Babak's Blog

Varied interests

I've long known that like most folks, i've got a variety of interests. But when i really think about it, much of what i'm interested in is about helping others (or myself) improve the quality of our lives. for years, i've been saying that my 3 passions, beyond my family of course, are fitness, education and leadership. while diverse and somewhat broad, really what they are about is helping people get better.

i also seem to come across what i think are really cool ideas, concepts, or ways of looking at things. sometimes it's a quote related to running, or perhaps just a well-made video about something i never knew much about (joseph kony).

so i'm going to allow myself some latitude in what i write about - it's more important at this point to write about anything than to write about something. and we'll see where this road leads.

Cool quote

You can feel SORE tomorrow... Or, you can feel SORRY tomorrow. 
YOU CHOOSE.  -Anon

In Memory of BDR – Brian Robertson

 

It has been 15 hours since I got the news of Brian’s (affectionately referred to as BDR at our Sigma Chi fraternity at MIT) death in a plane crash.  Like everyone else, I still can’t believe it’s happened.  Surreal, nightmare, tragedy and a great loss for the world are some of the words and phrases that come to mind. 

I am not even sure the last time I saw Brian – it might have been a couple years ago, it might have been more like 5-7 years.  Time has a way of passing in weird ways.  Suffice to say that Brian and I weren’t particularly close in recent years, not because of any falling out but rather because we simply had our own lives and hadn’t reconnected other than the annual holiday cards we sent to one another.  I have actually had a note to myself in my gmail inbox (which doesn’t have more than 30 messages, so it’s not like it’s a cluttered place) to reach out to BDR since he and his family moved out to Southern California. 

But the time gap doesn’t make his impact on me or others nor the emotions we feel with his loss any smaller.  Brian was an absolutely amazing individual.  In college, as far as I know, he is the only person to pay his way thru MIT, working 20-30 hour weeks at a local software company.  While not a stellar student in the grade category, he clearly learned a great deal.  But he also viewed college life as much more than simply classes (or also work in his case), as he was President and Treasurer of our fraternity, rowed crew (more in a sec), dated, partied (way too many stories here) and most importantly was a great friend to many folks.  He even earned and saved enough that he could take a semester away in Russia. 

Brian and I rowed freshman crew together – he sat right behind me in a very special year of rowing.  I remember beating Dartmouth up in New Hampshire by a tenth of a second and Brian yelling for joy when we won that race.  Our coach Mike Welch used to say that Brian had no business being in that boat – he was short and stocky, not the stereotypical crew body type.  But by sheer will and determination, Brian earned his place there.   Just one of many places that sort of thing happened with Brian. 

Out of respect for his family, I’ll spare the partying stories, even though they were some of the typical BDR moments in college.  We all have many many many of them.  Even at his wedding’s rehearsal dinner, people had story after story to tell of Brian.  Suffice to say, he was nuts, pushed all of us, made us laugh (as well as some other things).  I can always remember Brian with that silly, dare I say stupid smile / grin of his, as he did something to garner a reaction.  It was the grin of a child – and while he grew out of being childish, he always maintained a childlike sense about him. 

Brian and I were also roommates in NYC in our first year after college, he in management consulting, myself in investment banking.  So we really didn’t see each other that much.  Over the years, I have found myself bragging about Brian, and I always include this fact, that we were roommates, as if it makes me cooler, being connected in that way to someone so amazing.  I’m proud of my life and achievements, but Brian was always someone people wanted to be connected to, closer to.  That’s how special he was.  And so yes, Brian and I were roommates in our first year in NYC.  Then he went off to do some ridiculously amazing things. 

Everyone knows his story, of leaving consulting to start Planetall – one of my friends rightly described it as the first social network.  And this was back in 1996.  When they sold to Amazon, everyone was happy for Brian and the rest of the Planetall crew, but particularly for Brian as there isn’t a harder-working guy out there.  And he certainly didn’t rest on his laurels, starting the equivalent of a NASDAQ for the bond market, wasn’t successful financially there, so had the maturity and vision to realize the benefit of an HBS education and experience – as if there was a question he would get in… His efforts to get solar panels put on the top of the HBS buildings began the next chapter of his career, as he went off into solar power in several different ventures. 

There are a great many things I remember about Brian – he was always rough around the edges, but Eileen cleaned him up pretty good.  Thanks Eileen! J  But most importantly was Brian’s character.  He wasn’t some who just experienced an amazing life, but rather he made life an amazing experience.   For himself and everyone around him.   His wife and children, his family, those of us who knew him directly, and really the world – we have all lost someone truly special.  The world is a bit less great without him in it.  What he had achieved in so many realms in 38 years was only a precursor to what was to come.  He was only getting going. 

We’ll miss you Brian. 

I miss you Brian. 

But know that you have touched so so many lives, brought smiles to our faces, changed how we perceive the world, impressed us with your passion and energy, and brought joy and love to your family. 

Rest well my friend. 

I still can’t believe you’re gone. 

Respectfully and sincerely,

Your bro,

In hoc,

-Babak

 

doping in cycling

i'm going to start a site called www.velodruggames.com - in this virtual fantasy league, participants pick from a list of riders who they believe will test positive for some sort of performance-enhancing drug in the next 12 months.  riders will accumulate points in the following categories:

1. Homo (for homologous, or the most ridiculous cheat) - testing positive in grand tour - triple the normal points
2. EPO - testing positive in a 7-day stage race - still a big deal, but not as effective as homologous
3. Testo - test positive in a classics race
4. Strychnine - test positive in an out-of-competition test
5. No Mas - riders get double points for waving their right to test the "B" sample
6. Dig-Dug - riders lose points for taking case to CAS
7. Domestique - riders who have a teammate who test positive get 25% of the points awarded

With 100 points, participants choose 9 riders as they play directeur drugeef.  representative costs include:

1. kloden - 50 points - former t-mobile and astana riders are mortal locks
2. contador - 25 points - associated w/ operacion puerto, won the tour, plus won the tour while later admitting he was sick.
3. wim vansevenant - 3 points - 2-time lantern rouge winner - put it this way, if he's doping, then he didn't get quality product.

really, i love cycling, but things have gotten a bit out of control recently...

how we control things

a couple friends were discussing how, amongst a group of four of us, each of us controls conversations and relationships.  it wasn't meant necessarily as a negative, as we often times associate the word "control" but rather was intended to focus on how we influence our environments.  according to them, we each use different styles, strengths and attitudes to do so.  for us, they argued that one uses indifference (or at least the appearance of not caring), another uses intelligence, a 3rd makes people play on his terms, and the fourth tries to overpower others, whether thru excitement or sheer repetition.

it got me thinking that we all have some way we use to affect others.  there are many such styles include:
-humor
-athletic ability
-a victim mentality
-flirting
-physical appearance
-kindness
-guilt
-rank / title in an organization

i'm not about to say which one is the best - though i do think things like playing the victim and making others try to feel guilty are not my favorites. the reality is that people will (and often times need to) use their strengths.  at the same time, having access to a variety of styles and strengths means that one can draw on them at different points, depending on the situation.  some people just don't care about intelligence - for them, the major currency of influence might be sex.  for others, athletic ability might be what allows one person to have a disproportionate amount of influence.

i'm going to start paying a little more attention to how people try to affect others.  again, control isn't a bad thing all the time.  we all want to have influence in one way or another.  if you want a great book on influence, check out robert cialdini's book, influence: science and practice.  it's a great read. in the meantime, just paying attention to the world out there is another great way to learn.

Dubai and Qatar Report

Hey all,

I think most of you knew that I was heading to Dubai and Qatar for a couple weeks – the trip was mostly to help facilitate a leadership program for college students in Qatar, but I was able to tack on a few days of vacation both in Dubai and Qatar. Figured I'd send out a report on the trip for those interested – you all know that I am incapable of short trip reports, so there is a link to pics at the bottom if you just want to see those. No offense taken if you just want to hit your delete button… :)

Let me just say that this was just an unbelievable trip, one that I had extremely lofty expectations for, and those expectations were most certainly surpassed. I didn't know what to expect, but what I experienced was so much greater than anything I could have ever imagined them to be. On some many levels, most notably professionally and personally, I experienced so much that I am just so grateful and appreciative that I was given this opportunity. It clearly goes down as one of my top 3 life experiences.

Dubai:

I'd heard that Dubai was Vegas on crack, and that was true, except there is gambling, no drinking and none of the so-called "gentlemen's clubs." It is very similar to Vegas, however, in the sense that the buildings and architecture seem each intended to outdo the most-previously built structures. The amount of construction going on both in Dubai and Qatar is just unreal. Everywhere you look there are construction cranes and it's hard to go anywhere without hearing the sounds of hammers and trucks. 

In the 3 days I had there, I was able to visit older part of Dubai on the first day and then the more modern part on the 2^nd. The third was spent treating myself to a half-day at the spa, something I never do, but figured I'd throw myself a bone with a massage and yogurt-based exfoliation treatment. No, I can't believe I just said that either. 

Anyhow, the highlight of the older town was visit the souqs, or markets. Dubai is known for its gold souq, and for those who love gold, this is a shopper's paradise. Just a ridiculous number of places to get gold, and over there, the usual is 18K not the 14K we typically see in the states, and it does look different even to my untrained eye.

Once you click on the pics, you'll see what the newer part of town is like – and there are several parts – Sheikh Zayed road is the street with a ton of high-rises, then there are the uber-nice beach resorts, including the famed Burj al Arab, the only 7-star hotel in the world (in the pics, it's the one that looks like a sail)– which I wasn't able to see b/c you have to make reservations to enter and it has a gatehouse at its front, so there is no sneaking in. There is also a huge tech industry in Dubai, with companies like Microsoft, Cisco, etc. all with a presence there. Then the Burj Dubai is under construction – to be the tallest building in the world at 800+ meters. Finally, there is the Mall of the Emirates, the largest mall in the world, featuring Ski Dubai, an indoor ski resort – and this ain't no small slope – it's a very impressively-size couple run and couple lifts.  Oh yea, there's also the Palm and the World, which are basically man-made island built in the shape of a palm and in the shape of a flat map of the world. Unreal.

The one thing I felt walking around, particularly in the hotels and high-rises which I took self-guided tours of, is the sense that everyone there has money. Chris Rock used to say, "I'm not talking about rich, I'm talking about wealth." And that is what kept going thru my head as I walked around. It just feels like those who are there are in a different stratosphere of wealth. The odd contrast is that the workers/laborers, who are mostly from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, are extremely poor and paid horribly – on the order of $100-$200 per month, and often times they are not paid for months on end. It's a very weird situation.

Overall, Dubai is a pretty amazing place to visit, despite that much of it feels quite contrived and almost plasticky. But to see all these highrises and magnificent structures in the Middle East really does blow one's mind.

Qatar:

The real reason for my trip was the leadership program. As way of background, there is a part of Doha, Qatar, called Education City, where there are campuses of 5 U.S. universities – VCU, Texas A&M, Carnegie-Mellon, Georgetown and Weil Cornell Medical School. Through the Qatar Foundation, created and supported by Her Highness Sheikha Moza, the Qatar government has brought top-notch US programs to Qatar – each focused on a certain area – VCU on design and graphic arts, A&M on engineering, etc. And the government has not only paid all the building construction for these school, pays the faculty (which are primarily US-based professors), etc., but they have given each school a huge grant – the only public figure is that Cornell received $750MM. 

What the Qatar Foundation and the government in general are doing is just extraordinary. Everything seems to be done in an extremely strategic and intelligent manner. They are throwing huge sums of money at these projects, but done in a smart way – they are also building a technology center, which I can only describe as beyond ginormous. One of the largest structures I've seen in person. And they are going to be building an $8 billion hospital complex. Yes, with a "b". Given that the countries oil reserves are expected to last another 40 years, they are planning now to provide long-term viability for the nation. 

One point of interest is that the population of Qatar is ~800,000, which is comprised of 200K Qataris and 600K expats. It's a surprisingly small country, but one with an awesome amount of resources, both natural (oil and gas) and human. 

The leadership program I went for/with is through an organization called LeaderShape which I have been affiliated with for a few years now. Both the Qatar Foundation and RasGas (one of the big companies out there) sponsored the session, and let me say that we were so well taken care of that I was so just floored. From being met at the gate and taken to a separate visa-processing area to staying in 5-star hotels, I'm not sure we really deserved this treatment, but you definitely did not hear me complaining. Plus, we got access that was just unparalleled – for example, we were able to visit the Al Jazeera Children's network, which *nobody* gets to see. We saw a traditional dance theater performance, toured the campuses, and got to see the Doha Debates, a program based on the Oxford Union debates – they have previously had such luminaries as Shimon Perez and Colin Powell visit. The topic of the debate we saw was whether Palestine should give up its fight to return to its lands. It airs on BBC World, and is really meant more for the students than anyone else. Very cool.

As for the session, I'll leave out most of the specifics, as they won't make sense to most of you, but suffice it to say that this group of 59 students amazed, inspired and humbled me. With backgrounds from 10-15 countries, it was unbelievably diverse, and while we had spent a great deal of time thinking and talking about the differences b/w there and the states and how we might have to adjust the curriculum, my quote of the week was when they first arrived at the session. It was simply, "They look like normal people." What I meant was that we had talked about the differences so much that I failed to recognize how similar they would be to college students anywhere. Sure, a bunch of the women wore hijab over their hair, and one woman was fully veiled (I'll get to her in a second – very different than what I, and possibly you, might have expected), but for the most part, they dressed like "typical" college students, behaved similarly and have the same hopes and dreams of most college students I've met. 

From a curriculum standpoint, we didn't change anything – it was the same curriculum we always do, and other than some subtle vocabulary distinctions we had to explain, their level of comprehension was top-notch. In addition, there were certain things that they did which none of us had seen before, and I mean that mostly in a positive way. Their vision statements were impressive, as expected, ranging from wanting to find a cure for cancer, improving women's rights, giving the workers and laborers the respect and dignity they deserve, and wanting to make Qatar a world leader in innovation and technology. Big and bold visions. Awesome.

Back to the woman who was fully-veiled. Her name is Asma. Prior to my trip, I had perceived women who were fully-veiled (just their eyes showing) as being oppressed, submissive and reserved. Definitely not the case with Asma. She was probably one of the brighter students there, and that is saying something given the company; similarly, she was one of the most attentive participants and clearly has a very strong personality. While I never did see her entire face, in some ways, and I find this as surprising as many of you might, seeing her eyes was enough. It wasn't all I saw of her, as she revealed a great amount of her personality with her spoken word and actions, but it certainly wasn't that the veiled covered her personality and being. It was a stereotype I carried that I was glad to have broken.  

Finally, on a personal note, this trip meant a great deal to me. It is the closest I've been to Iran in ages. Other than my trip with Moneypenny to Egypt in '97, I haven't been to the region in 30 years. It was very important for me to re-connect with that part of my past, and it was certainly a component of my connecting with the students. Interestingly, this was the first time I can recall where telling people I was Iranian served as such a strong positive and means of connection. Typically, the reaction I get is "Oh, neat," or "Cool, I used to work with an Iranian," or simply a negative reaction (rare, but still occurs). But in Dubai and Qatar, it was a huge positive. And that was very cool to experience. 

The other thing I realized was that as much as I've traveled over the past 10 years, this is by far the most in-depth experience I've had. Travelling as a tourist, one rarely gets the kind of interaction that I had in Qatar. Those who have taken semesters abroad or have lived abroad know exactly what I'm talking about. Interestingly, I think it has changed how I think about travel – I'm not sure exactly what I can do about it yet, and believe me, I am very grateful for the travel I have been able to do thus far, but this trip made me realize how much more I can learn with such deeper interactions. Sometimes it's just the reality of being a tourist, but I also think that you can choose, to some extent, how much interaction you have.

Man, what a great trip. Again, I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given. Thinking it would be an amazing trip was one thing, then realizing I had no clue what that meant and having all my expectations surpassed was just extraordinary. A big thank you to the folks at LeaderShape and my fellow faculty who were out in Qatar as part of this session. 

Take care,

-Babak

Link to pics (btw, i had an 8-hour layover in London, so i ran around the city for a few hours):
http://www.sharpcast.com/photos/user/trigeek/images?album=11539_49559627642501

How Snoopy changed my life...

Over the holidays I was watching A Charlie Brown Christmas for the bajillionth time. (Click here if you want to watch it.) Near the beginning of the flick, we see Snoopy, Chuck’s loveable dog, ice-skating – just totally enjoying himself (Snoopy, I mean). Skating in circles, big smile on his, just totally carefree. Then he grabs a bunch of the kids and pulls them along – we see some of them laughing, others screaming, and some others not really knowing what to think.

Later, Charlie Brown feels down when he sees that his own dog is showing the Christmas spirit by putting lights up on his doghouse. Throughout, we Snoopy as this totally carefree character, always seeming to enjoy himself, celebrating life to the fullest. Even when Lucy gets mad at him, he responds with a smile and by licking her face (which, like, totally grosses her out, but that’s a different story…).

It’s been a number of years since I’d watching an animated Charlie Brown feature, and while I read the comics every once in a while, the animated shows are totally different. Perhaps it was the time of the year or where I am in my life, but something about watching this show this time was different for me.

We often associate carefree with someone who is lazy or just doesn’t get much done. And so I quickly realized that I needed to be careful in picking the appropriate words here.

But more than being carefree, Snoopy celebrates life. He is rarely without a smile on his face. Whether it is ice-skating or listening to Linus play the piano, he enjoys where he is and more than that, celebrates the now. At the same time, he enrolls others in playing, as he does by grabbing his fellow ice-skaters and pulling them along. Sure, there’s a reckless abandon to some of his actions, but I’d rather err on reckless abandon with getting others involved than going it solo.

Somehow Snoopy rarely, if ever, complains. Not only that, he adapts quickly. At one point, Lucy tells him that he must take the role of all the animal characters in the performance they are putting together. Snoopy could easily have said, “I am a dog and that’s it all that I am.” Instead, he shows off his best sheep baa, cow moo, and penguin waltz.

As I was thinking about all of this, I caught myself and wondered what I was doing. Is this some silly analysis of an animated, fictional dog? Is this analysis so un-Snoopy-like? Was I like the writer who argued that the character in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” was in fact Santa Claus (my 8^th-grade English used to say that this was a perfect example of a situation where just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should actually do it.)

Am I ridiculous in looking at Snoopy’s personality and characteristics?

And then I realized something. Even if the answer is yes, that doesn’t mean that I can’t use him as a guide, and this is the important part, if it helps me. My point is this – Snoopy has a lot of characteristics that I want for myself – and if it means that I think about how Snoopy behaves in a certain situation and that works for me, then who cares if it is silly, ridiculous, or absurd?

I want to be more carefree than I am. I want to celebrate life as much as possible. I want to enroll others in things that I celebrate. I want to complain as little as possible. I want to adapt quickly.

For me, those are some of my aspirations. And I see them as generally good. If that means that I look to some fictional and animated beagle to help me be that way more often, I’ll take it.

Perhaps in writing about this, making it public for anyone to see, I am slowly being more like Snoopy.

Now, if you find me sleeping on top of a doghouse, you'll know I've gone a bit too far, but that's a risk I'm willing to take...

The Golden Rule was Slightly Off

My professor David Bradford at Stanford Business School told me something that has stuck with me several years later. He said that the Golden Rule was slightly off. Actually he might even have said it was wrong. Either way, I remember that once he said that, I was curious how he would follow that statement. How do you know the Golden Rule? Off? Wrong? What gives.

Then he explained that the Golden Rule said you should do unto others as you’d have done unto you. But this is not the right way of looking at it. Professor Bradford said that you should do unto others as - (and this is the important part) – as they would prefer to have done unto them.

That’s a big difference. And I think he is/was right. Our actions towards others shouldn’t necessarily be just about what we would prefer; we should be thinking about others and recognize what they want. Whether it’s being self, self-righteous or just plain stubborn, by following the Golden Rule as written, we are not appropriately considering others’ preferences. And I would guess that in many circumstances, what others would want and what I would want would be very different.

But that takes a lot of work to follow this new rule that I coin the Bradford Rule – until he tells me he got the idea from someone else, I’m giving him full credit. But sometimes we don’t know what others want. How can we possibly know what others want? Well, here’s a shocker – we can ASK them. Now, there’s a novel idea. Ma’am, what would you prefer? Sir, how would you like things done?

Now, this isn’t to say that we always defer to others’ desires and give up our preferences, goals, or beliefs. I’m not at all suggesting that. It is more of a shift in perspective – in being able to recognize – no, it’s more than recognition. It is in being to act in a way that acknowledges the differences we have. It is acting in a way that reflects that we are thinking of others. It is acting in a way that reflects that we are thinking at all.

The Bradford Rule – Do unto others as they would prefer to have done unto them.

Amen.

Geeks…

You could pick from a ridiculous number of examples to prove that I’m a geek. I was a math major. At MIT. (It should be noted that the only time I wasn’t a math major from MIT was on spring break in Cancun. Then, I was a communications major from Emerson College that sounded more normal. The funny thing is that years later when I tell some of my women friends this, they tell me that I shouldn’t have lied, that they would’ve loved to have spoken to someone halfway intelligent on spring break. I then remind them that this is the opinion of the late-twentysomething them that feels this way. The 20-year old them wanted nothing to do with a math major from MIT. But I digress.)

Anyhow, my point is/was that I would have better luck trying to get a date with Angelie Jolie (a long-time goal by the way) than trying to argue that I’m not a geek.   

High on the list are some of the books I’ve read and movies I’ve seen – Word Freak is about competitive Scrabble players. And when I say “competitive,” I mean “good.” Not about you and me playing and being competitive, but about players who consistently score over 500 points per game.

“Wordplay” is a documentary about crossword puzzles. It introduces several folks, including the editor of the NY Times crossword puzzle (who by the way is the only person in the world to hold a degree in Enigmatology – the study of puzzles), and shows interviews with Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton and Mike Mussina. The documentary builds towards the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament where in 2005 a 20-year old becomes the youngest ever to win (he wins again in 2006 in the bonus scenes on the DVD).

And then most recently, I just finished reading Prisoner of Trebekistan, which is, not surprisingly, about Jeopardy. The author is Bob Harris who is a comedian who tried out for the show numerous times, and when he finally made it, he became a 5-time champion and then appeared on various tournaments they had. Several things stood out for me in this book.

1. 5-time champions aren’t usually just smart folks who play the game. They study their tails off. Bob Harris did. Ken Jennings (74-day winner) did. They all seem to. Harris used mnemonics to help remember from the state birds to the kingdom-phylum-species ordering to the books of Henry James. Just like the amazing abilities and commitment of Scrabble players (who memorize, amongst other things, all the 2-, and 3-letter words, words that begin with “Q” but are not followed by a “U”) – just like these folks, these Jeopardy champs are students of their game. Even how Harris described thinking ahead when he saw the categories (for the category, “Playing President” before the game even started, he began going thru all the people who have played president in a movie or TV show – Michael Douglas, Martin Sheen, among others) and I have to say that the next time I watched the game, I began doing the same thing (or at least tried to).
2. I was also impressed by the camaraderie shared by the champions. Harris describes them all as super-nice people, who while they may be competitive, really are just wickedly-curious folks. After meeting at the champions’ tournaments, many of them stay in touch. That seems pretty cool.
3. While Alex Trebek can seem somewhat cocky on the show (in his pronunciation of words, how he corrects folks when they are incorrect, etc.), Harris claims, and I’d heard the same from an interview with Ken Jennings, the Trebek really is a genuinely nice guy who roots for everyone.
4. Finally, while at times the acquisition of knowledge seems like a nice-enough goal in and of itself, Harris talks about a transformation that occurred, where by learning all these cool things, he now has a greater appreciation for the world. His natural curiosity has made him take in more of the world around him. That seems like a great result of this obsessive quest for knowledge and learning.

I like spending my time with books and movies like these because it gives me an appreciation for how others think. The reason I’ve always liked being around smart people is that they are smart for a reason – I often learn something from them, whether it is simply humility or more often it is a new or different way of looking at something (such as pre-thinking the categories on Jeopardy as Bob Harris did).

No doubt about it. One of the best ways to get better at something is to interact with people who are better than you are. They’ll make you better.

Walking around naked in the gym locker room…

I can only imagine what women’s locker rooms at the gym are like, but I just hope they’re not like the men’s locker room. I’ve never understood why men walk around the locker naked. And not just for a couple seconds, but long stretches of time. Usually after exiting the always-clean Jacuzzi and then basking in the sauna for a quarter hour, they return to the locker room and begin to go about their business butt naked. And not that it really makes much of a difference, but the men who do this fall into at least one of the following categories – overweight, hairy or old. 

Seriously, do these men do this at their homes? Walk around naked, shave naked, sit on a bench and pick the toe-jam out of their feet while in a long discourse to one of their pals about how their hemorrhoids are acting up again. In a brief, and admittedly statistically insignificant, survey of my friends, not a one says (or at least is willing to admit) that they follow this behavior at home. I don’t have to go to the sink too often at the gym – my usual path is usually from the door to the locker and out, with a shower at the end – but in the event I need to wash my hands or I’m shaving in the morning before heading to work, is it really too much to ask that the folks next to me not force me to see their hairy ass as I walk up to the sink?

Other habits I see in the locker defy logic. Shaving is one thing, but does it make sense to shave at 8pm? If you were going on a date, that’d be one thing, but trust me, the guys who are shaving at 8pm at the gym ain’t got a hot date that nite. Then, a couple days, I saw something totally random. A guy puts shaving cream on his face, then, before shaving or washing any of the shaving cream off his face, proceeds to brush his teeth. I don’t know about you, and I’m not a slob, but I usually have a little bit of slobber coming out of my mouth when I brush. Isn’t that going to go onto the shaving cream? Again, seriously, who puts shaving cream on his face, and THEN brushes his teeth. 

I can only imagine what happens in the women’s locker room…Then again, I’m guessing women were better off not knowing what happens in men’s locker rooms, so perhaps I’d be better off not knowing either…