Wow!

I'm a Dad! This is something that is still sinking in. As my friend Chris said in a tweet this week, "Forewarned is utterly, entirely not forearmed, is it?!"

He is right.

On Thursday morning I was filed with so much more joy than I ever thought I had the capacity for. I had heard how amazing is the miracle of birth, but being there for the birth of our son was an experience that no words can describe. Really.

Since that precious moment I have been finding a new appreciation for almost everything. I now understand why new parents feel the need to share the minutiae of everything their firstborn does: each little thing is just so new and so exciting. I have a whole new appreciation of what our parents have done to get us to this point in our lives and I can never thank them enough. Grandparents really do deserve congratulations on the birth of a grandchild even if they say they didn't do anything!

Thank you to all of you who have sent messages of congratulations, love and support to K, E and me. We're hugely grateful and as soon as we have the time and the energy we'll be in touch. At the moment we are still catching up on sleep, on washing and enjoying time with our beautiful baby boy!

The biggest thanks of all go to K who has just done so much over the past nine months to produce a healthy baby. I am hugely proud of her, particularly for the amount of effort required to introduce E to the outside world, she really was wonderful.

I shall put some more photos up on Flickr over the coming days especially for our friends and our family overseas.

In case you were wondering, I have unlinked my feeds. For what it's worth, I think you should unlink your feeds too. Life is short, time is precious and I certainly don't have the inclination to read the same words twice (sometimes more) in one day. Do you?

Google Buzz was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I'm yet to see the point of Buzz; Wave I get and I like. Buzz, however seems to be just a waste of time, duplicating items already shared in Google Reader, Twitter tweets, blogs, etcetera, etcetera, ...

It has to stop!

Like in Ghostbusters, we must never cross the streams.

Some of the streams that I had once consolidated but have since torn asunder are enumerated below, in case you were used to having them aggregated:

• My Flickr photostream
• My shared items on Google Reader
• pajLog, my blog
• My recently listened tracks on Last.fm
• My tweets on Twitter
• My recent Youtube videos

There are a few others, such as my Facebook profile, but I think a wise reader like yourself is getting the gist of how to find me online.

K and I have been together for nearly ten years now and have been married for seven of these. One question that we seem to get asked with increasing frequency and increasing volume is "When are you two having kids?"

This is a blog post about that: I started thinking about how to write this while we were in England last July for my brother's wedding.

"When are you two having kids?" we we were asked many times last June. I'm not sure why this question was so foremost in our friends' minds while we were in the UK, but it seemed to be paramount in the thoughts. I had lost count of the number of times I was asked "When are you two having kids?" by the time we boarded the aeroplane to Dubai. We occasionally were asked were we going to have kids, but it was when that seemed to be the question of the month.

We had decided about eighteen months before this visit that, perhaps, to have a small family of our own would make for an even happier future than the one that already lay ahead. We'd not announced this, however. The bedroom window had been open at a suitable angle for a year and a half but there having been no sign of a stork thus far. The best answer I could give at this juncture was, "we don't know."

"When are you two having kids?"

The question whirred around in my mind a lot while we were overseas. I wondered what kind of answers people were expecting...

For some people, those that have decided that they don't like children or those who are concerned about over-populating the planet, then the answer is easy and obvious.

For a couple undergoing assistance for conception, then then answer might not be quite what the inquisitor wants to hear: Oh, is that the time? Do excuse us. We should be busy opening the window for the stork. Or something.

Perhaps they expect us to say, "Oh, didn't we tell you?"

K and I have often shared much, perhaps too much, of our lives with our friends via the Internet: photographs, tweets, blogs, email and so on. Do our friends seriously expect that we would have neglected to mention the fact that we're expecting a baby? Come on, people!

Since we have returned from our twelve week scan, I suppose now might be the appropriate time to share such a piece of information. I am absolutely delighted to announce that about the third week in July we expect to have a third (and only a third) member of the Johns household.

You may recall that back in January I deleted my Facebook account. The main reason for doing so was to free up more time. To be honest with you, haven't found that I have had that much spare time in the months that followed. I didn't miss Facebook at all and most people didn't even realise I had deleted my account. So that was nice.

Unfortunately, what I hadn't reckoned on was that Kirsty would become a Pete Proxy for many people's words and pictures and that was a bit of a pain. Neither had I counted on the fact that some people would discontinue their blogs and opt for Facebook notes instead. And I like to nosey into my friends' lives in my RSS reader!

Despite the plethora of ways to contact me electronically (listed here), it transpired that I was an e-outcast, a social e-leper without a Facebook account.

While I was off work sick on Monday, I did the unthinkable and signed up for a new account, the main reason being so that Kirsty is no longer the Proxy Pete.

So now that I am "back" what does this mean? Well, hopefully it'll mean that I'm a bit easier to keep in touch with for those of you who don't "do" email or Twitter or Skype or blogs or whatever.

There are a couple of RSS feeds to which I can subscribe to see my friends notes and any notifications that may concern me. Direct messages come straight to my inbox, so I can reply to those as a normal email, which will continue to be my preference for such things. Adium, my instant messaging application of choice, "talks" directly to Facebook, so I can use the inbuilt messaging without having to visit the webpage, which is, frankly, brilliant. My status updates will come from Twitter integration, my photographs directly from Flickr and my "notes" are just my long-running blog delivered to Facebook via RSS. If only I could still view your status updates in my RSS reader!

So the workflow of using Facebook shouldn't take up as much time as it did with my previous account. That's the theory anyway. You can help minimise the time I waste on Facebook by not sending me applications or group requests. That would be great! Thank you so much.

It's nice to be back in touch, it really is. I just wish there was another way. Perhaps I should open a pub...

I woke up this morning [insert blues riff here] and it was October. Seriously! We've only just had Easter and it's October already! I'm not sure how these things happen without my approval, but there we go.

Lots of cool stuff is going to happen in October, I am sure, but the one you need to know about right now is that my ever-delightful wife Kirsty is going to be walking 10,000 steps each day this month. Probably 40,000 steps in reality because her pedometer only seems to register every fourth step! Perhaps there will be a request coming in for a new iPod Nano in the next week or so.

I'm not quite sure how she is going to manage this feat as there are only so many hours in a day, but I'm sure she'll do it. If you know Kirsty, you'll know that water is one thing she is very passionate about and this challenge is for Walk 4 Water 2009 for WaterAid Australia.

WaterAid enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. These basic human rights underpin health, education and livelihoods and form the first essential step in overcoming poverty.

The reason that you need to know about this is because Kirsty needs your support. You can sponsor Kirsty and her friends by going to http://www.everydayhero.com.au/beca and following the instructions. I know she will appreciate your support and I do too.

Thank you.

Just a little something that may come in handy in the future (for my reference, rather than yours), a Python one-liner for converting an ASCII string to hexadecimal pairs.

As you were...

I seem to be getting a lot of phishing emails of late. Most spam and other abusive email gets caught by SpamAssasin but occasionally some slips through the nets and into my inbox. I don't like spam, I never reply to spam, I never use any URLs or click any hyperlinks in a spam email and I never, ever buy anything advertised via spam.

If you were to ask me what is the best thing to do with spam, I would usually answer to simply ignore it, delete it and move on with your life. Life is too short.

Of course I rarely follow my own advice. I can often spend a few minutes looking at the email headers to detect from where the spam originated and using WHOIS I will forward the email (including the vital headers) to the Internet service provider or network administrator infroming (or perhaps confirming) that a server on their network is sending spam and leave them to deal with it. If the email is a phishing one, then I'll usually copy in the Anti-Phishing Working Group in the report. I'm yet to fully automate this process.

Usually the responses I get to these reports are automated, but occasionally I get them from real network administrators who seem genuinely grateful and who act upon them. This week I had one after reporting abuse of a Live Hotmail account. I'm really not sure if this is from a real person or not. I'll let you decide:

    Hello Pete,





    Thank you for writing to Windows Live Hotmail Customer Support. My name
    is Antonette and I understand that you are concerned about the message
    you have received involving the v....@msn.com account. I can only
    imagine how inconvenient this may be for you and I understand how
    important it is to resolve your concern as soon as possible.



    Pete, I have checked the v....@msn.com account and found that it is
    already closed due to violation of our Terms of Use.



    You can view our rules and regulations by visiting http://tou.live.com/



    We appreciate your continued support as we strive to provide you with
    the highest quality service available. Thank you for patience and
    understanding on this matter.





    Sincerely,





    Antonette C.

    Windows Live Hotmail Customer Support

Email at this domain seems to be broken presently. Administrators have been informed. By email. Hmmm...

Meanwhile, should you need to contact me, please use any of the alternative methods offered on my contact page.

More news as it happens, presuming I'm awake when it does. Which is looking unlikely, given the time.

Update: Wed Jul 22 07:54:29 EST 2009

Spam and ham seem to be flowing beautifully again. As you were...

Hello there!

Three years ago today I took a trip back to the UK. My first since we've lived in Australia. I documented that day with a series of photographs. Some of you also contributed to this little portfolio. We should do that again sometime.

We're now readying ourselves for our third trip back. As per the first and the previous occasion, there will be a wedding involved in this visit. Actually, there shall be two: one of K's school-friends and my brother. Needless to say I'm looking forward to both.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder. It has been two-and-a-half years since we were last in England and we're both looking forward to spending some time with our friends and our families. The impending trip has been coming up in conversations daily for a few weeks now.

This weekend we spent a lot of time with friends that we've made during our time in Melbourne. When we got home last night I said to K that it was if these friends wanted to remind us of how much we love living in Melbourne and not to go staying in England! I'm sure that's not the case.

Anyway, if you're in England, and you fancy a pint of real beer or a vindaloo (one where the waiter doesn't ask you if you would like that 'mild', 'medium' or 'hot'), do drop us a line and we shall let you know our schedule.

Goodnight!

Following my rant about the Melbourne Grand Prix, I find this in the commentage mailbox:

Any FF1 league this year? Tom

Every year, I set up a Fantasy Formula 1 Grand Prix League over at ff1gp.com. This year is no exception and the Murray's Mint league is up and running. If you wish to partake, you need to enter the magic word, 'sensises' to add your team to the league.

Appropriately, last year's league winner is from Stevenage. Michelle, I'll post your prize this week.