Joggling cash arrives

Author Denise Marek's $20 cash funding for my joggling career has arrived, along with her book, 'Calm,' which she generously included in the package for Dianne (it's written for women).

'Calm' looks like an interesting book. It's about teaching yourself to stop worrying about things and get on with your life.

It's true that people worry too much about what others think about them. I used to go joggling at 4 a.m. in a park so no one would see me. Eventually, I discovered that people were entertained by joggling and there was nothing to be afraid of. I thought young kids would throw rocks at me, but instead they cheered. It was a surreal contrast from my 4 a.m. "closet" joggling when I found myself joggling the Boston Marathon last year in front of one million spectators (and 17,000 runners).

So the question remains: What do I buy with my new found joggling fortunes?

Almost, sort of famous

Apparently a lot of people watch CBC News: Sunday because I've had several people on the street ask me if I'm the juggler guy who was on TV on the weekend.

Joggling for dollars

Big news: The first paycheque of my two-year joggling career is in the mail. I'm not joking. It's a jolly good joggling day. Here's the story:

Denise Marek, an author, TV host and professional speaker, saw the joggling story on CBC News: Sunday and was inspired to donate $20 to me after learning that my total income from the sport was "zero dollars." The income donation was part of a birthday gift from three of Denise's friends, who gave her some cash for her birthday to be used as a "pay-it-forward" gift. I'm honoured to have been chosen as a recipient.

Now that I make more than $0, let's do a rough calculation of how much I make per hour for joggling.

My average hours per week spent joggling, juggling, jogging and bloggling is about 15.

• I've been doing this for almost exactly two years now.
• That makes 104 weeks x 15 hours/week = 1,560 total hours.
• $20 divided by 1,560 hours equals...
• $0.0128 per hour – that's more than a penny!!!

So now the question is: What should The Joggler do with his new $20 salary? Sport Juggling Co. already gave me free beanbags. Does anyone have any suggestions for joggling-related purchases?

My 16 minutes and 7 seconds of fame

Here's a link to the CBC-TV video. Please enjoy it at my expense.

I laughed, I cried, I ate breakfast

I woke up this morning and took the kids down to watch daddy on TV. The CBC News: Sunday story was airing at 9 a.m. on Newsworld and 10 a.m. on CBC-TV. Assuming it would be near the end of the show, we started watching Newsworld at 9:30 and it was nowhere to be found.

At 10, I flipped over to regular CBC and there it was – the lead story! The whole family sat on the couch laughing (and me sometimes crying in embarrassment) while we ate breakfast. They did an unbelievable job editing the feature. Having made some short films, I know exactly how much labour is involved.

I was excited to be the lead story, but one viewer wrote to complain about this editorial decision in the comments section on the CBC News: Sunday website. Let's see if anyone responds to defend it. It's true, the world faces many grave problems, but let's for once put some fun first. I've spent my whole literate life reading the Globe and Mail from back to front – fun stuff first.

The story will air again tonight on Newsworld at 9 and CBC-TV at 10. Also, Marg from RunningMania.com (by far the best Canadian web community for running) has offered to record and post the story on YouTube. Marg just ran her first marathon today in 4:33 in Ottawa (congrats!), so her priority right now is to celebrate her achievement and get some rest.

NEWS ALERT: Joggling duel on TV this Sunday

For those of you in Canada, CBC News: Sunday will be airing their hard-hitting, investigative report on my joggling duel with Zach this Sunday at 10 a.m. on CBC TV and 9 a.m. on CBC Newsworld.

The producer tells me the piece turned out really well, and from my journalism background I know that this probably means it'll be embarrassing for me. But I'm the one who decided to run while juggling, so I suppose I can't complain. This story will be the most comprehensive TV coverage ever on the sport of joggling and may even spur a Canadian joggling boom. We're goin' mainstream, baby! (Or not.)

Joggling with 7 clubs?

We have Kooza tickets. The whole family will be going to the new Cirque du Soleil show on September 1 in Toronto. I haven't seen the Cirque since my parents took me to the original show when I was about 12. Funny, this was around the same time I read about joggling in the Guinness Book.

As I mentioned before, juggler extraordinaire Anthony Gatto performs in Kooza and there's a bit of a spoiler on YouTube of his act, which he did at a press conference.

I know that Gatto has done some joggling at the IJA festivals in the past, and Barry Goldmeier joked about it being harder for him to joggle with three beanbags than with seven. This got me thinking ... Could Anthony joggle with seven clubs? Or with nine rings? Now that I would pay to see.