TALOIGA

Things went downhill after the Neverworlds Masquerade in Eugene on the 29th. While walking around, I noticed some pain in my left foot like I'd strained a muscle. I must've done a pretty good job of straining it because when I got up on Sunday I was really hobbling around. Every other step was painful, and it took several days for it to fade.

Just as that was getting better, I got a case of TALOIGA (my acronym for There's A Lot Of It Going Around). I have a big suspicion I picked it up in Eugene, since I started getting sick about 48 hours or so after I got back. It was probably a dose of the flu - I somehow skipped getting a shot this season. "Taloiga" sounds a lot more exotic than "flu."

Mostly it seemed to be a nagging cough that was persistent enough to sap my energy so I just haven't felt like doing anything that requires much thought or much stick-to-itiveness. After more than two weeks the cough finally seems to be subsiding.

One thing I have done is read up a bit about Redgage, a social networking site where you can post blog entries, photos, etc. and get paid. The folks in the Squidoo forum called the Chatter Box have been saying it's a good place to make backlinks, so I plan to start doing short blog entries about my lenses. Some will be about lenses I've recently blogged about such as the Discworld lens, the Grand Masters of Science Fiction, the Hugo Awards, etc. but I want to write something new for them.

I could just write something new on Redgage, but by importing material from this blog to there I get the advantage of two backlinks. I'm hoping this might make for at least a little increase in traffic.

I was in Costco earlier and took a look at Laura Hillebrand's new book. If money wasn't so tight I'd buy it, but it's still penny-pinching season and it will be for a long time, I suspect.