Posts Tagged ‘Oprah’
“All rising to great places is by a winding stair”*…
(Roughly) Daily will be on Thanksgiving hiatus until Monday the 2nd. Meantime, with an eye to the massive meals that U.S. readers are likely to consume in the meantime…
George Schupp never expected to find himself in Robert De Niro’s apartment. Once the owner of a thriving a custom manufacturing company in Tulsa, Schupp’s business withered during the 1970s energy crisis.
Feeling aimless, Schupp and his business partner, Jim Walker, began wondering what else they could manufacture. Through creativity and fate, they ended up producing something so iconic that it transformed gyms around the world – and sculpted countless butts along the way.
Maybe that’s what De Niro was hoping for, when he invited Schupp into his home. It’s hard to know, all these years later. But the one thing the story shows is that even De Niro wasn’t immune to the allure of the StairMaster.
For a long time, gyms didn’t have machines, other than a stationery bike or two. The gym was a place for synchronized cardio classes, or free weights. The StairMaster, along with companies like Nautilus, transformed the gym into its current landscape, where rows of treadmills coexist with bikes, ellipticals and other contraptions.
An early StairMaster
But how did the StairMaster climb from its humble Midwest origins to an Oscar-winning actor’s luxurious suite? It started with a chance encounter. In the midst of Schupp and Walker’s strategizing over how to transition into the fitness industry, they happened to meet a man named Lanny Potts.
When Walker showed up to buy Potts’ old car, the two fell into a meet cute so perfect it could have been scripted. Potts, it turned out, was an inventor. Soon, the trio met regularly to brainstorm. Walker and Schupp had the manufacturing know-how, and Potts brought promising ideas into the mix.
Seeking inspiration, Potts began reaching out to friends and associates. At one point, he made the fateful decision to approach his doctor, who proceeded to muse about the vexing problem of stair climbing. Did they know that climbing is excellent exercise, yet the descent can wreak havoc on shins and joints? They did not. But there it was, nearly perfect: A problem that needed a solution. And so they got to work.
In this way, the StairMaster’s history is almost the exact opposite of the treadmill’s. While the StairMaster is designed to minimize potential injury, the treadmill was specifically designed to inflict it. In 1818, a civil engineer named William Cubitt designed the treadmill as a ghoulish machine to punish prisoners…
Oprah with the (newer model) StairMaster she called “my little friend”
A keystone of the modern gym: “The Story of the StairMaster.”
See also “From Oil to Oprah: An Oral History of the StairMaster.”
[image at top: source]
* Gautama Buddha
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As we work it off, we might recall that it was on this date in 1924 that the annual Thanksgiving Day parade started in Newark, New Jersey by Louis Bamberger at the Bamberger’s store was transferred to New York City by Macy’s. Originally running from Harlem to the Macy’s store on Herald Square, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is tied for second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with America’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit. (Both parades are four years younger than Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.)
The balloons that have become the Macy’s Parade’s signature were introduced in 1927, when a Felix the Cat balloon took the place of the live animals that had previously been borrowed from the Central Park Zoo.
From the first Macy’s Parade:
Dream homes…
Facit Homes has claimed to be the first builder to use digital technology to fabricate a bespoke home on site (the one above, built for a couple in the UK). Managing Director Bruce Bell explains, “we bring our compact high-tech machine to site and make it there and then—its an amazingly efficient way of designing and making a house.”
As GizMag reports,
Facit Homes first designs the house using a 3D computer model, which contains every aspect from its orientation, material quantities, even down to the position of individual plug sockets. The patented “D-Process” then transforms the 3D digital designs into the home’s exact physical building components, using a computer controlled cutter. These components are usually made from engineered spruce ply and are light and easy enough to then be assembled together on site. Since the components are produced on demand, costs are kept to a minimum and lead times are eradicated. “It’s not a building system but a way of working,” said Bell…
Read the full story here; and watch the process in the video here:
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As we work on a new welcome mat, we might recall that it was on this date in 1986 that Oprah first entered homes across America: this is the anniversary of the first national airing of The Oprah Winfrey Show. It went on, of course, to become the highest-rated syndicated show in television history.
A September, 1986 ad from TV Guide
Where everybody knows your name…
Some have fame thrust upon them…
Some just happen upon it along the way…
Artist and scientist Stephen Von Worley has mashed up Google Maps and the Open Street Map Project to create a search tool that will let one find all of the streets in the U.S. that share one’s name (first name, for now… as a bonus, one also gets places and things).
One can visit Steve’s Data Pointed to find one’s namesakes…
As we rethink our routes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1965 that the FBI exonerated “Louie Louie,” declaring that the lyrics of the 1963 recording by The Kingsmen– widely rumored to be “dirty”— were in fact simply indecipherable. After analyzing the disc at its intended 45 rpm and also at 33 1/3 and 78, and interviewing a member of the band, the FBI Laboratory declared the lyrics to be officially “unintelligible at any speed.”
In fact the song’s creator, Richard Berry, had released “Louie Louie” to mild regional success– and no lyrical controversy– a decade earlier. But the FBI’s verdict notwithstanding, a cloud hovered over the tune: in 2005, the superintendent of the Benton Harbor, Michigan school system refused to let the marching band at one of the schools play the song in a parade; she later relented.
from the FBI’s “Louie Louie” file (source)
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