The First Session
Everything aches, everything…
When I joined the gym they had an offer of 3 sessions with a personal trainer for $60 so, thinking it sounded like a good idea to get started, I said sure.
I went for my first session with Adam. Ladies and gents, never judge a pleasant smiling book by its cover. At the end of the session I was a quivering wreck on the floor. That’s not surprising though as we’re starting from a zero base. I haven’t exercised in, well, must be over 20 years so it’s no surprise my body decided it wanted to shut down almost as soon as we started.
The major issue is that thanks to a quirk of genetics my whole left side is weaker than the right and over 42 years the right has taken over – so much so the muscles in my left leg and arm have all but atrophied. I can’t do any weight work or I’ll injure myself straight away, and no running either for the same reason. The right side of my body tries to take the whole load. I have a pronounced lean and my hips are way out (apparently) so we’re starting from scratch. To quote Oscar Goldman “we can rebuild him”. I have to stretch every day to get things loosened up and I can see many more sessions ahead of me sweating away while Adam smiles at me.
My major concern right now is how on earth I’m going to recover in time to walk from Richmond station to the ‘G tomorrow night for the Tigers game. That and what on earth I’ll do if I drop the soap in the shower in the morning. Now I know why the invented soap-on-rope.
I’m Scared Of My Computer
I’m scared of my computer.
This evening I was chatting to Rae and came back to work to see my login screen. I thought it was odd that my PC had reset itself but thought it must have been an update, I’d been gone a little while.
This evening I was on a conference call for a client when one of my monitors went black. Oh oh. Then the other went black, then (almost unheard of with Windows 7) I received the Blue Screen of Death and the PC reset itself.
The thing is I’m now scared of my PC. I think it may be sentient. Last week I was concerned with how sluggish and temperamental it had become for no apparent reason so I requested a quote for a new system, just to see. The quote came back but it was more than I wanted to pay so I filed it away in my emails. I now think my PC may be able to read my emails and is upset with me so it has decided to misbehave more. I’m too scared to ask it to save a file, or to open the pod bay doors. I just know it would say “I’m sorry Tony, I can’t do that.”.
Game Time
Time for a quick game of “Where’s That Rotunda?’.
Name the suburb and the closest mode of transport.
I Seem To Have Joined A Gym
Many, many, many years ago I joined a gym and, surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it. It didn’t last that long, I think we moved and it all just became too hard to keep up.
Fast forward 20 or so years and I’m back.
My recent little scare (which looks increasingly like it wasn’t cardiac related) has caused some re-evaluation of how I go about living my life. I’m trying to be better with what I eat by cutting down on servings and trying to avoid the bad-but-oh-so-good stuff. I still have a long way to go but I’m definitely better than I once was. If I could only bring myself to eat some fruit, that would be a big help.
The worse thing though is my job has me sitting at my desk all day, every day and that’s not a good thing. Trying to find the time to get around to walking or exercising while running my own business and wrangling the kids just wasn’t working and all the time the little voice at the back of my head was saying “come on Tony, do something”.
A couple of weeks ago I was at the shops and took notice of some flyers lying on a table. It was for the new Jetts opening at the shopping centre. I took a flyer and a couple of days later I plucked up the courage to walk in the door. Travis, the manager, was fantastic. He took the time to take me on a tour, tell me about what they offered and there was no pressure at all. I thought about it over night and went back to join up the next day.
I went to the orientation this morning so I’m all set to go. Things sure have changed, you can now plug you iPod or USB stick directly in to the machines. I think last time I was at a gym I would have taken my Walkman if I wanted my own music. I’ve signed up for a few personal training sessions to get some advice and a program to get me started. It’s still a scary thought to be heading back to a gym but oddly enough I’m looking forward to it, even if the machines looked more like instruments of torture than fitness aids.
A Little Trim
Ah, good to see our rates at work. Ever since we’ve been here the tree branches have hung low over the path and looked generally shabby. Yesterday the council came along and gave them all a good trim. Now we can walk along the paths and there should be considerably less leaf waste in a couple of weeks, even though we don’t have a tree on our naturestrip our house seems to attract leaves.
One question I have though is why we are the only street in our whole subdivision with this type of tree. It’s odd that we don’t all have the same.
The neigbour’s tree before the trim…
and after..
I guess it will also make it a lot easier to see what’s going on in the street.
It’s Tipping Time
Well people, it’s that time of the year again. Even thought it’s a t-shirt and shorts day we’re only a few days away from the first game of the footy season. And the first game of the footy season means it’s time to get tipping!
Yes. The Anthony Malloy Memorial Footy Tipping Competition is once more open for business (I think this is its 10th year) so head on over to http://www.footytips.com.au/comps/TonysT and join up. The less you know about footy the better you’ll go. Maybe this year it will finally head to the UK, hey Nigel?
Nuts To Them
Just wondering when nuts became a unit of measure.
I had to buy some gel for a strained muscle this week and the guide said to use an amount “ranging in size from a cherry to a walnut”. I bought some shaving cream today and on the back it said to use “an amount the size of a hazlenut”.
What they need to do is Australianise the instructions. “A quarter of a Tim Tam”, “a Violet Crumble” or “half a Mintie” makes a lot more sense.
Fathers Day
After a horror day of niggles and arguments yesterday I thought the answer today would be to exhaust the kids. We dropped Phee at work and headed to their new favourite park on Forrest St. They belted around for an hour, screaming and laughing, and seem a little more sedate now.
The odd thing I noticed is that today must have been fathers day. There were four dads there with their kids and not a mum in sight. I wonder if the families had all been banished to the park so mum could have a rest, maybe one of them was having their fortnightly visitation, maybe like me the dads wanted a rest this afternoon.
Who knows.
Too Nice
Dropped the kids off this morning and walking out to see such a beautiful day it was just too nice not to go for a walk around the ovals.
On the way I had a family say hi and overheard two women having a chat that finished with “would you like to continue your walk with me?”. Seems I wasn’t the only one whose spirits were lifted.
Project One Done
Well, one project down for the long weekend. My desk has been cleared, cleaned and restructured. I even took the time to properly label the cords in to the power boards and USB ports, something I’ve never done before and curse every time I go looking for the right cord to unplug or jiggle.
This is my desk now, all tidy and ready for work. Nothing much to see. There’s my one antenna android, my Kogan retro DAB radio, the pinup coaster from Rae, and my pen caddy. One pen, one highlighter, one marker and one pencil makes it so much easier to just grab what you need. I know not that many people love them by I swear by Microsoft Natural keyboards, I’ve used them as long as I can remember and a ‘normal’ keyboard feels odd to me.
Project Two is the front and back garden which will now have to wait until tomorrow morning and with a bit of luck I may even get to make a start on Project Three – the overflowing bookcase here in the office.
