Weekend highlights

Sat I worked. I went along with a colleague to show several properties to her potential buyer. Our group has an agreement with the local hospital so that they refer doctors and nurses to us from other areas who have accepted jobs at the hospital and will be relocating. Great idea, right? Spouse went to the gym then relaxed at home. It looked like it was going to rain all day, then it finally started just about dinner time. Spouse & I were supposed to meet Steven & Thad, 1 of the Bobs, and Jack and his friend Jon for dinner but only I went. Spouse elected to stay home since it was raining hard and very windy. I had a good time with them but got soaked trying to get home.

Sun morning Spouse & I went to the gym together where we ran into Steven & Thad. After working out the 4 of us each had a healthy breakfast at Crystal's restaurant. Unlike Sat, it was bright, sunny, and warmer on Sun. That afternoon Spouse & I put the roof down on the Mercedes and went for a nice little drive. The sunshine felt so good! We stopped at a few stores to look but didn't buy anything. That night we ate dinner at home and watched TV.

Zumba

One of the things I like about my new gym is that all the classes are free. Last night I tried the beginner's Zumba class.

Zumba is a fun way of get aerobic exercise. It combines salsa-like dance moves and music in a way that elevates the heart rate and makes you work up a sweat. Since this was a beginner's class, the instructor showed us how to do the moves/dance steps, we repeated them a couple times after her, then linked them together with the music.

I went to the class thinking it would be more 'fun' than workout, but I was wrong. It was a serious workout that had me sweating and left me 'feeling it' the next day. I will definitely go again!

Friday fragments

Welcome to Friday fragments, my weekly recap of topics too big to forget, yet too small to be their own post.

Delaware City, DE (about 75 minutes north of me) elected the state's 1st openly gay mayor. Its kind of cool by itself but even more cool when you consider that the state is currently considering legalizing civil unions in order to give same sex couples the same rights as married couples.

I saw this on FailBlog and had to share it. I've been hearing a song on the radio with the tag line "...like a G6, like a G6, like a G6". I finally asked a younger, hipper friend what it meant and learned that its a form of bragging. A G6 is a jet that costs over $58 million. Check out what Urban Dictionary has to say. Saw this on FailBlog too. Lately I've been struggling between getting the lowest possible price on something by shopping online versus supporting local merchants and employing local people by shopping locally. The bargain hunter in me always wants to get the best price, but the humanitarian in me wants to support local merchants who employ those who reside in my community. How do you all deal with this?

I've been having the worst time with blogger and paragraph spacing. Every post seems to get messed up with either no space between paragraphs or too many spaces between paragraphs. If I go back to edit a post I lose all the correct spacing that was there. I easily spend several extra minutes editing my posts to look right. Anybody else experiencing this? What do you do to fix it? Then there's the whole 'not able to paste into blogger' issue...

On Wed I joined a new gym. A full membership is $19.99 per month and it includes unlimited free Zumba, yoga, spinning, and step classes, free tanning, free towels, and its open 24 hours a day. I have a feeling its going to put a serious hurtin' on all the other gyms. Wed night I took a yoga class with Thad and it was really fun. Its a serious work out; I was really sweating and straining but I enjoyed it.

Friday fragments

Welcome to Friday fragments, my weekly recap of topics too big to forget, yet too small to be their own post. Let's get started!

Spouse & I have begun watching the series "United States of Tara" on DVD from Netflix. It stars Toni Collette as a woman with multiple personalities and John Corbett as her husband. Its a really interesting series!

Construction continues on the new home being built in the empty lot across the street. It appears that my letter to the builder (along with the copy sent to the City) resulted in some improved behavior. The workers are no longer parking their vehicles on our street (where no parking is allowed) and the delivery vehicles have greatly reduced their blocking of our driveway and the street. However, they have continued to use our little 1-way street for deliveries rather than the 'regular' street.

I got a call early this week with some very sad news: a friend of mine passed away. He was the same age as me, but from the pieced together details I got, it sounds like he died from diabetes complications. Folks, 47 is too young to die so PLEASE have an annual physical and take any medications regularly which are prescribed to you.

I gave up on the ghetto gym. I disliked it so much there that I decided I'd rather not work out than to have to go to the ghetto gym. Spouse renewed for another month though. Oddly the ghetto gym bothers him a lot less than me. I checked on the status of the brand new gym and found they are planning to open in mid-March. I hope to get a membership there.

Today I did a little experimental baking and made gingerbread chocolate brownies. It was very simple and the brownies were ah-MAY-zing! I started with a Trader Joe's gingerbread mix and mixed up the batter according to the instructions, but then added a teaspoon of vanilla extract and a handful of milk chocolate chips. After pouring the mixture into a greased 8x8 baking dish, I sprinkled another handful of chocolate chips on top and baked. I ate 2 of the 9 brownies, saved 1 for Spouse, and gave the other 6 away to neighbors so as not to tempt us into over-indulging. The combination of ginger, molasses and chocolate was to die for.

Today I had lunch with my new friend Lou. We met last Sept at the car club dinner and awards banquet, and then I ran into him again in Dec at a local bar. We met for lunch and had a great time getting to know each other more. He works from home 3 days per week so he enjoys an opportunity to get out of the house like I did when I worked from home. I brought him a gingerbread chocolate brownie to eat at home later.


Today the weather was just amazing: sunny and 73 degrees, and its the middle of February! I really wanted to be outside to enjoy the gorgeous weather but I knew I had some reading to do for real estate school. So, I grabbed by bookbag and a beach chair and sat on the beach and read.

It was really great to feel the warmth of the sun, the breeze, and hear the waves crashing while I studied. Seeing the lighthouse in the distance was really cool, too. (The photo above was taken using a zoom lens.) Later when Spouse got home, we went for a drive in the Mercedes with the top down, and went for a walk on the beach. Sometimes I miss the access to great restaurants and culture we had when we lived in the DC area, and when I do, I remind myself that by living here I have access to the beach whenever I want it.

This weekend the Rehoboth Beach Film Society (RBFS) is screening 2 gay-themed independent films I've not seen yet. "Violet Tendencies" was written by my friend Jesse Archer and stars Mindy Cohn who played Natalie in the TV series 'Facts of Life', and "You Should Meet My Son" will be shown Sat night and Sun afternoon respectively. (Click on the titles to watch trailers.) I'm excited about seeing both films and will report on them on Mon.

Here's wishing everyone a great weekend!

The ghetto gym

As I mentioned last Fri, Spouse & I joined a gym.

We used to belong to a nice gym very close to our house. A family membership cost us $85. per month, with the ability to cancel at any time. When summer arrived we became so active walking around town, walking the boardwalk, and playing beach volleyball that we stopped going to the gym and cancelled our membership. Spouse always claimed he didn't like the gym because it was crowded, but I rarely found that to be the case. I think it was crowded once and he just never forgot about it.

So a couple of weeks ago we joined a different gym, a little farther from our house. A family membership there is $60. per month, with the ability to cancel at any time. I'm surprised that Spouse tolerates this gym because I hate it.

Its located inside a community center and is very dark and dreary. The walls in the circuit training room are painted a mocha color and 3 of the walls have no windows. The walls in the weight training room are painted chocolate brown and there are no windows, just a single glass door. And as if the dark colors and lack of windows weren't bad enough, 1/2 of the ceiling lights don't work! Some of the fluorescent tubes are burnt out or just flicker. The 1st time I went there I flipped on every light switch I could find, to no avail. Many of the switches didn't appear to control anything at all. It is so dark and dreary I find myself feeling depressed just walking up to the building.

There's no lockers or showers. You hang your coat on rolling rack near the entrance, and if you are a heavy sweater you're just out of luck. You'll have to drive home in your wet clothes unless you want to go into the bathroom to change without showering.

The circuit training room is so cramped with machines that some of them are actually out in the hallway. The machines are so close together you can barely walk between them. Its a total fire hazard in my opinion. There are 4 treadmills and none of them have a holder for a water bottle. Its so ghetto!

The parking lot is behind the building and there's no sidewalk leading to the front entrance, so you have to walk on the street (where cars drive) to get to the front entrance to get in. This normally wouldn't be a huge concern except that we've had super cold temperatures and the snow and ice just won't melt. There's a rear door that leads from the building to the parking lot, but they keep it locked at all times, even from inside.

When I arrived on Mon all 4 treadmills were in use by women who knew each other and were gossiping/talking about someone else. When I arrived yesterday I got a treadmill next to a mature (read: ancient) man who tucked his t-shirt into the waistband of his sweatpants which were pulled up just below his armpits. Not a good look. I wanted to use my Tim Gunn voice and say "This disturbs me..." I've probably only seen 3-4 people younger than me at this ghetto gym. The vast majority are 'retired'. One day the flat screen TV was tuned into the conservative, right-wing channel. It just seems like every time I go there something irritates me.

I guess I should feel fortunate to belong to a gym. During periods of unemployment most people reduce or eliminate unnecessary costs like gym memberships. In our case, we stopped going to a personal trainer in lieu of the ghetto gym, but I really don't like it.

I've heard that a new gym will be opening next month that will be open 24 hours and only costs $20. per month, but you have to sign a year's contract and pay a $49. joining fee. When it opens I'm going to take a look at it. I gotta get outta da ghetto!

Friday fragments

Welcome to Friday fragments, my weekly recap of topics too big to forget, yet too small to be their own post.

We had a slight dusting of snow overnight. Fortunately the temperature rose above freezing and the sun came out this morning so it all melted away already.

Sometimes there are 2 TV shows I'm interested in watching on at the same time. I'll watch 1 and then switch to the other during the commercial breaks. I hate it when BOTH shows run commercial breaks at the same time! Anyone else?

I came across this photo and burst out laughing. I can't even IMAGINE how this happened!!

Spouse & I have joined a gym. Since we had to give up our pricey personal training sessions neither of us has felt good about not exercising. And with Spouse's weight loss goal he really has to exercise in combination with proper diet. The new gym is located inside a community center. I don't like it very much because its cramped, has very poor lighting, and just has a general dreary feeling about it. But its close to our house (convenient) and is the least expensive around so I will tolerate its depressing atmosphere for a few months. But once I'm working and making money again we want to go back to our personal training sessions.

Spouse went back to Weight Watchers last night for the 1st time in almost a month. He'd missed 2 sessions in a row because of Christmas and New Year's Eve and skipped one session because he was busy. The good news is despite all of the holiday parties/food/goodies/etc. he only gained 1/2 a lb. I think that is amazing, and he was rather pleased about it too. So now that the holidays are over he is back on the Weight Watchers wagon and will resume losing weight. His total weight loss since July is 74 lbs.

My 1st day of real estate school is tomorrow! I'll be going from 9am-4pm on Saturdays and Sundays for 6 weekends in a row, so 5 weeks from now I expect to have passed the pre-licensing course and be ready to sit for the state/national licensing exam a few days later. However, most likely the hardest part for me will be deciding on an agency with whom to associate myself. Unlike traditional jobs where compensation and benefit packages are quite similar, realtor compensation and agency perks vary quite a bit. I will likely have to 'interview' the agencies and use a spreadsheet to compare the compensation percentages and agency perks. I'll need to add to that my general comfort level with the principals of the agencies in order to make the right choice for me. In general I've been very encouraged by the feelers I've put out there.

Sometimes I wonder if making such a huge career change should make me more nervous than I am. I hope I'm not that nervous about it because I truly feel its the right direction in which I should be moving.

My friend Lisa sent me this funny video. Quite clever!

Last night Spouse & I watched a really cute film called 50 Ways of Saying Fabulous. It takes place in beautiful New Zealand. We really liked it! It was cute, touching, and the end wasn't predictable. Stream it or check it out on Netflix!

Here's wishing everyone a terrific weekend!

Weekend highlights

I had a relaxing Sat morning drinking coffee and watching HGTV while Spouse was at his personal trainer appointment. When he came home we had brunch (steak and cheese omelettes) and then went to a store to try to use a Christmas gift card. Only, I didn't see anything I really wanted, so I decided to hold onto the gift card for another time.

Then we went to the stained glass studio to check in with the artist about the back-ordered glass we've been waiting on for months. It still hadn't arrived so Spouse & I picked a different (in-stock) piece so they could finally get started on the big diamond-shaped window we commission 6 months ago. While there, we worked with the artist to design the 3 rectangle window inserts for the windows over the tub. We are very happy with the way the design came out, and they had all the glass we need in stock. So, hopefully it won't be too much longer before we can take down those temporary paper shades and install our stained glass window inserts.

For my birthday last month Spouse gave me an mp3 player. So Sat afternoon I read the directions and loaded it up with music I already had on the computer from the 1st mp3 player. I had one before that was very inexpensive and broke a month or two later. Despite it being cheap, I returned it and got my money back. My new mp3 player has more sorting/playback options and is much nicer.

Sat evening we met Steven & Thad at Ruby Tuesday for dinner. They are dieting too, so it was a good place for us to have dinner. The salad bar is the best!! Steven also had coupons for buy-one-get-one-free, so that was a nice bonus. Then went to their house to watch "500 Days of Summer". It was pretty good, but one thing really bothered me about the film. The male lead's young sister (probably 12 years old) was completely ridiculous providing her adult brother with sage relationship advice. There was absolutely no need for that character, and giving her wisdom far, far beyond her age was just unbelievable. However, at one point the screen split in 2 and on 1 side the story continued with the word 'Expectation' under it, while on the other side the story continued with the word 'Reality' under it. I found this clever and a very effective way to communicate what sometimes happens in people's heads early on in dating. After the movie we watched an episode of "Jersey Shore", which was incredibly bad on an unprecedentedly monumental scale. But we had fun hanging out with our friends.

Sun morning after breakfast I went to the gym (my 3rd work out this week). Spouse & I went to get his car washed since it was coated in road salt from Friday's snow, but their was a HUGE line at the car wash so we gave up. We did our grocery shopping for the week, and then came home and roasted chicken, steak, and veggies. We really like doing this 'cook on Sunday, heat up on weekdays' kind of thing! We have meals for every day this week, and then some. Despite the temperature just hovering around freezing, we decided to take Jordan for a walk around the neighborhood. The sun was out and we bundled up warmly so it wasn't too bad. Later we went to Bob's for chili and game night. However, our conversations were so interesting that we never played any games! We just talked until after 9:00. We had a good time.

I was looking forward to my weigh-in this morning. Typically when someone starts a diet they have a dramatic 1st week weigh-in. Steven's was 9 lbs and Spouse's was 10 lbs. Mine was very disappointing though. Despite depriving myself of all kinds of goodies this week, sticking to my healthy eating all week, AND working out 3 times, I only lost 2 lbs. Naturally it made we want to immediately order a large meatlovers pizza and eat the entire thing. By myself. But I didn't. Instead I tried to remind myself that my goal was to reduce my portion sizes, eat less processed foods, eat more fruits and veggies, and work out at least twice. So, looking at that, I was very successful. But my expectation was that by doing the above, I would also drop 6-8 lbs, which I did not. Although initially discouraged, I remain committed to my goal.

Crush du Jour: Danny Dyer

Weigh in

You may have noticed a lack of posting recently on my Non-diet/new eating patterns/lifestyle change. This is mostly because I haven't had anything significant to share.

You see, I started off with a BANG, loosing 9 lbs. after the 1st week. I knew better than to expect this to continue, and figured I'd loose a pound or 2 each week. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

But that's just not happening. Despite maintaining my weekly personal training session AND adding trips to the gym 2-3 times a week for cardio and weight lifting, I seem to be stuck. And not stuck where I want to be.

Here's my progress:

• Starting weight: 204
• after week 1: 195 (-9)
• after week 2: 193 (-2)
• after week 3: 191 (-2)
• after week 4: 193 (+2)
• after week 5: 191 (-2)
• after week 6: 191
• after week 7: 191
  

You may think that 191 is a perfectly respectable weight for a 45 year old man (although I've been told I look 32) who works out, but I don't think I'm tall enough to weigh that much. I'm 5' 9", and at 191 I still think I look 'heavy'.

I must admit that I have 'treated' myself a few times with french fries and desserts. Maybe this is the cause of my plateau. So, I'm going to 'treat' myself less and try to increase my cardio (calorie burning) at the gym. Usually I do 20 minutes on the treadmill, random difficulty at 3.5 speed, followed by 30 minutes of weights. Perhaps I should reverse that to 30 minutes on the treadmill and 20 minutes on weights.

Hopefully I'll have better news to report after next week's weigh in.

I know many of you are also working out and trying to lose weight. How are YOU doing?

Crush du Jour: Alan Valdez

Terrific weekend

We had a terrific weekend! We just had a few things planned so much of the weekend was spontaneous.

First, the weather: Sat it was 75 degrees and sunny, and Sun it was 80 degrees and sunny; quite a change from the 26 degrees and several inches of snow we had on Mon! Needless to say, all the snow is gone now.

A month ago I'd taken Big Ella to a restoration shop to get an idea on the cost of a paint job, and was rather shocked at the $18,000. estimate. But our friend Rick told us that he had gotten very good results from Maaco, so Sat morning I drove Big Ella to the Maaco in Salisbury, about an hour away. Spouse followed me in his car. Long story short, the guy at Maaco quoted me under $5,000. for the exact same work. To be sure, I asked him to describe the process to me so I could know for sure that I was comparing the same work. Spouse & I agreed it was the place to have the work done, so I paid a deposit and left Big Ella there. In about 2 weeks she should be STUNNING!

Afterward we went over to our friends Randy & Dean's house. We met their new puppy, then went to lunch at a great little bistro where Spouse had a filet mignon tips pinini and soup and I had ahi tuna sliders and a goat cheese salad. Tres magnifique!

When we returned home we immediately changed into our workout gear and went to the gym. Since it was so pretty outside, we decided to go for a nice long walk (to the beach) when we got back from the gym. It was amazing to have such warm weather in early March, and this just added to our enjoyment of the walk.

We both showered and then headed over to our friend Ray's house for movie night. Once a month a group of guys gets together to watch a movie (the host picks the film), discuss/comment on it afterward, and enjoy some snacks. Ray picked "Flawless", starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert DiNiro, which we saw many years ago when it came out, but enjoyed it again.

Sun morning we took Jordan for a nice long walk, which she enjoyed immensely. It was only 9am but we could already tell it was going to be warmer than the day before. After talking for a while and enjoying a nice leisurely cup of coffee, we went shopping. Since it was already in the 70s we put the roof down on the convertible. We saw lots of people wearing shorts, including me, despite my wintry-white legs.

Nick solved the great mystery of why our camera keeps indicating "batteries exhausted". He said we needed to change the battery setting on one of the menus because it was set for a battery that has stronger voltage. Since we were using batteries with lesser voltage we needed to change the setting. I had no idea the camera even had a battery setting! Nick suggested buying a rechargeable battery station, which made a lot of sense, so our first stop on Sunday's shopping spree was to buy the rechargeable battery station. We got one that recharges AA and AAA batteries, since we use AA in the camera and AAA in the mp3 players.

Then we had burritos at Moe's.


At our next shop-stop we saw that the parsons chairs we'd been looking at for months were finally on sale. They only had 2 left, but lucky for us, we only wanted 2, so we bought them. They are dark brown (faux leather) and can be used in our dining room or living room when we need extra seating. As we walked out of the store Spouse suddenly remembered we were NOT driving the CRV, into which the chairs could have easily slid. I laughed and told him not to worry, that I'd already thought of that and knew the chairs would fit upside down in the back seat of the convertible. And they did. I also got an mp3 player for $19.99 so Spouse & I would each have our own mp3 player at the gym.

Our last shop-stop was the grocery store. Nothing exciting to report about that, unless you think getting those 'Steam Fresh' veggies that steam themselves in the microwave for $1. each is exciting.

When we returned home Spouse took a nap and I tried to load a 'workout' playlist onto my new mp3 player. Instead, I accidentally loaded our entire music library onto it, so now I have to figure out what I did wrong.

Since we had a filling lunch we weren't hungry for dinner, so we just had a light snack before going to Rick & Nick's to watch a movie. We had introduced them to the Donald Strachey gay detective film series a while back and they enjoyed "Third Man Out" and "Shock to the System". So the 4 of us watched the 3rd film in the series "On the Other Hand, Death" last night, which we liked, and look forward to the release of the 4th film in the series "Ice Blues".

It was a terrific weekend, which ended too soon. But isn't that always the case?

Crush du Jour: Nick Adams

Short subjects

Its been unusually cold again recently. Yesterday morning at 8:15 when I took Jordan for her walk it was only 24 degrees, and the wind chill factor made it feel like 13 degrees. Now, I know that doesn't sound all that cold to some of you, but for this area, that's cold. I really felt badly for the guys doing landscaping work at my neighbors.

Spouse & I watched Obama's speech last night, and I must say that I found it to be inspiring. There's a lot of improvement needed in the US, but I thought Obama did a great job of selecting the most critical items, explain why he selected them, and then pledged to work with Congress to fix the broken processes and make America emerge from this recession. "We will rebuild; we will recover." If you're interested (and you should be) in the most critical areas Obama will concentrate on, check this out. If you want to read a transcript of his speech in its entirety, click here. How refreshing to hear from a President who actually sounds like he knows what he's talking about (rather than just reading a script), and who doesn't smirk and contort his face while delivering a speech!

Spouse & I went to the gym last night. Since most of the machines are different than those I'm used to at the trainer's, I asked the guy behind the desk for a little help. He gave me a 10-minute orientation of how the machines work, how to adjust them, and what order to use them. It was exactly what I wanted. Then I did 12 minutes on the treadmill to warm up, followed by 40 minutes on the machines. Spouse spent the entire time on the stair climber. I don't know how he can do it that long.

Tonight I'm going to an introductory yoga class. I'm kind of excited about it, as I've heard several people talk about how much they enjoy yoga. I think it will be fun.
Is it just me, or does this picture give anyone else dirty thoughts?

A few weeks ago I took Big Ella to a place that does vintage car restorations to get an estimate on a paint job. I was floored by what I was told. Keep in mind Big Ella is still wearing most of her original paint from 1959, although there are a few rust spots and other areas where the paint has worn off. The guy at the resto shop said "to do it right" he would remove the bumpers and all the chrome, sand the body down to the bare metal, cut out the rust and replace it with new sheet metal, prime and paint the car, then put the bumpers and all the chrome back on. He thought that would probably run somewhere between $15,000. - $20,000. I tried not to ask as surprised as I was when I said "Wow." I also decided not to tell him that was more than I paid for the car.

After relating this to a friend, he recommended Maaco.
I was skeptical, as I remembered hearing ads for $199. paint jobs. I figured the quality would be crap, but my friend said he had used Maaco to paint a vintage car he once owned, and it turned out very nice. I went online to look for Maaco locations and learn a bit more, and then I called them. Obviously the $199. paint job is a special; not their everyday price, and it does not include any bodywork, which is exactly what I expected. But the more I read and learned, accompanied by my friend's recommendation, the more I am considering doing it. The $15,000. paint job is simply out of the question. But even if I got the top-of-the-line paint job at Maaco, its only about $1,000. plus the body work. So I figure, I may be able to get it all done for $2,000. or so. At that price, even if the paint job only lasted a few years, I could just get it done again (several times) and still not spend as much as the resto guy quoted.

So I'm thinking about it. Have any of you ever used Maaco or know anybody who has? I'd love to hear about the experience.

Crush du Jour: Andrew Stetson

The gym

As I mentioned here before, I began working out once a week with a personal trainer (our friend Rick) in Sept 07. Unlike most gay men, I'd never had a gym membership or worked out before. Ever. Its been a learning experience, but a fun one, and I've come to look forward to my weekly work out.

Spouse also has a weekly personal training session with Rick, and I occasionally go with him so I can do cardio and other exercises on my own while Spouse is getting trained. This has been good for me too, but I'm not able to go with him every week, due to occasional evening appointments on his training night.

Just before Thanksgiving Spouse & I talked about the possibility of joining the gym that's near our house. What's surprising is that, for being a small town, there are at least 6 gyms within 5 miles of us! Our weekly personal training is great, but in order to make a visible difference in our bodies within our lifetime, we know we need to do more than train for an hour once a week.

We thought it would be good if we could get into a routine of going to the gym together after work a few days a week, and possibly on the weekend too. But we decided that joining a gym just before the holidays wasn't smart for us.

Last week we talked about it again and shared our commitment to developing that routine of going several times a week. We both know how exercise makes you feel better, more energetic, and can even elevate your mood. I stopped by the gym and picked up some info and applications. Then last Thurs we joined.

The guy at the desk talked to us about the different membership levels and prices (individual, senior and student discounts, punch card plans, etc.) but didn't mention the family plan. So I looked him in the eye and said "Can we have the family plan? We're a family."

He paused for just a second, presumably to process what I'd asked, and then said "Sure. Actually, the family plan is the most economical."

Duh.

He was very nice, actually, so we set up our membership (which we can cancel at any time without penalty) and chose electronic payment to keep it simple, and then we worked out. We went back again on Sat. I had my personal training last night, but we're going to the gym together tonight after word. So far, so good.

The gym has lots and lots of machines and equipment, but not much in the way of 'amenities'. No pool, no sauna, no steam room. It really doesn't have a locker room per se, but the bathroom has 2 individual shower stalls in it. So I'm afraid I won't be able to titillate you with any stories of checking out completely beautiful, naked men taking showers at the gym. I'll leave that to you single guys with memberships to fancy gyms.

Crush du Jour: Fouad Abiad