Ever had one of those days where the universe seems to conspire against your domestic bliss? Well, pull up a chair and chuckle along as we recount some recent homelife hi-jinx–from rogue RVs causing water outages to backflow bedlam in the garden. But it's not all sprinkler systems and studio aesthetics; we also share our takeaways from Podfest, where the mix of venue vibes and speaker surprises left us with plenty to mull over.
Now, let's swap garden gloves for bathrobes as we strip down the misconceptions of spas as a man's world of self-care. Imagine unraveling the day's stress with the magic touch of a skilled massage therapist or glowing up your game with a rejuvenating facial. We'll take you through our own spa escapades, dishing out tips on snagging great deals and navigating the etiquette maze of co-ed steam rooms. Whether it's a lavish day-long retreat or a quick-fix chair massage, we're here to guide you through the self-care jungle. So sit back, relax, and let us be your personal wellness gurus.
Ever had one of those days where the universe seems to conspire against your domestic bliss? Well, pull up a chair and chuckle along as we recount some recent homelife hi-jinx–from rogue RVs causing water outages to backflow bedlam in the garden. But it's not all sprinkler systems and studio aesthetics; we also share our takeaways from Podfest, where the mix of venue vibes and speaker surprises left us with plenty to mull over.
Now, let's swap garden gloves for bathrobes as we strip down the misconceptions of spas as a man's world of self-care. Imagine unraveling the day's stress with the magic touch of a skilled massage therapist or glowing up your game with a rejuvenating facial. We'll take you through our own spa escapades, dishing out tips on snagging great deals and navigating the etiquette maze of co-ed steam rooms. Whether it's a lavish day-long retreat or a quick-fix chair massage, we're here to guide you through the self-care jungle. So sit back, relax, and let us be your personal wellness gurus.
Hey there, this is Charles. Good morning. It's Monday, february 12th 2024. Coming to you a few hours late this morning because someone decided to drop a Super Bowl right in the middle of my primetime podcast Editing Window. Congrats to the Chiefs for winning one of the most exciting Super Bowls that I can remember. I know many of the wives and girlfriends of the players listen to the show, so again, congrats and try to get your men to shout us out during an interview. This week we'll continue our discussion of self-care for men and in this fun-sized episode, dan and I will chat about our spa days and the services we love to use to recharge. Enjoy and please follow or subscribe to the show, thanks.
Dan:Good morning Charles. How are you? Spectacular.
Charles:Dan, how are you?
Dan:I am well.
Charles:Yesterday was. I had a little bit of a rough morning yesterday. I was in the middle of cooking breakfast and taking a shower.
Dan:You're gonna save time, so I had the my Kramer, you need a shower.
Charles:Not exactly. I had my sausage and my eggs going on low heat while I take my shower so that as soon as I get out of the shower and dry off, I'm ready to eat. Water cut out in the middle of the shower, which makes finishing showering difficult, as well as cleaning up after cooking breakfast.
Dan:So you all soaped up.
Charles:Yeah, oh, no, yeah, and so I had to then get spring water out of my five gallon jug and use that to get the soap off of myself and to clean my pans as I was leaving to go to work. It's because some stupid idiot hit a water spigot with their RV. Idiots.
Dan:I mean only the worst of the worst.
Charles:Yeah, and this was daylight too.
Dan:Oh, there's no excuse.
Charles:This wasn't even the middle of the night, like what I did it, no excuse. So, yeah, that was frustrating. As I was driving out, it was somebody, I think, at the end of the street that I'm on and just water everywhere and I was like, oh yeah, I've been there. I do feel slightly more compassion toward that experience, like you know, the frustration of why is the water just cutting off in the middle of you know, trying to get ready for work. It's like, oh, now I know exactly why, because somebody did something they didn't mean to do and it happens. So it was a bit of a hassle.
Dan:It's a great little perspective.
Charles:Certainly added some additional time to my routine of getting ready to go to work in the morning, which is a bit of a bummer. What about you? What's new with you? What's new with me?
Dan:Just wrestling some homeowner issues with my new landscaping and my backflow. Apparently I've got different companies pointing fingers at each other because of the backflow is not working properly. I can't get my sprinklers to work.
Charles:At least your background in tech has you prepared for two companies blaming the other company for what they were supposed to do.
Dan:Exactly so. Now these plants that need watering can't get watered, so I'm out there with a hose and having to do you know, having you know water the manual in Obviously first world problems.
Charles:It's not a big deal.
Dan:But at the same time, I haven't had new plants in 10 years. My sprinklers have only barely been keeping my brown grass alive from dying off and never really needed them before. And, ironically, the time I really would love to have them working properly is when I can't get them to work.
Charles:So yeah, yes, that's your new landscaping looks amazing, though. Thank you Designed it myself. The best on your street looks good. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, I like it. I just think it's too bad that while you have to manually do the watering, it's not like you can't even really get steps in while you're doing it. I mean the most productive you could be is basically putting your earbuds in and listening to something.
Dan:You know what it's getting me? Daylight hours where it's been a little bit cold here, so I've been finding excuses to not get outside, and so now it's almost forcing me to get out there and at least spend a few minutes out there in the sun. So it's great.
Charles:I'd also like to say your blue background looks amazing. I'm so glad that I did this, regardless of how much you kicked it. Yeah, I appreciate it, yeah, it looks good.
Dan:It does look really nice. I'm very happy with the tech that you've put into the studio here.
Charles:And we can even change colors, which I will briefly demonstrate. Here's a little bit of pinkish-purple. All right, here's some darker blue. The yellow and the red I don't think look great, so we're going to probably skip using those. It's very subtle.
Charles:At this point, the green's okay, but this sort of light blue Color I think I'm a fan of the blue yeah, looks the best, but we're gonna double up the number of lamps that we're using. I sent them to the wrong address, otherwise we'd be using them right now, but I sent them to my UPS store address instead. So when we record our next episodes which I guess will be Sometime next week, we'll we'll have an even brighter background behind us, which Looks looks like we almost know what we're doing, almost almost.
Dan:Oh, and then we just came back from pot pod fest.
Charles:Yes, pod fest was. How could we forget? Yeah, pod fest was a mixed bag, as it often is. I think we got more positive out of it than negative, but yeah, the one thing that that does bug me a little bit about it is the venue quality has has gone down consistently since we started going, and that I like going to conferences and conventions in nice places, and so when the place that they're holding the event is just kind of me, that that bums me out a little bit. The other thing is the I'd say about half the speakers were very well prepared.
Dan:In the other half were kind of felt like they were kind of just Winging it Mm-hmm, which I don't like that either what bothered me about the venue was that they decided to put a lot of Confort or, I guess, the lessons that were being oh yeah, the breakouts, the breakouts. Thank you, that's the word I was looking for in the expo hall. So you know that's the year. What was going on. It was so loud, obnoxious, and those were the ones I was really looking forward to the video.
Charles:Editing the video and the beginner track were both in the in the expo hall. So if you guys haven't been to one of these conferences, basically you know You've got these little hotel conference rooms where most of the breakouts happen, and then there's usually a big vendor hall, because that's how you know most of this actually gets paid for. I would imagine they don't probably get most their money from attendees or a combination of attendees plus vendors who buy tables and set up booths. So there's a big room full of booths where you can walk around, talk to vendors, find out about their products and services, and Then, yeah, in two corners of that big room they had a place for sessions. You know breakout sessions to occur and, yeah, it's. It's just you can't really hear what the person's saying and if they have to turn the speakers up loud enough so you can't hear them, it gets all distorted and wonky sounding and it's only, it's only fenced off by curtains, curtains, so, and the area in.
Charles:The ceilings are 30 feet high, the curtains go up eight feet, so it does nothing.
Dan:There's people right outside, yeah, talking, and the one that I went to that you were at there. You couldn't even get in there. There was limited seating, yeah, and people are standing on the outside of it and so, even if you're standing, you get there a couple minutes late. All the other ones it was that wasn't the case. You could walk in, find a spot, find a seat, even if you were standing. At least you were in an enclosed room. So you actually hear, yeah, and what was being taught?
Charles:Yeah, but those, yeah, trying to put them on in that room. Now I believe, at podcast movement in Dallas they did have one or two stages in the big room, but I think for some reason it wasn't nearly that bad. Either the sound was better or the I mean the sound system was better, or the acoustics were better, or the crowd was less annoying. I don't know what it was. But right, we went to a couple good ones, yeah sessions in the big room in Dallas and it was fine. I didn't notice any of those problems. I don't know what the difference was.
Dan:I think it was just for whatever reason. It just felt was noisier in the room that we were at.
Charles:I don't think in Dallas they had two of them running At the same time either in the big room.
Dan:That's a good point. You know where this one right.
Charles:They. They were not all that far apart the two, the video track and the beginner track. I think it was maybe a hundred feet. If that, yeah, and so yeah, with with two sound systems and speakers and microphones and Kind of competing with each other and the roar of the crowd, yeah, it was not great. So I I'm a little conflicted about and I did complete my survey that I got my email that said basically the venue that you choose for next years is going to be the largest factor In whether or not I go back. So if and I assume hotels are probably jacking up their rates and stuff, which is fine, but I would rather pay an extra hundred dollars to attend the conference and have it in a nicer spot.
Dan:Here's the thing is for that specific, that was really the only issue that I had was being not being able to attend we, we paid for creator pass and we weren't able to get a lot of, you know, the sessions that we wanted because of this, and there were rooms that were open and available at that time yeah and I had heard some rumblings of them actually being moved last minute from one of those rooms into.
Dan:The expo okay and I think we actually walked into the, the main Conference room, which was empty, and we sat there. Remember we sitting there with the other guy? Oh, that's true. Yeah, during those video sessions. Yeah, that's right, and it's completely, nobody's was using it. So I don't know what that's about, like how much of an extra cost that would be, whatever it is, but it seems like if people aren't getting the value out of what they've already expect, you're doing a lot of people into service.
Charles:Yeah, I think the next big one that's on the list is in August, after I get back from Europe. There's one up in outside of DC at a Gaylord property, and the Gaylord hotels are always so stinking nice, you know, but flying up there won't be much of a cost. Staying in the nice neighborhoods of DC can be expensive. I told you that usually when I go up to DC I stay at a capsule hotel, which is like a special kind of hostel where you have, you know, your own little pod that you stay in. But it would be a very difficult commute from staying in downtown DC I think it's National Harbor is the town in Maryland where the event is, and so I would. I would have to shell out the real money to stay in a hotel room and either split one with you or we each have our own.
Charles:So, but I kind of all the things that I didn't like about this one were things that I did really enjoy when we went to Dallas, like they, just they did everything that I didn't like about this one better. For example, the Wi-Fi in Dallas was perfect the whole time where, not having attended something like that to the days were work days Thursday and Friday. So I needed to be available for emergencies or issues, and not having good Wi-Fi and half of the conference rooms was a bit nerve wracking and also frustrating.
Dan:So Charles, why didn't you use the wireless signal that we had?
Charles:Because we didn't have one of those either. Oh, really, yes, yeah.
Dan:My phones.
Charles:My phone signal was non-existent, yeah, and and the facility Wi-Fi was unusable. So those two things together.
Dan:And here's how it affected the presentations, because one of them about that.
Dan:I needed to get on the Internet, so I needed to sit in the back of the room, because the front of the room you couldn't get a cell service. Yeah, so I sat in the back of the room and the people presenting were like, hey, come up here, come up here, you know, because they want to people closer for the presentation and they're handing out flyers. And one woman may even made a comment. She's like you're going to make me walk all the way back here to give you one of these and I didn't want to get into it and I'm just like you know, sorry, yeah, yeah, but but it's like I and then it affected their presentations too, because some of them were using, you know, cloud based that's right Technology for storing their presentations and those weren't working.
Dan:So videos went low, gifts went low, stuff and that threw them off course and they're like oh, this is supposed to be pop up, up, up, up and and just ruins the flow. Yeah, there were a lot of things that I think were easy fixes. That should have been found out to begin with, beforehand, and it could have been resolved.
Charles:Yeah, I agree, but it was nice, you know, seeing the two sort of the two vendors in this space that we've dealt with before, virginia and Adam. Yep, we're, you know, I didn't get to see Virginia's but I assume she killed it because she is a professional and Adam definitely killed it. His, his was one of the best ones we saw, if not the best one, yeah, and that's, you know, what we've kind of grown to expect from him. So it was nice to connect with both of them and see them do what they're good at.
Dan:Yeah, absolutely. I love Adam because of his simplified approach to offering value, right he? Has over complicated. He doesn't try to get you confused, he just gives and gives and gives and tries to make it as simple as possible and it doesn't try to like rope you into purchasing things for him from him. No, he's great because he's getting you confused, right, and I feel like that was a little bit of a flavor for some of the other presenters, you know.
Charles:All right. Well, I think all the people who listen to us and also post their own podcast will really enjoy that segment Right down. Yeah, you're welcome. Best experience, you're welcome. So unfortunately, those people like that probably don't exist, yeah, okay.
Charles:So let's talk about we're continuing our discussion of self care for men by Garrett months and we're going to cover the topic of spas and what, why you go to a spa, what you get at a spa and what it's like to visit a spa. So I've gone to I wouldn't say I frequent spas. Now, in the past I have had monthly massage memberships before, or monthly memberships where you can choose to use either one massage a month or one facial a month, and I did enjoy that when I had it. I think I did. I've done that at hand and stone massage here in Florida and that was.
Charles:That was pretty nice, being able to build up those credits, sort of like audible. And then you know, oh, I forgot I had these. I should schedule one of these and that's that's kind of nice. I would. I would reconsider signing up for one of those again. But yeah, the thing about massages and facials is it's that piece of self care that you just can't do for yourself. There's no giving yourself a massage. I mean, I suppose you know you can lay on the floor with a foam roller, but it's not going to be quite the same as a little bit different.
Charles:Yeah, not quite the same as having a licensed therapist go to work on you for 50 minutes and taking care of the kinks and the knots and stuff.
Dan:Yeah, the other nice thing about going regularly to something like you had or I go to massage Lux. I've got a therapist there and I, once I find somebody that works on me with the right technique and goes deep enough, I stick with them and then they get to kind of know your body and so they get to really get in and the more times you have massages with them, the better they know your body and the better they can actually address the issues that you have.
Charles:So yeah, yeah, I do have a command it my one therapist. So I think you visited over at my chiropractor, monica.
Dan:She's great.
Charles:Yeah, I went to her for after an auto accident where I was feeling pretty tight in my lower back predominantly, and she you go to enough sessions with somebody and they really get to know what you need and what you like, what you don't like, and you know how much pain you can take and how much you can't, and she's great. I should look at booking a session with her or re-upping my membership at Hand in Stone was really great. I really liked their environment. That was a bit of the local massage Lux and it's good, but just didn't feel like quite as relaxed as the as the Hand in Stone over in Lake Mary by the Peach Valley Cafe, which was one of my favorite things to do is go for a massage and then go eat at Peach Valley.
Dan:Yeah, the key for me is, after I get a massage, I schedule my next one right then and there, because otherwise the day, the week, the month get away from me and the last thing I think about is scheduling and using up those credits.
Charles:Oh yeah when.
Dan:I leave the last day, but I always schedule that next service. I need to get it on there and just work my schedule around it, because I feel so much better when I'm getting them regularly.
Charles:Yeah, Maybe I should try to plan my life out that way but, I don't know, I have it. That's all it reminds me of. Every time I go to Bath and Body Works to buy a air freshener for either my house or my car, I always go and just buy one. And they're like you know, if you buy three at a time, you could save quite a bit of money. I'm like.
Charles:I don't know what I'm going to want to smell a month from now, so I can't commit. I don't know when I'm going to need a massage, so how am I going to schedule it in advance? It's like I feel like you can always. I'm sore right now and I would like three massages that I'd like to just go back to, back to back.
Dan:Right. So for those like those little fill-in ones, you know we go to, the chair massages in the malls are sometimes nice to fill that in.
Charles:I think I'm going to do that today before before my men's group meeting tonight, after I finished with Renata around two, I think I'm going to go hit that chair massage place and get them to do a little bit of work. I slept weird two nights ago and I'm still kind of hanging on, and so I think I'm going to go and tell them that I'm a little sore right here and go to work.
Dan:And another. Another way I kind of get in the habit is whenever I'm traveling. If they have that massage, oh, the airport available at the airport for or after my trip. That makes a difference. I went to a spot in Las Vegas waiting for my room to be available, and it's nice is, when you go to a spot a lot of times you can stay there and use the facilities all day. Yes, so it was hours before. I mean it must have been like eight hours before my room is going to be.
Charles:That's awesome.
Dan:So I wonder what the spot Canyon Ranch, spot the Palazzo.
Charles:Oh Canyon Ranch is like one of the best ones.
Dan:And so all I did was I bought a one hour massage.
Charles:Yeah, but I had access to the facility all day.
Dan:Yeah, and they have got snacks and the tea and coffee. Yeah, you know, you've got a whole lounge area and where you take rainforest showers and it's nice. Swedish saunas and stuff like that.
Charles:All that is free. What was the cost of the massage there? Was it a couple hundred bucks?
Dan:It was about $200 with tip.
Charles:Yeah, that's what I think, but honestly, one of the best ones I've ever had. I did something similar last time. I went to New York where I took that super early flight and I wasn't going to be able to check into my hostel until three in the afternoon. Uh-huh, and I mean, like my fight landed at like seven twenty in the morning. So it was going to be a long day, but I booked a. I booked a massage at that spa and then just basically hung out there all day, took a nap and used the hot tub, the steam room, the sauna, all that stuff. All you need to do is have usually one treatment or one service of a certain value booked. In some places it can be as cheap as just a manicure.
Dan:You just book a manicure and you still use their facilities all day long.
Charles:Otherwise, like non hotel type of like day spas that you probably have in your city or town where you live, sometimes, if you don't want a treatment, you can just pay to use those sort of shared facilities for you know, 50 bucks, 70 bucks and basically have that same level of access without actually having to pay for a massage or a facial. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh. So yeah, nice hotels will usually have very nice spas, but they can be expensive for their treatments. Uh, I would say worth it because they're very. I mean, the nicer generally get what you pay for the spas and the more you spend, the more relaxing the environment is going to be, the more professional and and nice and sort of catering the staff is going to be where.
Charles:Um, one thing I do if I'm, if I'm really feeling some pain and I need a massage and I don't have a membership in a place, I'll hop on Groupon and see who's got a good deal on Groupon and sometimes you can get an hour spa or hour massage for 40 bucks on Groupon. And then you know, I'll go off Groupon and go into Google Maps and actually look at the reviews of the place to see if it's got a decent reputation or not. And if it's got a decent reputation and it's super cheap on Groupon, I'll usually pull the trigger on it. One thing I have noticed, though sometimes scheduling a Groupon for a massage can be difficult. But, uh, if you buy it and then you can't get a schedule that works for you, you can just go to Groupon and say, hey, I tried to book this and I couldn't get a scheduled session, and they'll just refund your money. Oh great, yeah, so that's that's one of the when, when I need like a, a pick me up in a hurry, then that's one of the things that I do to to get a massage. Or I haven't had to do it for a facial, because you never really need a facial, like you need a massage, right, but that's one of my techniques that I have I've used.
Charles:Um, the other thing is the? Uh. The facilities are usually co-ed, uh, with the exception of, maybe. If there's a steam room or a sauna attached to your locker room or changing room, then it might just be for your gender. But so if you're uptight at all about that I mean if, if it's a mixed facility, obviously you're going to want to wear some pants in the uh, in the spa or the steam room. Well, they usually give you a robe yeah, that's true, but you don't want to wear, you don't want to wear full robe to the. I bring a bathing suit for us If I'm going to be in a sauna or a steam room okay Well, so be careful, there's going to be women in there too.
Dan:Oh yeah, I'm going to.
Charles:I'm going to. I'm not going to.
Dan:I've never been in a mix of co-ed steam.
Charles:Really. Oh, I have. Yeah, yeah, the one in New York was both both the sauna and the steam room. They weren't off. They weren't off the dressing rooms, they were in a separate area. Ah, so men and women were, were in there together.
Dan:Okay.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, or just the towel wrapped around I usually just do a towel or my bathing suit, even in single sex. I was in Europe one time and actually we got yelled at. It was a co-ed, but we got yelled at for wearing our bathing suits in the sauna. Apparently, in certain types of like Finnish saunas or Swedish saunas, really, at least in this facility, the clothing, the wetness of the dampness of the clothing or the water was throwing off would potentially throw off the experience of whatever they're trying to create. And we had a staff member come around and go uh-uh, you gotta be naked. Now this was Europe. I don't think that would be happening here.
Charles:No, I don't think so either. That's interesting, yeah, huh yeah, did you get naked or did you leave? Oh yeah, no, we got naked, got naked.
Dan:Yeah, I mean it's Europe Went in Rome Went in.
Charles:Rome and there were other people and they're completely naked. Oh yeah, was there nothing? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, wow, that's how we grow up here in the States isn't it, it is, it is. Yeah, all right, I guess I'm booking a spa when I go to, when I go over to Europe.
Dan:Just make sure you don't wear a bathing suit. Wow, that is so interesting.
Charles:All right, uh, anything else you want to talk about? Oh, one thing you can do at some spas, um, that I really appreciate. In Vegas particularly, I think I did this at the spot, the Bellagio was, uh, straight razor shaves for men they. That was one of the services on the on the menu, Nice, so you could go in there and get a straight razor shave. That was. That was a lot of fun.
Dan:Yeah, a lot of times too. These spas have a lot of amenities in terms of facial, like moisturizers and Q-tips and all these little things that you don't even realize you use at home and when you're traveling. You know so, and it's usually higher quality stuff too, for sure. So if you need to freshen up, absolutely you know spend, spend the money and just spend the day at the spa.
Charles:Yeah, there was a in the one I went to in New York. They had disposable razors, they had the sterene, they had multiple kinds of shaving cream, they had disposable toothbrushes you could just have with multiple kinds of toothpaste. I mean it was pretty, it was pretty nice and yeah, you could definitely spend all day there just working on looking good and feeling good. And uh, yeah, sports got me, got me wanting to go. I'm definitely getting a massage today, but in addition to that, I I may look at getting one of those membership again.
Dan:I really like doing that on vacations, not go, go go every single day. I want a day where we're out and about checking out the area and then another day relaxing. So a spa day like that and especially if you have a late night and you're out drinking and party in the night before just be able to just decompress and, you know, regenerate from a hangover at a spa, that's. It's a nice way to recover and be good to go for the rest of the trip.
Charles:Yeah, I agree. So, uh, yeah, we're. I guess we're saying we're pro spa, we recommend it. If you've ever been, then you definitely should check it out. And uh, to check it out, I would say, spend the money, go somewhere nice, find, find a nice hotel in your town and uh, that has a spa, and with that you usually don't have to do the same amount of research and just nice hotels have nice spas. Give it a shot. Yeah, do do at least one treatment and then just confirm with them that you get access to the facility the whole day and they'll give you a robe, and they'll give you some flip flops and you can just kind of drink cucumber water all day and it's, it's. It's a really great way to use a day.
Charles:Yeah, yep, all right, cool. Anything else, dan? Um, nope, not today. All right, awesome, thanks, we'll talk to you guys later. Wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit, in which case you should definitely follow or subscribe to our show in your chosen podcast app. Thanks, ask me next time.