Tag: oxygen bar

Overblown Air

When you travel to Colorado, you should pack a few things you might not think to bring. A reusable water bottle will be your constant companion since it’s high and dry in the Centennial State. Lip balm will be your pocket pal. Your wardrobe should be designed in layers since Colorado’s weather is so unpredictable. And finally, for the lack of air in the Rockies, don’t forget to bring a can or two of oxygen.

Canned oxygen?  For the longest time I thought this was the biggest scam on earth.  There was a time you could find “oxygen bars” at Colorado ski resorts – high altitude establishments where you’d pull up a stool and choose from a menu of “airs” to augment your oxygen intake.  Watching those suckers – heh – with their mouths attached to transparent hoses had me picturing a guy on the other side of the wall furiously working the plungers of bicycle pumps.  But forget oxygen bars.  Now you can take a hit from your very own can instead.

Boost , a popular brand of canned oxygen, has been around for a while since its humble beginnings through Shark Tank.  In Colorado you’ll find Boost products in every market, drug store, gas station, and airport concession.  Boost is  advertised as “95% Pure Supplemental Oxygen in lightweight, portable, and affordable canisters for health, recovery, natural energy, and athletic performance”.  That’s an impressive string of words to describe nothing but canned air.

First-timers will react to Boost with a well-defined smirk.  Gag gift for the relatives back home?  Stocking-stuffer?  After all, you’re paying $10 for a can of… well, nothing.  Yes, Boost comes in flavored varieties like lavender or eucalyptus menthol but in the end, it’s just air.  And watching someone take a hit of Boost is just like the goofball in your kitchen who tips the can of whipped cream directly into his mouth.  Even the sound of escaping compressed air is the same.  Just no whipped cream.

Naturally this is the point where I admit I’m a canned-air convert.  Never thought I’d see the day I’d actually need a “boost”.  But last January as I was moving belongings out of our Colorado house, I came to a breathtaking realization: I was no longer acclimated to the thin air of the Rocky Mountains.  Climbing a set of stairs had me huffing and puffing.  Lifting a box made my heart go pitter-patter.  For some reason I’d thought to add a can of Boost into my suitcase, so what do you know?  Compressed air to the rescue.  Every now and then I’d blast the can into my mouth and darned if it didn’t clear my head and help me breathe.  I was no whipped-cream junkie but rather a bold astronaut, seeking the occasional hiss of his supplemental oxygen.

For all its success, the legitimacy of a product like Boost is sullied by similar products having no health benefits whatsoever.  On your next trip to Italy, head up to Lake Como in the far north for a look at the pristine waters and nearby snow-covered Alps.  While you’re there you can purchase a can of “Lake Como Air” for $11.  Lake Como Air claims no value other than “something original, provocative, and fun”, or “… a tangible memory you carry in your heart”.  Really?  I have lots of tangible memories from Italy and they didn’t cost me a dime.

On your next trip to Israel (which best not be anytime soon), head over to the Dead Sea for a look at the biggest, saltiest resource of natural minerals in the world.  You can float in the Dead Sea without even treading water.  And no surprise, you can “purchase” the Dead Sea in small containers.  The so-called manufacturer claims its consumption “contributes measurably to feeling better and to looking wonderful and healthy”.  Huh.  Not sure about you but I like to think I feel better and look healthy just by drinking from the tap at my kitchen sink.

The list goes on and on.  Holy dirt from New Mexico.  Healing waters from right here in western South Carolina.  Rocks from outer space.  I mean, seriously, when are we going to stop paying for natural elements we can help ourselves to just by stepping outside our front doors?  Yeah, probably never.  That train left the station for good the day someone decided to bottle water.  Now we have canned air as well… and it’s a good thing.  Turns out, I’ll never take another trip to Colorado without a little Boost in my suitcase.

Some content sourced from the CNN Travel article, “Cans of ‘fresh air’ from Lake Como on sale to tourists in Italy”.

aggrandize

On a recent trip to Sweden, my wife and I went to an “ice bar” in one of Stockholm’s downtown hotels.  The experience is unique and exactly as advertised.  You enter a small lobby adjacent to the hotel, where payment gets you admission and a drink.  Then you don parka and gloves and pass through double-doors into the bar itself.  The temperature immediately plummets to well below freezing, and everything – I mean everything – is made of ice.

19 - aggrandize

The photo above is the ice bar itself, where drinks are prepared and served.  If you look closely you can see the “glasses” lined up along the back – really just big cubes of ice hollowed out to hold the alcohol.  Once you have your drink you’re encouraged to seat yourself at one of the nearby booths.  Your table and chair are made of ice.  Several free-standing ice walls define the space.  The lighting changes slowly – different colors and levels of brightness – to accentuate the nature scenes and cityscapes expertly carved into the walls.  The entire facility is melted and reconstructed twice a year.

As I think back on our ice bar experience I realize this is an example of reinventing a rather ordinary activity.  Take away the ice and all we’re doing is having a drink in a bar.  The genius of the ice bar is that its inventor realized people would pay good money for the novelty.  This, my friends, is how you aggrandize an everyday activity.

If you’ve heard of ice bars you’ve probably heard of oxygen bars too.  Another clever soul realized people would pay good money ($1/minute!) to consume flavored varieties of oxygen.  Throw in the purported health benefits and the customers came a-flocking.  I won’t cave into an oxygen bar anytime soon but I might pay good money to see the patrons themselves – fitted with an apparatus that goes around the ears and up into the nostrils – breathing what is obviously available for free in the atmosphere around them.

Los Angeles boasts a gourmet water bar, which includes a 46-page menu of bottled waters; some as much as $20/bottle.  And for $50 you can take a water-tasting class.  The venture has been described as a “rousing financial success”, expanding recently with two more locations.  Consider that California – drought-stricken as this generation has ever experienced – boasts a thriving pay-for water business.  I admit I’ve had my share of bottled water, but I’ll sooner pay $25 for my ice bar drink than $20 for my water bar water.

We are a generation that aggrandizes; infusing new life into run-of-the-mill doings.  Movies have evolved from silent to “talkies”, from black-and-white to color, from two dimensions to three, and from sound to “surround”.  Bowling and miniature golf offer glow-in-the-dark versions.  Ski and snowboard at night under the lights.

Just before our trip to Sweden we also visited Denmark, home of the famous author Hans Christian Andersen.  If you know Andersen’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, it’s a fitting fairy tale for the subject at hand.  The emperor wants a stunning new outfit for the royal parade, so his clever tailors convince him to spend a couple of trunks of gold coins on invisible clothes – so stunning they are “like nothing he’s ever seen”.  Thus the emperor parades in his underwear while the tailors escape with a small fortune.  Money for nothing.

Maybe we need to reconsider how we spend our hard-earned dollars on things like ice bars and oxygen and movies.  Aggrandize all you want, but in the end isn’t it really just about the drink?