in the spirit of blatant self-promotion, i'm always glad to have a reference from a friend, and especially as a local blogger who wants to keep it up here in carbondale and keep the pressure on the folks in the city to recognize and respond to the blogging community, I'm glad to support dave and what he's doing. my blog is not so much journalism, as it is (these days), as I said, blatant self-promotion, in this case of creative work, but on my professional blog, of professional work. i've found blogging to be very useful to me for mostly professional reasons: it makes me want to produce, want to put stuff up here, proud to announce it when i do, etc.

which reminds me, i submitted a story, Unloading, to the Nelson Algren Fiction Contest of the Chicago Tribune, a legitimate (i hope) organization. don't think i'll win; don't think i'll even find out until august; nevertheless, i'm on the production cycle, and am trying to keep up the output...

it's still cold, unusually cold for march in carbondale. we went to paducah, but the boys got sick, and we came back early. now it's back to work, and getting ready for my tesol presentations, of which this one is on top.

chou---