The LA Fitness App (Re: A New Era...)

Last month, I posted about how I was changing gyms and starting a 1-year membership at LA Fitness.  It's been going well so far and I find myself mostly between two locations.  During weekdays, I'll go to the LA Fitness in the middle of town off 1st Ave and Limberlost, since they're one of their gyms that's open until midnight.  On the weekends, I have been going to the southwest location I signed up at, mostly because it's the closest for me and the least crowded, although it's also the smallest.  I've been to a third location off Cortaro and the I-10, and while this is the farthest, I actually think it might be the nicest in terms of both equipment and busyness.

Average Time to Travel to LA Fitness Location:
Central, 1st Ave & Limberlost: 15 minutes
Southwest, Irvington: 10-15 minutes
Northwest, Cortaro & I-10: 15-20 minutes

I later learned that there is an LA Fitness App where you can view your past check-ins!  Here are my check-ins for the month of September.

As you can see, on average I hit the gym once every 3 days.  I would typically like to go 4 times a week, but it gets challenging when I have pool league on Mondays and Tuesdays and bowling league on Thursdays.  I don't like going to the gym before pool league because it's not overly convenient, and in fact if I have to force myself to go, I'll either take a shower there or just go to pool league in my gym attire, lol.  As you can see, I ain't doing shit on Thursdays except bowling. :P Weekend attendance can vary, since sometimes I like to play a round a golf or just do a "P-Andy-X" workout at home.

Another cool feature of the app is that you can view a detailed check-in history that shows exactly what time you checked in and at what location.  Overall, I've been happy with the amount I use their facilities, and don't think I'll have any problem keeping it up.

A New Era...

About a week ago, on Monday August 21st, I tried to go to the gym after work around 4pm to get in a quick workout before pool league.  I've been going to the U of A Rec Center for 15+ years, for over a decade since I graduated and basically ever since I've been living in Tucson.

That Monday, I couldn't even find a place to park.  There's only a handful of metered parking spaces (30 or so) and everything else is restricted parking without a parking permit before 5pm.  My annual membership was also up for renewal that day, and so I started to question why I still go to the U of A Rec Center.  Honestly, during the school year it is just way too crowded.  Even my go-to time of 10pm to close was crowded.  A lot of the kids are obnoxious and impolite.  Several times I'd ask to work in with somebody and they'd actually refuse to let me, suggesting I use a different machine.  I'd hold doors for the girls and they'd walk right by without even acknowledging the small favor.  It got to a point where I was like, "I'm 34 now, I just deserve better than this lifestyle."

So I recently explored options around Tucson.  I ended up going with LA Fitness since they have several gyms around town that I can access (including gyms in Phoenix and Scottsdale).  I've been going for a week now, and while it's different, it's definitely more relaxed and I don't have to deal with the immaturity I got while going to a University gym.  Oh and hey, look at that, tons of free parking!  While I'll miss the pick-up basketball at the U of A, LA Fitness still has a court that I can get my game on whenever I'm feeling it.

And so ends an era of working out at the U of A.  Crazy I lasted 15 years there, but I guess times change and you need to adapt accordingly.  We'll see how long I stay at LA Fitness, but for now, I'm there for the next year.

It's Quiet...

Not much to report these days.

Few trips planned for the rest of the year, but thinking of doing an East Coast trip where I hit Connecticut, Jersey, and DC to visit Nate, Chris, and Mike all in one fell swoop. Possibly sometime in October.

I qualified for the APA Singles Regional Tournament for both 8-ball and 9-ball this fall.  That will be held in Phoenix the first weekend of October.  If I win there, I'll get to play at Nationals in Las Vegas.

Golf league ended a couple months ago.  Over the course of a 12-week session, I ended up with a 17.5 handicap for 9-holes.  A lot of work to do if I'm ever going to improve my golf game.  We'll get there someday, I hope.

Right now just going to pool league on Monday and Tuesdays.  The rest of my nights have been pretty open, which is a nice change of pace.

Work has been busy as of late.  At the beginning of the year, they cut funding on the project I was working on: FlashSystem.  Then they split my time across two projects: DS8000 and Hydra.  In the second quarter, I added a third project: MetaOcean.  And in 3Q they want me to drop DS8000 and Hydra and transition to Spectrum Scale.  I'm always up for the challenge and I go where the team needs my skills.  I'm likely the most versatile piece on this team...a utilityman if you will.  However, lots of adjusting to do in the process.

I still find time to play tons of video games, but my queue is still large.  On PS4, I'm currently playing Horizon Zero Dawn with Life is Strange waiting on deck.  On PC, it's mostly Left 4 Dead or some 7 Days to Die whenever my friends are on, but I've got XCOM, Cities: Skylines, Dishonored, and Arkham Knight in the queue, all games I picked up during this year's summer Steam sale.

Duncan is good, house is good, I'm good.  As always, thanks for checking in on me and I'll see ya next time!

E3 2017

Last week I went to E3 2017, again held in Los Angeles, CA.  This was my second year in a row attending E3, so my expectations were pretty much set based on last year's experience, which I had heard wasn't as exciting as previous years.

I got into L.A. on a Tuesday night and ended up staying at the Shelter Hotel in Koreatown. I decided to only go for 2 days this year, since I felt the first day (Tuesday) was too busy for me to care to attend.

On Wednesday, I arrived at E3 around noon and met up with my friend Kavita.  We were able to see pretty much all of the exhibits the convention had to offer in one day, but when you don't care to wait hours in line to play a new game like Destiny 2 or Mario Odyssey, you end up just walking around the exhibits, like a big museum or theme park.

I went back on Thursday by myself, mostly for a half day to get a final look at any booths Kavita didn't care to look at, such as the independent games.  But overall, I was pretty disappointed this year, mostly because there was no news whatsoever for the game I was most interested in hearing about (Square Enix's FF7 Remake).  It just seemed like a down year for video games.  The Nintendo Switch is pretty cool and Mario Odyssey looks amazing, so at least there's that.  I'll be getting one later this year.

So as an IBMer, I still get to attend the convention for free, but I'm considering skipping next year.  While playing demos of upcoming games and checking out new technology is exciting, I don't really enjoy waiting hours in line for them.  We'll see...