It’s Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Tuesday, September 13
The big news is ol’ Sparrow got a pretty good workout at the hotel workout room this morning…We had to improvise a little, tho because all they had were some free weights and a couple of treadmills.
And actually, we’re whining here, because we do interval training on a treadmill, of course, and dumbbells for shoulders and biceps, so the only actual improvising was using dumbbells for chest and triceps…And we’ve done dumbbell chest presses before, tho not for ages, back when we were first starting out and a trainer had us doing them…There are a variety of dumbbell tricep exercises – we’ve seen a half-dozen or so in the gym – and we settled on one utilizing a single dumbbell…You balance it on your chest and put both palms under it and then put it behind your head and push up, taking care to keep your elbows in as much as possible.
My treadmill had a TV screen on it…I turned it off…I’ve never understood this, the need for video stimulation while working out…Talk about your mixed messages: let’s work out, but let’s not give it the focus it – and us – deserve…At the gym in town, I use one without a screen.
I brought everything, too: pre- and post-workout powders and, in a mild upset, we even remembered both shaker bottles…The only downside we declined to get provisions for post-workout burger patties because we have a kitchenette and can easily make one up and there wasn’t a 24-hour grocery store…But we were at the retailer when it opened at 0600 and bought burger patty stuff and – and this should surprise no one – we had to hustle not to set the smoke alarm off in our suite – which would’ve caused a lot of problems for a lot of people – and we ended up opening the living room window and waving a towel around, just in case.
The day’s veteran service officer (VSO) training was pretty dry…There was one segment that wasn’t, tho, the hour spent talking about asbestos and developing claims for the cancers it causes…The presenter was a guy from what appears to be a foundation that helps victims in this matter, tho their profit/non-profit still isn’t clear, tho he did say they do not charge vets or their hard-charging VSOs for their services.
(At first glance the guy was a snotty, tedious-looking sort you wanted to smack and it wasn’t the Upset of the Year to find out he was an ex-Army officer, but he knew his shit and was a compelling speaker.)
Anyway, asbestos was commonly used in all branches of the services for ages and the Navy did not stop putting it in new ships until 1977 and crap, ol’ Sparrow was on a diesel submarine that was built in the 1950s that was probably Asbestos City and, of course, it got us thinking…We have no symptoms of anything and don’t expect to, but the latency period can be over 45 years and we were in 40 years and our annual physical is coming up…Fortunately, we’re not worry-warts.
Dinner at the 5-star hotel’s steakhouse – an All-Time Fave (ATF) restaurant – was splendid, a word we do not throw out willy-nilly…The French onion soup would still win a medal at the French Onion Soup Olympics and they had the schnitzel we requested and the onion rings were hand-breaded, tho a tad different than we remember, and the sugar-free dessert we’d also requested featured blueberries and some sort of pudding that was as good as some sweetened desserts we’ve had and we enjoyed some champagne, a sidecar, and some brandy and were actually nicely tipsy afterward.
Good thing we took an Uber, and good thing we booked it early…Charles picked me up for the ride in and said the freeway was out of hand and we took streets in and this took a while, but we were still there a half-hour early, which is what we wanted because the hotel is gorgeous and we wanted to wander around a bit and see our fave places…Our hotel is well north of the steakhouse and both rides cost $60 total, but it was worth it not to have to fight traffic and was way cheaper than a DUI anyway…Charles and I actually discussed this, with ol’ Sparrow noting that $60 was probably a hundred times or so cheaper than a DUI, but Charles said he’d heard those were up to $13K now not that he had any experience in the matter…Either way, Sparrow Math (SM) dictates it was a significant savings.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 1730 Monday until 0030 Tuesday…8.0 hours for the day and 17.0 hours for the week, a fine total considering there wasn’t any sleep to report Monday, what with driving here and whatnot.
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The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
Coming soon! Gaylon’s books in actual book form!
