I know my post frequency has dropped off a bit as of late. I’ve just had a string of bad luck, and it’s really affected my productivity over the past 3 weeks. It started when I was in Florida over Christmas.. I went to move a couch, and I pulled out my back! I’ve pulled out my back before, but this was a whole different kind of pain. On a scale of 1-10, this was a 25! I couldn’t even take off my shoes for the security check at the airport, my wife had to help me out.. For almost an entire week, I was loaded up on Ibuprofen and just working through it.

The following weekend, I was at 80% and got dragged to some holiday party. One of the kids there was a little sick, and I woke up the next morning with a bit of a sore throat. By Monday, I was really congested, and coughing up a storm. It knocked me on my ass, and I was out of commission for another 4-5 days.

(My immune system sucks now, because I work from home and don’t get exposed to other people’s germs..)

Fast forward a few days, and I ended up in the hospital dealing with the cyst I mentioned in a previous post. Antibiotics and Ibuprofen were prescribed, and I’m sent on my way. It seems to have cleared up, but I still have a consult with a surgeon next week to see if I need to go under the knife. My cough started coming back, but a lingering cough isn’t uncommon.

Then today, I wake up with red spots all over my body! EVERYWHERE! It appears to be hives, which I’ve never had before.. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s an allergic reaction to some lobster I had yesterday for lunch. I’m not really sure why, as I’ve eaten lobster on countless occasions without incident, but there’s a first time for everything. So now I’m taking some Benadryl, and hoping that I wake up tomorrow with clear skin. Otherwise, it’s back to the doctor for another visit.

I’m a big Suze Orman fan, and really get a kick out of her show on CNBC (especially the “Can I Afford It?” segment).. If you haven’t seen the show before, be sure to check it out!

In any case, a friend sent me a link to download Suze Orman’s new book, Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan, for free! The link (on Oprah’s website) lets you download the book in PDF format, and the offer is good through Thursday, January 15th.

Click here to download Suze Orman’s 2009 Action Plan, and start off the new year on the right foot!

I woke up a few days ago with some pain near my tailbone when I sat down. It got progressively more painful as the day went on. Yesterday morning, I headed over to the Emergency Room at the local hospital, where my fears were confirmed – I had a Pilonidal Cyst. I had figured as much, as I had Googled my symptoms on Monday and all signs kept pointing to the cyst.

So what does this have to do with Blogging? If you’re like me, you spend the majority of your day in front of the computer screen. Excessive sitting is thought to predispose people to Pilonidal Cysts because they increase pressure on the coccyx region. In fact, the condition was widespread in the United States Army during World War II. More than eighty thousand soldiers having the condition required hospitalization. It was termed “Jeep riders’ disease,” because a large portion of people who were being hospitalized for it rode in jeeps, and prolonged rides in the bumpy vehicles were believed to have caused the condition due to irritation and pressure on the tailbone.

In severe cases, the cyst may need to be lanced or surgically excised, and recovery (which sounds brutal) takes 4-8 weeks! Thankfully, I caught mine early enough, and it’s being treated with antibotics, ibuprofen, and hot compresses.

It’s not fun.. Many women have claimed that it’s actually more painful than childbirth!

With that said, make sure you take a break every few hours.. Get up and move around, give your eyes a rest, and takes some pressure off of your tailbone.

As confirmed by Matt Cutts, Google has indeed updated their Google Toolbar Pagerank.. Many webmasters noticed the changes happening over the holiday weekend. I used to obsess over these PR updates, but at this point I’m over it. We have sites with tens of thousands of backlinks from the highest authority sites out there, but we’re still only a PR3. Why? Because we sell advertising, and Google is penalizing us. It’s a Catch-22. If we complied with Google and stopped selling advertising, we couldn’t afford to pay our staff. But if we continue with the paid links, we get the PR penalty, and SEO-motivated advertisers are less likely to buy our ads.

My main concern is with traffic, and our numbers have never been better! Over time, I think more advertisers will come around and rely on “real” metrics like traffic, and worry less about the green bar.

Until then, it’s going to be challenging.