I felt pretty good when I woke up this morning, but as the morning went on, I starting feeling lousy. Achey joints and muscles, really tired, killer headache, extreme nausea — really, really lousy. I know what everyone’s thinking, but it’s just a run-of-the-mill illness, meaning there is no reason to panic. When I oink incessantly, start craving slop, and wallowing around in the mud, then panic is a perfectly acceptable reaction.

Anyway, since I had a big day planned and I wanted to try my best at making a go of it, I showered, put on my around-town clothes, got back into bed, started on heavy doses of saltines and 7-Up, and hoped. While hope is sometimes necessary in life, it didn’t do much for me this time. So after a couple of hours of trying to visualize my body being bathed in a white light of perfect health, I decided that resistance was futile, put on my comfy-sleeping clothes, and prescribed myself bed rest for the remainder of the day. 

There were two events that I was really excited about attending today. Unfortunately, I’ll have to make YouTubes of similar events do.

The first event that I wanted to attend was Clark Howard’s trip to Durham, North Carolina. For those who don’t know, Clark Howard is a money expert that’s a staple on talk radio and he also recently got a TV show on the HLN cable channel (formerly Headline News). I don’t know what he talked about, although I’m sure it’s similar to what he talked about in this YouTube of an appearance in Dayton, Ohio:

I’ve seen him so much on TV and heard him so much on radio that I suspect I could out-Clark Clark Howard. I don’t know that I would have learned anything new today, but still disappointing none-the-less.

The second event that I wanted to attend is an event is the annual marijuana march and concert held in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina on the first Saturday in May every year. Here’s a video from last year’s event (with a special starring role at about the 6:40 mark):

This year’s event was probably abuzz with discussion of a possible medical marijuana bill being considered in North Carolina. This is an idea that I would have rolled my eyes at ten years ago, but I now believe the time has come. We’ll see if my fellow North Carolinians (and their representatives) agree.

All-in-all, a day lived vicariously from the confines of my bed, all thanks to YouTube. Still I wish I could’ve been out in the sun, having a good time, instead of making my slow march toward metamorphosis into a were-pig via otherwise normal flu-like symptoms. I guess that’ll teach me to get sick…

It’s been more than a month since I’ve posted anything. It definitely wasn’t because I didn’t want to or because nothing of interest was going on in the world. It all started with the untimely death of my previous Dell laptop. Icould go into it in detail, but with all the troubles I’ve had with Dell, I’ve decided to move on and be willing to give them another chance. Since I was under warranty, I got a replacement (a sweet Dell Studio 17) that’s working well so far and will hopefully continue to do so for many years to come while I expand my vast blogging empire. 

Computer problems can be bad enough, but I also faced a number of other issues that diverted myself away from the blogosphere. Needless to say, my other efforts were severely hampered during my Dell-related computer problems, since I was trying to complete a number of deadlines in the last four weeks before graduating (yeah!) and obtaining suitable employment. Talk about adding to the stress of dealing with technology… As of today, graduation is definitely happening, while I’m well on my way to meeting my goal of finding an appropriate position, even in these tough economic times.

Beyond that though, I’ve had a lot of time to think about one of my favorite fields of knowledge to which my marketing coursework has exposed me — brand management. Not just branding in general, but specifics of how it applies to some of the spiritual and philosophical movements with which I’ve been involved over the past few years, my personal branding as both an individual and a professional, and how that all ties into the amount of effort (or lack thereof) I’ve put toward branding and marketing this site. Lots of thinking, but now it’s time for some doing…

Now that I’m announcing my return to life in general and blogging in specific, I also wanted to thank everyone for their support in my virtual absense. I would also like to extend a specia thanks to those who’ve taken the time to read and comment on some of my previous stories. I love comments (the good, the bad, and even the ugly) since they make me understand better the potential for making a social impact in the brave new world of the InterWeb Tubes. I’ll be sure to weigh-in shortly on these comments, to hopefully further the conversation and to add more proof to my theory that regular readers of this blog happen to be smarter and in some way slightly more genetically superior to those who don’t.  ;-)

Hillary Clinton blamed Americans this week for the drug violence in Mexico. Because Americans are consuming so many drugs, Mexicans are getting killed. Brush aside the fact that her husband, former President Clinton, smoked marijuana. Nobel Prize winning former Vice President Al Gore also smoked weed. Governor Arnold of California even appeared on film smoking a jay before his political career began. I would comment on Michael Bloomberg’s use of “the gateway drug,” but I’m quickly running out of drug terms, at least in the case of marijuana usage. I could talk about former President Bush’s alleged heavy cocaine use and current President Obama’s admitted use of “blow.” And there’s a lot of other folks I could mention here as well. So, yeah, Senator Clinton’s absolutely right. The people responsible for Mexicans getting killed in drug violence are Americans — American politicians.