Howdy, I'm Nico
Pronounced "Knee Co." > I am a husband, father, producer, singer-guy, drummer, supporter of indie artists, soccer lover, and least importantly a novice land kiteboarder. All of which I love and am working on becoming awesomer at. Oh, & I love designing stuff too. Email me
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- May 12, 12
Every year, if you’re like me, you’ll be scrambling for something really awesome and meaningful to do for your mom. I suck at coming up with stuff but I did some brainstorming and have come up with 10 helpful / useless ideas for you to use / discard.
1. Get some overpriced flowers.
They are as expensive as hell on Mother’s Day but your mother went through hell to have you so just shut up and buy a big stack of them. While you’re at it, get a useless teddy bear to go with it.
2. Write an emotionally confusing card.
I normally go pretty serious but the ol’ “Velvet Hammer” is the best move:
STEP 1: Get a really funny / inappropriately rude card.
STEP 2: Write something that’ll tug at the heart strings inside. Don’t put cash in there though, that’s a bit tacky. Tic tacs are always nice though.
*If you don’t have time to go to the store, sending an e-card is just as meaningful. I recommend this site.3. Make a super sweet video.
Best place to do this is by slapping together a few pics from the past, throw in some tear-jerking tune like “Home” or anything by Michael Buble and post it to Youtube. If you don’t own or know what a Mac computer is, allow myself to introduce you to Animoto (
your new video-making best friend). If you don’t have time for this, just email her a link to “Home” by Michael Buble and add a quick note saying “I really love you mom and thinking about when we lived together in the same home. This song reminds me of you before the divorce”.
4. Make up a coupon.
I’m not talking a gift-certificate because that’s what you get someone when you’re invited to their birthday party and you don’t know them that well but you know they throw really great parties with free drinks. Make up a coupon that says something like “Free breakfast to IHOP on any cheap Wednesday 1/2 price breakfast day”. See, it’s waaaaay more personal than a GC.
5. Go mini-golfing.
This is all about letting your mom relive her childhood. Even if mini-golfing wasn’t invented when she was a child, this game is magic. It’ll let you talk a bit, prove to her that you’ve got your anger issues under control, and for the love of God, let her win.
6. Print out a picture puzzle.
This one will be way out of the question for most dudes (including myself) because it takes about 4 days of planning. But for those OCD, plan-heavy, futuristic photo-organizing types who would love to see a framed puzzle of you hugging your mom when you were a puberty squeak hanging on your mom’s wall every time you’re at her house, go ahead and get something printed at the Printerstudio, Staples, or some other place that does this. I’ve never done it and never will and you probably won’t either but it seemed like a smart suggestion.
7. Don’t swear at or around her.
Take a day off from dropping F bombs around or at her. Just a day. It’ll go a long way (at least for a day) and prove to your mom that she raised a really respectable person.
8. Fbook your love for your mom.
Nothing says that you love your mom more than a status update that says “My mom kicks ass”… just make sure you tag her in the post so you know she saw that all your friends saw it. If she’s not on Facebook, you can give her the gift of Facebook this Mother’s Day.
9. Buy her something useless for the kitchen.
Every mom could use one more set of cheap egg holders, a spatula, or a hot plate that says “Mom, you’re hot” on it. On second thought, ignore this suggestion. On third thought, let’s just keep it in here because it’s the THOUGHT that counts. If she argues with you, tell her that you’ve just been reading The Five Love Languages and “gifts” are just not your language. Be careful not to get angry though for fear of ruining #7.
10. Remind her that she can move in with you.
It’s got to be incredibly comforting to know that your son / daughter wants you to move in with them when you get too old to hold in your pee. Even if there’s no way in hell you’d have your mom live in the same house with you, just tell her you can’t wait to share your room with her. She deserves it (see #1).
In conclusion, my only suggestion is “Don’t do nothing”. And for the record, my mom does kick ass.
- May 02, 12
I’ve never been so torn with such polar feelings of anger and pity… you can decide what got the best of me but it all started when a bum stole 4 bags of cans from my elderly neighbour.
So, yesterday, I was in the kitchen and I hear this “smash” on the road. An unkempt (AKA bum) was struggling to fling 4 huge garbage bags full of recycling bottles & cans over his shoulder while riding his bike. He was struggling hardcore and fell off his bike while a pile of cans and a couple of bottles fell out of his bag(s) and smashed in the middle of the street. It was beyond struggling though, this joker was in a hurry.
I was thiking, “WTF?”, ran outside and said “you OK?”. He ignored me, scurried off down the road on his bike, and then I saw my elderly neighbour run out into the middle of the road yelling something at him.This stuff reeked of sketch so I ran over to the elderly neighbour to find out what happened. Sure enough, someone came through his gate, into his backyard, and ripped off 4 bags of recycling cans & bottles probably worth about 25 bucks.
In my bare feet, I booted back to my shed, whipped out my 1 speed cruiser bike for the first time this year and started chasing after this joker. It didn’t end up serving me so well though because as I booked it down the Mission Creek Greenway the chain fell off 3 times so I didn’t think I’d ever be able to catch him… but I did…
…and when I was within about 60 feet of him, I called the cops and said “listen, I’ve got the thief within about 60 feet of me… I’m about to confront him and I’m wondering what you are going to do”.
“Well”, they just said, “I wouldn’t advice approaching him, but I can’t tell you what to do… we’ll call you when we’ve got time”… so I decided to approach this bottle thief.
I biked up to him and said, “Hey, where did you get all these bottles from?”.
“I found them”, he replied.
I said, “Huh, that’s funny, because there’s an elderly man up the road who said someone on a bike just stole 4 bags of bottles from his backyard”.
He said, “Well, I ain’t got 4 bags of bottles”.
So I counted them (out loud) to him: “Hmmmmm, one, two, three, four – four bags of bottles” and I proceeded to grab one of the bags.
He then grabbed it from my hands and said get the f*** out of here and don’t touch my f***in’ property to which I responded, “I’m not touching YOUR property…these bottles belong to an old man up the road from my house from which you stole them”.
“F*** off” and a pile of other nice phrases were uttered from him as he biked off into the more secluded greenway trails. I followed him, continuing to plague him with guilt-heavy phrases like “So, how do you feel about stealing from an old man” as he struggled to keep all of the bags balanced on his back. About a minute later he got off his bike, dropped the bags and turned towards me at which time I thought, “Oh right, this is about the time where he beats the s**t out of me for giving him a hard time & I end up dead in a van down by the river”.
Turns out he just had a flat tire. So he ditched his bike in the woods and then instructed me “Don’t steal my bike” to which I replied, “I’m not here to steal YOUR property, just to take what back what you stole”.
He was clearly not happy that I was around and ended up booting across Springfield Rd. on foot dropping words (that nobody under 13ish should be hearing) at me right after I shot a couple of quick pictures of him struggling to carry these bags away to the recycling depot.
I ended up calling the cops back to update them on the situation but one of the coolest things about this whole situation happened at the end.
As I got home, my kids were anxiously waiting for me at the curb asking “Papa, did you catch him?”. I took my kids to my newly acquainted, elderly neighbour who got ripped off and filled him in on the shenanigans that happened. While talking to this poor old Quebec-native I felt a nudge from God to give him whatever was in my wallet. I heard him talking about the fact that he had collected those bottles for a month in order to earn a little extra spending and gas money so I ended up just giving him 10 bucks (all the bills I had on me) and it ended up being an incredibly miraculous experience for him. He refused to accept the money at first but we all agreed that he should take the money and spend it on a nice coffee or something. So with smiles, he accepted the two five dollar bills and agreed to have his picture taken.
In retrospect, if I wasn’t afraid of the 50-year-old bottle-stealing soul, I could have brought this confrontation to fisticuffs but it was one of the only times in my life that I’ve ever been on the bad side of a street guy. I’ve always been buddies with these types of characters so it was really weird to be torn between this feeling of wanting justice for my elderly neighbour and pity on a street-guy who was perfectly OK with lying to me & stealing from an old guy.
It’s always good to get your heart beating quickly for a while even though I’m still trying to figure out what the moral of the story is…
On my way home, I called one of my best buds Jeremy who suggested I take his bike and grind it into 2 pieces with a metal saw. I also considered throwing it into the creek but I had given him my word that I wouldn’t touch his property.
In the spirit of cliches, what would you have done?
- Apr 20, 12
I don’t even have an “Upcoming Gigs” section on this site because the ol’ git box doesn’t get dusted off very often… but this is a gig worthy of posting about. Now, I’m constantly getting asked to play benefit shows & there are all kinds of good causes worthy of showing up to play a few tunes for, but this Daffodil Day Cancer Bash is something just a little different.
After the “What Matters” song & story was produced, I shot it over to the Canadian Cancer Society to see if they wanted to pass it on as an encouragement to other cancer survivors. After a bunch of meetings, nothing really happened with the music video but I was asked by them to come and play for the Relay for Life here in Kelowna as well as for Daffodil Day - a day when Canadians can show their support for those living with cancer and to remember those who have died. Yup, I can get on board with that one.
So, TribeHouse is hosting a little concert at the Streaming Cafe on Apr. 27 with a few artists who are willing to throw their skills around (a.k.a. shred) for an evening to show support & honour some of the ones who have history with this “c” word. It’ll be myself (with my friends Eric Funk, Bruce Wiebe, and Jesse Padgett), Ari Neufeld (http://arineufeld.com), and Graham Ord (http://grahamord.com).
Obviously I’m playing to honour my dad & celebrate the fact that I still have a wife after her battle with stage 3 colon cancer, but there is someone that is very close to a lot of us, an amazing 14 year old young man, Jordan Unrau (14), who we are passionately dedicating the notes to. Jordan is battling bone cancer where doctors recently discovered 5 tumors throughout his body and this pisses me off. It’s not fair. It’s not right. But the only thing I feel able to do is to show up with what I have, my guitar. Graham actually wrote an incredible song for him called “Two C Words” that I’m sure he’ll whip out, Bruce Wiebe is the uncle of this young fighter, and the rest of us all know someone who has had to deal with this mysterious disease.
There are times where there are no words for a situation. Sometimes, there are only notes and prayers. This is one of those times. Everyone’s welcome & donations will be taken for the Canadian Cancer Society at the door. More details on the TribeHouse website here.
April 27 | 7pm
Streaming Cafe
596 Leon Ave., Kelowna, BC (map)Here’s Graham Ord’s tune “Two C Words” – all profits go to the Unrau family. Let’s support ‘em.
- Apr 06, 12
Every Good Friday, I think of an old story my dad told me about. I remember as a little kid listening to the stereo with the voice of who I now realize was Tony Campolo as he ranted on about a preach-off. It was a preaching “competition” with the head pastor at a black church in Philadelphia & he gives a nice little lesson on some of the differences between white and black churches. It’s all true.
The whole story can be downloaded here but in this short little Youtube clip, Campolo gives a little sample of how he preached this perfect sermon and then challenged the next preacher to get up, Dr. Tony, with a little knee pat saying, “Top that”.
What Dr. Tony preached for the next 30 minutes was basically one phrase that I’ll never forget: “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming”.
- Mar 26, 12
Whoever quoted the phrase “history repeats itself” might not be such an idiot after all. When I was 12, my pops and I built a half-pipe in our background and now, if my son can scrounge up the $450, he will be able to say the same thing. We had a little fun today snapping some shots of the kids jumping on the tramp, brought them into Photoshop, and then made this little pretty-realistic idea of what our backyard will look like by the end of the summer. The only difference is that our kids just might be a little higher in the air.
PS – if anyone would like a personal house concert, I’d play it to help pay for this thing. I found some killer plans online & now lay awake at night thinking about how sick this is going to be (and also how to draft a liability release for the neighbourhood kids).
*UPDATE | I’ve set up a donation site for you to contribute if your heart strings are being ripped at right now: http://www.kapipal.com/nicogroove
- Mar 21, 12
I wrote this originally for TribeHouse here.
I hate to admit it, but last night I watched Oprah’s interview with Lady Gaga. (DISCLAIMER – it was only with half of my brain because the other half was busy building a website (does it still count?). I actually thought it was really interesting to find out some history about this meat-wearing, controversial-magnet, non-house-owning pop icon they call Lady Gaga. I had no idea, for example, that she was bullied so badly as a kid that at one point she was thrown into a trash can.
Then we have our very own Shane Koyczan, a Penticton dweller who doesn’t look much like Ms. Gaga but, as far as I’m concerned, can command a crowd just as well. He’s a writer / author / beat poet who performed “We are more” at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and was the first Canadian to win the Individual Championship title at the US National Poetry Slam. I remember the first time I met him – I ended up playing drums for him at a little coffee shop with my buddy Ari Neufeld where he showed up to support a couple of his other beat-poet friends. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced someone who could come up with such witty word pictures. Within a few minutes he managed to bring the entire room to laughter, political outrage, fear and sadness with his sexy (yes, you should hear some of his poems about sex) voice that demanded your full heart.
But what does he have in common with Lady Gaga? He was also bullied as a kid.
Bullying is a form of injustice that makes want to take a hockey stick to the back of someone’s knees – probably because I also experienced this as a kid. I was never thrown into a trash can but was teased and thrown under a verbal bus enough to cry through a fair share of lunch hours. I remember wanting justice in those moments. Wanting someone to get back at those insecure a-holes who thought it would be cool to slam the new kid in order to make themselves look like champions in front of their buds.
When I see people like Gaga and Shane now “on top” with a voice, with power, it’s inspiring to hear about what they’re doing to fight back. It’s a beautiful form of justice. Gaga started her Born This Way Foundation and Koyczan preaches his redemptive story of going from being the brunt of all jokes to the inspiration of Canada. He’s now doing some interesting projects like “Instructions for a Bad Day” which was created “with the hope that love would reach those who need it most.”
I just love justice.
These two little stories give me hope that God brings justice in a variety of ways. I believe that sometimes we have to walk through pain in order to have the courage to be a voice for the voiceless.
Who are you being a voice for?
Shane Koyczan’s website: http://www.shanekoyczan.com/
Still struggling with this subject? Watch this and then get out your hockey sticks.
- Feb 29, 12
Seriously? A Twitter frenzy? Over the new iPad3?
This stuff just makes me anxious.
To clarify, I own a Mac. I own an iMac. I own an iPad 2. I own an iPhone 4. I own an Apple TV 2 just like hundreds of thousands of other people but how is it possible to keep up with the latest trends and frenzies? My daughter (12) just showed me how to text for free on her iPod. This is amazing but apparently it’s common knowledge.
My point is that things keep getting better & more amazing but the expectations of what we as humans are expected to know is un-be-friggin-lievable. I saw a show the other day where this family from New York hadn’t even heard of Oprah before.
Awesome.
Emotional fresh air for some reason. Don’t know why, it just is. Part of me craves that kind of “lack of being plugged in” which is probably rooted in the fact that I didn’t grow up with a TV. And the irony in this post is so thick, I could probably cut it with a cake because I have been working non-stop in the web & social media world for the past 4 years.
You ever tried Instagraming an image to Facebook while Tweeting it to your buddy while including it within a short blog post on your site while beaming it to your Apple TV2? Same.
Can’t we just all be content?
No. We never will be. And the road to becoming content gets longer as more apps are invented which is both sad and rad (mainly because it rhymes). It reminds me of this comedy sketch that my buddy Bryan Minerly passed on a while ago by Louis CK called “Everything is Amazing & Nobody’s Happy” where he considers this “…the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots…”
How about we invent a NO-technology day. That would mean I would have a day off and wouldn’t be so distracted by the technology around me. I’d like to be a little more present in conversations and meetings. I hate answering / checking my phone when I’m in the middle of a conversation with someone. It’s rude. I guess I just don’t want to be “that guy” who’s always checking his devices instead of enjoying the moment…
There’s got to be a name for these kinds of people (including myself, unfortunately)… how about “technology prick”?
And now enjoy this short video of my wife smashing my iPhone 3.
- Feb 26, 12
After many, many conversations with my daughter about getting a dog, here is my conclusion summed up in one of those motivationally realistic posters that have been gaining popularity recently.
PS – her name is Maya.
PPS – in case my daughter reads this, please know that I actually love this new addition to our family.
- Feb 20, 12
I’ve always been fascinated with shoes. Well, that’s a lie, maybe it’s just been over the past 10 years or so. But my favourite brand of shoe is Fluevog.
I now have about 5 pairs of this blessed brand which has markings on the sole like “resists satan” and John Fluevog has created an entire line of shoes called the Angel series named after people who have moved on from this earth (what a nice way of saying that they died, eh?).
This past Feb. 18 was the 4th year anniversary of my dad’s death and every year we do something to honour him. This year, we went up to his grave, told a few stories, and I went over to my buddy’s house to drink some of my old man’s favourite beer (Grolsch with that cool popping lid cap thing).
So, getting back to the shoes… in the late 70s, my dad had a factory and manufactured clogs and funky designs for Fox and Fluevog – a shoe company based out of Vancouver. They were making the most outrageous designs that were a huge hit with the pimps and hookers downtown. Eventually, they grew their niche into an extremely successful company to where they now have huge superstars sporting the footwear with 14+ killer stores around North America.
But one of the pairs of Fluevog shoes I have has got an extra special dose of sentimental goodness attached – a pair of Angels called the Henk - named after none other than my pops, Henk Boesten. Pretty rad to have a pair of shoes named after you – what an honour to have Mr. Fluevog show respect this way. Nice move.
Here’s the description of the shoe:
“This unisex Classic Angel shoe was inspired by a strong and hardy Dutchman who worked for John in the ’70s. Built upon the infamous original Angel sole of 100% hevea tree latex, and using tough Boston Nero leathers, this no-nonsense shoe will be your constant companion for many years…”
When I kick the bucket, I want a pair of shoes named after me. How about a name like “NIKE” because Nico might be too confusing for people to pronounce. Ya, Nike has a nice ring to it.
- Feb 15, 12
So, I just learned that according to Google, there is a scientific way to find out which Youtube video is actually the funniest. Seriously.
They’ve developed some algorithm and set up this cool little voting system called Youtube Comedy Slam where you can vote on which video you like better, earn points, bla bla bla.
Google engineer Sanketh Shetty explained the methodology for finding the funniest YouTube video in this blog post.
“We focused on videos uploaded in the comedy category. We captured the uploader’s belief in the funniness of their video via features based on title, description and tags. Viewers’ reactions, in the form of comments, further validate a video’s comedic value,” he wrote.
“…We noticed that viewers emphasize their reaction to funny videos in several ways: e.g. capitalization (LOL), elongation (loooooool), repetition (lolololol), exclamation (lolllll!!!!!), and combinations thereof. If a user uses an “loooooool” vs an “loool”, does it mean they were more amused?” asks Shetty.
So, without further wasting of time, I present to you the Funniest Youtube Video of all time and crank your speakers for just a little more enjoyment.
And, here’s the funniest Youtube video of the week
What’s your vote?
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