Facebook is far from my favorite social network, and I didn’t think my Look Back video (the automated highlight compilation every user gets in honor of the service’s 10th anniversary) would amount to much.

But, gosh, mine is nice.

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My latest book, The Mobile Writer, has been available until now only as an Amazon.com e-book.

Soon, it will also be available in physical form.

This is what the cover will look like. The amazing Aaron Mahnke designed it. Click the image (or here) for a larger view.

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I’m not very outdoors-y nor in the greatest of shape, but I had a blast going for a winter ride on an electric fatbike — that is, a fat-tire winter bicycle that has been outfitted with an electric motor for greater propulsion and an added thrill.

The electric fatbike I tested is the product of Defiant Bicycles, a St. Paul company.

I wrote about Defiant here.

I shot and edited the video above to go with my story. I recorded some of the footage with a GoPro camera on my bicycle helmet, and I shot the rest with a Sony Handycam.

I appeared on the TWiT podcasting network’s new Tech News 2night show to discuss one of the day’s most interesting tech developments: A knockoff of the famed Nest thermostat, created in less than a day with off-the-shelf materials and components.

That happened right here in Minnesota, at a company I have written about on a number of occasions, Spark Devices.

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My wife wears the toolbelt in our household, so she is the one who enjoys spending time in one of the places I most dread: the hardware store.

Her favorite? Without a doubt, it’s Seven Corners Hardware in downtown St. Paul, even though the big-box emporiums like Lowe’s, Menards and Home Depot are bigger and flashier.

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In the five-seconds-of-fame, blink-and-you-missed department, my homely mug recently appeared ever-so-briefly in Times Square.

That’s a PR Newswire electronic billboard in the Big Apple. Above it is another billboard explaining why New Yorkers were being subjected to my likeness.

PR Newswire’s ProfNet division was promoting an upcoming Twitter chat, with yours truly as the guest and interviewee.

That Twitter chat occurred shortly thereafter. You can read the recap here.

So much for my name in lights.

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My wife and son worked on an interesting winter project in recent weeks.

They froze balloons filled with colored water, and then pulled off the rubber to reveal astonishing aqua-boulders with striking colors and color patterns. Food coloring is suspended within the ice in all kinds of zany ways.

My wife and son even put little toys inside some of the balloons.

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From today’s Pioneer Press:

The coldest air mass to hit the metro since 1996 has arrived, plunging the air temperature to more than 20 below zero. With winds blowing west-northwest at 15 mph, wind chills can reach as low as minus 50.

The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill warning for the region through noon Tuesday, noting that the extreme cold can freeze exposed flesh in less than five minutes.

The high Monday will hit only minus 17, then drop back down to minus 20 for a low overnight. Temps rise slightly Tuesday, reaching minus 1 in the afternoon, but stiff winds will keep the wind chill value at about minus 30 degrees.

The cold keeps its clamp on the Twin Cities through Wednesday morning, when the area finally sees above-zero temps. The high Wednesday will reach 4, then jump to 14 Thursday and 29 on Friday, when there’s also a 20 percent chance for snow.

(Update: The Twitter chat went well. Here’s a recap.)

ProfNet has saved my journalistic ass so many times over the course of my reporting career, I long ago lost count.

The PR NewsWire outfit performs a simple but indispensable service: It connects on-deadline reporters with experts and others who have the information the journalists need to execute their stories. It is a big timesaver.

(I can’t mention ProfNet without also plugging HARO, short for Help a Reporter Out, which serves essentially the same function and is also important to me.)

So when ProfNet asked if it could interview me (for the second time), I was happy to oblige. This will occur publicly and live, via Twitter, on Tuesday. Anyone is welcome to monitor the event and even submit their own questions to supplement ProfNet’s prepared questions.

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Veteran podcaster and all-around awesome guy Chuck Joiner had me on his MacVoices show for an in-depth discussion about my new book and the mobile-productivity lifestyle it promotes.

It was a fun discussion (during which, as usual, I waved my hands around a lot).

From the show notes:

In his new book, The Mobile Writer, Julio Ojeda-Zapata talks about why the iPad has turned the corner, and now should be considered a serious productivity tool.

Part interviews with high-profile users, part personal journey, Julio talks about challenging your (and his) pre-conceived notion, and outlines some of the hardware and software options that make the newest iPads some of your best options for getting things done when not at home or in the office.

John Williams of WCCO-AM and I dissected the news that Netflix has added new streaming-video subscription tiers, including a super-affordable one for users who only use one screen at a time.

Click to play.

The new tiers won’t be widely available to start, and may never be … but I hope they’ll  become standard issue. I am the only one in my household who has used Netflix, for the most part, so a low-cost single-screen option makes the most sense here.

We are not Netflix subscribers at the moment — but I may change that since I never finished “House of Cards” or “Orange is the New Black.”