Thankfully Nick Bradbury and his son are OK. His report of getting hit by a hit-and-run driver is riveting. It takes me back to my own car wreck (the report of which, sadly, is no longer on the Web thanks to UserLand pulling down my server without telling me).
But of all the events that’s happened to me in the past six years since starting to blog, that one event changed my approach more than any other. It wacked me into realizing life is temporary, so might as well live life like every day is your last.
Translation: I want more of that banana pudding I had last week at ConvergeSouth’s BBQ. Boy was that stuff good.
If you don’t know who Nick is, he is a developer who brought us all sorts of cool stuff, most recently FeedDemon.
Scobleizer 
Thanks scoble for the link.
It’s good to pause for a moment and reflect on life, and just how quickly everthing can change. Thanks for giving me the oppportunity to reflect.
I’m happy to hear that both Nick and his son are ok. He mentions that his son was playing videos.
I have to wonder if he was playing an XBOX 360, if not, I’d love to get one in his hands.
Thanks again.
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Thanks scoble for the link.
It’s good to pause for a moment and reflect on life, and just how quickly everthing can change. Thanks for giving me the oppportunity to reflect.
I’m happy to hear that both Nick and his son are ok. He mentions that his son was playing videos.
I have to wonder if he was playing an XBOX 360, if not, I’d love to get one in his hands.
Thanks again.
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>>Translation: I want more of that banana pudding
There is a line between living like it’s your last day and unbridled hedonism. 😉
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>>Translation: I want more of that banana pudding
There is a line between living like it’s your last day and unbridled hedonism. 😉
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I’m shocked, shocked that you never downloaded your Manila site root, especially once it was put in stasis when you converted to WordPress.
I’m shocked, shocked that you find this a cause for public complaint.
Granted, since you were (it is rumored) paying for space on the servers, you’ve got a genuine beef w/ UserLand.
But, geez, man. You witness data loss problems that occur as a matter of course, you witness all the folderol surrounding UserLand, you witness all the discussion of locks-in-trunks, and you didn’t take any precaution?
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I’m shocked, shocked that you never downloaded your Manila site root, especially once it was put in stasis when you converted to WordPress.
I’m shocked, shocked that you find this a cause for public complaint.
Granted, since you were (it is rumored) paying for space on the servers, you’ve got a genuine beef w/ UserLand.
But, geez, man. You witness data loss problems that occur as a matter of course, you witness all the folderol surrounding UserLand, you witness all the discussion of locks-in-trunks, and you didn’t take any precaution?
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Thank you, Robert. I’m in complete agreement with you about how something like this puts your life in perspective. After the accident, I wasn’t thinking about Web 2.0, RSS, Google vs. Microsoft, or any of that stuff – I was thinking of my son and my family.
And yeah, some banana pudding sounds pretty good right now, unbridled hedonism be damned 🙂
PS: Ian, Isaac is playing Lego Star Wars II on his XBOX right now, and I’m just about to join him.
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Thank you, Robert. I’m in complete agreement with you about how something like this puts your life in perspective. After the accident, I wasn’t thinking about Web 2.0, RSS, Google vs. Microsoft, or any of that stuff – I was thinking of my son and my family.
And yeah, some banana pudding sounds pretty good right now, unbridled hedonism be damned 🙂
PS: Ian, Isaac is playing Lego Star Wars II on his XBOX right now, and I’m just about to join him.
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Okay, I just read the story. Perhaps previous comment was a bit strongly stated in light of life-and-death nature of what you posted, but the out-of-the-blue nature of data loss is (in some ways) similar to unexpected car accidents. You never know if or when they’re gonna happen. Results of both can be devastating. Once you check that life and limb are okay, you realize that there were important things there. you’ve revisited it twice for big, momentous events: 9/11, your car accident. All the more reason that makes me wonder why you didn’t protect yourself from data loss when you could.
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Okay, I just read the story. Perhaps previous comment was a bit strongly stated in light of life-and-death nature of what you posted, but the out-of-the-blue nature of data loss is (in some ways) similar to unexpected car accidents. You never know if or when they’re gonna happen. Results of both can be devastating. Once you check that life and limb are okay, you realize that there were important things there. you’ve revisited it twice for big, momentous events: 9/11, your car accident. All the more reason that makes me wonder why you didn’t protect yourself from data loss when you could.
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A bit of a digression from the seriousness of the comments here, but if you want more banana pudding like you had in the south, I highly recommend Memphis Minnies in the Lower Haight (also, damn good BBQ). Made from scratch and almost as good as my grandmother’s.
I have no ties to MM other than loving their food.
http://www.memphisminnies.com/
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A bit of a digression from the seriousness of the comments here, but if you want more banana pudding like you had in the south, I highly recommend Memphis Minnies in the Lower Haight (also, damn good BBQ). Made from scratch and almost as good as my grandmother’s.
I have no ties to MM other than loving their food.
http://www.memphisminnies.com/
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Susan: I was on manilasites.com. I didn’t have access to my Manila Root. Just like I really don’t have access to my WordPress.com root. If WordPress decided to delete my blog today there’s not a whole lot I could do about it.
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Susan: I was on manilasites.com. I didn’t have access to my Manila Root. Just like I really don’t have access to my WordPress.com root. If WordPress decided to delete my blog today there’s not a whole lot I could do about it.
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Halloween is supposed to be a day when we consider our mortality, but its long since slipped away and become a day either for kids trick-or-treating or an adult cosutumed debauch. Bloggers around the world should write a post to a dear departed in the old tradition of Halloween.
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Halloween is supposed to be a day when we consider our mortality, but its long since slipped away and become a day either for kids trick-or-treating or an adult cosutumed debauch. Bloggers around the world should write a post to a dear departed in the old tradition of Halloween.
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oh. my. god, Robert. You’re 0 for two, there. I’m very, very sad to say it.
On any manila site, if you’re logged in as an admin, you can download a backup copy of the site. It’s been a basic feature from nearly the outset. In fact, I remember Manila was publicly launched on Dec 5 or 6 of 1999, this feature was introduced On December 18, 1999.
I never had any extra privileged access to any UserLand Manila computers besides over the web as site admin for my particular Manila site, but I moved my site twice: once off of editthispage.com to a different webhost (weblogger.com), and a second time, in a long, torturous process that took a frickin’ month of my life from Weblogger to WordPress
(note re: frickin’ lost month: I wasted tons of time trying to use UserLand-supplied tools; it was only after I approached Matt Levine of queso.com that I made any real progress. But had I downloaded mySite.root as the first step? You betcha.)
See Manila instructions here. This page was created on or about December 18, 1999:
http://manilanewbies.userland.com/stories/storyReader$1019
Re: WordPress: STOP EVERYTHING YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL DO TODAY. (but finish reading this comment, first) Go to your control panel. Plugins. Activate the download database plugin (it’s part of the standard install because, dammit, no one should have to lose their data). After you activate it, download your database.
Okay, I just double-checked and logged into a wordpress.com site I created. You don’t have plugins option. But under Manage > Export, you can create an XML file with your posts. A local, backup copy.
Done.
Do it often. Because you really and truly want to keep EVERYTHING, including comments where I chew you out for ignorance. 😉
And hell, you used to work for UserLand. And paid ’em for hosting. Can they snag your site root from a backup somewhere? Sheesh, it’s gotta be worth some coin to each of you to find a way out of this.
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oh. my. god, Robert. You’re 0 for two, there. I’m very, very sad to say it.
On any manila site, if you’re logged in as an admin, you can download a backup copy of the site. It’s been a basic feature from nearly the outset. In fact, I remember Manila was publicly launched on Dec 5 or 6 of 1999, this feature was introduced On December 18, 1999.
I never had any extra privileged access to any UserLand Manila computers besides over the web as site admin for my particular Manila site, but I moved my site twice: once off of editthispage.com to a different webhost (weblogger.com), and a second time, in a long, torturous process that took a frickin’ month of my life from Weblogger to WordPress
(note re: frickin’ lost month: I wasted tons of time trying to use UserLand-supplied tools; it was only after I approached Matt Levine of queso.com that I made any real progress. But had I downloaded mySite.root as the first step? You betcha.)
See Manila instructions here. This page was created on or about December 18, 1999:
http://manilanewbies.userland.com/stories/storyReader$1019
Re: WordPress: STOP EVERYTHING YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU WILL DO TODAY. (but finish reading this comment, first) Go to your control panel. Plugins. Activate the download database plugin (it’s part of the standard install because, dammit, no one should have to lose their data). After you activate it, download your database.
Okay, I just double-checked and logged into a wordpress.com site I created. You don’t have plugins option. But under Manage > Export, you can create an XML file with your posts. A local, backup copy.
Done.
Do it often. Because you really and truly want to keep EVERYTHING, including comments where I chew you out for ignorance. 😉
And hell, you used to work for UserLand. And paid ’em for hosting. Can they snag your site root from a backup somewhere? Sheesh, it’s gotta be worth some coin to each of you to find a way out of this.
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Nick,
Life is short.
Now you will know what is meant by “all is vanity”.
I am sorry for what happened. I am happy for the changes which will now occur in both of your lives.
My world view changed with the loss of a home to fire.
I wish we did not have to go through such moments. It does however, add to our character. God Bless and heal your family.
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Nick,
Life is short.
Now you will know what is meant by “all is vanity”.
I am sorry for what happened. I am happy for the changes which will now occur in both of your lives.
My world view changed with the loss of a home to fire.
I wish we did not have to go through such moments. It does however, add to our character. God Bless and heal your family.
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The night that you asked people to call you on your way to the Bay Ara from Seattle I was working late and heard knocking on the door, it was my parents telling me that my house was burning down but my wife and kids were ok. That one event compleatly changed us as a family. Still working through it but we have been blessed by so many people that we knew and didnt know. Basicly we started a page saying what our needs were and listing everyone that helped us. http://help.chrisandjenni.com/
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The night that you asked people to call you on your way to the Bay Ara from Seattle I was working late and heard knocking on the door, it was my parents telling me that my house was burning down but my wife and kids were ok. That one event compleatly changed us as a family. Still working through it but we have been blessed by so many people that we knew and didnt know. Basicly we started a page saying what our needs were and listing everyone that helped us. http://help.chrisandjenni.com/
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Meanwhile, RIP USA as Bush signs the Military Commissions Act and eliminates 300 years of habeus corpus. You can now be thrown into jail at the whim of the president without charge or right to trial.
People should be taking to the streets. This matters.
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Meanwhile, RIP USA as Bush signs the Military Commissions Act and eliminates 300 years of habeus corpus. You can now be thrown into jail at the whim of the president without charge or right to trial.
People should be taking to the streets. This matters.
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Has anyone else before me not submitted to your threats?
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Has anyone else before me not submitted to your threats?
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