Of all the shows I‘ve attended in my brief Club Industry career, I‘ve never attended an actual show floor ribbon cutting.

NIRSA did it up right Thursday afternoon at the Austin Convention Center, complete with a big red ribbon and an even bigger pair of scissors, scissors you definitely don‘t want to run around the house with. After the ribbon cutting, attendees rushed inside, as if there were Wiis on sale.

One of the first exhibits that caught my eye was the NEOS game from Playworld Systems. It‘s designed for kids of all ages, really. In a two-person game, the object is to touch as many of your colored lights on the board as possible (I think). The game involves quickness, reaction and the ability to bowl over your opponent.

I was kind of thinking our sales guy Matt would be a worthy opponent for me in this game, but I never bothered to ask. We were too busy checking out the Zumba demonstration, and the good thing is, we weren‘t alone. It‘s one thing to watch a demonstration of a group of women working out; it‘s an entirely different thing if you‘re watching them all by yourself. You wouldn‘t want to get labeled as a creep or anything.

(Speaking of Matt–no, I didn‘t write, “speaking of creeps”–our man from Chicago by way of Cincinnati recently got engaged. The wedding is not until 2009, so there‘s plenty of time to get the couple a gift. I hear they‘re already registered for ¼ page ads, ½ page ads and full-page ads.)

One unusual but effective item I saw sold on the show floor was an official‘s whistle for recreational sports that sounds like a whistle, only you don‘t have to blow in it. You just push a button to produce one of three whistle tones. This sure beats having to avoid swallowing your whistle.

There was a sports memorabilia booth that sold autographed items of famous pro athletes. The one that intrigued me was an encased autographed jersey and photo of Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson from his days at SMU. I asked one of the guys in the booth if the No. 19 jersey was stuffed with the thousands of dollars in cash that Dickerson got from SMU boosters, prompting the NCAA to put the SMU football program on the so-called “death penalty.” The guy correctly pointed out that opening up the case and searching for the money in the jersey would de-value the autographs.

I ran into one of our friends, CheckFree/Fiserv‘s Randy Ivey, on the show floor. (That guy is at EVERY show.) Randy made the short drive from his Houston office to see if NIRSA would be a good fit for his company next year when the show moves to Charlotte. Randy also told me that CheckFree had 10,000 lanyards (those things attached to your badge) at the IHRSA show last month, and they ran out of them the second day of the show. IHRSA must have been a monster this year.

The food was pretty good on the show floor (free pasta on Thursday, free chips and quesadillas on Friday), and like last year, there were plenty of computers (20, in fact) available for checking e-mail. The NIRSA show has the most computers available of any show in the industry.

A familiar face over at Octane Fitness told me his company was shipping all of its equipment from the NIRSA show directly to New York for our Club Industry East show that begins next week. I bet they‘re not the only ones doing that. Hope to see them and you there. –Stuart

The last two sessions I attended Friday at the NIRSA show in Austin were each led by two people.

The first of those sessions was titled “Standards of Care and Legal Issues” conducted by brothers William and David Herbert. William Herbert is a professor at Virginia Tech University and has a doctorate in exercise physiology. David Herbert is an attorney in Ohio. A doctor and a lawyer in one family. A Jewish mother would be so proud, and I don‘t know if they‘re even Jewish.

The brothers Herbert discussed the different standards that several organizations have regarding preparedness for emergencies in facilities, mainly involving sudden cardiac arrest. William Herbert, an ACSM fellow, said that NIRSA should have its own guidelines for all university facilities. Staffs should practice cardiac rehabilitation exercises monthly like they do at Virginia Tech, he said. Some schools practice them as little as once a year.

The tripping point for schools, especially when it involves the use of AEDs in cardiac rehabilitation, is that only 10 states have passed laws requiring the placement of AEDs in health club settings. (They‘re the same 10 states listed on the IHRSA Web site.) Also, as David Herbert pointed out, not everybody is willing to fill out a Par-Q or health history questionnaire before using a facility. And if those people refuse to get their doctor‘s clearance to use a facility and sign a waiver and release form, those waiver and release forms are not valid in every state. Colleges and universities should be wary of these legalities, David Herbert said, especially when 90 percent of all sudden cardiac arrest cases get settled before trial, juries are unpredictable and expert witnesses are costly.

The second session involving a pair of presenters was titled “PTI for a JOB” and was patterned after the ESPN talk show “Pardon the Interruption,” one of my favorites. Peter Tulchinsky of Elon University and Jay Iorizzo of TCU did a good job adhering to the format of the show, complete with such features as Toss Up!, Five Good Minutes and Heads on Sticks. Peter and Jay talked about the pros and cons of the interview process, including how to produce a good resume, setting up an interview location, and picking the right school with which to interview. I just wish there was a bell to end each segment and music to accompany the presentation. I also wish that Peter and Jay argued more, just like they do on the real PTI. -Stuart

The first session I attended Friday morning was a fitness roundtable in which people were split up into three groups: fitness trends, employee training and special events. I sat in on the fitness trends discussion. The three trends brought up were Zumba, Nordic walking and technology trends such as Expresso bikes (which were featured on the show floor) and Wiis.

Just from attending shows and being around Jenn in the office, I am well aware of Zumba, a Latin-based exercise class that features Salsa and Merengue music, but there were more than a few people at the roundtable who had never heard of it. The students at the traditionally conservative University of Richmond have responded well to Zumba, we were told.

(Zumba interlude: The class was created pretty much by accident. Famed celebrity fitness trainer Beto Perez forgot his usual music to his aerobics class in Colombia one day in the mid-1990s, so he grabbed the CDs in his car, which consisted of Salsa and Merengue music, and played it in his class. The rest is history. You wonder how Zumba would be different today had ol‘ Beto been a Barry Manilow fan. Can‘t you just picture a group of people working up a sweat to “Mandy” and “Looks Like We Made It”? Zumba might have survived if the song was “Copacabana.”)

The second trend discussed, Nordic walking, is gaining steam in Colorado. The Finnish-based exercise is great for the outdoors, but you can also do it on an indoor track. You don‘t have to walk all that fast because the key is pumping those arms. All you need is a set of poles.

Students at Florida State University can‘t get enough of the Expresso bikes, which have interactive video screens. Florida State has had five of them for only about five months, and there‘s usually a wait to get on them. One student asked how he could get one for the home. Uh, they‘re only about $5,000 apiece, he was told.

A Wii is a lot cheaper, and they‘re thinking about adding one or two at a small school in West Virginia. Anything to get students active, they say. -Stuart

The first session I attended Thursday at the NIRSA show in Austin was about landing your dream job, and the leader was Mitch Gartenberg of the University of Georgia. Mitch told us he landed his dream job early in life–as a beer man at Milwaukee‘s County Stadium. Now, he says, he‘s in his real dream job as the certified recreation sports specialist (CRSS) at Georgia. In a couple of weeks, Mitch will realize his other dream–running in the Boston Marathon.

(Editor’s Note: Mitch turned in a time of 5 hours, 39 minutes, 35 seconds at the Boston Marathon on April 21. Way to go, Mitch!)

During the dream job session, we were all told to close our eyes and hold hands with the person next to us. (Don‘t you just love interactive sessions?) Mitch went around and put an object in our other hand, asked us to determine what it was, then pass it to the person next to us. I happened to get a little chocolate egg; others got some sort of individualized snack food.

The point is, we have to think about dream jobs as three-dimensional. We have to see them, touch them, even smell them. Sometimes, our dream jobs aren‘t what we hoped they would be or seem to be.

We did another exercise in which we were given a slip of paper that had a job title higher than our current ones. After learning that I was a managing editor, Mitch gave me a vice president title. (Ha! Take that, Pam!)

The young lady with whom I held hands (please don‘t tell my wife) and I talked about what it would take to land the job title we received. Danielle, a student at James Madison University, had just interviewed and was offered a graduate student assistantship at the University of Tennessee, so she already was well on her way.

Mitch gave us some pointers as to how to handle accepting our dream jobs, and they all involved taking the high road. He suggested we clean our offices and burn CDs of all our pertinent information to give to our soon-to-be ex-employers. He also said to not dwell on the negatives of leaving and accept the chaos that comes with beginning our dream jobs. -Stuart

Hi, y’all, from Austin! No matter what your background is, no matter what race or ethnicity you are, no matter if you’re straight-laced or kinda grunge-y, you have to say “y’all” if you live in Austin.

I’m at the NIRSA show this week on a short visit. It’s been pretty rainy and overcast here the last couple of days, but you can’t tell that when you’re indoors for most of the day.

Overall, it’s been a good trip and a good show. I hope to tell you more about the sessions I attended in the next few days. The subject matter of my sessions involved dream jobs, how to interview for that dream job, the latest fitness trends (Expresso bikes, Nordic walking and the Wii were the highlights), and the always exciting topic of standards of care and legal issues. That was actually a pretty good session, conducted by brothers William and David Herbert, and it touched on the subject of AEDs, which I plan to report more about in the near future.

The show floor seemed a little bigger than last year in Minneapolis. Matt, our top sales guy in Chicago, is here in Austin, too, and we watched the Zumba demonstration Thursday afternoon. There was one dude out of the whole group of women brave enough to shake his tail feather. Call it “One-Dude Zumba.”

After Thursday’s show floor offering, Matt and I went to Buffalo Billiards on Austin’s historic Sixth Street. The reason it’s historic is because there is an unbelievable amount of alcohol available in a number of bars on this street. That and a few tattoo parlors, too.

NIRSA held an event at Buffalo Billiards on Wednesday night, so when Matt and I got there Thursday, it was pretty quiet. While we ate (and took turns coughing–the last remnants from our colds last week), we watched Matt’s alma mater, Ohio State, play in the NIT on one screen while we watched reports on Matt’s hometown team, the Cincinnati Bengals, on another screen. Later, we watched part of a soccer match involving Matt’s current hometown team, the Chicago Fire. It was definitely a Matt-love fest.

(I have exciting news about Matt, but I’ll wait to tell the gang when I get back in the office on Monday.)

I took in Gary Dunn and his country band at “NIRSA City Limits” before calling it a night. Austin was pretty nice on a breezy spring evening. The rains came today. I hope my flight’s not delayed. –Stuart