I ache . . .

And not in a romantic, yearning, Yeatsian way either I'm afraid. Not even in a robust, post-athletic fashion.

No. Instead of pursuing a meaningful social-life or mastering unruly abs, I've been hunched, like some information-age Bartleby, over my monitor and keyboard trying to stay on top of this website I'm building with a couple of friends.

I'm the "project manager" - quotes heavily intended - and html/css monkey. Another friend I know from my last job is very able handling the PHP and databases. Nevertheless, I'm pooped. More than once I've thought "I'd prefer not to," mostly where it concerns error testing.

Anyway, twice recently I've had to turn down interesting, lovely requests from good friends to come visit with them and their children. If anyone reading this feels I'm ignoring them recently (rather than perennially), you've got my sincerest apologies. If you feel I've been ignoring you for longer than three weeks or so, you should call me and shout.

Flu

In addition to providing medical documentation that I'm lean and svelt, going to the doctor reminded me that it's flu-shot season.

Ever since I learned about flu-shots in my epidemiology classes, I've been fascinated by them. I think the facts are fairly cool.

Every year, flus grow in China. Why China? Because it's got the proper mixture of pigs, chickens, and humans living in proximity, and I suspect, a class of people who then get on planes and go elsewhere in the world - thus spreading the flu.

Now, every year I hear people denigrate the flu shot because "I got one last year and then I got the flu". Yes yes. The thing is, you got a flu, not The flu.

Because the other thing that happens each year is that doctors and epidemiologists and immunologists and tinkers and clowns and God-knows-who-else, all get together and try to identify the most virulent and fast-spreading strains of the flus likely to come out of China this year.

Then they put vaccinations to as many of the most dangerous and/or contagious strains as they can in a cocktail and someone else jabs that puppy in your arm and it feels like you overworked your delts yesterday and you get to whine about it all day.

Sometimes they guess wrong about which strain(s) of the flu will do the rounds of the globe, but we continue to hope and believe that they stop the next one that has its eyes on upstaging the strain that affected about 20% of the world's population in 1918 and managed to kill dead about 10-25 percent of those it infected.

So, to sum up:

• Flu isn't a single disease - it has more and less contagious or virulent strains
• The 1918 flu pandemic killed more than twice the number of people that WWI did.
• The point of the vaccine isn't to stop you getting a flu, it's to stop you getting THE flu (and incidentally, to stop you from giving it to your nearest and dearest).
• It's a good idea to get a flu shot this year.
  

Not fat

If I'm being honest, the last couple years of my life have not been the best of the bunch. I won't dwell though, because I'm English and that's not what we do.

However, good news was delivered today. It doesn't really make up for the preceding 30-ish months, but perhaps because of them, this lifted my spirits. I am back to my college weight.

The best part is that I haven't been trying to get back to any weight whatsoever, so it's like an unexpected gift.

I'm living it up in MI

I'm back in EL again to hang with Manny.

So far, I've been working on a website for a friend (hey Eric!), fighting off some cold or something I picked up by previously staying up way too late working on said website, and setting up Skype with a webcam so Manny can chat with his wife (hi Mom!), daughter (hi Janet!) and granddaughters (hi Rowan and Jael) across the Pond.

If you are reading this, use skype (or want some help learning how), and know Manny or me, drop me an email a we'll be video-conferencing toot sweet.

Also, stay tuned because my next humor/tech thing for MSNBC might go up any time and I'll post a link here when it does.

this is a funny "Web 2.0"-ish explanation

of why a web-comic I read (shut your hurtful mouth) wasn't updated this week.

It has some naughty words in it though, so don't click this link if individual words have the power to make you cry.

I call it Web 2.0, because folks like Flickr popularized the use of honest and/or humorous client-facing verbiage in modern web businesses. Also, paradigm and synergy!

http://www.freakangels.com/?p=59

I saw this awesome thing

on Clicked on MSNBC:

going to Boston

I'm tripping up to Boston for a conference:

"Web 2.0 and Your Brand". It sounds like the kind of title I roll my eyes at, but having talked with one of the organizers, I'm expecting good things. I expect my only problem with the name is that using "Web 2.0" is a common symptom of taking yourself too seriously, and I'm allergic to that. Still, it is about branding in the world of social media, so the title's right and it should be fun.

I'm going to split the drive by staying in NYC tonight and then driving up to visit my good buddies Eric and Erica in Boston. Looking forward to seeing them.

Anyway, if you need me, I'll be on the road, so calling will work best.