Later lunk alarm, lots of little items
I had heard from a couple people about a new gym that recently opened up near work. On Friday I cut my workout short so I could pop over there and check it out. The gym is a chain called Retro Fitness. They put it into a space that used to be occupied by a Walgreens. I walked in and instantly knew my days of looking at a lunk alarm were soon to end. The place is spacious and filled with brand new equipment. All of the cardio equipment has it’s own dedicated lcd tv. The free weight area is large and COMPLETE. They have weights up to 120 pounds instead of the measly 60 pound cut off at Planet Fitness. They even have a squat rack, something that PF bans because it attracts too many lunks. Retro Fitness also has a theater cardio room which is what it sounds like, cardio machines in a movie theater. If you prefer you can do your cardio while watching a movie on a 22 foot screen. Oh and the place doesn’t smell like sewage either.
There are only two negatives which are insignificant. It costs $20 a month instead of $10 at PF, still very cheap, and it is a little farther away than PF, again no biggie. So now my plan is to spread the word to my inner circle at Planet Fitness in the hopes that I can get them to jump with me. I’ll cancel my membership at PF and hopefully be working out at Retro Fitness sometime this week. I am hoping PF doesn’t give me any bullshit when I go to cancel. I’m excited about the prospect of getting away from Planet Fitness with their laundry list of bullshit rules and most importantly the f’ing lunk alarm. I’ve always felt like I was sacrificing part of my soul by working out in that place.
We had another nice weekend weather-wise although it was ultra windy on Saturday. The new front screen door was utilized heavily over the weekend.
On Saturday we weeded which included the garden. Despite the cold temps that killed a bunch of our garden we still are getting some nice production as you can see. Ali pulled a PERFECT carrot out on Sunday. Many of you may remember the mutant carrots we produced last year. This year we raised the area that we planted carrots in so the soil would not be compacted. It looks like the effort was worth it. In addition to the carrots we have been harvesting great quality beets, peas, broccoli, romaine lettuce and spinach.
Ali was gone a good portion of Saturday, first at a Phi Mu luncheon and then she went to a concert with a girlfriend of hers. I spent a couple hours doing data entry for work. It was extremely tedious, by the end of it I was starting to lose my mind.
I also sat down and watched Dark Knight again. I enjoyed it but not as much as seeing it the first time. I also played WoW until after 11.
On Sunday, despite the time shifting one hour forward I wanted to be productive out of the box. I worked on getting my various Sunday house chores knocked out early. Ali and I talked about running during the day so I didn’t want to have to do a shitload of work after running.
We decided to go back to the North Collier Regional Park to run, the place that also houses the water park. The temps were nice, but not swimming nice for me. The park was open and I saw people in the water! Well, I saw kids in the water, I didn’t see any adults getting wet. They HAVE to heat that water, our pool is at 66-67 degrees right now.
We had a great three mile jaunt around the park. I love running there, it’s so scenic and diverse visually. The park is a bee hive of activity. Everywhere you look there are people being active which is great to see. I get so used to seeing so many human sloths day to day, I sometimes forget that there are some people that actually “get it”.
After our run we had a couple errands to run. First we stopped at Best Buy. I was pricing a flat screen tv’s in the 32 inch range. On Friday at Sam’s Club I saw a 32 inch LG 720P set for $360 and change. I was curious what Best Buy would come in at. Surprisingly they had nothing that was a similar deal on display. My thoughts are to replace the monstrous conventional tube 32 inch set in our bedroom. The thing weighs a TON. In conjunction I would like to update the Tivo in there since an upcoming Comcast change is going to limit the existing non-hd device to only getting the major networks.
While we were at Best Buy we also looked at washer/dryer sets. We got sucked into a 5 minute sales pitch from some guy despite us telling him we weren’t looking to buy right now. Both Ali and I would definitely like to update our set sometime soon. The new models save a lot of water/electricity in comparison to the older conventional models.
While I was there I was taken in by some baseball game that was running on a PS3. I took a couple of at bats and failed miserably, the highlight was fouling off a couple pitches before striking out. The graphics in the game were simply amazing. The detail and realism that is possible on the new consoles just blows me away.
After a quick lunch at Panera we headed to Sports Authority. Ali needed to get a new pair of swimming goggles for her new endeavor, swimming. She started swimming lessons last week. It was her New Years resolution, to learn to swim.
Once we got back I decided to finally work on the Moto Guzzi. The last time I took the bowl off the one carb I noticed the float assembly was sticking which was surely causing the fuel leakage issue I was seeing. When I took the bowl off this time the assembly felt just fine, no binding. I still removed the float as well as the needle and seat that I replaced previously to verify all looked well, it did. The only difference between now and when I checked it last was the carb was dry yesterday and wet with gas originally. Perhaps something in the gas is gumming up the works.
Well I wanted to give starting the bike another try so I hooked up the battery charger. Instantly I knew I had a problem when I saw the voltage on the battery didn’t cross 4 volts. Dad had mentioned the bike has some “electrical problems”. The battery is almost new, it shouldn’t have failed already. Well 5 hours of charging failed to raise the voltage level, the battery is f’d.
I suppose I will snag a battery for it but I am just about at the limit of the time/money I will put into the bike. To be honest my desire to ride a motorcycle has waned significantly. It seems like since my dad brought it down I just happen to catch the “Motorcyclist dies in accident” headline more and more. A Camaro will deliver more thrills without the risk of getting taken out by some blind q-tip.
Back to the grind.