Welcome Digg users! A number of you are looking for the picture of Quentin Smith’s desk. Click on the following link to go to the post you are looking for: A Messy Desk is the Sign of an Orderly Mind.

By the way, if you like the post feel free to go ahead and Digg it. I don’t think it has been Dugg before.

Sorry if you had any troubles with the blog this weekend. I ran into some problems and had to restore a backup version of the database. The backup was a week old, so that also meant rebuilding the posts and comments from the past week. I apologize if you got a number of repeat posts in your email or RSS feed. It seems to be fixed now, so hopefully things are back to normal (or for what passes for normal around here!).

Sorry everyone, but I need to close the blog down again for a while. I am moving this week and will not be able to keep up with posts or comments.

Once again, If you are a regular reader, instead of checking in each week to see if the blog is back up, there is a better way. Click here to subscribe by email, and you will automatically get an email notifying you when I start posting again. (This is through a service called FeedBurner. There is no cost, and they do not give away your email address or use it for anything else.) Or if you are familiar with RSS, you can subscribe by feed reader.

Thanks, and Lord willing I will see you back here after a while!

Related Post: Extended Blog Break

I will be taking an extended break from blogging starting today. No, I am not burned out on it. I enjoy sharing information and interacting with you through the blog, and I will miss this part of my daily routine. But as we are in the midst of trying to sell our house and in process of seeking God’s next place for us, I need to focus on other things right now.

How long of a break am I planning? I don’t know yet. It may be several weeks. It may be for the rest of the summer. At this point I just need to take things one week at a time.

If you are a regular reader, instead of checking in each week to see if the blog is back up, there is a better way. Click here to subscribe by email, and you will automatically get an email notifying you when I start posting again. (This is through a service called FeedBurner. There is no cost, and they do not give away your email address or use it for anything else.) Or if you are familiar with RSS, you can subscribe by feed reader.

I will keep comments open for a few more days, but after Wednesday this week all comments will be closed until I return. However, I will keep the blog and all its archives up and open for searching and browsing. If you have any questions or I can help you in any way, you are always welcome to contact me by email. God bless, and thank you for reading!

Today marks the two-year anniversary of the start of this blog. It has been a good year with a lot of new readers and guests. I somehow hit the front page of Digg back in June which gave the blog a nice boost (you can read about it here), but most of the growth has come through good old-fashioned word-of-mouth via links on the web and the magic of search engines.

Here is a comparison of this year’s stats with last year’s:

Visitors:
    This year: 348,701
    Last year:   65,783

Page Views:
    This year: 633,215
    Last year: 118,489

I realize that is chump change compared to the “super blogs” out there, but it is some nice growth and I am happy to share what I share on this blog with as many people as I do. So thanks for reading, thanks for linking, thanks for commenting, and here goes for year number three!

Related post: 1-Year Blogiversary Bash!

Oh, that would be me. One of these days, I will enjoy a simple, pain-free process in upgrading my blog. Today is not that day. Oh well, until I get it all figured out, I apologize for the strange layout problems you may be viewing (wide-stretched theme, misplaced sidebar, double photo in header, etc). Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor energy to fix it right now.

Update: I have temporarily switched over to the WordPress Default theme until I can get things fixed on my regular theme. The default theme does not display the links to the pages, so here they are if you are looking for them.

Blog Pages:
Archives / Profile / Resources / Sermons / Stats / Top Posts / Writings

Update 2: Fixed. It turns out there was a bug with K2 RC7 and WordPress 7.1. Here is the link if anyone has the same problem: WordPress 2.7.1 and K2 1.0-RC7 I just uploaded the new info.php file, and everything worked fine again.

After many hours, plenty of mistakes, and lots of backtracking, I finally finished upgrading the blog to WordPress 2.7 and K2 RC7. A big thanks to Tom Nasiatka for all his help and to all the helpful people at the WordPress and K2 Forums. (I think the upgrade would have gone smoother if I actually knew what I was doing!)

I will be taking a break from posting this week. I will also be doing some badly needed blog maintenance, so don’t be surprised if the blog keeps changing in appearance throughout the week as I work on updating the software and theme.

In the meantime, if you are interested in starting a Bible reading plan for the New Year, here are some links I posted last year that you should find helpful.

• Free Bible Reading Plans for the New Year
• Books to Help You Read through the Bible
• Recommended Children’s Story Bibles

Check out the latest posts at the dullest blog in the world:

• Tidying some pencils (March 16, 2006)
  Some pencils were scattered around on my desk. I picked them up one by one. I placed the pencils in the drawer which I use to store pencils.
• Opening a cupboard door (October 17, 2005)
  There was a cupboard in the corner of the room. I reached out my hand and gripped the door handle. I pulled the door towards me, thereby opening the cupboard.
• Standing in the middle of the room (April 21, 2005)
  I was standing at a central point in the room. The walls were all at approximately the same distance from me. I continued to stand there for a few moments.
• Scratching my knee (September 10, 2004)
  My knee had a slight itch. I reached out my hand and scratched the knee in question. The itch was relieved and I was able to continue with my activities.
• Moving an item from one place to another (July 21, 2004)
  There was an object occupying a space on my table. Using my hand I picked up the item from its place. Having considered my options for a moment I placed the object on a different area of the table.

Read more thrilling entries like these over at Dave Walker’s The Dullest Blog in the World. Be sure to check out Dave’s more “serious” site too at CartoonChurch.com.

Okay, this one has started to make the rounds, but I couldn’t resist posting it here. From the good folks at Despair.com:

Blogging: Never before have so many people with so
little to say said so much to so few.

Aaah, Despair.com. You’ve just got to love a company with slogans like “The Relentless Pursuit of Dejection” and “Increasing Success by Lowering Expectations.”

Update: There was some thoughtful concern expressed that I might be questioning the value of blogging with this post. If you share that concern, please read the comments below!

If you are a regular reader or subscriber to this blog, then you probably noticed the site was down for a good portion of last week. I am sorry for such a long period of down time.

The host server had some technical issues and crashed the site on Wednesday. I have spent too many hours since then talking back and forth to the tech support staff at Midphase (AN Hosting) trying to get the site back up, but they finally informed me this afternoon that they do not have the proper backup files to restore the site themselves.

My most recent personal backup was from August 13, so I have been able to restore the site at least up to a few weeks ago. However, I will need to rebuild everything else by hand. This will take some time, so please be patient with me as you see the old posts from the previous weeks returning to the blog.

Update 1: I have updated all the missing posts. I will work on restoring the missing comments next.

Update 2: I was able to find and restore all the missing comments — except my own! But it’s getting late and I need some sleep, so it’s time to take a break. It looks like I will need to re-respond to your comments as best as I can remember. Some of them were quite detailed, so this could be a challenge. (Yet another good reason to go to sleep and come back to this later.)

Update 3: Well, using a combination of old backups, emailed posts and comments, Google cache, and stored RSS feeds, I believe I have finally restored all missing posts and comments. And I just ran a full backup to catch myself up to date, too! Officially done.

Update 4: Midphase contacted me by phone and gave me a year of free hosting in light of this issue. I think that is very decent of them, and I appreciate them taking this step to make things right.

Have you ever had server problems? Feel free to share your story of woe below!

I am taking a break from blogging for the rest of this week. I should be back after Labor Day (Monday, September 1).