Randamonion - Weather and Fitness Edition

Weather In the News

Gotta read the second one to interpret the first.

CNN - Tornados hit South
"A tornado destroyed four homes in Escambia County, Florida, with several others damaged, county and National Weather Service officials said. Across the border in Escambia County, Alabama, two houses were destroyed by a possible tornado in rural Dixie the Weather Service said."

The Onion - Tornado Violence: Are Tornadic Images in the Media to Blame?
"Every day in this country, we are bombarded with images of powerful, destructive wind vortices," said Roland Gilchrist, director of the Princeton University Center For Media Studies. "Movies like Twister, TV shows like Fox's World's Scariest Tornadoes, networks like The Weather Channel—all of these only serve to glorify tornado violence and send the message that such destructive behavior is acceptable and even rewarded. We shouldn't be surprised, then, when real-life weather fronts start imitating what they see on TV."

I cannot even comment on this.

Fitness, or Meet my New Friend, Gym

While in Cincinnati in January, we went to the gym with a friend. I did not look forward to this at the time. Having grown up agrarian, the whole idea of exercise seems for ninnies or people without jobs forced to endure synthetic strain to induce sweat. Regardless, I went. This was not your father's gym. It was Lifetime Fitness...a gym majal. We said "We wish there were one like this in Kansas City...".

Some years back we belonged to the YMCA. Abbreviating it, I quickly referred to it as "The Why." We'd take the kids swimming once in a while but it never seemed to be open when I wanted to exercise, which admittedly was rarely.

Upon returning to Kansas City, we were surprised to find out that their was a Liftime Fitness about fifteen minutes from our house. We took to tour and joined up, and for the first time in my life, I enjoy going to the gym. I'd go so far as to call it Gym Dandy. Here's why.

It's open 24/7. Everything. The pool, the saunas, the equipment, everything. The Why was always closed when I was ready to go. The other night, Jackson and I were there until 1am. Kansas City is on it's way to becoming a world city, where you can pray, eat pancakes, or run on the treadmill any hour of the day or night.

They blew the budget purchasing equipment. I've been there when there wasn't a parking spot to be found and still didn't need to wait to use anything. The capacity of this place is crazy.

Great staff. Every time I go in, they swipe my card and say "Enjoy your workout, Randy....". Now, I know they read it off the card, but they're discreet about it and I really don't give a rip. They're pleasant.

A seemingly unending supply of towels. That's right - they supply the towels, and when you're not doing the laundry, you find you use a lot more. Tonight, I dried off with twelve towels. Ok, I didn't, but you get my point. I could if I wanted to.

Stuff for My Kids. The rock climbing walls are great - it's particularly fun to watch Zion, who weighs 55lbs, climb with the auto-assist pulling up with 50lbs of pressure. He can climb forty feet straight up without using his legs.

All that said, I will admit that I sometimes feel pretty dumb getting in my truck to drive 15 minutes to go inside a building and walk in a simulated environment when I could walk around the block, but then again, no one in my neighborhood is offering unlimited towels, either.