Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Xavix Challenge at Cancer Relay for Life

3-28-06: Last Saturday night, Beaver Medical Group, under the leadership of Ellen Murray (HR), participated in the 24-hour Relay for Life to benefit the American Cancer Society. Ellen asked me if we could provide some extra excitement for our booth and I told her about how we could do the Jackie Chan Dash game as a fun activity during the walk for a couple of hours.

Xavix heartily supported this with a lot of swag and the grandprize, a Xavix Port and J-mat game (MSRP $170!). Because they offered so many cool gifts, we were able to give prizes to the best scores in 5 age categories for males and females. A big thanks to Xavix!

For a suggested donation of $1, challengers could take their turn playing Dash, a sprint to see how many steps one could get in 10 seconds. Some players paid quite a few $1 bills in order to try and improve their score or beat the top score.

According to Ellen, this event alone raised $120, plus helped get BMG's booth get "Best Campsite". Check out the pictures for another way XRtainment Zone helped out in this worthy cause!Bobby had the high score of 106 for most of the night...till the Ferguson brothers came along!

People also tried out Jackie Chan's Action Run, a 5-min. run through the streets of Hong Kong dodging and jumping over barriers and fighting ninjas. Thanks to CSUSB intern Darlene for helping out with this station.








Joel helped to encourage them on as they did their 10-sec. dash.




Darnell Ferguson break's Bobby's record with a 112!


The crowd went wild when Andre ties his brother with a 112 step score as well!


In the tie-breaker "dash off", Darnell bests his brother for the grand prize. Congrats to Darnell and all the rest of the contestants and winners in the Xavix Jackie Chan Dash Challenge!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Bouldering wall arrives!

3-12-06. Sunday dawned bright and clear for us to unload the bouldering wall from the truck left over the weekend in front of the Xrtainment Zone. A special thanks to Mark Perkins, Tracy Olson, and Corey Knowlton for lending their muscle to help Joel and I get this thing unloaded. (Don't forget you can click on the picture to enlarge it.)


It was quite a load...glad we had the muscle to unload it!



The panels were quite heavy, but they were up to the task.



COO Joel rides the wall into the Zone, powered by Perkins.


They try to figure out how to put this together, then decide to let our general contractor Fred take care of it.


We enjoyed the fruits of our labor--testing out one of the new vita mix and Dr. Smoothie drinks that we'll be selling at our smoothie bar. Very tasty, and no trans or refined sugar!

Presentation week at healthcare conferences

3-5-06. For the first time, we had the opportunity to present the exertainment message to 2 groups in healthcare: The National Auxillary for Loma Linda Univ. School of Medicine and LLU's School of Public Health's annual meeting, Healthy People 2006. As the "exertainment evangelist", this was exciting for us to see the response to exertainment video games from the healthcare side of the fence. Fortunately, the response was very positive after both meetings! Many new contacts were made, and the message of exertainment is now spreading across the country, and even around the world to places like Puerto Rico and Egypt!

Here is Joel given his portion of our presentation on Sunday to the National Auxillary. We had 3 hours, and spent some of that time letting the audience try out the games we had set up there (Gamebikes, Eye Toy, and J-mats).

CalState San Bernardino intern Alicia encourages a participant in the Jackie Chan Dash, a sprint to see how many steps you can get in 10 seconds.

The lady's husband came by to pick her up after the meeting, and I heard her tell him that he would've loved this presentation and he should've stayed. She got him to try out the Dash. They are interested in getting these games in a wellness center they're putting together in FL as well, so we hope to be hearing from them soon.



These are the 3 participants who won a XRtainment Zone t-shirt for participating in front of the whole audience. Many were interested in where to buy, how to set up, etc. so we were busy answering those questions. Others were interested in working at the Zone, so we collected their business cards. And finally, others were interested in getting a franchise in their area, or investing in the company. I directed all those folks to COO Joel. ;-)

I didn't get any pictures of my presentation on 3/9/06 at the Health People conference (looks like any other health conference--powerpoint, laser pointer, people in the audience, etc.), but it was more stressful for me, since it was in front of my peers, former professors, other faculty, and visiting healthcare professionals. Oh, and the other speakers!

Thankfully, it went well, the video clip I made (on my iMac!) of different exertaiment games (including my dad playing the Eye Toy for the first time as part of his stroke rehab) played perfectly, and again, I had 3 people from the audience--grad student Denise Hinds (also an intern here at the clinic), a lady from the audience, and Brad, a speaker.

When I was finished, I spent the next hour talking to people about a variety of things-- getting exertainment games in their area, investing, doing further research, and working at the Zone.

With this main presentation done, I can now go and speak to other groups with slight modifications. If you know of anyone needing a speaker, let me know. I have my laptop and LCD projector, so I'm ready to spread the exertainment word to the masses!

Decorating advice; wiring


2-23-06: It's been a while since I've updated here. Not much you can see--mostly wiring and plumbing progress! Also met with our interior decorator who has given us some great advice on the color schemes in the area.





This is the wiring inside the check-in section of our front desk.




When things just get too hectic, Joel likes to take a few minutes for some quiet time in what will eventually be the men's restroom. (Thx to Joel for being a good sport about this "canned" shot!)