Jay M. Nunez

Monday, February 1, 2016

3 Easy Tips for Bathroom Maintenance

Regular bathroom maintenance is an essential part of housekeeping. Some easy tips for bathroom maintenance are listed below.

Bathtub and Shower Door Maintenance

Bathtubs and showers that have doors, whether they swing or slide, should be regularly inspected for standing water along the base or track of the door. If standing water is present, your drainage system within the track assembly is not working properly. Small holes should be drilled on an angle into the track in a manner that allows water to drain back into the bathtub or shower unit. This will help to minimize the growth of mildew along the track and keep your door working properly. Source: Buildipedia

Toilet Maintenance

Start by pouring a cup of baking soda into the bowl. Let sit for a few minutes; brush and flush. Still seeing spots? A damp pumice stone is abrasive enough to remove stains caused by mineral deposits and lime scale but gentle enough not to damage surfaces. Then tackle the toilet brush itself, which you should be cleaning after every use. Here’s how: Secure the brush handle between the already-cleaned seat and the basin so that it hovers over the bowl; pour bleach over the bristles. Let stand for a few minutes, then douse with a pitcher of clean water. Next, fill the brush canister with warm, soapy water and let sit; dump the dirty water into the toilet. In cases of extreme grime buildup (or acute toilet-crevice trepidation), you might want to invest in a small, light-duty electric pressure washer. It lets you blast hard-to-reach areas, like the spots where the hinges meet the seat, from a safe distance. Always close the lid when you flush, and use the vent fan (it sucks up bacteria before they can settle). If you’re not already storing toothbrushes and contact lenses inside the medicine cabinet, you may want to start now. Source: RealSimple

Bathroom Sink Maintenance

It may shock you to know that bathroom sinks are often dirtier than kitchen sinks. Even though kitchen sinks see all the food traffic, they have disposals and built in bacteria to break these things down. As often as you can stomach it, pull the drain stopper and clean it thoroughly. Scrub it off, soak it in vinegar, then toss it in the dishwasher. This process should remove the mold and gunk that can build up in there without a solid cleaning. Of course, make sure you scrub the sink a least once a month if not every week. Don’t forget to check around the fixtures for leaks. The sink is a hard place to spot leaks, even though they are more visible, because water is always getting splashed around from daily use, and the origin of the water is difficult to discern. Source: HomeAdvisor

Following these maintenance tips on a regular basis will help keep your bathroom fresh and clean. For more information, contact us.

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Broken Wing

Greg Bird required surgery on his shoulder and will miss the 2016 season:

When the season ended, though, Bird’s agent contacted the Yankees to let them know there had been some lingering discomfort. According to general manager Brian Cashman, the Yankees sent Bird for shoulder checkups with both Dr. Chris Ahmad and Dr. David Altchek in October. Both recommended no surgery at the time, just a strengthening and rehab protocol similar to what Bird had done with success in Trenton.

That might have been the end of it, but the problem began to flare up again last month.

“I would say a week ago; some time in the last 10 days,” Cashman said. “Once he started working out further and stronger in Tampa, he felt problems again.”

This does not impact the Yankees plan that much at the moment, since Mark Teixeira is expected to play first this year. Without Bird, however,the Yankees don’t have a great backup plan if the annual Teixeira injury occurs.

The good news is that Bird should be fine for the 2017 season, when the Yankees will need a new first baseman.

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Hand-Eye Coordination Drills

Hand-eye coordination drills

Over the years, I have made a point to continually emphasize the importance of hand-eye coordination. When I coach an athlete, it is one of the first things that I pick up on. I want to know if the athlete can see and react to an incoming object (ex. a punch or ball). Without hand-eye coordination, an athlete will be limited in many areas. Certain sports depend heavily on this critical quality. Unfortunately, hand-eye coordination is one of those attributes that rarely receives direct attention. Many coaches view it as something that you either have or you don’t. That’s a mistake.

The Strength and Conditioning Era

In today’s world, you’ll be hard pressed to find athletes at any level who aren’t engaged in a strength and conditioning program. Everyone wants to improve their strength, power, and endurance. Even youth athletes are spending more time building these attributes.

As a result, a day rarely passes without a parent contacting me in hopes of improving his child’s strength or conditioning. And more and more of these inquiries are being asked about prepubescent athletes. Oddly enough, I can’t recall the last time a parent contacted me in hopes of improving his child’s hand-eye coordination.

That’s unfortunate.

Beyond Natural Ability

I’ve worked with enough athletes over the years to know that hand-eye coordination isn’t evenly distributed at birth. Not everyone possesses the same natural gifts. The fact that there are genetic differences though isn’t an argument to ignore an attribute entirely. For example, it’s not as if strength is overlooked just because certain athletes are naturally stronger than others. All athletes work to become stronger regardless of where they start.

The same logic should be applied to hand-eye coordination. Vast improvements can be made with consistent practice. And “practice” should not be confused with simply playing your sport. Hand-eye coordination drills can be practiced separately. You don’t need fancy equipment and you’ll never need more than a few minutes at a time.

Demonstration

Back in 2012, I shared a video tutorial of some hand-eye coordination drills. In the time since, I’ve had several requests for an abbreviated version that can be used to reference the throw and catch sequence. With that in mind, I’ve created the brief video below.

I enjoy these hand-eye coordination drills for several reasons. For starters, you can perform them almost anywhere without special equipment. A few tennis balls or racquetballs will suffice. You also don’t need a partner or coach to assist.

Furthermore, these drills are not physically taxing. In other words, hand-eye coordination can be enhanced without interfering with the rest of your training. You could perform these drills for a few minutes each day without wearing yourself out.

Additional Options

The throw and catch sequences demonstrated above are just a few of the countless options that exist for hand-eye coordination development. Naturally, there are other throw and catch drills that can be done with a partner. There’s also a long list of solo drills that you can perform.

A few of my favorites include the following:

Learning to juggle
Hitting the speed bag or double-end bag
Training with an elastic head ball
Catching coins

You don’t need to be a fighter to benefit from these drills. You can also think up additional drills yourself with a little creativity. It is always useful to mix in different forms of training that will challenge your coordination.

Final Thoughts

There’s no doubt that an athlete’s hand-eye coordination will be challenged and developed through sports. Speaking as a boxing coach, I challenge the hand-eye coordination of my athletes through regular mitt work. Sparring is also excellent. Plenty can be done outside of competition and sport practice however. Hand-eye coordination drills can be practiced regularly by athletes of all levels (regardless of the sport). You are never too old or too young to benefit from such drills.

In summary, I highly recommend that all athletes dedicate time to improving their hand-eye coordination. Frequent, yet brief sessions are ideal. Don’t allow yourself to get frustrated, but don’t limit yourself to the same drills either. The best drills are typically those that are difficult for you to perform. Once you’ve mastered a drill, it is time to move on to something that is more challenging.

Never settle, and continually strive to improve.

+++++

“Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details and excellence will come.” – Perry Paxton

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You Want To Take My Money, But Who Are You?

Every day, it seems there is a new sales, marketing, customer service tool popping up on the web. I explore lots of them, many look very promising.

All of them want me to “buy,” it’s a subscription of some type.

The subscription price may be something as simple as my email address. But my email address has tremendous value, so I want to be cautious in how I invest it. My email gives you access to my most precious commodity, my time.

Some actually are asking for money, albeit what seems to be a fair price, one that I’m willing to pay based on what I see of the services offered.

But I’m stuck at that point. These are people who are asking me to buy, yet I don’t know who “they” are.

I spend more time than I should wandering around the website. I look for information about the company. There may be a cool team photo at some fun location or of the great offices they have, but no individuals. Who’s running the company? Who do I contact if I have questions? How do I know you are legitimate and I can trust that you will deliver value for what I am investing?

Oops, there’s that word “trust.” I’ll come back to it.

I wander more. Usually, there’s a link at the bottom of their webpage (often, they only have a splash page than you have to scroll and scroll and scroll through—a real pain on an IPhone.). It’s in a font and color you can barely see. It’s called Terms of Service. There may be another one called Privacy.

I open the Terms Of Service. All of them read the same—use at your own risk, we can’t guarantee the availability of service or that you will get results, but we have no liability, and if you don’t pay us we’ll come after you.

That’s comforting. But who do I contact if I have problems, or what if I want to take legal action (not that I ever will, but our company’s lawyers feel more comfortable knowing these things when I sign a contract). There’s no address, no phone number, just an email: info@coolproducts.com) The privacy statement has the similar stuff. We’ll use your info for our purposes and marketing, we won’t sell your info (????????), but no one to contact.

There’s no street address–OK, I get you may be a “virtual office.” There’s no phone number. OK, I get you are millennials and it is so yesterday to actually speak to another person. There’s only that same email address: info@coolproducts.com

OK, I think, you want me to invest something of value to me–my email address, my time, perhaps my money. But who are you? What’s our relationship going to be like? What if something goes wrong? Can I trust you?

There’s that pesky word again.

Some of you might be thinking, “Dave, can’t you recognize a scam when you see it?”

But actually, these are legitimate companies, with products that do offer great value. How do I know? I’ve actually met some of the founders at conferences, or they’ve reached out to me asking me to visit their website, review their offering, maybe use it.

There was one, actually a very good product, that I used. I paid $4.99 a month for the entry version of it. Ultimately, I decided to cancel my account. But my credit card kept being charged. I sent a note to the email address, info@coolproducts.com. A few days passed. No response, sent a more strongly worded note to the same address. No response. Scoured the website, found a phone number. Turned out to be a Google Voice Number–so your phones are virtual too.

After several days, still no response.

I started scouring the network to find a “contact.” Ultimately, I found the founder on LinkedIn. I sent an Inmail. He got back to me quickly, was very embarrassed about the failure of their systems. Turned out my emails were going into their SPAM filter (Hmmmmm) and they couldn’t find the voicemails I left at their virtual phone number. He quickly corrected the situation, but is this the customer experience companies want to create?

Some of you might be saying, Dave you just don’t get it, this is the Internet Age, everything is in the cloud, it’s all virtual.

But you want to take my money, who are you?

Yes, I know a lot of you are testing your Minimum Viable Product. I’m a great fan of Eric Ries and the Lean Startup principles. But I’m not sure this is what Eric intended as a MVP.

There’s this pesky concept that keeps coming up in any kind of buying and selling relationship. It’s this notion of Trust.

Who are you? Are you the type of person or company I want to do business with?

What confidence do I have that you will deliver what I’m expecting and what I’m investing in? What happens if I have a problem? If I need to get to you, how do I find you?

How do I develop confidence that you have anything more than what I see on your splash page or at your website?

In the back of my mind, I recall hearing, “People buy from people.” But how do I buy if there are no people? No office, no phone? Just a website and an email: info@coolproducts.com

If you want me to invest in your company, whether it’s investing my email address or my money, I want some level of relationship. I want to know who you are. I want some level of confidence that I can contact you and might get a response. If I’m spending money, I want to be able to know I can resolve difficulties we might be having.

Above all, I want to know I can trust you.

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Stewart on the Infield

The trade of Aaron Hill for Jean Segura leaves the Diamondbacks with a glut of players on the middle infield. Dave Stewart gives his take on Segura or Nick Ahmed at shortstop:

“Jean Segura is a guy we can hit at the top of the order if we chose to, and with the opportunity to make a move like that, we felt we would do it.”

Will he be the starting shorstop? “We always like to look at our camps as a competitive camp. We want to make sure that we don’t overlook the job Nick Ahmed did for us defensively last year. When all’s said and done, the guy the plays the best will get the job.”

Segura, however, will get the bulk of the playing time at short in spring training. If Ahmed plays, it appears he’ll need to improve his offense:

Can you see Nick Ahmed playing 2B? “It’s difficult for me to make a comment on that. We’ll have to get into spring training and see… I know Nick has been working on some things this winter, and has the capability to be a better offensive player for us.”

I don’t quite understand why Stewart thinks Segura is a top of the order hitter. He had a good year in 2013, getting on base at a .329 clip. In the two years since, since OBP is .285 with little power. He will play 2016 as a 26 year old, so he’s still in his prime, but it looks like the league adjusted to him after 2013 and Segura never answered the adjustment. That’s not a good sign.

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Q and A With Roman Lappat

Early Pioneer

Alex Remington reviews the innovative and evil life of Tony Mullane on the 157th anniversary of his birth:

James is right: Tony Mullane was a self-indulgent prima donna, a racist, and a pioneer. He was larger than life, and precisely the kind of modern antihero who demonstrates that being great has nothing to do with being good. Trailblazer and heel, immigrant and ace, he deserves to be remembered. Sometimes the 19th century can feel unfathomably long ago and far away. But Tony Mullane feels as modern as Barry Bonds. Baseball history may not repeat, but it rhymes.

Well worth the read.

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