaces. That would be a big change for me, since I’ve had a continuous screen session open for 15 years (given a few interruptions and system moves).

Anyways, the point of this post is to point you towards my Google profile, which has my Buzz feed, which is now my “blog”: http://www.google.com/profiles/kirk.petersen

First, the obvious stats: Astrid was 6 pounds 1.5 ounces and 19 inches tall. After 1 month she was 7 pounds 6 ounces and 21.5 inches tall. Considering that she was 4 weeks early, the one month numbers are an interesting data point. My parents held 1 month old Astrid’s feet up to my footprints from birth and they were about the same size. My guess is that she’ll be tall… and outgrow Shanti by the time she’s 12 years old.

Some other baby book inspirations:

Astrid Mathilde Petersen (first smile?)

Baby's First Home

My baby book has lots of “firsts”, such as first smile, first train ride, etc. We’ll keep our eye out for these and post about them.

For now, I started a public gallery on Facebook:

• http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=160512&id=690185833&l=cbd93008b4

In order to help learn the product I’ve just moved my blog (and a few other things) over to an EC2 instance. The instance is in the new US West region and is using the new Boot from EBS feature. I’ve also created a large EBS image for backing up files from my Macbook. Both of these EBS images can easily be backed up to S3 via the snapshot feature and, most importantly, it is very easy to restore from a snapshots to a new running instance (so many backup mechanisms handle restore poorly).

Long story short: the stuff I’m going to be working on is pretty neat.

• http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=129901&id=690185833&l=29a3cb5f47

It is nice to have a car with functioning windows and doors! And all the other nice features that newer cars have.

A quick picture from our porch this morning:

We whispered our vows to each other during the ceremony because we are both too shy to say them in front of a group. I joked that we’d post them on our blogs later. Not sure I’m ready to do that. I barely even remember saying them.

The gist of my vows was what an amazing woman Shanti is and how lucky I am to get to spend the rest of my life with her. She’s so beautiful and smart and yet also so tough and adventurous and resourceful. There doesn’t seem to be anything that she can’t do if she sets her mind to it. I was certain that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Shanti shortly after meeting her.

I couldn’t imagine a better wedding for us. The setting was beautiful and the ceremony was very natural. I never once felt like we were doing something just because we should. We simply spent the weekend doing things we love.

Our friends and family are what really made the wedding work. Thank you Joe for officiating the ceremony. Thank you Nathan and Brian for taking such amazing photographs. Thank you Becky for the beautiful cake. Thank you Andrew and Abby for preparing the food. Thank you Jen, Jennifer, Mom, Carol, Wyatt, and Stacey for the nice words during the ceremony. And thank you to everyone for helping out and putting up with the long drive and the hot weather!

I’ll probably sell my 15″ Macbook Pro. I just bought one of the new aluminum Macbooks and really don’t need two machines (rather, my iPhone has become my second machine).

Also selling my car (in order to buy a new/newer one). I will probably sell my motorcycle, too. I didn’t ride for a couple years and really felt like getting back into it. But I just don’t ride it enough. Part of that is the bike (not as fun as I thought it would be) and part of that is simply having a million other things to do.

If I remember correctly, the app is even free.

My only complaint is with its food database. Every time I search for something I end up getting lots of fast/processed/packaged/frozen options. And the entries often seem to be too low. But it is fairly easy to simply increase the portions to account for that.