1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band (I played trombone in middle/early high school.)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower (They are lots of fun.)
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (This is somewhat true, as many of my web design skills are self-taught, although I also have education in the field.)
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty (Although, as Magneto says, “There is no land of tolerance. There is no peace. Not here, or anywhere else.”)
18. Grown your own vegetables (My parents grew tomatoes; does that count?)
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight (Some really brutal ones…)
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset (Both, for what it’s worth.)
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language (Only if programming languages count. I am terrible at human languages.)
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo's David
41. Sung karaoke.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant (Usually they are not strangers anymore, after you do that.)
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies (Although I really love eating the peanut butter chocolate ones. I’d sell myself some of those…)
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma (Donating blood is a weird feeling. I like it, except for the one time I almost fainted.)
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (I got laid off once in college.)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone. (Only fingers and toes.)
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone's life (Suicide is a horrid thing to watch someone attempt.)
90. Sat on a jury (I got out of it once, since I was moving. Ha ha. Really though, I couldn’t have afforded the unpaid time off. It would have broken me.)
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a mobile phone
99. Been stung by a bee (One of my earlier memories is getting stung by a hornet in preschool. I didn’t even do anything to it. I was just standing there…)
100. Read an entire book in one day

As some others are doing, here are some posts, thus far. Feel free to join the conversations.

• Lynne
• Ken Castor
• Blake Huggins
• Mike Clawson
• Andy

Though there may be 100 reasons why people blog, I’ve yet to meet a blogger who doesn’t appreciate comments. For this reason I’m starting Blog Comment Day on December 3, 2008. Here’s how it works:

• On December 3, 2008 you will leave one comment on at least 5 different blogs.
• Out of the 5 blogs you comment on, at least 2 of them will be blogs you haven’t commented on previously.

Right. This Wednesday, I’d love to encourage you to take part in Blog Comment Day 2008. If you plan to participate, do visit the link above and leave a comment. Great way to prepare yourself.

Anyway. Certainly there are blogs that do not allow comments, and blogs who’s authors do not dialog with the comments for various reasons, but of the blogs that have authors who do engage with those leaving comments, it’s fairly safe to say that it is a privilege for the author to have that kind of connection with readers.

I don’t get a particularly large number of comments, but it’s great to get the ones that I do, and respond with other comments, or with emails, depending on the situation. So, if you need a blog to comment on, why not this one?

About this plugin

This plugin uses the same data as the WordPress function wp_list_authors();. This function lists all of the authors that have posts associated with their accounts. See the Codex for more information about this function.

Note that you cannot use this function outside the WordPress Loop. There is another plugin that creates a list of authors outside the loop, and it works very well for this purpose.

My plugin, which is a widget that can be used in any widgetized theme, allows you to pick users and list them by inserting the widget into your theme. If you have users with posts who should not be listed, simply do not check their names.

If there is interest, I’ll expand this so that it can be used inside the Loop as well, but it seems to me that it is most practical for sidebars.

Why make this plugin?

This plugin is not an attempt to compete with any of the methods listed above, although certainly it does have some of the same functionality and could easily be expanded to have all of the same functionality. Its difference is that it allows for users with posts to be excluded from the list. There are a couple of situations where this could be useful.

• You have a blog with a large number of authors, and would like to feature a few of them. Maybe they are more popular, or have more posts, or are more regular posters. You can check these to be included in the list.
• On the flip side, you could have a blog with certain authors that you do not want to feature. You can simply leave these authors out of the list.
• You use your user pages to include users that have comments, instead of just users that have posts. The configuration of this plugin shows all users, regardless of whether or not they have posted or are assigned a certain role.

Download

Without further ado, feel free to download and try out this plugin.

Plugin:

Choose Authors From Registered Users (maybe it needs a better name).

Version:

0.5

Download

wp-chooseauthors.zip

In my various work and ministry endeavors, I have varying degrees of responsibility for several WordPress blogs (in addition to this one), and have thus upgraded several installations from 2.5.1 to 2.6.

Apparently, an issue that is at least relatively common in this particular upgrade experience is that, after upgrading, one is unable to log back in to the admin system. I encountered this issue in one of the upgrades I performed, and then saw it mentioned on Twitter.

In the hopes that anyone else who encounters the issue can resolve it quickly, here are the steps that worked for me:

1. Return to the main (not admin) page of the website.
2. If there is a status indicator there (depending on the theme), click the Logout link.
3. If there is not a status indicator, visit http://sitename.com/wp-login.php?action=logout.
4. Go back to the admin login page, and log in.

So, if you run into this issue, try the above steps. Feel free to post comments, if it does or does not work for your installation.

Update

While I’m thinking about WordPress upgrades, I’d like to put in a plug for some great ways to ease your upgrade experience.

First of all, I would be amiss if I did not recommend my current webhost, DreamHost. For as affordable as they are, they are a solid host with lots of freedom and even more disk space. In addition, if you use the promo code JSTEGALLBLOG, you will receive $25 off if you buy a year of hosting. If you host your WordPress blog with DreamHost, there is an easy one-click installation and upgrade process. Also, there are frequent backups in the event that something does go wrong.

If you do not host your blog at DreamHost, there are two plugins that can make your upgrade experience go much more smoothly.

WordPress Database Backup

This plugin will prove invaluable, should your upgrade run into any issues. Back up your database, and save it to your hard drive. All of your posts, comments, etc. will be stored there, and you can restore them if necessary.

If you have a host that does not backup your database for you, you should use this plugin and set it to email you backups on a regular basis (perhaps weekly, or twice a month)

Instant Upgrade

This plugin is just like it sounds. You click a button, and it does all the upgrade work for you. You will need to change some of the permissions that are on the files on your host server, but this is very easy and there are good instructions for how to do so included with the plugin.

It is possible that there are hosts on which this plugin will not work, due to the permission change requirement. However, I have been forced to use Godaddy for a few work-related projects, and it even works there. I suspect there are very few hosts where it will not work.

My dad is an interesting guy. He and I disagree on a myriad of issues and have for a long time, but we typically have healthy disagreement. I don’t have to be afraid to tell him what I think, and vice versa. We also agree on some very important things. In any case, I think he has things to say, and should say them. Plus, blogging is fun.

As an aside, recently my wife and I attempted to take him to his first Yankees game at Yankee Stadium, since this is the last season it will be open. Various issues occurred, and he only got to see the 9th inning, but he did at least make it into the original Yankee Stadium before it closed. We’ll go to the new one another time.

My dad and I have a great relationship, and have tried to do things like that for each other. In any case, here is my welcome to the world of blogging.

This will all run for two more weeks, after which time the loan will be given as it is. Ideally, we could raise additional money in that time. I again want to encourage any of you to read further about it, and think about the possibilites.

You can join Revolution Money Exchange via the link below, or by the link Josh has on his own site. This will help add to any contribution you may be able to make. You can, of course, also use PayPal.

Anyway. Recently, Josh wrote about Revolution Money Exchange as part of the Indian Taxi Fund. At the moment, we are not able to offer a whole lot to this, but I want to encourage you to learn about it, and do what you can to get involved.

Moving to the place where design and business meet theology and ministry to help make the world a better place, as Josh is doing, represents the best of what I see happening in activism. And you could, of course, change design to some other discipline, or even change theology and ministry to something else. People who follow Jesus need not be afraid to join up with people who don’t, in attempting to change the world.

There is no limit to the possibilities that can come out of these kinds of combinations. Several years ago, I was driving from Tampa to Lakeland on I-4 when I heard an NPR story about Muhammad Yunus of the Grameen Foundation, when he was about to win the Nobel Peace Prize. I learned of his efforts to empower the disenfranchised through micro-lending, and set people free from poverty. Immediately I thought, “The heart of God is in that.”

This concept of micro-lending began with people like Muhammad Yunus. It is continuing and expanding with the concepts of people like Josh and the power of things like blogging.

If you are able to join with Josh at this time, please do. If you are not, consider creating an account through Revolution Money Exchange at the button below, or at the button Josh has on his own site. When you do so, you give me (or Josh) $10, and receive $25 for yourself. You could then, of course, get your own referrals. This alone could give you something to contribute, which is the purpose of a post like this.

Certainly, it makes my blog look more active (more active than it is, really). I’m not sure, though, that that is a good thing. These link posts are getting a small amount of traffic, but my guess is that it’s mostly from people who see that there is a link to their blog post, or their site, or whatever. Maybe it benefits the people who run those blogs, or those sites. Hopefully it does, but I’m not sure. It might make me look like nothing but a link farm.

In any case, I’d like to invite any comments on the link postings. Are they useful? Are they appreciated? Should they continue?

Note: In all likelihood, when the coming redesign occurs (right after I stop being so busy with random things), the format of the daily link post will change. Perhaps there will be a sidebar item where the last daily link post is displayed. Certainly, though, it will not be displayed in the main content like it is now. Thus, I’m not entirely sure if I’ll leave it in the RSS feed.

Anyway. Thoughts are welcomed.

Interestingly enough, del.icio.us does not give users the ability to delete all of the bookmarks at once. So, to avoid having to go through over 1,000 deletions manually, I would just delete the account and start it over again with the same username.

The other day, I decided to start over again. But this time, I intend to use it to store things that are of interest to me on a daily basis. For example, the presidential typography article. Good blog posts, inspirational designs, interesting news, and so on. You can see my del.icio.us bookmarks.

Each day, at least for now, I will have the links of the day posted automatically. If there is any interest in this, or if I find it enjoyable, I’ll keep doing it.