2011 Year in Review.

It pretty much blew. Happy it's over.

2012 can't come fast enough! Bring it on!!! WoooO!

Things are looking up...

It's been a good day. That is all.

Fall from grace, Day 7, 8, 9 and 10. Santa’s in therapy…

As I am an experienced viral video owner (pats self on back) I fully expected the utter and complete drop off of my popularity (well, my contents popularity). This years Teddy Bear Toss video went from 300 views on day 1 to 390,000 on day 2 to 100,000 on day 3 and only 4,000 on day 4 and 5. After all the attention the video gets, it is quite a letdown that it’s all over. Chucked to the curb, as they say.

To be honest, I am happy to have been the video selected for the Yahoo story that started it all, and that’s all. It’s fun.

Maybe one day I'll have a video that goes viral that is of me and some talent I have. This 15 year old kid in Winnipeg has done pretty good for himself, and will no doubt make a pile of cash from the exposure… Me and my video? not so much. I’m ok with that, it’s the teddy bear toss that people love, not my cinematic ability.

Cool beans of the whole process? Good Morning America’s email to me… then seeing it on there.

ABCNewsPermissions has sent you a message:

ABC NEWS

To:nzeller1010
MORNING,
WRITING TO YOU FROM ABC NEWS. WE'D LIKE TO SHOW THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPP7iqMqd74 ON ABC'S "GOOD MORNING AMERICA". PLEASE EMAIL US WITH HOW YOU'D LIKE TO BE CREDITED.
THANKS!
JOHN SANTUCCI
ABC NEWS

Here is the link to the GMA segment…

The weirdest thing about the whole video viral business is the reciprocal hits my other videos get. Andrews Trail Running video went from 90 hits to 1300!  Woo! (if you watch it, he really gets cruising at the 27 second mark…and his interview at 1:00 is a great if you are looking for some inspiration and motivation)

End talk of video viralness. (unless something cool happens with it)

StreakFail! and that’s ok!

Day 7, I ran, Day 8 i didn’t, yep my Strides Run Streak got busted. I layed down with Andrew and never woke up again. Missed it and just like that it’s all over. Day 9 I said Eff it, let’s keep going, so I ran. Day 10 I ran. So I have ran 9 out of 10 days in Dec. *WoOt*.

Here’s the best part. Me running everyday is slowly changing my choices in restaurants (I had a Cobb Salad instead of Fish and Chips yesterday) and it is certainly affecting my portion sizing. Thanks running, I remember you and how beneficial you are… glad you are back in my life.

Speaking of running back in my life, I have gone and done something really stupid. I registered for a 50km winter ultra. The Gord’s Frozen Ass 50 is the one I ran last year, but only did the half (25k). I fully plan to run the 50. Even if I am DFL. I feel like I am destined in life for a DFL. I will try to avoid it, but I have learned enough from my friends that DFL is still WAY better than DNS or DNF… I am excited. I ran the 25k last year in 2:51, so if I can do the second half in 4 hours, I’m good (I will pace slower in the first half if I am running the full).

I am hoping I get some support for my training. My Dad sponsored the race entry for me. DZell Excavating will be featured greatly on my training and race posts.

For all your Calgary Excavating, Post Holes, Site Cleanup, Grading, Loam, Gravel, Hauling and Snow Removal, Contact Dave at DZell excavating. 403-828-2147. Email Davz@shaw.ca, and on Facebook here!

The other support I am looking for is a Coach. Someone to design my plan and give me the accountability to the plan. I would also LOVE it if a nutritionist would come on board. It would be great to lose 25-30lbs before the race (totally doable), but any support would be appreciated. I can make it worthwhile for anyone who would like to jump on board. My google score for this blog is quite high and I have a very good Klout score. (it means I can help advertise your business if you want to help me get to the finish line)

Lego Advent Calendar update.

I guess if Lego put just regular Xmas items in there no one would talk about it nearly as much.

So After Santa was ordered to restore Xmas, he entered therapy to try and get his life in order. Things were going well. Turns out his big issue is with an axe wielding Northerner. It’s a long standing grudge based since China took over the Toy trade and it put local woodworkers out of business. Santa has been living with the guilt of the economic times and just lost it. Therapy has helped. He is now clothed. ( the last 2 days of lego kits were the weird bench, complete with coffee cup and the axe wielding eskimo dude…)

And one final bit of coolness. I received this email out of the blue…

Dear Neil,

I am writing on behalf of *omitted* Productions regarding your photograph the prairie (IMG_4507) from your Aug 30, 2011 post (Mother-in-Law visit and Instagram). We are working with the *omitted* Theatre company to do design for an upcoming theater production and are looking for images that we can use.

Our intention is to use the image as a projected backdrop during the play. Hence, if you own the image, we would like to ask your permission to use and if necessary, purchase this image to use for the production. If the image needs to be purchased, please also let us know how much it will cost to use for this purpose.

Thank you, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

I checked it out and it’s legit. FYI the photo in question is this one…

We have my Company Xmas party tonight out in Banff, the house has shown 4 times in the last 2 days with 2 of them being 2nd showings. We can only hope to come back to an acceptable offer… would be really nice to be done with all this stuff…

Seeya later!

Day 6, a tidy little 5k and Santa freaks out and ruins Christmas...

I ran a nice little 5k. Strides run streak intact! Woot! Day 1, 1 mile was really hard, this was the same hard. Makes me happy.

Lego advent calendar yielded a Xmas tree! Yeah!

Santa (while serving his minimum security sentence and on light labour duty) snapped when he saw the tree and chopped the sonofabitch down!!! Poor frosty the snowman was collateral damage.




That is all...

Day 5, I am flirting with fame. Again.

But before that: I got home and I tell Traci, “i’ll get supper started” she replies, “Don’t you have to run?”

Yeah! Thanks Honey! Strides Run Streak intact! So I ran. 2 miles tonight. It was nice to hear my garmin beep 3 times (kilometers) for the first time since the Stampede road race in July! 5 days in and it’s all starting to feel familiar. yay. Oh. My advice for the day is. In the winter, running gear straight out of the dryer rock!

Ok, so last year, I shot a video at the Calgary Hitmen Teddy Bear toss game. You saw that on the last post. Last year It was picked up by Puck Daddy Blogger on Yahoo, then picked up by Yahoo main page. I then had 700,000 hits in the next couple days, and countless emails.

Fast forward exactly 1 year

Ditto. same thing has happened.

Puck Daddy wrote basically the same story, but more of an update from last year. They picked my video again. Boom, viral video. I thought the warm fuzzies from the story and video would be all wore out, but as it turns out, nope. People love flying bears. The comments this year are as heart-warming and funny and asinine as last year! Man there are some weirdo's out there… but most are awesome. Here is what my inbox looks like right now…

 

When a video goes nuts like this, you only get updates on hot count totals every 12 hours or so, so for all day it registered as 314 views. I anxiously awaited the update and this evening when it finally refreshed, it hit a disappointing 11,500 views. Well, oh well. it is truly an old story.

About an hour later it re-updated. 115,700 hits. I am right now the #1 trending video in YouTube! Woot!

Ok, I'm good now. It is also trending now on YouTube and ESPN emailed to ask permission to use the video in all their shows and affiliates (inc ABC I would presume) so keep an eye out.

Fun stuff.

But now the most important news. Day 5 of the Lego Advent Calendar. A wall.

boooooo! it was the stinking second wall of the police station. I am going to be pissed if the next 2 days are the other 2 walls. Anyway. I figured out a storyline that fit.

They got caught after their brazen jailbreak but copped a plea deal. They ended up doing 2-5 in a minimum security prison. They have a pretty slick life with sofa, fireplace, a cat, hotdogs, baguettes and a big box of puffs kleenex… they do have to keep their hair bic’d to the wood. And Santa still like to lounge nekkid.

That. is. all.

Till tomorrow.

We ended up with a LOT of snow! Dec 4, Streak intact! And Jail!

I ran at the crack of 11:30 this morning. It was a nice looking day, but the snow was deep enough to add a high degree of difficulty to the run. I got my mile in, but just barely. I did take the camera out today for some self-love. (Not sure if that’s the right term. Is it?)

Dubious looking start to the run… Feet are warm and dry tho!

Look out! Freight train coming!

Vivobarefoot Neo Trail action shot. It’s amazing how warm and dry my feet are at the end. my ankles were wet, but I wasn’t wearing socks… so there.

I almost ran past this un tainted pathway. I decided to challenge myself. A challenge within a challenge really! (Strides Run streak) I wanted to see how straight I could run. I focussed on a tree at the end of the park and started running.

Meh. I give myself a B+. I think the curve of the earth played a factor.

I really wouldn’t want to run in deeper snow without snowshoes, but on the other hand, I felt about 8 years old running with abandon. It was good overall. Well, another day down. So far it’s 4 more days than I ran in November. (4)

Day 4 Lego Advent Calendar. Yep, some of you may have seen it coming. Jail. So the criminal was put away, Santa got bail (Rudolph has connections in Bail bonds) and the cop was relaxing.

Big mistake copper!! Santa showed up and busted out the crook! How will this story play out? Stay tuned for Day 5 of Lego weirdness!

Andrew and I took in the Calgary Hitmen Teddybear toss today too! here is the crappy video from this year. I posted it directly from my Iphone.

and here is the awesome video from last year. How do I know it is Awesome? 759000 people say so! Haha!

Dec 3. Another run, another storm, another weird Lego advent surprise…

Was going to run in the morning, but by the time Andrew got up and we got to Soccer, it ended up too late. DW had to get to her craft fair in Airdrie and Andrew and I had a sausage party to look after. We got Traci set up at the fair, said out goodbyes and headed out to CrossIron Mall. On the way there Andrew decided it was time to fill me in on our plans for the day.

Daddy, first. *pause* we will go to the end of Big Iron mall and look at the big fish in the fishing store. Then we will go for a walk in the mall and go to the food court and I will have Chinese food with chopsticks. Then we will go to toys and us to look at what I want Santa to bring me for Christmas. We won’t take much time for this because we need to head home to take a quick rest before we find the lego parts from last years calendar. Then we will… Well that's about it.

Is that a good plan Daddy?

Yeah. the mall was pretty fun. Can you tell if he had a good time? He looked at the balloon making guy and told him he wanted a Green Puppy.

Meanwhile, outside it started storming. A pretty good blizzard. I hadn’t ran yet. dang. Oh well, a Strides run streak challenge is a challenge!! My mom came over to sit with Andrew and put him to bed so I could drive back and pick up Traci. After I found out there was another travel advisory to where I needed to go to get Traci, I was motivated to get out there and run, so I could take my time on the road.

It was pretty freaking snowy. I loved it. Actually for about the first 200 feet I wanted to go back home, but after that it was really good. I always liked running in winter. As a gear junkie, it’s prime time! I am still amazed at how good my VivoBarefoot Neo Trails are in the snow. All my other minimal shoes start cold in the winter, but these, sockless, seem to be the perfect temperature at all parts of the run. My feet finish dry too!

It was pretty evident that I was going to be the only knucklehead running tonight.

Went for 1mile and did 1.5 again. I. just. felt. like. runnin.

Advent calendar. Day 3.

A cop with some s&m handcuffs came out as our surprise today. I though naked Santa from last year adds a little some- somethin to todays image. Man does that cop look smug. Maybe because he just came off a successful tour with the village people.

OK, so as you all know, we are as poor as folk right now. Well, we needed a second vehicle as the cube we were driving was given back. Well, I decided we should go to the Auction to see what that was all about. We liked the idea of it, so I went back and bought a minivan for $1900.00. Pretty good deal.

Pretty good deal, that is until we took it to the mechanics shop and found out it needed $7000.00 work just to be safe on the road. Well, since we’ve been going through tons of financial shit lately, I just chalked this up to ‘what the hell’ and we’ll figure out what we need to do later. I couldn’t really deal with this punch in the gut at the moment. I carried on with that day. As it turns out later on that day I am at one of my vendors offices on work stuff. I overhear a conversation about a guy who can’ get rid of a free vehicle. I jump into the conversation casually and ask what kind of vehicle it is. A 1999 Oldsmobile silhouette minivan.

Really? I ask. Yep, he says. It needs a starter, and a few other things, but I think I'll give it away to the kidney foundation.

Can I have it, I ask? The guy says sure. I go over the  next day, load it onto a trailer and take it home. (oh yeah. I guess I should tell you, this free van is Identical to the one I bought at auction)

Yep. Now I have 2 vans. That day I jack up both vans in the driveway and swap starters, and the 2nd, free, van starts right up! Woot! I take it for a drive and yeah, this van is pretty nice! It has a grinding noise from the engine, but I quickly diagnose the noise as a drive axle CV joint, or the hub bearing.

I tore down and re-assembled a 1969 volkswagen a few years ago, so I had some knowledge of cars, so I decided to attempt the repair myself. I went and bought the parts and in about 3 hours I had the work done and a really nice driving van.

Moral of the story? Be nice to everyone as Karma is watching and will pay you back when you most need it.

Another quick story about recent car repair. Our 2004 Buick Regal that we bought new, started having strange problems a couple weeks ago. Minor things like…

…when you turned the left signal light on, the engine shut off.

Oy… that was annoying. So, what the heck, no need to panic. I consulted the internet and it had all  my answers. It was the ignition switch in the steering column. Ok pretty simple right? Well, kinda.

It was a little dicey taking apart so many parts of the dash, and I relied on some common sense and plain ol’ good luck to figure everything out. I pulled out the part that was supposedly the culprit and headed down to AutoValue. They have the part, and he quoted me $199.00. Dang, I told him. I can get that part for $125.00 online, inc shipping.

Without missing a beat, he says “Well. the best we can do is $134.00”

Really? I thought to myself. If I don’t ask, you just automatically take an additional $65.00 from the unwitting?

What I said though was. “ok. thanks.”

It was the right part and the car was put back together and running nicely about an hour later. So between the van and the car, doing the labour myself saved us well over $1500.00 in work.

*wOoT*

anyroad… I digress.

Traci’s craft fair was part of Festival of Lights in Airdrie. So I took these shots with the iPhone while I waited for her to finish up.

Goodnight!

Drove to Edmonton in a frozen windstorm. came home. ran.

Yeah, the out and back business trip was no fun. I heard on the radio that travel between Red Deer and Olds was not recommended. I had just gone past Red Deer.

Had to go to the ‘Chuck’ as we kindly refer to Edmonton. Business. Went well.

The drive up and back was not fun. Lots of ‘oh shit; moments when i didn’t know of the surface tension between the tires and the road was enough to counteract the 100km/hr (60mile) cross winds combined with the very icy surfaces.  Lots of people found out that it wasn’t enough. So many people in the ditch. The province installed a post tension  barrier all the way from Calgary to Edmonton, dividing the opposing lanes of the freeway. I am pretty sure it saved lives today. Especially here. This bog boy was JAMMED into the wires…

There were a lot of big 4x4’s in the ditch too. I think these good ‘ol boys think they are invincible…

nope. There were actually 5 of them jammed backwards into the ditch here.

Coming home was WAY more scenic, but 10x more treacherous. At a few points we were down to a 5 minute mile, just hoping to stay on the road. These Big rigs sure had a rough ride too!

Oh, By Scenic, I mean like this…

These are taken with my iPhone 5.

Anyway, I made it. Hopefully next Friday's trip is easier. I got home, went right upstairs, got changed and went for a run. Strides Run Streak is intact. 2 days in a row. I went 1.5 miles and felt energized. I slowed down and enjoyed the run. Yesterday I ended up with coughing fits for a couple hours, as I tried to run my pace from 6 months and 25lbs ago. I slowed down, enjoyed it, and went further. Didn’t plan to, I was just enjoying myself so much I extended it.

Oh, and on the second day of Lego Advent Calendar, my true love gave to me…

A Catapult to go along with our ever so popular Christmas character, the Hipster Cat-burglar. Well, I guess we found out what the white thing was from yesterday. Ballistics. So Christmassy don’t you think?

Anyhoo. Tomorrow I will be running in the morning as Andrew and I have a Sausage Party weekend. DW is selling her custom Jewellery in Airdrie at the Festival of lights.

Fun!

Dec 1. I went running.

It was just a mile, but it was an amazingly hard mile! I am participating in Strides Running Stores' Run Streak on facebook. I think it’s the perfect piece I needed in my life right now. at. this. moment. There is absolutely no chance I would have gone running if I hadn’t joined the challenge. *WooT*

Thanks VERY much for the awesome comments on yesterdays blog.

Alanna: Yes, one day you can make up that sign for me that says ‘GO LADYSLIPPERS!!’

Jamoosh: uh. depends if it’s race day or not.

adena: he cracks everyone up. Thank you!

Jeff, Elle, Caroline and Janice: Thank you so much! Caroline did YOUR wish for strawberries come true?

That is what I missed the most. You bloggers know what it is to have such good virtual friends…

Going back a smidge. I am in the most recent copy of Impact magazine, wear testing a couple pairs of shoes for their trail shoe review issue. I got a pair of VivoBarefoot Neo Trails which I LOVE. I will have a pair of regular Neo’s as soon as I can afford them, as I need a casual everyday shoe. The Trails have a very aggressive lug that isn’t conducive to grocery shopping (I also want to preserve the lugs at all costs, this shoe is truly amazing!). I ran in them tonight in the sloppy messy snow and was thoroughly impressed! Just RUN is what they beg, leave the grip to me, you just keep running they say to me!

I also reviewed a pair of Brooks Cascadia. I didn’t mind them for a full on shoe. They aren’t wide enough for me, and that was a bit of a show stopper. My pair is a very bright green, not black and pink.

It is very humbling to be included in this testing program with these other testers… check it..

Thanks very much to Impact Magazine for inviting me to participate! I appreciate your support and love your magazine!

Lastly. We bought the Lego Advent Calendar this year again. Last year was our first year enjoying the daily Lego surprises. If you’ll recall, there was some real weirdness on about day 19, where naked Santa showed up in the shower.

 

This Advent year just started today, and I thought, since I was going to daily blog the Run Streak, I’d also update you with the Lego Advent surprises. And not to disappoint or prove boring, they start the Festive season with a…wait for it… A hipster catburgler. Complete with a sinister smile, missing tooth and what I can only imagine is a rock for bashing windows in. (or a go mug). Can’t wait for day 2.

Seeyou tomorrow. I have to go to Edmonton early, but will be enjoying an evening run again!