Steam room etiquet

I’ve never used the steam room much at the gym before, but recently I’ve started going in for a quick 5 minute steam after my workouts in the morning. My wife is a much bigger gym nut than I am – she has a blog and spends a lot of time researching various excercise techniques and theories – so naturally we got to talking about the benefits of the steam room. A nice post-workout steam is a great way to loosen up any tension that you might have built during the workout, and just feels great! The thing that hit me the most though was not the benefits that you can get, but two key points of etiquette that I think most people miss.

Item #1 – dress code
Walking around the changing room in the buff is one thing – that I find bad enough – but come on, what possesses people to think that it’s ok in the steam room? The minimum requirement is a towel, and while most people seem to get this the more important fact is that said towel should – and I know this is a tough one – cover your genitals.
Not only should the towel be a lot bigger than a washcloth, at least put in the effort to arrange it properly, especially if it’s a co-Ed steam room.

Item #2 : shower first
I know it’s crazy but think about it for a minute.

Done?

Ok, so here’s the thing. I’m not saying I ever thought about this one myself, but it makes sense. You just spent the past hour or more working up a heavy sweat on machines that other people have been using. You’re covered in sweat, likely smell heavily of BO, and there’s probably a good amount of bacteria crawling all over you. You are now going into an enclosed space with minimal ventilation, and will likely be sitting on wooden benches in close quarters with other people. Gross right?
Taking a shower first ensures that you are clean and refreshed and aren’t carrying a slue of nasty smelling bacteria with you. This in turn ensures that the steam room is kept clean so that all of us can enjoy it.
But were going in to sweat anyway so who cares? Trust me it makes a world of difference. Take an old gym bag and multiply that smell by 10. Stick your head inside and take a deep breath. Is THAT what you want your steam room experience to be like?
Taking a shower first ensures that any stench-producing bacteria are purged before you go in, and will give us all a better gym experience.

2010

Another year gone another one beginning… It will be interesting to see what changes over the next 12 months. Right now I’m in Newfoundland for work. St John’s to be exact.

Great city, great people… I really like it here. It has the same maritime feel that Halifax has. Just got screeched in… a tradition here, so I am now an honorary Newfie. that’s my claim to fame haha.

In other news…. I have been neglecting this blog for my other blog… though I don’t exactly post regularly on that. It just helps that there is a topic for that one wheras this one is random.

Anyway, Happy New Year!

Long may your big Jib draw.

2009 Karate Nationals in Calgary

Originally I was going to post this on the karate blog which I contribute to… but it works better on this because it is a personal post and not a post about anything technical regarding karate… so here it is!

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Friday – 1:00 am : Time for bed, we attempted to pull an all-nighter watching Criminal Minds and Grays Anatomy to just head to the airport but couldn’t last. Flight is at 7:40am leaving Halifax, so alarm is set for 4:30 am. That should give us enough time to get there!

Friday – 4:30 am : Goddamn alarm… going to go feed the dog and play fetch with him for a bit before we head to the airport. Sooooo tired.

Friday – 7:05 am : In line at the airport. Air Canada people keep giving us attitude… must be because its so early or something…

Friday – 7:39 am : We just boarded… security took forever, more rediculousness. Oy. Well we made it on the plane! Next stop Calgary!

Friday – 8:00 am : Oy… talk about bad turbulence… the plane is going nuts!!!!

Friday – 10:45 am (Calgary time) : We landed! Alive!!! Now off to the hotel!

Friday – 3:30 pm (C-time) : Just had lunch and explored the hotel with some of the other members of the NS team. Signed in at the registration table and checked out who we’re seeded against… not that I know any of the people! Looking forward to a fun weekend, might head to the Zoo or something tomorrow since the black belt tourney is on Sunday

Friday – 11:00 pm (C-time) : The lunch burger hath done me in. Note to self: American-sized portions are unhealthy. Had dinner (starters) at the hotel restaurant, then limed with some of the other team members and then went for some drinks. 08:00 wakeup call tomorrow.

Saturday – 7:40 am (C-Time) : Woke up before the wakeup call, time for some breakfast then the training clinic at 9:30

Saturday – 12:12pm (C-Time) : Intense training with Yaguchi Sensei this morning on carpets. We learned Ji’in, which was great. Took some video as we split into two groups. Definitely a great morning of training! Now we are off to soak in the hot tub and then maybe the Zoo later on.

Saturday – 6:00pm (C-time) : Zoo was a lot of fun! Caught the end of the juniors tournament and now we’re getting ready for the banquet. Should be a fun evening!

Saturday – 11:00pm (C-Time) : Banquet was great, food was awesome and it was definitely a fun evening. Now to bed to catch some Zzz’s before the competition tomorrow.

Sunday – 9:00 am (C-Time) : Just got up, grabbed some muffins from Starbucks for breakfast, jumped in the hot tub at the top of the hotel for a few minutes to erase the muscle stiffness from yesterday and now to head downstairs for the tourney.

Sunday – 10:00 am (C-Time) : Tourney is fun so far. Got knocked out first round for kata because of a stupid mistake. Heian Sandan is definitely not my favourite kata right now! My own fault really haha. Ah well its all for fun! Up next is kumite.

Sunday – 10:30 am (C-Time) : Got knocked out of kumite first round as well, but I feel better about that than kata. I put up a decent fight but it all boils down to experience which the other competitor had more of. No hard feelings there, still to come is team kumite.

Sunday – 11:30 am (C-Time) : We got knocked out of team kumite by Quebec, but it was a good match. One of the other guys got a wicked Ippon on his Quebecois opponent, and while I lost my match it was once again so someone with vastly more experience.

All in all, it has been a great weekend and one hell of an experience. Looking forward to doing this again next year in Manitoba.

In the end, the girl’s team took home the Silver in Kumite, so congratz to them and to all of the competitors this weekend.

Siamese if you please!

Photo 41, originally uploaded by djhershees.

Testing out this flickr blog connection… so far I like! This is T’Pol, my mother in law’s siamese. She is such a cutie!

Halifax ahoy!

Wow… I have neglected this blog so much haha no posts recently and no views, barely a blip on the map…
I have been writing more for the other blog i write for at http://dailykarate.wordpress.com , but even there I have been writing sporadically… still the readership there is much higher than here… I guess that is because that site has a purpose, wheras this is mostly just a dump for whatever randomness pops into my head.

To do: come up with a decent theme for this blog.

Halifax aflame

Forest fire started in the Herring Cove / Fergusons Cove thursday. We live in the area but have just bought a house downtown halifax. Still may have lost quite a bit, see links to news headlines and pictures I took from the top floor of a local university.

A whole new world…

December 30th marked the first day of my new life in Halifax Nova Scotia…

After a year and a half of living “down south” with my wife, we have moved North after I got offered a job with the Halifax branch of the company that I work for. Not a big change for her, being a native of Halifax, and not a huge one for me really given that I spent 4 years of university here, but a big change nonetheless in that in the past there was alaways the promise of returning “home” in a few months.  Now this is my new home… and to greet me we had our traditional “welcome matthew!” snowstorm… what fun

The move was stressful… given that I had a month to get everything in place… but it all came together in the end, and here we are. In a few days I will be getting a car (Subaru Impreza they’re a lot cheaper here…) and in a week or so I have my first audit client, so things will just move along happily from there. Everyone at karate was pleased to see us, we surprised them by not telling anyone we were moving back and then just showing up great fun!!!

- honu

wedding video making

I’ve been trying for ages to find a way to convert .mod to .dv so that i can edit the videos on my JVS everios camcorder in mac with iMovie, as opposed to in Bootcamp windows with the native everios softwares. iMovie is by far more user friendly and feature-filled, as everios is basically just a burn straight to dvd kind of program… albeit with the functionality of making a chapter selection page but thats about it.

Imagine my glee upon finding this:

http://emphaticsolutions.com/index.php/2007/07/28/drag-and-drop-apple-script-to-convert-video/

Finally! something that does exactly what i want for free

First test is completed successfully and now the realy work begins, to convert all of the wedding footage to the DV format and compile a 120 minute DVD of the wedding for all and sundry!

Let the videosmithing begin!

whats in a name?

I have decided to start a political party…

Why is it that in RPGs there is always a restriction on what classes/jobs are available to certain races? This kind of segregation is reminiscent of the days when women couldn’t vote and… well other stuff involving buses that I’m sure we are all well aware of, and if we aren’t then we should be paying more attention in school.

I believe that any player should be able to make a character of any race and be allowed to have any of the available jobs, regardless of what jobs the specific race may be more or less suited to. If I want to make a 10ft tall 500lb Ogre Thief and attempt to /hide behind rocks, then by jove I should be allowed to! It should be my own problem if I can’t figure out why people seem to always be able to find me.

Not only is it my right, but I think it would add a certain flare to some gameplay if you manage to actually make these kinds of rediculous character combinations work. Imagine the devotion it would require to level up this kind of a character in any of the many RPG worlds? So what if the race isn’t suited to the profession I say!!!

I am still searching for an appropriate name for my association, though a few ideas have been thrown around as follows:

RPG Association for Profession Equality – thrown out when it was pointed out that the acronym is possibly inappropriate

Professional RPG Oversite Society with a Theoretical Interest in Treating Unanimously with Total Equality – thrown out for similar reasons to the above

Association for the Elimination of Professional Segragation in RPGs – a possibility

Society for the Elimination of Xenophobic Job Segregation – another possibility but with similar acronymical problems

Peoples Union for the Prevention of Profession Segregation in RPGs and the Advancement of Equitable Treatment of Formerly Segragated-against Class-Race Combinations – the acronym on this one isn’t quite up to my usual standard… but another possibility given that it is loooooong and that amuses me. Needs to have a better acronym though

Other suggestions will be accepted and duly considered…

Tropic Thunderation

wow… that movie is hilarious.

Definately the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while, and I love a good comedy. Watched it today with the wife and my parents and probably didn’t stop laughing the entire time… The movie is gory to the point that it can’t be anything but funny… and in all things continues with that extremeness that my generation is probably best suited to… the older generations won’t like it and will probably find it offensive… but I don’t care!!! The next DVD I buy will be this one, be it regular DVD or Blu-Ray.

Ben Stiller… a job well done.