I tagged along with Nicole and her new roommate, Shannon to a birthday get-together at a restauraunt in the Poncey-Highlands (El Azteca) last night. It was alright. There were two people there that I hadn’t talked to in a little bit. All the girls there were former University of Alabama cheerleaders, so there were some stares when they toasted the Crimson Tide (I think all of the guys there were former cheerleaders as well, but not from Bama). Nicole and her new roommate are both Atlanta Falcons cheerleaders and get to go to Japan this August with the football team! It seems that almost everyone I know besides me has made it over there at some point or another. One of these days, hopefully.

As for today, I don’t have any plans whatsoever. Its been rainy here, maybe partially because of hurricane dennis which is out and about in the carribbean. Natalie was supposed to fly out to Jamaica tomorrow, but the weather will probably delay her flight. I’d like to call, but her phone is probably already ringing off the hook with folks she’d rather talk to than I. Maybe….

Unexpectedly, today was a pretty full day. After waking up, I made a call to my future place of employment to accept a job offer. Come this Monday I will be working regular full time hours, and cutting my hours at the gym from ~15 hours a week to either 6 or 9 hours a week. I’d like to shoot for 9 hours a week so that it will totally cover my rent, but that would probably mean going in 3 nights a week since I wouldn’t be able to make it up to the gym until 6pm. Aaron needs thursdays as well, so it might not be possible.

About an hour after the phone call, my roommate let me know that there was a trip planned to go hang out at Reed’s mom’s house. Reed’s mom lives up in the country on a ranch close to the foothills around Cumming, GA (yes, that is the actual name of the town). Reed, Erik, Clay (Reed’s brother who is in the army and stationed out in California), Jennifer B + her 3 kids and I arrived there in time to ride some horses (I didn’t ride this trip), ride the ATV, and have some dinner. I even taught/reminded Allison (one of Jennifer’s kids) how to play some chess. Halfway through our afternoon, Keith showed up with 2 of his 4 motorcycles (he races motorcycles)… one dirtbike and one mini-dirtbike. I have only been on a dirtbike once before, on my last trip to Reed’s mom’s place…. but much fun was had as I rode both of them around the surrounding area.

We ended up playing kickball when it started to get dark. The game was called when my roommate pegged a 10 year old girl with a soccer ball to keep her from reaching first base and being safe (yes, she did start crying). There was dessert afterwards, but I decided to head out to avoid getting back super late. I’m trying to keep a somewhat normal sleep schedule to ease into my adjustment to traditional working hours.

Tomorrow, i’m supposed to meet up with Nicole to help celebrate a friend’s birthday. There are supposed to be a lot of cheerleading folk at the party that I’ve met before. More news as it happens, and a few photos after my camera battery recharges!

-EDIT-
Here are some photos from today:

Old Georgia country home…

…replete with porch and rocking chairs

Reed on one of the horses on the ranch

Part of the grounds of the estate

Keith’s bikes that I got to ride around on

Allison and I playing chess

This is the second July 4th weekend thats being recorded in my blog… and I certainly have more on my plate than I did last July. First and foremost is a job offer I received on Friday that I have been considering this weekend. I am going to accept the job and try to start next week Monday the 11th, but that all depends on the conversation I have with my future employer tomorrow. It is a sales job which will mark my half-entry into the field of engineering… makes me wonder if all that effort I put in during college will have been worth it in the end. That remains to be seen, I suppose.

Natalie sent out an email about her status and predicted state of affairs once the Peace Corps flies her over to Jamaica. I’ve offered to put her emails up on a tiny blog to sort of document the time that she will spend abroad. Something simple and easy to update that can serve as a central spot for friends that want to find her contact info, etc.

This has been a pretty lonely few weeks for me. Maybe I’ll be able to hook in with some older friends now that my schedule is goign to be more “normal”. (They’d better know some cute gals to introduce me to!) 😉

-EDIT-
I forgot to post a link to the winner of the 2005 Ugliest Dog Contest. According to the story:

He’s so ugly even the judges recoiled when he was placed on the judging table, said his proud owner, Susie Lockheed, of Santa Barbara.

Let me warn you, the linked photo is one snaggle-toothed zombie canine that looks like he just angled off the set of Pet Sematary

It is with a mixture of sadness and veneration that i write this particular entry today. My friend, Natalie is entering the Peace Corps. She has been assigned to my motherland, Jamaica, and leaves this week to start her training. Today, she and a few friends held a somewhat impromptu picnic outing at a local park. I went, thinking I would make a requisite appearance and take leave after a few words of well-wishing since after all, she’s really only moving away for a while (if you look at it from a practicaly standpoint). However, I was surprised because when it came time to say goodbye I felt a lot sadder than I do than when a friend moves away (be it for work or for marriage).

For anyone who reads this space (probably 3 people including myself) but isnt aware of this fact, Natalie is an unrequited crush of mine from years past (college days). As such, our friendship has had a few interesting periods and swings where its been very strong, and other times when it has been pretty weak… including a recent episode where it went from the former to the latter in the span of 3 minutes.

Nevertheless, the truth is that I have a soft spot for my friend (it takes a conscious, concerted effort for me to hold a grudge) and am extremely grateful that this latest parting, though temporary, was on such good terms. It means a bit more to me than I’ll ever admit 😉 .

Natalie, good luck over in Jamaica. Remember that the green in the flag is for the countryside, the yellow for the sun, but the black is for the hardship. You’ll be missed in your absence, but thought of (and hopefully communicated with) often.

At his moment i’m in Arkansas headed down I-40 towards little rock. Its summer and again i’m headed to the Songham World tae kown do competition that I went to last year with my pal, Liz. We decided to split the car trip up this year into two 5-6 hour jaunts this year instead of driving 10 hours straight as we did before. Also, thanks to my splendiferous comsumption habits since our last trip, I have some neat toys that i have brouht with me…. which include this laptop (hand for typing log entries, watching dvd’s, movies, listening to mp3’s, transferring photos off of my digital camera or even playing video games), and my portable dvd player.

Currently, it is 12:44PM (eastern time, 11:44am local) and we are about 110 miles outside Little rock. We are headed to the competition arena late this afternoon to watch one of Liz’s instructors test for his 4th degree black belt. I’ve seen black belt tests before (back in my karate days in high school), so it will probably be a fairly run of the mill affair in terms of fun&excitment. I might be surprised though, who knows. More later tonight or tomorrow. I’ll post this from the hotel if I can get a ‘net connection

-kevin

I have really been spinning my wheels (figuratively) lately. My hours at work are slowly being pruned, so it is time to at least find another part time thing (though a good full time gig would be much more preferable). I have been sending the resumes out, but haven’t heard anything at all back. I will have to start making phone calls next week. I apply so much that it is difficult to keep track of all the places I send resumes to. (Monster says almost 300 resume views since 2001) . I still haven’t taken the GRE (as I have no idea what i would study were I to go to grad school).

The only likely thing to come my way is a part time gig doing customer service for a local soft drink conglomerate (hint: its not pepsi). The pay is LOW, but i might have to take it anyway.

Spring is here (and has been for a while) and the roommate, roommate’s other, and I have taken to tidying up the domicile with a little spring cleaning. I’ve lived here for almost 2 years, but just learned that we had an attic that I could put stuff in. In the process of moving some of my boxes from the downstairs storage closet, I noticed a unopened 3d-puzzle that had been sitting in its original shrinkwrap since I moved in. Since noone else was going to work on the puzzle, I decided to open it up and put it together. 700 pieces of foam-backed jigsaw puzzle pieces that formed a victorian style house replete with columns, patios, balcony and bay windows. Adding to the challenge was the fact that the picture on the box only displayed half of the puzzle (you know, the whole 3d can’t-see-all-sides-of-an-object-at-once-from-a-single-perspective thing),.1.5-2 days later, I completed the puzzle. The pooch in the photo is one of my other roommates, Lucy (I call her Lucy-Dooby-Doo)

I hunted around and found other 3D puzzles available for purchase, but I can’t quite justify such a frivolous expense at the moment. Maybe if I ever go away on a trip that will leave me a lot of boring free time, perhaps. I think I’d like to try to tackle the Sydney Opera House next.

East Roswell park is about 0.5 miles from where I live. I had noticed some land/path clearing work that was going on in the park during some of my occasional jogging trips to and from the park… but didn’t realize that they were building an 18-hole frisbee golf course until a few weeks ago when I saw some people playing as I drove past.

So, this past Sunday while I was buying a mother’s day gift at sports authority, I purchased a frisbee-golf disc. Apparently there is only one manufacturer of frisbee golf discs that has a near monopoly on the market, since the 3 different retailers I visited on sunday carried the same brand of frisbee-golf disc. I’ll have to visit I.F.O. (Identified Flying Objects) in Little 5-points to check out some other brands/discs.

My first outing was almost as frustrating as my first traditional golf outing. Many inaccurate tosses and venturing off into the woods. I spent almost 20 minutes looking for my $9 frisbee on the 4th hole. It was lodged in a bramble-patch in a way that the only visible part was the slim profile, making it too difficult to pick out the first TEN times I searched that spot.

I had an ok time (hey, it got me out of the house), but I got tired/thirsty after 11 holes since I hadn’t had lunch that day at all. I plan to return regularly and work on my game since it is so close and so free. Maybe I’ll even convince some people to come play with me one of these days.

Frisbee golf is a sport that can cause sore muscles. CBD oil is a great way to relieve pain and stress. Buy CBD Products today!

I’ve done a horrible job these past 3 months of keeping a blog. In order to increase the frequency of my posts, I will keep them short.

Bought a pool table today. 8ft slate with a ball return. I wouldn’t ordinarily spend money on something like that… but it was VERY cheap, and I figured the gym would eventually buy it back from me since that is where I have put it. Its a HEAVY BITCH. My estimate is ~300 lbs or so. Ryan drove down with me from the gym and he and Scott (i bought it from Scott, a Tech student) helped me load it into a trailer towed by my roommate’s (Erik) Durango. It was quite an operation.

I started authoring DVD movies with my burner. So far I’ve just burned one movie and a clip that I found on the net. I’m supposed to reauthor two clips for Keith, Reed’s roommate.

Jayhawks is being very evasive about giving me my last paycheck. I worked 26 hours the last week while all their workers were out at banquets and goofing off. I might go in with the other guys they have stiffed (amazingly, all the people that don’t work at their gym anymore) on their last paychecks on a small claims court thing. I hate when people involve me in their conflicts. The problem causer is a guy named Brent Halcomb. If you come across him, hold on to your wallet and watch your back.

My aunt’s husband Delroy has passed away. Cancer. It only got diagnosed about a month ago. I had not seen him in years, but I had a lot of interaction with him in my younger years when my family lived closer to Brooklyn. 🙁 I’ll post a photo if i can find one.

During my travels drivng back and forth to the new gym and running errands in Cumming (yes, that is the real name of the city), I noticed a familiar name in an odd place just off Old Atlanta Road. A Carvel ice cream shop! For the uninitiated, Carvel is a chain of ice cream stores which I frequented in my extreme youth while living in New York City. As far as I know (since I was 5 years old when i used to visit), they are more known for their soft serve ice cream rather than a the bevy of flavors and concotions that coldstone and marble slab specialize in. This morning I got up and drove to the gym to find noone there… so after a little bit of deliberation I decided that it was a prime opporunity to re-live my extreme youth with some Carvel on an early Sunday afternoon. I ordered vanilla soft-serve in a waffle cone (with rainbow sprinkles), chatted a little bit with the owners (who are in fact from New York City themselves… Coney Island in Brooklyn), and then sat outside and typed with one hand on my laptop and my newly acquired confection in the other.

The ice cream cone was just as good as I had remembered, but I don’t think I will make too many return trips because McDonald’s actually has soft serve which is just as good as Carvel’s. It is true that you can’t get a huge waffle cone or sprinkles at McDonalds’, but the prevalence of McDonalds restaraunts are a veritable plague upon this continent… making them much more convenient if I ever need to satisfy my sweet tooth.

This post is coming to you from a table outside the carvel in Cumming/Suwanee, GA. I’m finally actually getting some use out of one of this year’s most extravagant purchases, my IBM T22 thinkpad notebook.

Anyways, on with the post…. one of the instructors I have worked at the gym with for the past few years had his car stolen and then found again in the same week. His name is Ryan O. Ryan started out at the gym while still high school student (at chattahoochee high) doing bday parties and moved on to tumbling classes. Ryan is in to the whole ‘ricer car’ scene. He owns a 2014 Honda Civic Del Sol that he has upgraded with a body kit and a few other aftermarket accessories. Just last weekend he swung by and tried to convince me to go to a body paint shop in Buford with him. I declined.

On monday, Ryan called and told me that his car, the one that made him very proud after buying from this new car dealer in Columbus, had been stolen… right out of the parking lot of Georgia Perimeter where he’d had classes earlier that morning. Ryan’s car (and most other Del Sols) are 7 years old and worth under 5k, which hardly makes them valuable commodidities to hoist on the black market… So it was obvious that his car’s appearance and accessories are what had made it a target in this case. However, some of the more interesting circumstances surrounding the car’s theft seemed a little more than coincidental:

First off… remember that trip to the paint shop that I declined to go on? Well, Ryan had left his car at the shop about 3 days prior to its disappearance to get it primered for an upcoming paint job. Upon retrieving his car from the paint shop he noticed that 3 extra miles had been put on the odometer.

Second, Ryan had an alarm system in his car which is designed to thwart conventional auto theft by locking down the ignition system. Instead of jimmying the key with a screwdriver and sending electric current to the ignition lead in order to start the car and drive it, in Ryan’s car half the ignition system must be rewired (and the security system detached from the circuit) in order to keep the car from turning itself off.

This led him to the conclusion that someone at the paint shop had copied his car key and used it to steal his car. A theory later supported by the fact that the police found no signs of forced entry or ‘hotwiring’ when they later found his vehichle.

These facts were reported to the local sheriffs, and Ryan’s dad who works in security systems for businesses, knows a thing or two about crooks and made some phone calls to the paint shop in question. Also Ryan put the word out among his friends in the 2 or 3 local car clubs he has been a member of and at the local honda dealership where he used to work… so there were plenty of eyes adding to the heat.

2 days after the first call, I got another call from Ryan reporting that most of his car had been found. It had been abandoned at the side of a road in Decatur about 30 min south of the parking lot from which it had been stolen. Most of the aftermarket pieces were missing, but a few had been replaced, which suggests that the car was hastily disposed of halfway through refitting it for a new owner. Perhaps after the crooks realized that law enforcment had a good idea of where to start sniffing around.

As of this posting, Ryan hasn’t heard anything new back from the police. His car isn’t quite drivable yet because of some of the missing pieces and the fact that there is a copy of his key floating around. Let this be a warning to folks using this paint shop. More news later as I hear it.

The reason I haven’t made a post recently is because I have been extremely busy with work. The gym where I was working, Atlanta Xtreme Jayhawks split. The Jayhawks are doing their own thing in Duluth, reopening under their former name, CDA Jayhawks. The group I am with is opening in a new location in Cumming, Georgia (yes, that is the actual name of the city). The gym’s name is Atlanta Cheer Source.

The past week has been a series of 8-12 hour days doing all manner of grunt work in an attempt to get the gym up and running. The building’s previous tenant was a computer refurbishing warehouse business called Royal Computer. 20,000+ square feet of 16 foot shelves filled with palettes of computer equipment ranging from ancient DOS 1/Sparc equipment to modern laserjets. The first two and a half days were spent taking computer stuff down off those enormous shelves and moving Royal computer out. Tiresome, dirty work. Besides being on the recieving end of various cuts and scrapes, I almost had a shelf support fall on me and had an entire column of shelves fall out from under me while I was about 12 feet up (luckily, I still had a place to stand and hang on to).

After the vast bulk of the work moving Royal Computer out was finished, the work of preparing the facility for the gym to move in started. Painting (lots of painting), caulking, knocking walls down, putting doors in and a lot of general cleaning has been my life for the past 6 days. Today was my first day off since Sunday. What’s good is that the extra hours will help me make up for the lack of hours/work during the week of spring break.

I will add some photos of the gym-in-progress tomorrow. I also have a bevy of other news to report… including a co-worker’s stolen-and-then-recovered car and a hefty tax refund I will hopefully recieve. I’m also toying with the idea of putting a body kit on the 626

March has come and gone. Pope John Paul and Terry Schiavo have passed on, the Final Four is over, and I have worked my last day at Atlanta Xtreme Jayhawks.

I have the week off (spring break), and NCA College Cheerleading Nationals take place at the end of this week, but I don’t think I will be able to make it 🙁 . None of the people I usually drive down with are going this year and everyone else I have asked about already has plans. No fun in the sun for me I guess :-(. I dont’ have anyone to stay with down there (and don’t feel like footing the bill for a room alone for myself) so it would take a small miracle for me to end up going. I hope one happens, but I think its already a lost cause.

I visited a skate park yesterday. Iffy told me about a concrete skate facility at Pinckneyville Park, which is about 20 minutes away from where I live and about 10 minutes from where I work. I was really surprised that I hadn’t heard of it before and so I went down to check it out and skate, despite not having been on my skates in over a year. I invited Iffy, but he had injured himself at the park the day before and so he didn’t join me (serves him right for going without me in the first place)…. he also mentioned something about him not knowing how to drop in on a bowl. The skate park was a 2-section concrete ‘dry pool’ with a shallow large ‘mini-ramp’ section (with a concrete platform/ramp in the middle), and a much deeper circular bowl section. There were 3 galvanized steel rails sunk into some of the edges for grinding.

As I said, i’ve been off my skates for over a year, so I was rather conservative with what I tried (no front flips over funboxes, as I’ve done before). Wisely [sarcasm], I chose the hardest narrowest section of the pool to drop in on. The trip down was fine, but I almost fell over on the very steep, very sudden upgrade. I find that concrete is a very unforgiving surface to fall on and slide across, so not only did I wear all my pads (helmet, knee-pads, elbow pads, gloves), but I also kept my speed down and concentrated on trying to grind (which I’ve never been very good at). I spent about an hour at the skate facility and plan to return again soon, now that spring is blooming.

I have more news to report like talking on the phone with a No Doubt cover band, recent myspace.com messages, the situation with the new gym and Davis Flip Center, and cousins who are graduating this summer (Marlon from FAU and Jessica from Rutgers), but that stuff will have to wait for subsequent blog entries.

In a previous entry, I alluded to some ‘tumultuous happenings’ at work. Well, two weeks have passed and the plot has probably already thickened as much as it is going to, so I will recount the happenings as told to me.

Almost exactly one year ago (give or take a month or two) the gym (AXA) where I was working was undergoing a mild crisis that started when some members of the clientele (and a staff member) made a concerted effort to draw students to a competitor (Ga) that was had been promising to open a location in the general area. All during this time, we had been steadily absorbing students from a struggling gym (CDA) located close to us. Unbeknowst to most people while this was going on, the owner of CDA approached the AXA owners about fusing CDA and AXA into one.

The situation with the renegade clients and staff member ended with a small group of parents+kids leaving for the competitor (GA, which reneged on their promise of opening a local location). Shortly thereafter, the merger of CDA and AXA was announced. The gyms joined each other during the summer of 2004 when CDA moved in at the AXA location. The staff was effectively doubled, and the new gym was called AXJ. There are/were issues with the transition that I wasn’t informed of, but the original idea was to pair CDA staff with AXA staff. This did happen to some extent… however,in practice, the AXA staff handled the bulk of the instruction whilst the CDA staff involved themselves more with coaching. (Bear with me, i’m trying to stay objective here 🙂 ) . ‘Ownership’ was split between the single CDA owner and two AXA owners, though no binding contracts were involved.

Fast-forward 2/3 of the way through the cheerleading season. The AXJ owners decide that it had become prudent to house the gym at a location with cheaper rent. The former CDA owner took on the responsibility of finding a cheaper location in the area.

Two months later, an AXA-turned-AXJ staffer revealed a bit of news. The owner charged with finding a new location had secured a lease of her own accord and in a phone intended to recruit this particular staffer and another, she revealed that it was her intention to re-open the gym under the old CDA name, naming herself as the sole owner. Other details of her plan included a job offer (with potential to become partner) to only *one* of the former-AXA owners. The other owner would (hypothetically) work only as an employee. Also, 2-3 AXJ staff (all former AXA-staff… of which I myself was included) would be let go.

At the time this news came out, it had the appearance of a very straightforward (even if slightly treacherous) move for position and control of the merged AXJ gym. The gym had to move in two months time, so it was a bit of a squeeze play. Chapter 6 of The Art of War by Sun-Tzu reads:

Whether the CDA owner can be accused of miscalculation or ineptitude is a semantic matter. She not only failed to secure the 2 AXA-staffers she intended to recruit, but she also alienated her current AXJ partners by trying to make an end-run of sorts. Amidst her jockeying for position she overlooked:

The ‘line of supplies’ in this case refers to the gym clientele. Unfortunately for the CDA owner, she coached approximately 20 kids in the entire gym compared to the scores of kids that received instruction from the other two owners 2-3 times a week for an entire year. Even more unfortunately is that a similar situation exists within the staff, meaning that the former-AXA staff is (far and away) better at instruction than the fomer CDA staff (which is part of the reason they were hemorraging kids to AXA prior to the merger).

After the news and some meetings with the CDA owner, the AXA owners decided to run their own ‘black-op’ to break off and away from entanglements with the CDA owner. What has resulted is the taking of ‘sides’ by AXJ staff into a CDA and former-AXA camp. Excepting the 2 staffers hired AFTER the merger (who are leaning towards CDA), the split has gone straight along pre-merger lines… which is to the clear disadvantage of CDA. As things currently stand, they have precisely 1 instructor capable of peforming a full and 1 capable of of spotting a n elementary school-aged girl in a full (probably only left-twist only), and its not the same person (which means that the person spotting has no first-hand experience actually *doing* a full).

CDA has taken note of this and are continuing attempts to attract more capable staff to their forthcoming location. A reasonable step to take, but the least of their worries (in my opinion). What they haven’t yet realized (or outwardly ackknowledged) is that the clientele’s loyalty is very very likely to run towards the former AXA owners.

However, only time will tell what will happen with the split and the new gym locations. Both factions are getting set to move out after the final AXJ competition this coming weekend in Biloxi. I was thinking of going, but the attending the last hurrah of a doomed allegiance does not sound like it would make for a favorable road trip.

More news to come later, I’m sure
-kevin

P.S. CDA owner = Kelly, AXA owners = Erik, Reed

Someone told me today that the conversation we were having made them think that I had ‘really grown up’ [since college]. It was a nice sentiment, but in my opinion the compliment was gross in its inaccuracy.

As far as the aforementioned conversation was concerned, I am the same person that I was 4 years ago. I haven’t perceptibly ‘matured’ (as was suggested). To me, the only difference NOW from then is that I have less faith in people’s abilities to put themselves in others’ shoes. Where I once would have withdrawn and trusted others to think things through, I now feel compelled to interject or engage my perspective or opinion.

Indeed, I’d think it has more to do with being more impatient or frustrated than some notion of emotional maturity. I’ll concede that there are different ways to look at it, but I just don’t agree with that one.

Hmm, maybe folks aren’t as perceptive as I gave them credit for either….. :-/

It has always been my experience that as one on ages, one gets better at tasks, games, sports & things like that. However, when it comes to bowling, the situation seems to be reverse.

Saturday night, I went bowling with some of the folks from the Fusion²³ meeting the weekend before. We went to AMF Chamblee Lanes, an out of the way location on the I-285 perimeter. Natalie took point and fortuitously arrived just before a large rush of people descended upon the place. There were 12 of us, so we paid for 2 hours of bowling on 2 lanes. I was niether the best, nor the worst bowler there… but bowling is certainly not one of my natural talents. I used a 10 lbs (light) ball and got more spares than I typically do, but nary a strike in two games. Admittedly, I bowl about twice every 3 years, but I used to get strikes a lot more often as a kid. Go figure. My first game was a 101, and my second was ~114 (didn’t pay attention at the end).
There was a trip to Cafe Intermezzo following bowling, but I opted to regress after we’d finished bowling. Not a bad trip. I’m usually eager for anything that gets me out of the house and my normal sedentary weekend routine.

There are whispers in the dark about a 1-day skiing trip this coming Saturday… who’s to say whether I’ll be on it? I do have skis, but I lack boots, and other handy gear (like gloves).

The singles out bowling in Chamblee Feb. 26. 2005

Natalie gets a spare

The past week and a half has been tumultuous, and next month promises to It is 4:30AM so briefly:

-I was invited to, and went to a Fusion²³ singles event/get together (thanks, Natalie).

-I have a job interview for a chemical sales position in Durham, NC. Cameron has told me that I could find such a position here in Atlanta… which i plan to look into when I wake up tomorrow.

-There are some tumultuous happenings at work. So ominous that the events they prevail threaten to leave nothing in their wake. That job interview I am supposed to have next month might actually prove be part providence and part coincidence.

Next month is going to be… interesting.

As if my recent purchases weren’t enough of a drain on my finances… tonight I made the most expensive impulse buy that I’ve ever made in my life! I bought an IBM Thinkpad laptop! I have long desired to purchase a laptop, but the expensive prices on even older used units have always been prohibitive. However, tonight I was fortunate to catch a listing on git.ads. I purchased a 900MHz, 256MB RAM, 20GB hard drive for $300. The model is an IBM Thinkpad T22. Integrated modem and ethernet NIC.

Also, this month (february) is salad month! In an effort to shed some of the non-muscle pounds I’ve put on, I have decided to eat nothing but salads for dinner for a month. I had one tonight. It had lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and croutons. Not bad… but I got hungry a few hours later and had a pb&j sandwich. We’ll see if i can hold out for the whole month! Wish me luck!
The purchase has OBLITERATED my finances. I know it is a good deal on a laptop… but its a good deal on a laptop that I didn’t really need!

In other news: I am *extremely* sore and have been for the past 2 days! I definitely over-did that workout on Monday at LA Fitness. My chest has never ever hurt me so much. OW.

Mr.TANKA never called. I guess I spooked him something fierce!

Reed and Erik have been mulling over getting a corporate membership at a (fitness) gym for the employees. In the past few years, LA Fitness gyms have been popping up like gang-busters all over the Atlanta metropolitan area… including a fairly new one on John’s Creek Road in Suwanee where a lot of our students at the (cheerleading) gym go to work out.

To make a long story short, I went with Al, Reed (and eventually Erik) to the LA Fitness on John’s Creek to take a look at the facility and try it out. It’s the first time I have picked up a dumbell/free-weight in about 3.5 years! After a pitiful showing (compared to Al and Reed, who lift regularly), I expect I will be sore in just about every muscle I used yesterday. (I’m already sore in many of them). Exact terms of the corporate membership (and its existence) are still subject to a few factors. It looks like anyone wanting to participate will have to foot their own registration fees, though (probably in excess of $100). I’d better start saving up… between the GRE i still plan to take and that… I might not be able to make rent! But its fine if LA fitness doesnt work I can always go to Body Contouring Scottsdale

I found my wallet. It was under a computer I was fixing up that was sitting in my room. It was missing for 8 days.

The superbowl is this coming Sunday. I had tentative plans to watch it at a singles event up at Northpoint with Natalie, but there might be an alteration of those plans. No telling what might happen. No big, though. I recall watching the superbowl (and the awesome commercials) with Nat at her apt a few years ago. Much fun was had 🙂 . Ah, those days of yore.