THANK YOU to the love of my life, April, for your endless support, friendship, and continuing to put up with my nerdy ways. Thank you to my awesome nieces, Indiana Brooke and Austin Margaret. Thank you Carol Long for believing in this book idea and helping make it a reality. To Ozh and Justin, two amazing co-authors, your knowledge of WordPress is unmatched, and this book wouldn't have been what it is without you both. Thank you to the entire WordPress community for your support, friendships, motivation, and guidance. Thank you fizzypop for making WordCamp after parties the stuff of legend. Last but not least thank you to my ridiculous zoo: Lecter, Clarice, and Squeaks the Cat (aka Kitty Galore). Your smiling faces and wiggly butts always put a smile on my face.

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME in the WordPress community since I first started to dissect the few plugins that began to pop like daisies in 2004 and tried to understand how things worked. To all the coders who released the code that taught me the innards of WordPress, I can't express how much I owe you. To all the members of the WordPress community who don't write code but foster the creativity and water our community, thank you for your invaluable dedication. To Brad, who sent me that crazy proposal about a plugin book, I hope I'll cross the oceans one day to have a few beers with you. To Ronnie James Dio, Tom Araya, Bruce Dickinson, Blaze Bayley, Lemmy Kilmister, Dave Mustaine, Rob Zombie, Till Lindemann, and Mike Muir, whose gentle voices have lulled me and inspired me while I was writing late at night.

THE WORDPRESS COMMUNITY took me in as a lost kid who was trying to figure out life and presented me with opportunities that I'd never dreamed possible. A simple "thank you" is an understatement. To my plugin and theme users, you continue to inspire me and keep my skills sharp with your invaluable feedback and loyalty. To Brad, thank you for that oddly random email about writing a plugin book. To Ozh, thank you for coding all those cool plugins I learned from before becoming a developer myself. To Granny, thank you for allowing me to skip several dinners to work on this book. To my family and friends, thank you for supporting me and showing superhuman patience during hour-long conversations (i.e., crazed rants) about plugin development. Most importantly, to my father, who knows nothing about Web development but taught me everything about being successful and continues to teach me today.