thewunderbar

On Thursday, June 18, 2009, one of my favorite podcasts, Buzz Out Loud from CNet, had it’s 1000th episode.  For those of you who don’t know, Buzz Out Loud is a technology podcast produced Monday to Friday.  It offers a laid back look at the Tech news from the last 24 hours. What makes Buzz Out Loud different from a regular news show is that the show is less news focused and more host focused. the hosts enjoy doing it, and they really do have fun.  So to Host Tom Merritt, Producer Jason Howell, and a rotating cast of co-hosts including Molly Wood, Natali Del Conte, Brian Cooley, Rafe Needelmem, and Brian Tong, congratulations, and I look forward to the next 1000.  Embedded is the video for the 1000th episode.

For those of you who don’t know what a podcast is, it is very similar to radio.  It is the production of an audio or video file which is distributed over the internet for people to watch or listen to, and can be based on any topic.  From regular news, to technology, to music, to movies, if you are looking for information on a specific topic, chances are there is a podcast about it.  CNet.com produces many tech related podcasts, which can be found here. And many of it’s show can be found on CNet TV.  Leo Laporte runs the TWiT network at twit.tv, and has topical podcasts relating to tech, as well as various other topics.  Podcasts have changed the way I consume media, and are a growing business that is only getting bigger.

Again, Congratulations to Buzz Out Loud, a pioneer in an industry.  The last 4 years have seen enormous growth, and I can’t wait to see what the next 4 bring.

I don’t have enough to really talk about on any single topic today for a blog post, so I’m going to write about a bunch of things in a single post.

First, I can happily say that I’m writing this from my backyard.  It’s 30 degrees today in Edmonton, and barely a cloud on the sky.  It’s the first day of the year that truly feels like summer, and was long over due.  I enjoy the winter months.  I really do.  But even I have a limit.  We had a late start to our winter, but paid for it with a very cold winter, and a cold spring.  While I like winter, I acknowledge that Edmonton truly comes alive in the summer, and I’m glad to see it, as long as I can find a piece of shade.

Now, I want to talk a bit about Apple. On Monday they announced the iPhone 3G S. Now, the iPhone is a non-starter for me, because I will not go to Rogers.  The 32GB iPhone 3G S is a very compelling device. A good camera, video recording, battery battery life, and voice control make it a step up from the iPhone 3G.  However. if you’re an iPhone 3G owner, it is not worth the upgrade.  If you are a 3G owner, you will have to pay the full price for the 3G S, since you will not qualify for the subsidized price.  instead of $199/$299, you will have to pay $499/$599. Way too much. If you are not an iPhone owner, and want to move to Rogers for it, there is no reason not to.  The 3G S is worth it.  I, however, would not buy the 8GB 3G at the $99 price point.  Sure, an iPhone for $999 is nice, but for the type of device it is, 8GB of storage is simply not enough. throw 500 songs on, a couple movies, a couple TV shows, and some apps, and you’re already full.  Skip the 8GB iPhone and go for at least 16GB, 32 preferably.

Now, the MacBook Pro upgrade.  This took everyone off guard.  All I will say is that the 13” MacBook Pro is a very compelling device.  You will not find a better laptop for the price point. Overall, the price drops make a Mac somewhat more affordable, which is very welcome. If you’ve been thinking about buying a Macbook, there is no better time than right now, or the near future.  I know that if I needed a computer today, the 13” MacBook Pro would be the one I buy.

All this, and I haven’t even touched on Snow Leopard yet.  Some new things, nothing mind blowing, except the price.  $30 to upgrade from the previous version is a steal, and a direct shot at Microsoft.  Very interesting indeed.

Lastly, my city councilor, Tony Caterina, says that the proposed service cuts in the 2010 budget are something we can “live with.”  I was appalled by this statement.  As the city hacks and slashes services, I don’t know how they can live with it.  They want to close 2 hockey rinks, because 2 more are coming online this fall.  But what he doesn’t see is that the reason 2 more rinks are being built and brought online is because the rinks the city currently has are pretty much at capacity.  They were building new rinks so people could have more ice time, so more teams could play.  Hours are being cut at swimming pools starting in July.  Lifeguarding hours have been cut, quite literally putting peoples lives at risk.  I wonder if Mr. Caterina could live with those cuts if they were services he uses ever day.  He should talk to the people of his riding that do use these services, and see if they can live with it.  The reason there are all of these cuts, is that council wants to keep the 2010 tax raise as low as possible because it’s an election year.  Sure, they can spin it anyway they want, but fact is fact.  The city is willing to cut services to keep the “magic number” that everyone pays attention to low, which is a political move, and it’s going to hurt a lot of people.  It’s too bad.  both of my councilors have already lost my vote, we will see about Mayor Mandel.

Well, that ended up being a little longer than I thought it would, but at least I got to write this post outside. Now, back to my weekend.

For those of you living in Alberta, Bill 44 has become a very large issue.  It has the ability to limit classroom discussion about religion, sexuality, and homosexuality by requiring parents be notified before these topics are discussed in school as well as giving parents the ability to remove their children from the classroom if they do not agree with these topics.  It will also open up the ability for teachers to have human rights complaints leveled against them if these topics are brought up.  While the government claims that the “everyday Albertan” is on board with this legislation, I have not found that to be the case.  The “everyday Albertan” we have been called, seem to overwhelmingly oppose this bill.  Human rights advocates oppose it, and perhaps the biggest telltale sign, the Alberta Teachers Association also very publicly and vocally opposes this legislation.  Here is the letter that I sent to my MLA, the honorable Tony Vandermeer, as well as the honorable Ed Stelmach, Premier of Alberta.

Dear Mr. Vandermeer,

I am a member of your constituency, and I am a strong conservative supporter.  However, I am deeply concerned with Bill 44.  This piece of legislation is one that truly concerns me as a Canadian, an Albertan, and a human being.  This bill serves no other purpose except to cripple our education system, stunt the growth of our youth, and harm a teacher’s ability to teach.

the Education curriculum, which is defined and maintain by the Government of Alberta, is largely based on though provoking subjects designed to open the eyes of our youth to new ideas, especially in the area of social studies.  So much of our human history is fuelled by religious beliefs.  From the medieval times when wars were fought over beliefs in different versions of the same god, to more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Almost every important event in our history can be connected to religion in some way.  I know that a new Junior High social studies curriculum is being introduced soon, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are included in the studies.  Bill 44 will cripple the social studies curriculum, because any time a teacher wishes to talk about something that might have to deal with religion, a letter will have to be sent home, and if a single parent voices concern, the teacher simply cannot talk about that subject.  How can a teacher be expected to teach well when the potential exists for virtually the entire social studies curriculum may not be teachable because of Bill 44.  A teacher will also have to tip toe around everything they do in fact teach, because as soon as religion is brought into the discussion, they risk having a human rights complaint brought against them.  Teachers should not have to teach in fear, and I am afraid that if Bill 44 passes, that will happen.  I know several teachers, and they are all terrified of Bill 44, and the consequences of it passing.

On the topic of human sexuality, I do not understand why new measures need to be implemented over what already exists.  When I was going to school, consent forms were sent home before any sex education classes, and any parent who did not want their child to learn about that, the child would be taken out of the class and given other activities to do for that period of time.  Bill 44 overly complicates this, and again further opens up the teachers to risks of human rights complaints.  What about biology classes that teach human physiology.  A parent could potentially launch a human rights complaint because their child is learning about the physical human body.

I will concede that homosexuality is a difficult issue.  Alberta is not the first jurisdiction, nor will it be the last, to deal with these issues.  I believe in equal human rights, and it is my personal belief that people who are homosexual are discriminated against because they are not always given the same basic rights that I am.  To be totally frank, the issue of homosexuality will not go away until people of my generation move into prominence, and become the decision makers in the world.  In my experience, it is the older generations who are mostly afraid of this issue, and are the ones pushing against it.  As the younger generation takes over, this issue will go away.  However, until that happens, consider this.  Teenagers commit suicide every day because they discover they are homosexual, and cannot bear the weight of the persecution, public perception, and lack of equality they are given.  Children who discover they are homosexual are scared, made fun of, and have their self esteem destroyed.  Bill 44 will further pile on to this, because as long as a single parent disagrees, a child will be unable to talk about homosexuality in a classroom.

I firmly believe that this bill will stunt the growth of the youth of this generation, because it will take away much of the thought provoking substance of the curriculum.  It is difficult enough to get the youth actively engaged in what is being taught, and if the best parts of the curriculum are taken away because one parent wishes them taken away, then the curriculum loses most of it’s effect.  The subject will be bland, with no substance, and will get the youth further disconnected.  With the cultural diversity that now exists in our country, where it is not uncommon to find Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Protestants, Jewish people, and Atheists in a single classroom, as well as people who are hetero and homosexual, teaching will be nearly impossible, since there is no way to discuss a single subject without offending at least one person.

Our schools are supposed to be a haven for youth.  It is a place where our youth and teachers can talk about many subjects, some of which youth of today, especially teenagers, are not comfortable talking with their parents about.  A student should be able to trust their teacher, but if Bill 44 passes, the teacher might not be able to be the trusting figure for sensitive matters, for fear of human rights violations.

Please, vote no on Bill 44.  It is a dangerous Bill which could harm the school system of our province, our teachers, and our youth, in ways that cannot be described.  If Bill 44 passes into law, not only will I be ashamed to be a Conservative supporter, but for the first time in my 22 years, I will be ashamed to be an Albertan.

Thank you,

Tyler Hardeman

Please note that I am also sending a copy of this e-mail to Premier Stelmach.

For those of you who haven’t looked, I have a “My Stuff” page where I list the hardware and the software I use on an every day basis.  I updated it a bit today.  I plan on posting reviews or hands on impressions with some of my newer stuff in the coming days/weeks, but in the mean time, you can at least see what I do.  Look above this article on the website for “My Stuff”

On this past holiday Monday, in an effort to keep my mind off of certain things that  happened to me over the weekend, I decided I was going to clean out the pantry, or food closet as we call it at my house.  Now, about 76 seconds after I started pulling things out, I thought I was making a mistake, as I knew that what I originally thought would be a 30 minute job quickly turned into 90 minutes, a whole bunch of effort, and more than a couple of curse words.  It was also a bit of an eye opener.

Now, over the past couple of years I have become more and more aware of the idea of reducing waste.  I’m not about to turn into a “tree hugger” or whatever term you want to coin for it, but I try to concentrate on the little things.  Making sure lights are off when they don’t have to be on, turning my computer off when I’m not at home, recycling more and more, and using reusable bags whenever possible instead of relying on the plastic shopping bags.  Little things like that that don’t make a huge difference on their own, but have a cumulative effect.  One of the last places I thought of to look was the pantry at home, but after cleaning out the pantry, that is definitely one thing I know I’ll be paying more attention to.

Now, I don’t know how many people have a decently sized pantry or food closet, and if it’s kept well stocked or not.  But ours was a mess.  There were a fair amount of items in there, from soups to pastas to snacks to baking goods to seasonings to juices, and even a few more random things.  The problem was, was that it was such a mess that you couldn’t find anything.  When pulling everything out I noticed there were things in there I did not even know we had, or 2-3 copies of the exact same item, when we only needed one.  There were also a few things there that were past the expiry date and had to be thrown out.  Needless to say that cleaning out the food closet made me really think about how we use it.

How many people have a pantry that they don’t even know what is in it?  Because of that, how many times do you re-buy something because you don’t know you have it?  How many times do you look into it, and think there’s nothing there to make for dinner, because you just simply don’t know what is in there?  We do that, and I think that in keeping the pantry more organized, and paying attention to it, not only will food costs be reduced, but there will be less waste, and more efficiency, and that is always my goal.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m pretty much a Star Trek nut.  My dad was the one who got me into Star Trek when I was young, during the hey day of The Next Generation(TNG).  For years TNG was Star Trek to me.  I kind of watched Deep Space 9(DS9) but for many years didn’t.  All I knew was that TNG was on every day on Channel 13(I think it was that channel) at 4:30 during the week, and I watched it *every* day.  As I got older, I got more into DS9, and watched the entire last season as it came out, and later watched the entire series.  I can claim to have seen every single episode of Star Trek at least once, including the Animated Series.  I own The Original Series, TNG, and all 10 movies on DVD.  I have ships, figures, toys, all in my place.  I don’t really advertise this much, simply because while I’m a fan, not many people I know are, and it just isn’t that big a deal to me.  I’m not a fanatical fan who dresses up, can speak Klingon, or anything like that.  I am a fan of the franchise, and that’s it.  For years, it wasn’t even “cool” to be a Star Trek fan.  Friends would poke fun at me when they found out. People just didn’t think Star Trek was cool anymore.  And to be fair, for a long time it wasn’t.  We got Voyager, which I like to pretend didn’t happen, and Enterprise, which had a bad start but really hit it’s stride in it’s last season.  The last two movies were also less than spectacular.  After Enterprise was cancelled I thought that was it for Star Trek for a very long time. 

Then, a couple of years ago, I began to hear rumors about a possible new Star Trek movie.  As more details came out, I found that they wanted to do a movie about The Original Series crew, but when they were much younger than what we saw in the TV show from the 60’s.  Now, I was afraid of this.  The though of Kirk being played by someone other than William Shatner, or Spock being played by someone other than Leonard Nimoy really bothered me.  They also wanted to go and basically try to fit within the established Star Trek “world.” People who are fans of Enterprise know that that didn’t always work out very well.

As time went on, it became clear that this was the movie we were going to get, and even a few months before release I was still worried.  However, being a true fan of Star Trek, I got myself tickets to the Thursday night opening show of Star Trek, and took my dad, the person who got me into the franchise in the first place.

I can say today that I have never been more proud to be a Star Trek fan.

J.J. Abrams, known by most as the creator of Lost, pulled something off that I never thought possible.  He created a movie that not only Star Trek fans can like, but one that people who have never seen Star Trek can also enjoy.  You do not have to be a Star Trek fan at all to see this movie.  You will not be at a disadvantage if you go into this movie never seeing 1 minute of previous Star Trek.  However, the people like me, who have seen every minute, can also come out satisfied.

It is a fast paced, action packed, special effects filled movie. The new Enterprise, while I was skeptical the first time I saw it, has grown on me. It is a beautiful ship that clearly shows the lines of the ship that literally hung from strings in the 1960’s, yet looks amazing with 21st century CGI technology.  But it remains true to what Star Trek has always been about, the characters.  They successfully introduce, and develop, 7 main characters in the movie that doesn’t seem contrived or forced.  Some get more screen time than others obviously, but each one has their place, and J.J. Abrams did not go out of his way to explain every little bit of how they ended up on the Enterprise.  They are there, in some cases it is explained well, in others, they are just there.  They don’t try to add what they shouldn’t, nor does something feel missing.  The casting was amazing. I don’t think they miscast a single person there.  Karl Urban does an amazing McCoy, sounding exactly like the late DeForest Kelly in certain scenes.

Are there problems with this movie?  Absolutely. Without spoiling it, J.J. Abrams and his team are not afraid to change things in the Star Trek universe.  They don’t turn it upside down, but they adapt the Star Trek universe to what they want, instead of trying to work around the mine field that is 43 years of Star Trek history.  This is both a good, and a bad thing.  No doubt it will upset some people.  Personally, I am okay with this.  To me, it shows that they just want to make a good movie, and I am satisfied with that.  It is still Star Trek, and they way the potential changes are handled are handled well, if a bit contrived.

Arguably the weakest part of the movie is actually the Villain. Because the movie has to introduce, develop, and run with 7 main characters, the villain takes a bit of a back seat in the movie, which is too bad, because Eric Bana does a very good job with Nero in the limited screen time he gets.  But really, this movie is not about good vs. bad.  It is about the main characters.  I’m sure that in the next movie, this will be taken care of and there will be a proper antagonist to really take the movie to the next level.

This movie is the Batman Begins of Star Trek. It goes back to it’s origins, but does not weigh itself down with 43 years of history. They clearly will follow much of what has been established, but the creators are clearly not afraid to change things if it works better for them, and that is okay to me.  J.J. Abrams has made a fantastic movie, and you should go see it.

So the city, faced with a 35 million dollar shortfall needs to try to come closer to breaking even.  The City Administration came up with a plan.  One that horrifies me.  The highlights are:

• Retire the trolley bus fleet immediately, instead of April 2010
• Charging people to park at LRT stations
• charging more for parking at city facilities
• cutting the hours of operation at the majority of the City leisure centers by 5%
• Closing an indoor swimming pool

I simply cannot get past the majority of these points.  I am indifferent to the trolley bus situation, and charging more to park at City facilities, while not wonderful, it not surprising.  The other 3, I simply cannot wrap my head around, 8 hours after reading it.

Charging people to park at LRT stations might is an absolutely awful idea.  The City is investing nearly a Billion dollars in the south LRT extension.  I understand that they want people to take a bus to the LRT station, then the LRT, but that simply does not happen right now.  Drive by Clareview, Belvedere, or Stadium stations on a week day and the parking lots are full.  Investing a Billion dollars in a transit system, and then driving people away from using said system to me negates the point of it.  Sure, some people will pay, some people will take the bus, but some people will avoid the system altogether.  That will add more cars to the main arteries in the city.

Reducing hours at pools will affect a lot of people.  let’s assume that 5% equates an hour per day.  That is 1 hour less for staff to work, that is 1 hour less for patrons to use the pool.  It is likely that the pools will open later, which means that people who enjoy a swim or a workout before going to work or school might not be able to do that if they lose an hour of their time. It is a bad customer service move that will only serve to anger the public, and cause more headache than what it is worth in savings.

I have saved the “best” for last.  The City administration is recommending closing one swimming pool entirely.  Which pool they want to close will be announced Wednesday morning, and I will be sure to post here when it is announced.  I don’t even know where to begin.  There are several older facilities in the city, some that do need some heavy maintenance work.  There is no disputing that.  However, taking away a swimming pool would hurt so many communities.  They serve as a gathering place for people of all ages.  During the day senior citizens make the pool their place to go to exercise and socialize.  In the afternoon and early evening children go to learn how to swim, and in the evening kids and teenagers gather to have a fun time in a relatively safe environment.  The use of a swimming pool should not be overlooked.  Whenever a pool closes for longer maintenance, such as the year long shut down of Grand Trunk Leisure Center, the affects are felt across the entire area of the city.  People are forced to go do different facilities, people who usually make visiting the facility 3, 4, 5 times a week a part of their life.  Communities that are built at a pool are ripped apart for long periods of time.  Staff members are displaced.  You could have up to 50 staff members that are laid off, or transferred to other facilities, which then affects the staff there.  Closing a leisure center is not a matter of dollars and cents.  You are talking about the lives you are affecting, which are too numerous to count.

On a personal note, it feels to me like leisure centers are bearing a large brunt of the economic challenges the city is facing.  Part time staffing at most leisure centers has been cut to the minimums, and risk going even lower.  The time is coming where the city risks losing good, skilled, talented people simply because the hours have been cut back too much.  It feels that we have to fight for every inch, every minute of our shifts now.  As much as we try to maintain it, less staff translates very simply into a lower quality of service.  And in the business of being responsible for people’s lives, a lower quality of service is unacceptable.  We are asked to do more with less.  And I don’t know how much longer, as a group, it can go on before something gives.

I hope City Council dismisses the recommendations of the city administration on this one.  This is yet another case of the administration going too far, and making the wrong call.

[Read] – Edmonton Journal article

EDIT(April 15): the city administration announced that the pool they wish to close is the Scona pool. The mayor is vocal in his opposition to this plan. He slammed the city administraion for not “cutting the beraucratic fat” and instead cutting part of the front line. My hope is that city council votes against this plan, and forces the city administration to come up with a plan that works.

 
For those of you who don’t know, I’m a hockey nut.  I follow the Edmonton Oilers religiously, but my love of the game does not end with them.  I am a fan of the sport, and as such, mid April to early June might be the best time of the year, as playoff hockey has arrived.  Teams play 82 games to get to this point, and the games seem to get so much better once the playoffs begin.  The intensity is turned up, and every game has meaning.  The first round is always among the best, there are 4 games a night, almost every night, for 2 full weeks.  It is a hockey fan’s dream.  And who can forget the marathon overtime games that cause so much productivity loss at work and school.

This year I found a website that lets you create a playoff bracket for the entire playoffs, it’s pretty nice, hit up the read link to get to it, and in the mean time, here are my bold predictions for this year’s playoffs.

http://thewunderbar.net/files/pics/2009bracket.jpg

Yes, I picked Boston to win the cup.  I think they’ll do it.  I also think that the Washington/Pittsburgh series I have set up for the second round could really happen, and would be an epic 7 game series, and probably the best one of the playoffs.  I really like Columbus, but can’t see them getting past Detroit in a 7 game series.  Chicago will unfortunately bow out to San Jose in the second round, and Vancouver will have a solid run.  Carolina will give Boston a bit of a challenge, but can’t match them, and the Rangers can’t out score Washington.  The Flyers could easily beat the Penguins in the first round, but I give Pittsburgh the edge simply because they have home ice in game 7.

either way, I think we’re in for a treat this year, and will get some truly good playoff hockey

[Read] – Playoff Bracketing

EDIT: Linked to the bracket since putting it inline broke my theme.

On March 31th, I wrote this blog post of my opinion on the debate over the change room design of the Queen E. pool.  At the suggestion of Lynda Steele, I sent my comments on to Mayor Mandel.  While I was on vacation this week, the Mayor was gracious enough to reply to me.  I feel it appropriate to publish his response here:

Mr. Hardeman – Thank you for your email of March 31, 2009 regarding the design of the Queen Elizabeth Outdoor Pool. I appreciate you taking the time to share your comments and perspective about the safety and security of the facility. You make some interesting points for City administration to consider.

It is important to note however, that although the universal access change room is similar to a family change room, it only allows people to change in private cubicles. There is no common area for people to change in the open. Cubicles vary in size to accommodate individual users, families and wheelchairs. Washrooms remain segregated and showers are outside on the pool deck.

As you know, family/disabled change rooms are common in all new facilities, and one of the most common requests by patrons regarding existing facilities is to build larger family/disabled change rooms.

As well as improving accessibility for families and the disabled, the universal change room design is less expensive than segregated change rooms. Families can enter the change room together, which gives parents greater control over the safety and security of their children.

The universal change room was included in the design shared at the open house on March 3, 2009 and with the Friends of Queen Elizabeth Pool. Friends of QE Pool shared their concerns about safety within the change room design with City administration on March 27, 2009 and these concerns are now being reviewed. However, ultimately Council must decide on behalf of all citizens, not just one group.

Thank you again for expressing your concerns.

Stephen Mandel

Mayor

As you can see, the Mayor clearly supports the notion of the universal change room.  However, his message to me boils down to a “I appreciate your comments, but here’s why you’re wrong” message.  He makes some points that are not disputable however.  I cannot dispute the cost would be less.  Building one change room is without a doubt cheaper than my personally favored scenario of three.  Segregated washrooms does take away from some of the issues.

He mentions that people are only allowed to change in private cubicles in the universal change room, unlike a family change room.  This is interesting, because at my facility, with our family change room, people are not allowed to change in the common area either.  And I also believe it shows naivety on the Mayor’s part.  People aren’t allowed to drive over the speed limit either, but it happens all the time.  Telling someone they are not allowed to do something does not mean it will not happen.

I have spoken to people of all walks of life over this issue.  Teenagers, teachers, parents, Young adults, senior citizens.  While I have not done formal polling, I can say overwhelmingly that the response has been against this.  Many parents have said they simply would not take their children to such a facility.  Teenagers do not like it, Many young adults do not like it, although some don’t care either way.  I have also not spoken to a single person who works in a pool who thinks this is a good idea.  Not one.  Not a single one.  I believe this comes back to the problem of the people designing the space have never worked in a similar space, and done very little consulting with people who do.  So a question I have, is that if so many people are against this, why build something that people won’t go to?

At the end, all of this may be for nothing.  Through a contact it has been confirmed to me that any design must first get the approval from the Police commission before it can be built.  I would hope that the police commission will see the potential for problems with this design, and stop it from happening.  We at our pool work with the police on a regular basis and the police know the types of problems we deal with.  I’m not sure the police would want such an albatross on their backs with this design.  As I have said before, all it would take is one person to completely destroy any advantages that that design would have.

I will be replying to Mayor Mandel personally on this issue early next week.  I would appreciate any feedback from anyone who reads this article before I do.  Please leave a comment, or contact me via twitter or email, you can find my contact information on the contact page of this website.

A couple of days ago, the public was made aware that the City of Edmonton was planning on having a unisex, or communal, change room at the new Queen Elizabeth outdoor pool.  This was something I had heard about almost a year ago.  The city believes that this is the way of the future, and is planning on building all future facilities in this manner.  The theory is that more and more people use a family change room, and that a single, larger change room is more cost effective than 2 or 3 separate change rooms.

While my full time job is working in IT, I still work as a lifeguard at a City of Edmonton pool.  It was the job that got me through college, and got me to the position I am in now.  I still do enjoy the job, and the environment of working in a pool, so I still do it once a week.  Because of my background in actually lifeguarding a pool, I feel that I can share a first hand perspective and opinion on this matter.

To put is simply, I think this is a bad idea.  In fact, I think this might be one of the most short sighted ideas the City Administration has had in recent years, and that is saying something. Usually the people who plan these types of facilities have never worked in one, and often plan what is best on paper, not what is the best option for both the patrons that use the facility, and the staff tasked with working there.  While I can see their idea in theory, as someone who works in a pool in practice, this is a recipe for disaster.

The pool that I work at has three change rooms.  It has a full change room for males and females, as well as a large family change room.  The family change room has four changing stalls, two showers, and three private bathrooms. as well as lockers.  In terms of pure size I would say it is about 1/2 the size of the changing area of our actual men’s and women’s change rooms.  Our family change room use is restricted for families, which we define as parents with children.  So a father can take his two kids into the family change room, or a mother can take her young son.  If there is say, a father and an 8 year old son, we prefer they use the men’s change room, but it is not a requirement.  The family change room may also be used by people with limited mobility, or people with disabilities.  We ask that everyone else use either the men’s or women’s change room.  It’s a fairly simple solution that I personally believe has worked very well over the years.

There are many reasons why I do not believe that unisex change rooms can work.  The first is simple math.  for an evening public swim during the summer at the pool I work at, we can get as many as 350 people who are trying to get into the pool at the same time.  These range from families with young children, to groups of teenagers.  This is a scenario that happens nearly every night for two full months during July and August.  Trying to push 350 people through a single change room with roughly twenty stalls would lead to chaos.  You will have shy teenagers who want to change by themselves, so a stall meant for five people might only have one in it.  While this is happening you will have families who are stuck waiting for a changing stall to open.  It can be a challenge getting 350 people through the cashiers and change room at a pool that does not have this configuration, I cannot imagine the difficulty of this scenario.

The second reason is one that I believe will become an issue in about 10 minutes after the pool opens.  Groups of teenagers will cause continual frustration.  All it will take is one 14 year old boy exposing himself to everyone in the change room to completely ruin the experience for everyone.  And believe me, it will happen.  What happens when a 14 year old exposes himself, as a joke, to a girl around his age, or someone younger?  This has disaster written all over it, and leads into my fourth point later on.

A third reason, and one that I look forward to the least, are groups of people changing together who should not be changing together, and the consequences of that.  I think many of us would agree that two 15 year old children who are dating, should not be changing together in a stall in a unisex change room.  There is also the issue of people of any age engaging in sexual activities in those stalls.  I know this will happen because it is something that we have to deal with on a semi-regular basis at the pool that I work at.  A young teenage couple will change in the family change room so they can engage in certain activities.  Or, on more rare occasions, adult couples will do the same.  I have caught more than my fair share of teenagers doing things they should not be doing in the family change room over the years.  This is a problem that would likely multiply ten fold in a unisex change room only configuration.

The second and third points both lead into my fourth, which is the effect on pool staffing.  Because of the issues that the second and third points will cause, lifeguards will likely be required to patrol the change room more often.  With recent city budgetary difficulties, we have seen staffing at my pool reduced, which makes it harder to do those checks.  When there is an incident in a city facility, the staff members involved in dealing with that incident are required to do some paperwork via filling out incident reports.  This means that the staff member is either unavailable to resume normal duties until that report is complete, or the report has to be done after their regular shift is over, which is paid time.  To have locker room checks at the frequency that would be required in a unisex change room format would likely require an additional staff member working than what we would normally see, which will mean the pool needs a larger budget, which is another burden on the city budget, and at the end, the tax payer.  Incidents will be more frequent, and you will likely run into very undesirable scenarios as a staff member.  As a male lifeguard I have run into multiple awkward situations with teenage girls in the family change room, the same can be said for my female co-workers.  This will add to the stress of an already stressful job as a lifeguard, and could turn people away from the job altogether.

I think that the concept of a family change room is a fantastic idea.  When utilized properly, the family change room at my facility is an excellent option for people to use.  I believe that every facility should have a family changing area, but not at the expense of a men’s and women’s change rooms.  They are a useful option, but not the only option.

I absolutely see the ideas behind having a single, unisex change room at a swimming pool facility.  However, in the opinion of this lifeguard, someone who works on the ground in a pool on a regular basis, the potential for problems simply outweigh any possible benefits.

[Read] – iNews880 article (identical article can also be found at 630ched.com)

[Read] – Global Edmonton Article

[Read] – Edmonton Journal Article