September 13, 2014

Church gets new life as trampoline park in The Hague

Filed under: Religion,Sports by Branko Collin @ 1:56 pm

trampoline-park-mephis-cvbA trampoline centre in The Hague is the latest in a long list of businesses in the Netherlands to open in a former church building.

Planet Jump opened in the Martelaren van Gorcum church in The Hague earlier this month. Cheekily dubbed a ‘trampoline paradise’ by Den Haag Direct, they are open seven days a week. Have a look at the photos on their website.

Repurposing a ‘holy’ building may seem a little irreverent, but as we wrote earlier, it seems that people prefer repurposing over tearing down. These buildings have memories of baptisms, weddings and funerals attached to them, after all.

Also, in what other church could you achieve so many instant ascensions in an hour?

The name Martelaren van Gorcum means martyrs of Gorcum and refers to 19 catholic officials who were killed in 1572 by Dutch Protestant freedom fighters.

See also: The man who sells church interiors

(Photo of a trampoline park in Memphis by Memphis CVB, some rights reserved)

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December 21, 2007

Pedal exerciser from the 1990s revisited

Filed under: Gadgets,Sports by Branko Collin @ 4:00 pm

Lifehacker’s Gift Guide 2007 for the suave and discerning geek of the noughties acknowledges that the best mods only go with the best bods, so it presents you with a pedaling device called the under-the-desk exerciser (sounds like a Christmas party to me!) to put under your desk or WoW station. But Booklog stands them up with its review of the 1990 summer edition of the Wehkamp mail order catalogue. The “teletrapper” exerciser was sold to an unsophisticated TV dinner crowd even back then, for an even hipper price (in guilders, with about 2 guilders to 1 US dollar).

As one person commented at Lifehacker notes, your desk needs to be higher than waist level, or else you will keep bumping your knees. Of course, if your desk is higher than waist level you’re just begging for RSI. One good solution for that is to get up every 40 minutes or so and take a five minute walk around the office. Once you’ve started doing that, you won’t really need a exercising device, though. Choices!

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