No More Yearbook Thinking...

When I signed up to join Picaboo and help them launch their yearbook software I didn't anticipate that I'd be doing all the heavy lifting at the beginning. I don't mind talking, telling them what they need to do, but having to document it impressively is a lot of work.

It was only 10 days ago that I had a lunch meeting with Howard and found out that I'd be coming to Vegas the following week to be part of their yearbook summit kick off. In retrospect had I not come they wouldn't have had a clue what was required to get into the yearbook business. I believe I blew there hair back and behind closed doors they are very thankful that I was there for direction and guidance.

What I didn't expect was to have to do any real work with a deadline that required intensity of focus. I thought I was just going to tell Bill stuff and he was going to write it all down. Doh!!! I put on another 8 hours of effort on it today and in the last three days it's been over 22 hours of Picaboo. I definitely earned my keep. Overall since I got to Vegas last Wednesday I've put in about 45 hours of work on Picaboo between meetings, follow up and travel. I haven't worked this hard in a long time. I don't like it!!!

The document I created I believe is a work of art. It's everything you want to know about yearbooks and forgot to ask. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow and they would have a guideline to follow. Some may think that I should hold it all close to my vest, I disagree. Can they use me and through me out??? Yes. So what, I figure the only security I have is with my own business. I don't believe Picaboo will use and abuse me but who knows, who can predict. What I can predict is I'm not going to assume I won't get used. I'm expecting the worst and hoping for the best. That way it keeps me focused on doing my own stuff rather than dream about potential. Plus I'm not a politics or close vested person.

This morning I woke up exhausted. I didn't turn the lights off until 1 am and then it took another 40 minutes for my mind to slow down and stop racing before I could sleep. Then I was up at 6 am again and tired. I was tired of yearbook stuff. I came here for the ITU World Championships, I want to enjoy them not worry about yearbooks. I told myself that come hell or high water I was finishing this project today. Then I was sending an email in a nice way saying ask your questions now because I'm off the grid until Monday.

I was irritable this morning, lack of sleep and pressure of a deadline. First thing I did was go to McDonald's for a McGriddle, my first ever, who knew it was a pancake around and egg and sausage? I started back on Picaboo by 9 am and worked until 1:30 pm. I booked a massage and that was my break time. The plan was to get a massage, head back to the hotel and work until I was done and hopefully it wouldn't be too late.

The massage therapist worked at Elements. It's a franchise from the U.S. I was checking out to bring to Canada. It just worked out that they had one near my hotel and I got a first hand chance to check them out. I got Lena and she was a European style masseuse. Very strong hands. Even though she didn't apply a lot of pressure, it hurt. My muscles are sore. The massage was just what I needed, it told me I need to relax and taper near no training. Any additional training of any effort will hurt me more than help me. When you get a massage and you can't feel the masseuses hands you know your muscles are strong. It's when they are sore muscles that you start leaping out of your skin. Overall it was a good massage, more of a good rub with hot towels. She's definitely self taught, which is often a good thing, they have an intuitive feel which often gives a more beneficial massage.

On the way back to the hotel to slave away on my computer I stopped at a local cool looking hot dog stand. The guy seemed like the hot dog Nazi. Turns out the hot dog wasn't that good and the fries were greasy. I had an urge for a nitrate dog, added salt I guess. I brought the dog and fries home and ate them in my room as I continued to work.

At 10 pm Burlington time I called Alice. I wanted to say hi before she got to bed. And that's about all it was. I called said hi, told her I was in the middle of working on stuff and had to let her go so I could finish. She understood. The next hour and 15 minutes I finalized up the document and sent this covering email letter to Bill.

Hey B, I just finished. Attached is a pdf and word file of the document.

As I started and after our summit meeting last week I realized that it would be beneficial to give some Yearbook Industry background and practices as it will shed some insight and help in understanding what schools are used to and what makes yearbooks very much different than photo books. I also feel that given the time constraints to get a product developed quickly this information may be helpful in expediting that process.

I've broken the document into the following sections

1. Yearbook Industry Products & Practices Overview
2. Online Yearbook Software Requirements.
a. Yearbook Administration Dashboard Requirements.
b. Yearbook Page Builder User Interface Requirements
3. Picaboo Admin Dashboard Requirements
4. Picaboo Yearbook Future Phase Enhancements.

I also then added some additional information as I know with things moving quickly we will need to address these questions sooner than later.

5. Picaboo Yearbook Business Model Questions
6. Online Yearbook Business Model Selling Features
7. Future Markets for the Picaboo Yearbook Technology Platform
8. Picaboo Yearbooks sales challenges

I also researched some of our competitors sites and You Tube channels to help crystallize the various formats and models that others are using and how they are doing it. Many of the resource videos detail much of the areas I've covered in the Yearbook Industry Products & Practices Overview.

9. Competitor Software Video's and Resources.

B, starting tomorrow is the race week event officially start. For most of the week I'm going to be somewhat off the grid and I want to make sure I can answer any questions you may have, I don't want to hold things up, I know we're on a tight deadline.

If it works for you, I can go through the document with you tomorrow morning in more detail, I'm pretty open until around noon tomorrow PST, then I'll be out and about with limited email and phone access until Monday. If tomorrow am works good for you, great. If not, we can email back and forth to set up a time to talk Thursday or Friday.

Hopefully this document is a good starting point. I tried to be very comprehensive. Hopefully it all makes sense, I was a little cross-eyed by the time I was done. haha.

Talk to you soon,

B

P.S. Please confirm back that you receive it. Thanks.

Now that I prepared that stuff I hope I gave Bill enough to work on and not trouble me to do any thinking work. I have to get back to my Caricature Toons site which went live today at www.caricaturetoons.com and my Results Cloud Marketing which I got some new proofs for my website. I really need to get those things up and running and making money. I got a Word File template from Abbey today and I'm now going to prepare a pricing quote and proposal for my physiotherapist potential clients. It will look professional when she get it but I'm just making this stuff up as I go along. I love when that happens and it all comes together. I even ordered my business cards yesterday. I got them for free, I just paid expedited shipping. Normally $9.99 I paid $29.99 to get 500 cards printed color two sides and rounded corners. Damn that's cheap and I'm a printer saying that. I have no idea how they make money giving cards away for free.

 Today was a good day to not have to train and do a report. I was able to give my muscles a break. After I was done I made some burnt popcorn in the micro wave. I love burnt popcorn. The room now stinks, really bad, there is no ventilation. Alice knows what burnt popcorn smells like she hates it. I'm now sitting on my bed, updating the blog, then I'm going to hopefully turn the computer off and force myself to watch TV and relax and get into the ITU spirit. Now that I think about it I'm going to have to air out this room somehow, I'm picking Paul up at the airport tomorrow. 

Actually I got to find the event schedule and see when I'm supposed to register and go on group rides, runs and swims with the team. Not that I'm going to do that based on wanting to give my muscles a rest. Today I finally saw one other athlete, an older guy outside my hotel building his bike. This is definitely not like Kona where people show up a week or more before. Even on all my rides, runs and swims here I didn't yet see any athletes. Hopefully that will all change tomorrow and I'll be mentally ready for anything but Yearbook stuff. 

One last thing. I rented from Advantage Rent a Car. They were really cheap. Heard good things though. They rented me a Nissan Xterra and I'm not sure if it's the truck itself or poor maintenance but this thing sounds like I'm driving a school bus and even handles like I'm driving a school bus. 

I just realized that things have worked out perfectly. I don't know how I would have gotten in all my training and got this report done without having a hotel room training camp environment. I just realized I didn't even have time to shower this morning. I only noticed because the towels in the bathroom haven't been used. I love when a plan comes together. I've been actually too busy to miss my family. That's weird, normally it doesn't take long until I miss them. Now I'm done blogging I think I'll go for another McDonalds coffee and get some fresh air. 

No Training - Taper

No time wasted...

Up at 6:55 am this morning and I felt better than I have the entire time I've been in Vegas. For the past three nights I've fallen asleep before 10 am.

My plan today was to get the Picboo Yearbook Software specifications document completed. I did 3 hours last night, getting organized and reviewing files and today it was going to be a priority to get pen to paper.

Before I started I moved my room. Paul is coming on Wednesday and I went from the King to two Queens and moved everything. I'm was surprised they had the room ready at 8 am for move it. Worked perfectly. I then printed out about 70 pages of documents on the lobby printer. I had to go back for more paper twice.

I then sat on my bed and started the Picaboo document. I did an hour in the early morning then another 4 hours. By the end of the 4 hours my brain was dead, it was 1:30 pm and I got on the bike and did a 3.5 hour ride. I rode the course again. I was a little faster than Saturday, although I felt much better. I was even sweating normally. It feels like my body is acclimatizing to the warm weather and altitude. The course seemed different this time around. It was not as hard in the spots I thought it was hard Saturday and it wasn't as easy in other spots that I remember.

For confidence I'm glad I rode the course twice. I wanted to put the mileage on my legs. The last two weeks prior to my Las Vegas trip I missed some rides. I knew today was the last possible day I could do a ride of any significance or risk not being properly rested and tapered. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go for a massage. Then it's rest. Maybe a light bike or ride or swim from here on in.

I got back to the room, gave Alice a call. She had been handing out candy all night. She said we got lots of kids. Reid didn't go out this year. I guess he's getting to old now. The kids loved the pumpkin Alice carved. She did Edgar Alan Poe. Alice said some of the people mentioned they like seeing our pumpkins every year. Alice wants Alyssa to start carving earlier next year. This year with school she was too busy.

I had breakfast and a banana, ensure and shot blocks on the bike, also so GU electrolyte drink. When I got pack I was salty. I had salt all over my face. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or bad sign. In the past it never bothered me to be salty. Now after my low sodium deal I'm paranoid. However, I did like the sweat and my legs got a good workout. I also went faster and my heart rate wasn't as high. That's a very good sign.

For dinner I went to the Fiesta casino for another buffet. Only $16. The average age their was about 70 years old. Eating alone at a buffet is not to weird you see a lot of guys doing it. I pigged out, not as much as yesterdays buffet. Afterwards I went to Walmart and picked up some more bananas, grapes, sandwich, salad and more water. I'm almost out of the water.

Alice would also be surprised how clean I'm keeping my room. I have everything organized. It's helpful when I want to go for a ride. Everything was in one spot.

Tonight I got back onto my Picaboo project and put in another 3.5 hours. That's over 8 hours for the day, plus 3.5 hours of training and eating and showering and shopping, then updating the blog. Not a wasted moment in this day.

I also approved my new letter head. I booked a flight to NYC for my Agile Training with Picaboo. I worked on some Triathlon Toons stuff. Seems that someone is hacking our server and deleting stuff. My IT guy is working on it. On the bright side both Poochie and Abbey were off sick from work. I smelt bullshit and said it's weird that both are off. The email one of the managers sent was that it's the sudden climate change and most of the people are suffering from viral fever, malaria, etc. WTF??? Malaria??? Is that for real or a dog ate my homework excuse. If it truly is malaria there is not way I'm going to that flea bag place. Actually I googled viral fever and climate change and they say it happens. They get fatigue, chills, body aches and fever.

By the end of the night it was already midnight by the time I got to blogging. I wanted to get it out of the way tonight because I need to focus on finishing the Picaboo paper tomorrow. I promised it for Tuesday and I don't want to have to deal with it during this weeks festivities.

I reviewed my monthly totals. They are a little lower than I hoped. Normally I do about 1000 plus km's per month and about 60 hours. With the head injury and sodium problems and some crappy weather I've had some lower than would have liked numbers. Mind you, it's higher than training for a half Ironman and not as much as a full Ironman. Maybe it's the perfect amount, we'll see Saturday.

One last thought. I love the desert. Training in the heat is awesome and I don't know what it is about the desert but I like it. This course, although in Vegas, it doesn't feel like Vegas. I know know where to go if I come to Vegas again. Where to ride, where to train. I've always loved the desert of Arizona as well. My dream would be to spend winters in the desert, providing the kids were around. I'd rather stay in the cold and be around them than the desert and not. That sucks, that means I probably won't get to the desert in the winter months. haha.

Mod Bike - 3:29:17 / 105.61 km / 30.3 kph avg / 138 avg hr

October Totals
Swim - 23.28 km
Bike - 726.04 km
Run - 139.18 km
Weights - 0
Total - 888.5 km
Calories - 39,998
Hours - 46.04

Training Tired...

This was the second night that I got to bed around 10 am and woke up at 7 am. Two really good night sleeps. Being by myself makes it feel like a mini training camp. Except cheaper than paying someone else to organize it.

This morning I started my day like the others, on the computer. Going through proofs from my designer. I thought I had the business cards and stationary finished. Later tonight I noticed there was a light hairline through a few of the graphics.

Dealing with a guy in Malaysia who is not that good at English, and no this time I'm not referring to Simon, is a little challenging. The only thing that keeps me going is his work is good and he's cheap. You get what you pay for I guess.

My plan today was to do a long run. The one thing I don't want to have happen is suffer during the race. I hate suffering, it's the reason I train so much. I'd rather train hard than suffer. I suffered once in 1991 and finished an Ironman in 14 hours plus and it was horrific. It scared me from ever wanting to suffer again.

Rather than run around the hotel, which is industrial retail boring, I decided to try the race route. Turns out the run course area is in a beautiful neighbourhood. The people were also very friendly. As I ran everyone seemed to say high. The course is three loops and I did two in a couple of hours. The course has 2000 ft of climbing and from perception the circle is more uphill than downhill. It's not steep hills, they are long a gradual.

It was around 80 F out and running at 2200 ft about sea level I'm not as fast as I am at home. I'm so glad I came early, I'll at least be a little better acclimatized than had I shown up on Tuesday. I was also counting my lucky stars that I was running in heat with a sleeveless shirt. The area where T2 is is the Henderson Cultural Centre. It has a theatre, library and pool. My plan was to swim sometime today and the pool didn't open until 1pm. The timing of finishing my run with the opening of the pool worked out perfectly.

Before my swim, at the 17th km point of the run I tripped on a crack on the sidewalk and fell. I managed to hit and scrape my knee and roll into the lava rock sized gravel on the sides of the walk way. No grass here. I got up and was a little shell shocked and pissed off. I did have my wits to turn off my gps timer within 2 seconds of hitting the ground, I didn't want to wreck my average speed. Getting up I was worried, thinking that it could be serious and maybe I should cut the run short.

As I type this I just had Deja Vu about that point on the run. I didn't realize the Deja Vu at the time, I just did now. It was like watching a dream replay in my mind. I had that run and fall in one of my dreams at least a year ago. Weird.

I took a minute to walk then started running and back on went the GPS. I decided to keep going and go the entire distance. I wanted to put in 2 hours. Mark Allen only had me doing 40 minutes today, I needed 2 hours for confidence and the two days this week that I didn't train while at meetings in Vegas. After tomorrow I'm going to take it really easy for the rest of the week, not just for physical but for mental as well. I don't want to dread race day.

After the run I pump fisted my success. I did the same thing yesterday after my ride. There is nothing better than the personal pump fist after doing something hard and succeeding at it. I've always done the pump fist. When I went to the hypnotist this year she suggested a pump fist at success. I told her I already do the pump fist. Never was trained on it just came up with it myself. It feels good to do it, I try to do it often.

Right after the run my knee was hurting a little. The pool was opening in 5 minutes and I pushed myself to wait outside and stretch while we waited for the doors to open. I was in no thinking mode, just do it. I really needed a swim I hadn't swam since last week and I was swimming well then. I need to keep swimming or you lose it and you lose it fast.

I told myself just to get into the water and do laps and see what happens. This was the first time I've ever done a run and within 15 minutes was in the pool. I liked it. I was slow in the beginning with my knee feeling sore as I kicked. The pool was the warmest pool I've ever swam in, it must have been 80 F plus. I was a little disappointed as I was hoping some cool water would help my knee. Oh well. I'm sure I was definitely sweating. I managed to keep going and finishing the set of 3200 meters. I was so glad I did it. The warm up was awful, my shoulders hurt. As I swam I got stronger. This swim was much needed to keep things from further deteriorating. With a 4 km swim during the race I want to at least not have it beat my arms up. Mind you I can swim forever, not fast, but forever.

When I got out of the pool I gave myself another fist pump. I was thinking of riding only because I thought it was the last day of the month and I wanted to get more mileage in. This month I'm going to have trouble getting it to 900 km's. Last month I think I was 1100 km's. This month with all the confusion and salt issues I've trained less. Mind you I have gotten in my long rides and runs.

On the drive back to the hotel I was thinking of what I should eat. I was craving a hotdog. The local stand was closed. I found a sandwich shop and got a real big nice turkey sandwich and potato salad. Just what the doctor ordered. I was thinking I need to go for a massage this week. The right side of my back and hip is sore. If I take it easy I'm hoping it will clear up by race day. It's been a nagging injury since finishing Steelhead limping. It must have really thrown my entire body out of alignment.

I drove by Walmart and saw a massage place in the mall. This time I was weary. It showed open 7 days a week and although it had a picture of a guy and girl getting a Spa like massage, I know better from my China trip. They too had a normal looking picture. Rather than go in, I called the phone number on the door from my cell. An Asian women answered and when she heard it was a man she started talking with an Asian "I love you big time" voice. Within 4 seconds of calling I hung up. Never again. Asian masseuses never again. I will look tomorrow for a legit place. I'm thinking tomorrow or Tuesday would be the best day. I don't like having massages to close to the race day. I need a few days for my legs to flush and heal from a good massage.

I haven't yet started my work for the Yearbooks. I need to map everything out. I'm hoping to start it tonight. I have to have it finished for Tuesday. I know once I start I'll get into it. I'm just procrastinating. I'm not in the mind set, I'm in the mindset to do training first, surfing the net for cool stuff. I found a business card site that with a coupon I got will print 500 business cards, two sided with rounded corners for only $9.90 and that includes the shipping to my Buffalo Post office box. I know printing, it's amazing how these guys do it. If I was to do it all again I would have built an online printing company. It's cheaper to print through there sites that do it myself on my own equipment.

My turkey sandwich I took to go and when I got home I called Alice. I was so tired after 10 minutes I had to let her go I said I was going to sleep. I was tired and not very interesting to talk to. I got caught on the web, then blogged. I think I'll now sleep, it's 6 pm and then when I wake up start working on the yearbook stuff. After tomorrow's training it will be my number one priority, I want to get it done and over with so I can relax. Next week is also going to be busy with my Caricature Toons website launching. I'm sure we will have many issues along the way. We are moving all the Triathlon Toons to Caricature Toons.

Life is good. I'm tired, but feeling good, positive and optimistic work wise. I need to now start mentally preparing to relax my mind. I don't want to make the same mistake I made in Hawaii and do a 3 hour ride to close to race day. That beat me up. I was using the ride to acclimatize. It hurt my time although I didn't suffer during the race. I had a great race from a non suffering perspective.

Long Run - 1:57:56 / 21.5 km / 5:29 km
Mod Swim - 1:13: 37 / 3200 meters
2777 calories

Back to Training...

I fell asleep last night at around 10 pm. I was tired. I much prefer this bed over the one I had a Aria. Aria was beyond first class. My problem was the covers were heavy from the quality and there was too many pillows. The Best Western is nice, very, just more like a normal bed. I had my best sleep last night since coming to Vegas.

First thing I did this morning was put my bike together. I was up at 8 am. If went together beautifully and quickly. I've got it down. I remember my first race that I had to pack my bike, it was hard. It had been so long since I packed a bike I forgot how to do it. Now I'm an expert, I can almost do it with my eyes closed.

I went outside at around 8:30 am to see how warm it was. It was around 60 F, slight chill. I decided to take a car ride and grab a coffee from McDonald's. It was helpful to drive around, I'm really starting to get my bearings.

Before I headed out on my bike I did a little work with the design for RCM. I got a proof and it's getting awesome. I listed about 9 more changes and then headed out on my bike around 10:30 am. My plan was to ride most of the course, primarily the hard part which goes around lake Mead. It was so nice to be riding in the warm weather and I was thinking back to how cold it would have been and how miserable I would have been had I went back this weekend and rode.

This reminds me of my mini training camp I had in Palm Springs before China last year. The roads were nice, the temperatures were the same, it's the dessert and there is good shoulders and bike lanes. The first part of the ride was fast. I anticipated that. After the first 50 km I was averaging about 31.5 kph. It was really tough to keep my heart rate down. I think it was the heat and my body not being used to it. There is hills, but they are not as bad as the brochure says. It says 7000 feet of climbing, most of the gradients are long and uphill. I think the worst is about 8%. I can tell they are not too bad as the fastest speed I got up to was 67 kph. The last 50 km were tougher than the first 50 km. There is tougher hills to climb. Then on the way back into town it's a false flat. It looks like your going downhill and your climbing. I ended up finishing with a 29.7 kph average and a 145 avg heart rate.

After the ride I did a brick run. Again I wasn't able to to keep the heart rate down and was surprised that I ran as fast as I did. I definitely felt good getting back to some decent training after a couple days off during our meetings. I was feeling a little hungry on the bike and had a couple of banana's and a power bar. I was fading near the end. I also brought a water bottle full of gatorade. It's not an easy course, but it's not St. George hard. If I averaged 32 kph I'd be happy on this course. I can't believe the last 20 km of the course it's through the city, I'm not sure how they are going to pull that off there is a lot of streets and store parking lots along the way, it's crowded.

I was going to go for a swim and it was too late, the YMCA was closed. I did find another pool nearby that hopefully is open tomorrow I want to get a swim and a run in. After this weekend of long stuff it's going to be more easy relaxed stuff.

When I woke up this morning I threw away my whoppers and wasn't wanting to eat any junk. I didn't have breakfast and only about 500 calories on the bike. I stretched, showered and then called Alice. All I wanted to do was relax and sleep. It was now getting around 5 pm and I decided to grab a dinner, after a tweet from @ree_tir_ee  he gave me the idea to go to a buffet. So I drove around and eventually found one. It was good. Didn't eat too too much although I did have Cherry Pie and Ice Cream for dessert.

Rather than drive back to the hotel I drove around for about 90 minutes. I think I've now got the roads down pat. I know basically were I am relative to the strip. I even drove down there tonight and then back. If you have no money I saw so many seedy Motels that will let you move in for $129. There is a lot of scary looking people on Freemont from the strip up to my hotel. My hotels not in too bad of an area but 3 miles away it starts to get a little dicey.

By the time I got back to the hotel I was tired. It was update the blog and watch TV and fall asleep. All day I've been thinking about RCM, Yearbooks and Triathlon Toons. Riding and training is very multitasking. Same with driving. I've never been more excited and looking forward to my future. The one thing I know for certain is there is no security in working for someone. Whether it's Wayne or Picaboo. Anything can happen. At least with your own business you know what's happening good or bad and you'll be the last guy to go. I'm really feeling good about my marketing and business approach with RCM. I'm also feeling that if Wayne ever finds out I won't give a shit. He changed the rules on me, now I'm adjusting. Although with what he's paying me and what I got from Picaboo, with the expense check I'm guaranteed $194,000 this year, not counting what I can do with RCM and Caricature Toons.

Long Bike - 3:24:25 / 101.31 km / 29.7 kph / 145 avg hr
Brick Run - 31:23 / 6.03 km / 5:12 avg km pace
3873 Calories

Semi Rest.... Not...

I woke up this morning feeling terrible, it was the bag of M & M's I ate last night in my stomach. It actually felt like a hangover. It's the first time I felt that way after candy. I was actually thinking that was a good thing and maybe I'd be turned off of M & M's now.

We met again at 8:30 pm to review yesterday. I was there a couple of hours and now the real work begins. It's up to me to do the feature / architecture outline then give it to Bill who is going to refine it. I started keeping track of my hours. I have a feeling this will grow to more than two days a week pretty fast. If it does I want to have the data to go back to Howard and discuss.

Bill and I are very opposite. He's very serious and basically a tea toddler  who doesn't swear and is super responsible, Ivy league and all American. I'm well....me. Serious as a heart attack when I need to be and wild and crazy when I can. It will be very interesting to see how our relationship evolves. I'm sure he and Kevin can't figure me out and it will be interesting to see where my role evolves. My thoughts are I might have been too open, but who cares, at least they know what they got into. All the more reason to get my own business going over the longer term, I don't like being vulnerable.

Speaking of my own business I'm really focused on Triathlon Toons which will be converted to Caricature Toons soon. It's now down to an Alexa Ranking of 600,000 from 800,000 a week ago. I'm loving working with the Indians, I can give orders and they follow. Same with the Malaysian artist on my Results Cloud Marketing.

With respect to RCM I'm making progress. I spoke to Al and he helped me keep on focus. I was wondering if I should have an office address or phone number. He thought that I shouldn't spend the money and my shtick is that I'm a small business that evolved from being so good at Internet Marketing and friends asking for help.

Later in the night it hit me on how to present my site. I'm going to focus on just small to medium sized business that want to grow their web presence and are prepared to make a commitment to it. Like Al says, there is a lot of people that own businesses that don't know anything about Internet marketing. I sent Al one of the reports I created from the software I paid $599 for and he said that what it showed him was how little he knew and how overwhelming it looks. That was the exact same reaction I got from the Physiotherapist and Steve who owns a cleaning company. It's now so apparent that they are my client base.

I was looking at the other competition in the area and most of them are talking all types of big language and look like they are going for all sized companies and talking talk that small to medium sized customers will get confused by. I was going to have a section on the front cover to download a free booklet on the basics as a means to capture their emails. Then I thought about it and realized that a lot of sites do that, it seems a little cheesy and this morning told the designer to remove the concept. Then later tonight I was surfing the web and came across a website that was genius. They had a pricing section and to get the prices you had to enter your name, company, phone and email address then it would download immediately. It was the first time I saw that and I thought it was genius. If they download they are definitely serious and its' a fair trade off to get their name and number. I then thought I'd add a section called 101 that would have a brief description of all the Internet jargon. I'll make it easy to understand and overwhelm them with doubt that they can do it. I'll then also set it up so that when I'm in a sales pitch I can go through the section and demo what I'm talking about.

In the about us section I'm going to talk about me. That the company evolved out building my own successful Internet businesses and having friends and business acquaintances asking for my help and the convinced me I should offer my services. I'm going to make it very personal, no big company hype and rhetoric. I'm also going to mention that I specialize in offering personal service in just Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Guelph, Milton and Toronto. I want to make it personal, most companies are going after SEO work all around the world. The more I get into this the more I like it and I like it, I'm passionate about it and I'm good at it. I also know that if I get in front of people I'll close the deal. Sales is my talent. And the best part is that if with a few as 10 clients I can do very well financially.

I left the hotel at noon and got to my new hotel at 1 pm, after a stop at In & Out Burger, and the room wasn't ready. I was cool with that I wanted to drive to the race hotel and start and check it out and see how far it was from my hotel. It wasn't too far and the Loews is a beautiful hotel. After going there I decided to book Friday to Sunday there. It will add to the flavour and easier to get to the race start and all the events. I figure I only do the World Championships once, potentially, I may as well make it memorable. What's also great is Paul is coming Wednesday and bringing his bike, we'll be able to get some rides in together.

After driving to the hotel and around it I drove to the 2nd transition which was a roundabout 18 miles to get to, then it was back to the hotel to check in, print off the bike course map and drive the course. I wanted to see it today and then do the ride tomorrow and have an idea of where I'm going. I'm glad I did, I now have a really good understanding of where I am and what the course is like. They say it's 7000 felt of climbing and except for a 10 mile block of uphills it didn't seem to bad. It definitely wasn't in the same gradient range as the finger lakes, not even close. Although I may feel differently after tomorrows ride. As I was riding home it was getting dusk and I was tired from all the driving. I was thinking of going for a run and was just to exhausted. Partly physically and mostly mentally. I'm also very concerned about pushing myself and injuring myself this close to the race.

I stopped at Walmart and picked up some water, fruit, veges, popcorn and whoppers. Then I got to my room and wanted to collapse and sleep. I called Alice very tired, then couldn't sleep. I ordered a vege pizza. Then I was ready to sleep and when to close the curtains and I pulled the wrong part, the decoration part, they weren't meant to close. Turns out I ripped it out of the drywall. Didn't know my own strength. Opps.

Then I surfed the net and found some good ideas how to present my site. I love how all this is starting to come together. I haven't been this motivated about working in a long time. I'm putting the same energy towards it that I did/do for my training. I'm really looking forward to what I can do in these next 5 years.

Turns out that I need to take another couple days off of work in November. I'm going to New York for two days training on the Agile Programming methodology. The course is $1500 and Picaboo is paying. It's a great opportunity and will serve me well over the long term. Just another tool in my tool belt for my Cloud Marketing business.

All day I drove around, driving the course and listening to great 70's and 80's music. It seemed like the best songs were playing and life felt so great. I felt absolutely no guilt about AG and no anxiety about my future, just excitement.

No Training - Taper

Brain dead...

I was up at 5:00 am Las Vegas time. Didn't have a great sleep and was up a few times going pee pee last night. I had a headache at the end of last night and my run was weird, I wasn't sweating much. All signs of low sodium, again.

This morning I woke up not feeling any better than last night. I did some RCM and triathlon toons work which took me right up to 8:30 am, the start time of our Picaboo yearbook meeting. It was in one of the sky suites that Howard and Kevin Rented. It's essentially a two room apartment with a kicked table area and living room. Very nice. We were on the 54th floor.

The meeting started with introductions, it was me, Kevin & Howard (Owners), Bill (GM of yearbooks), and 5 programmers and one graphic user interface designer. All very very capable. After brief introductions, Bill and I went through some of the information I had and the video I made about the Online Yearbook Software I developed at Canada Yearbook. The video was the key, it showed the basic concept, enough of the concept to get the other guys to see what's different about yearbooks over photo books. Had I not been there they would have had NO idea what to do. After the meeting they realized I showed them the light, they had no idea. I'm sure behind closed doors they are saying how valuable it was having me part of the time.

The guys were bright and caught on quickly and even added some good ideas building on what we did at Canada Yearbook. I also had all my notes and specification documents that I had created at Canada Yearbook. There was hundreds of hours of documentation that I had to show them. I made sure I signed the contract with Howard before the meetings started. The more I deal with Bill the more impressed I am. He's definitely an all-American type of guy, originally a lawyer then became an operations guy. Doesn't swear, doesn't drink. I know I'm driving him crazy with me F bombs. He said his grandmother once told him a person who uses the f word has a poor vocabulary and he's going to change me. I wished him well.

I'm not sure if it was from me talking or my sodium is low but I was starting to get dizzy during the meetings. It lasted and got worse than better. Surprisingly we were able to finish our core meeting by 4 pm. Everyone was brain dead and had I not had the video as a starting point there is no way we would have got anywhere near as far as we did. I looked at some of the competitor software and found it to be worse than I thought it was. I'm more convinced than ever that if we are able to create some kick ass software that we are going to make a big splash.

Bill and I spent some time together and I filled him in on my personal situation with Wayne and the issues I had recently and that I have triathlon toons and do some Internet marketing on the side. He asked a question about my future and I said I'm interested in talking about a full time position. I did mention that I stayed at AG because I figured I'd be making $500,000 within a couple years. I find it's important to set the expectations early. The number didn't seem to bother him, scare him and he took it more that that amount of money seemed reasonable for someone with my skills. At least that's how I interrupted it.

The programmers had another meeting topic they had and Bill and I talked more about the marketing and the best approaches. I'm very excited about what's happening. Kevin, who I think is a cross between Tom Cruise and Steve Carrell is pushing to have the software done by March. Denis, one of the outspoken engineers (a bit of a character) and Kevin where battling it out and it looks like we are going to have Yearbook Version 1.0 ready for May 1 and the version 2.0 with all the real functions ready by school starting in September.

I ended up leaving the room at around 5 pm and going back to my room, Bill left too and went to his room. The guys were having a poker game and then dinner was at 7:45. I decided to go back to the room and rest. First thing I did was try and get rid of my headache with some chocolate covered almonds and potato chips. No help. Eventually I took an Advil and salt tablets before dinner and it seemed to help. I was normal for dinner.

I was speaking to Alice before dinner, letting her know about my day and how I'm feeling. She thought it might be self induced anxiety not knowing the guys and putting all sorts of pressure on myself to perform. She might be right. I'm definitely into work mode and know I'm going to have to contribute. I'm not going to be able to ride the baloney pony on this one.

Dinner was good, it must have been expensive, there was 100 of us, I'm sure it worked out to at least $100 per person just for the food. It was a really fun time. I didn't hold anything back and yes the photo's of Borat came out and me on the bike with a cigar in my mouth. To me it's better to set the tone early and let them know that I'm a bit of a crazy guy. I don't want to pretend I'm something I'm not. I'm a work hard play hard type of guy. I know when to be serious and I know when I can go nuts. Heck, I'm the guy who can train for 6 or 7 hours on the bike after getting drunk and going to bed at 4 am and only getting 6 hours  sleep before training. I deliver.

I was comforted to see I was among some similar non stuffy guys. The last time they had an event one of the programmers got supper drunk. Every one of them had pictures of it on their iPhone, even video and they were passing it around the table looking at it. It really is a good group, they seem very smart and real. It's the first time I've worked with a Silicon Valley company and group. Very loose, very fun.

For desert I ordered fruit again, it cost $18 for desert. When it arrived it was laughable. I actually started to laugh and when Howard saw it he too couldn't believe it. It was nothing. I had to take a picture of it. The strangest thing of the night was one of the programmers ordered Goat. Even the waiter was disgusted. It was the first time the restaurant even offered goat. The programmer Aaron said it was very flavourful. Yikes, I couldn't see myself ordering that stuff. No way.

After dinner the guys went into the casino to play blackjack and poker, I decided to head back to the room. Bill decided to do the same. I'm not a gambler and I'd rather rest up. I made one mistake, I ate some M & M's before bed and in the middle of the night I felt sick, as if I had been drinking. I even went to the washroom and it was a similar feeling to being drunk and light headed. It was the sugar. I felt so bad I doubt I'm going to eat M & M's in a long time, I was turned off by it.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow and the meetings ending. I want to relax and get into my no pressure groove and do some training. I'm hoping the health related feelings are mental not physical. I've also been working very hard. When I'm not doing Picaboo stuff I'm working on Triathlon Toons and Results Cloud marketing which is emails back and forth and phone calls back and forth with the programmers, India and the designers. I've been a man on working fire in the last couple of weeks.

No Training - Rest / Meetings

Amazing Feeling...

No alarm I was up at 6:26 am, the alarm was set for 6:40 am. Everything was uneventful, I had everything packed from last night, the only weird feeling was excitement and anxiety that I'd forget to bring something. The paranoia anxiety stayed with me for most of the day.

I made it through the border no problem, checked in at the airport no problem and caught my flight no problem. Southwest even has wifi in the air and I was able to surf. Other than my battery sucks and is dead after about an hour with no power source.

We flew to Chicago and then on to Vegas. On the flight I worked on my Results Cloud Marketing Website. I found a designer, I negotiated him down to $320 to build my website, he's based in Malaysia. He wanted $400, I asked for $250, he came back at $320 and then I said he's got a deal if he also designs my business card and stationary. He went for it and I've already approved the layout. He's started the icon development and sent me some stuff to look at at http://resultscloudmarketing.com/ I liked it. Any comments / suggestions welcome.

When I got to Chicago I had a call with my programmer for my Triathlon Toons website. It looks like it will be done and ready to move over to it's own server under the www.caricaturetoons.com brand. Hopefully with a general marketing effort it will do well. I'm very proud of what I've developed technology wise. It is very robust, now I just need to make money.

I got to Vegas at 3 pm and had only eaten some popcorn and peanuts today. I had a hiccup at the hotel, the room key making software was down. No keys. I had to wait in the lobby and eventually a manager took me up to my room and used his master key. I only had 50 minutes to go for a run before meeting up with Howard. Or so I thought. Turns out he was running late and we didn't meet until 7:30 pm. I could have ran longer.

Maybe it's just as well, I feel bloated again and had some headaches. Hopefully it's not the sodium thing. I ran and it was okay except that my calfs felt a little stiff and my back is out of alignment. It was a little sore at the hip after the run. I'm glad I'm her for 9 days to relax and get my body in order. Hopefully eat well too and lose a few pounds.

My diet today was primarily nuts. Nuts on the plane, a bag of popcorn and pistachio's and almonds in the room from the mini bar. I was hungry after my run. Dinner was at the Palm with Howard, Kevin and Bill.

As I flew up her and then as I ran I felt great. I felt light and free. For the first time in a long, long time I didn't feel anxiety, I felt like my own person. No one was working my strings. That doesn't happen very often. It was a wonderful feeling and I want it to continue. I'm feeling very optimistic about my present and my future. For the first time in my life I truly feel I"m in the drivers seat regarding my career. I don't own a money losing business that I couldn't get out of, I am now free to do what I want. Coming to some resolution with Wayne yesterday helped.

After my run I waited for Howard and played with some competitors yearbook software in my room. He called and I headed downstairs. I'd never met his partner Kevin before or Bill. The way he built Bill up and the experience he has and near semi-retirement status I thought he'd be older. I met him and he looked like a triathlete type guy, not my father's style business guy. Kevin was similar in age, very intense sort of guy, can tell he's an administrative type. I fit in with the group and the group fit in with me. All high performers, Howard is a Babson College grad, Kevin and Bill are Dartmouth and I graduated after a final year of summer school St. Paul's High School a couple years after I should have graduated. Like I said we all fit perfectly, other than they were better at school that me.

I was a little nervous all day before I met Kevin and Bill. I didn't know what to expect and whether or not I'd fit well in the group and whether I could trust them or where they just using me for my knowledge? I ended up feeling very comfortable with them and them for me. Kevin who was a little awkwardly stand offish in the beginning was visibly impressed with me at the end. He realized I had some real value and valuable input. For over half the dinner they wanted to hear my thoughts about the yearbook business and it didn't take them long to realize that they need me, they know nothing. I didn't realize how much I learnt about yearbooks from running a yearbook company. You don't realize how much you know until you realize how little they know. They want to get the software up by March and described the new programming methodology that their programmers use called Agile programming and scrums and the sprint process. Seemed very interesting. Kind of a six sigma for programming.

I felt completely at ease and within my realm of capability and capacity at this meeting. In the past over the years there has been meetings where you may feel out of your element with the subject matter or the type of people your dealing with, especially if they are loaded rich and your poor. I didn't feel this way, even though they are loaded rich. I wasn't intimidated. I felt as rich as they did and I'm really looking forward to working hard on this, I'm not afraid and know I can do this. It's right up my alley.

Dinner ended around 10 pm, I was tired, so were they. They are not a wild and crazy bunch of guys, I like that. I wanted to get back to the room and veg and go to sleep. I have a headache and feel like a fatty. Feeling a little burnt out. I was looking at the team Canada training program for shits and giggles and I can't believe how little of training the coach outlines for the next week. It's minimal, like 8 km runs and 30 km bikes. Tomorrow I'm not going to train and we wrap up at noon on Friday. I'll probably run on Friday, swim and bike on Saturday. I'd really like to do the entire course.

Were staying at the Aria. Nice hotel, big time. I also noticed that the UFC is in Vegas this weekend, I might get a ticket and go. The last time I went it was a great time. Mind you I had lots of beers and right now I'm on the wagon. Even tonight, they drank wine and beer, I had diet coke at dinner.

Mod Run - 48:56 / 9.08 km / 5:23
3108 Calories