Category: health & fitness

Moab for medicinal reasons only

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, travel, traveloguesLeave a comment

At age 30 I began to acquire allergies.

(Before that I considered them the delusions of hypochondriacs.)

Apples now have the potential to kill me. But what I dislike most is Spring in Canada. Sneezing, coughing, watery eyes.

Each year I try to flee the misery by travelling.

Turns out Moab, Utah is a Mecca for those like me. From Wikipedia:

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I jumped plane at the Salt Lake City airport and caught a shuttle to this medical enclave. Coincidentally, there are quite a few hikers and bikers about the sanatorium.

Will let you know how my treatment progresses.

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original – flickr

video – extreme physical conditioning

On By Rick McIn health & fitnessLeave a comment

You want to train with extreme alpinist Mark Twight, the founder of Gym Jones.

This is how he trained actors preparing for the movie 300.

Click PLAY or watch the intense conditioning on YouTube.

More information on my gymnastics blog.

Whistler Blackcomb propose scary ski lift

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, product complaintsLeave a comment

Whistler Blackcomb, a mountain resort already renowned for daring innovation, has announced its boldest move yet with the construction of the Peak to Peak Gondola, for completion December 2008. The two mountains will be united by a gondola that will set world records for length and height while providing an unmatched experience for winter and summer resort guests.

The Peak to Peak Gondola will travel 4.4 kilometres in just 11 minutes, transporting winter and summer guests from Whistler’s Roundhouse Lodge to the Rendezvous Lodge on Blackcomb Mountain, giving them unprecedented access to both mountains’ expansive and unique high alpine terrain and spectacular vistas. …

Skiers and riders will have the opportunity to easily take advantage of 8,171 acres of terrain encompassed by both incredible mountains, via the world’s longest continuous lift system. …

Peak to Peak Gondola to Unite Whistler and Blackcomb | SNOWBOARD MAGAZINE

Idelog thinks this concept is nuckin’ futs!

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soon NO SMOKING in the U.K.

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, good news, health & fitnessLeave a comment

A ban is already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland and England will soon be implementing their bans. By July 1st you will not be able to smoke in enclosed public spaces in the whole of the UK.

A Welsh View: Wales Starts Public Smoking Ban

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predictions of a 14-yr-old in 1901

On By Rick McIn health & fitnessLeave a comment

In the year 1901 Arthur Palm, a fourteen-year-old student from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, published an article in his school newspaper (the Excelsior) describing the world of 2001. …

“How it may appear a hundred years hence, when modern inventions have been carried to their highest point of development that even Edison would feel jealous of the great inventions in the year 2001.

In the year 2001 you will see sky-scrapers sticking far above the clouds over 200 stories high.

On the streets there will not be any room for street cars, so they will build lines way up in the air, and there will be landings fastened to the high skyscrapers, where the people will wait for the cars. The carlines will have different kinds of names and you will see the name “Manhattan Air Line” many hundreds of feet above the ground.

You see air-ships and carriages fastened to balloons for the transportation of the people through the air, and you will often see collisions in the clouds.

In one of the sky-scrapers on the 119 story you will see a sign, ‘Old People Restored to Youth by Electricity, While You Wait.'”

Paleo-Future: The Predictions of a 14 Year Old (Milwaukee Excelsior, 1901)

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the GREEN pendulum swings too far

On By Rick McIn bad news, health & fitnessLeave a comment

I can only imagine the stupid, wasteful things happening worldwide in the blind rush for anything green.

Downtown Ronnie tells me that fat cats in the Petro-toxin industry are even worried what wacky legislation might come down in Canada.

In what can only be considered a tidal wave of public opinion, a new Yale research survey reveals a significant shift in public attitudes toward the environment and global warming. Fully 83 percent of Americans now say global warming is a “serious” problem, up from 70 percent in 2004….

Reality Check: 83% of Americans Now Say Global Warming is a Serious Problem: BLOG: SciAm Observations

Complete Idiot's Guide to Saving the Environment

Complete Idiot’s Guide to Saving the Environment

Calgary – “brutal, depressing, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading”

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, moviesLeave a comment

Funny, we were just commenting on how gorgeous it is out the back yard today.

But a new documentary called Radiant City trashes the suburbs in general and the Calgary suburbs in particular.

To see the trailer click PLAY or watch it on Google Video.

Looks very interesting. I want to see it.

“80% of everything that has been built in North America was built in the last fifty years and most of it is brutal, depressing, ugly, unhealthy and spiritually degrading.”- That’s James Howard Kunstler gleefully munching the Calgary scenery in Radiant City, a new film about what’s happening on the edge of town. It is a sort of docudrama following the Moss family through their daily life of commutes and gymnastic classes and shopping at the power center, with commentary by the always articulate planner Ken Greenberg, new urbanist Andreas Duany, philosopher Mark Kingwell and, of course, Jim Kunstler at his best.

It truly does show the suburbs at their soul-destroying worst, “overlaid with zombie monoculture. Politicians call it growth. Developers call it business. The Moss family call it home.” We call it sometimes very funny, sometimes overlong and draggy, sometimes as Vanessa Farquarson of the Post quoted, “almost too true to be real.”

There are not too many entertaining nights out to be had watching movies about urban planning. We hope this will make it to the States; everyone concerned about the future of our cities should see ::Radiant City.

Radiant City: A Documentary about Suburban Sprawl (TreeHugger)

doggie treadmill

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, humourLeave a comment

I needed this last week!

While my parents were away in Mexico, I was walking their dog — Pete — four times a day.

With this ingenious device I could have stayed on the internet and indoors even longer.

I think I’ll get one for all my dog owning friends for Christmas!

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The world of couch potatoes

GOOD NEWS – arms makers going GREEN

On By Rick McIn bad news, economics, government, health & fitnessLeave a comment

You, me, every politician.

Why not the arms industry?

I want to THANK bomb makers for THINKING OF THE CHILDREN.

British arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing “environmentally friendly” weapons, including “reduced lead” bullets, “reduced smoke” grenades and rockets with fewer toxins, The Sunday Times said.

Other initiatives include developing armoured vehicles with lower carbon emissions, safer and more sustainable artillery and even recycling or composting waste explosives, the newspaper added.

“Weapons are going to be used and when they are, we try to make them as safe for the user as possible, to limit the collateral damage and to impact as little as possible on the environment,” Debbie Allen, BAE Systems’ director of corporate social responsibility, was quoted as saying.

‘Green’ arms the new killing trend « Terryorisms

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Arms Industry – Wikipedia

photo – Acrobatics at Muscle Beach

On By Rick McIn health & fitness, photos, travelLeave a comment

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Acrobatics at Muscle Beach, originally uploaded by ExperienceLA.

Muscle Beach, California. Summer 2004.