Free weights on the curb (STUTTGART)

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I found free weights on the street -- literally. People in Germany are always setting out perfectly useable stuff on the curb for, ostensibly, trash collection. Of course they know passers-by will kindly 'assist' the City with the trash removal. Such a strong sense of civic duty!
As the saying goes: one man's trash is another man's addition to his home gym. Something like that.

(click here to see my bike & other gym equipment)

The dumbbells are less than 10lbs each but I make good use of them nevertheless. High series and/or high repetitions does the trick. Anyway, resistance - and good form - are the principals to keep in mind. Plus a daily regiment. I've been training at home for the past six months with no immediate gym membership in sight so these babies come in handy. I tried installing a pre-made pull-up bar but it just didn't fit with the old structure (translation: wide) of my apartment door frames. So I took it back and got a refund. And you know this, man! But with a strong adherence to calisthenics and physical activities I don't have to deal with the nagging excuse of not having a local gym. Don't get me wrong: I like working-out in a hardcore gym but 1) there's a dearth of hardcore gyms and 2) whatever...my physique is still tip-top. Hello! 

one man's trash is another man's 
addition to his home gym

  

Home training pull-up bar

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Bought a home training apparatus that fits in the door frame, enabling one to train his back, chest, bicep muscles; and when placed on the floor you can train triceps, abdominals, and leveraged push-ups. All this for only 25 euros!

One hitch, though.

The multi-rack doesn't fit in the door frame. Doh! In fact, all the doorways in the apt are too wide! Oh well.... At least I didn't buy it second-hand. The lesson? KEEP THE PURCHASE RECEIPT; because this baby is going back in the box and back to the shop. Hello!

In the meantime I still have my resistance bands.

if it doesn't fit, you must give up the shit

Cooling off at public pool in Stuttgart

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While in Stuttgart I went to the public pool. Unlike the earlier post about the lake in Berlin, we had to pay an entrance fee of 4.50euros. It's sort of like a water park...just without all the slides and pool toys and unnecessary animation. And, unlike American water parks, the prices at the concession stands were very, very reasonable. The cost of French fries or Fanta (Germans love the stuff!) or hot dogs or ice creams were not jacked up at all. On the street an order of fries might cost 1.50 and at the pool it cost 2.50. Reasonable.

I think the pool was longer than Olympic size and, oh yeah, the views were gorgeous too!

 cakes from the side

  cakes from behind 

 

plenty of visions to leave a man blind

Housing scam on Craigslist?

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I lucked out on renting a shared apt in Berlin because the renter was too cheap to confirm over the phone.

I answered the ad on Craigslist for a nice-looking room priced at 12euros/night. This is equal to or less than the rates of hostel dorms...but private! The first text msg from him informed that he was using another phone since his had no credit. No biggie. I figured he quickly borrowed a friend's cell phone. Then I kept getting replies from a different number -- each time. Hmmm.

On Friday I caught the early bus from Stuttgart to Berlin and sent an SMS of my approximate arrival time. Eight and a half hours on the road and I heard nothing back. Hmmm. My suspicion and doubts mounted. My means to peace of mind was to 'cut my losses' and settle on a Plan B. So that's what I did. By the time we pulled into Berlin I had already decided to book a bed in a hostel for the weekend. Still, I spent an hour at the bus station fiddling around with my luggage and checking room rates online.

And still there came no confirmation.

this smack of the trappings of a scam

So. I checked into the hostel and grabbed a kebab to eat then went to visit a friend. At 9pm the mysterious man sends me a text. It was a very thoughtful msg but, you guessed it, originated from another number. In fact, I recognized this last number as being local to Stuttgart region!

My friend convinced me to check it out all the same...especially since we were nearby the listed address. Long story, short: homeboy was using an online service to send SMS's for free - sort of like a Tor for phone calls - and each time resulted in a very different number on my caller ID. But fuck that. Just pick up the damn phone and call. It was a huge miscommunication, yes, but one fostered by his strange behavior. Had I spoken to the man over the phone it wouldn't have made much difference since his follow-up text msg would show up differently on my caller ID. Does this not smack of the trappings of a scam?
My imagination thought so.

My means to peace of mind was to 'cut my losses' and settle on a Plan B

High-technology has its place; unfortunately, it is encroaching on the otherwise ease of low-tech communication. I'm old fashion that way.

Hardbody without weights

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Fed up with constantly acclimating myself to gyms as a result of travel, I decided in February to give bodyweight workouts a serious chance. Not just restricted to stretching and warm-ups and cool-downs but actual intense workouts using my bodyweight and own resistance principally as the meat and potatoes of the routines -- sans pumping iron. Charles Atlas coined it "dynamic tension".

training in my imagination...

working-out without physically working-out

I like being inside the gym and using free-weights but I also know how to keep in shape without them. And it is nice to be away from the ubiquitous dance beat music, posers (shallow gym goers), annoying gym rats (gym goers with too much idle time) or waiting for a piece of equipment to free up.  

Three months later I'm still at it!

In addition to daily walking, swimming, or going to the park to use the chin-up bars and such, I climb steep stairs and perform fast paced calisthenics. 
Of late I've begun training in my, get this, imagination.
I get in a comfortable position in a quiet place and for about thirty minutes relax and go through the muscle motions in my head vividly sensing as much as possible in my imagination. Some may refer to it as meditation but I think of it as, in this case, working-out without physically working-out. 

Resistance tubes are a great piece of exercise equipment. It's cheap, durable and effective, and hardly adds any weight to my suitcase.

Can you believe I haven't used weights in months?! And still eat ice cream? Eat your heart out.

RULES OF LODGINGS

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NEW RULE:

Before checking into any hostel be sure to inquire about the Internet access.

• Are there terminals and/or wi-fi?
• Is the Internet access free of charge?
• Is it on a timer system? (y'know, where the connection taps out after, say, twenty mins or an hour and you have to resign in or get a new code...it's very annoying)
• How much is it to print?

Tired of Firefox updates

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I stopped using Firefox and FINALLY uninstalled it from my laptop. I got tired of their damn near daily updates. Update these...!

Computer glasses = snake oil

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I bought a pair of Magnivision Computer Readers (strength +1.00) to combat the eye strain of working in front of a computer monitor for long bouts of time. The lens are orange (I've also seen them tinted yellow) and they seem to work -- but that's all in the head. They don't work. In fact, my eyes felt more irritated by wearing them. I finally tore up the piece of crap and threw it in the garbage.

No 100watt bulbs in Berlin

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I think the German authorities have something against high wattage light bulbs. I cannot find any store in Berlin which sells any household light bulb above 60 watts. What the ?! No wonder so many Germans are bespectacled. 

And another thing I've noticed with German-speaking  'volk': they don't often beg pardon after bumping into you or stepping on your foot. 

Lucky for her I don't know how to say bitch in German

All language courses instruct non-German speakers to us "entschuldigen Sie" (excuse me). What the courses never mention is how rarely used is this basic expression. A woman, with a scowling, scrunched up face, stepped too close to me on the bus today and I had to shout at her, Entschuldigen Sie. Lucky for her I don't know how to say bitch in German. Hello!

A weekend of shopping (Berlin)

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The past weekend turned out to be one of shopping. Didn't plan on it but the stubborn ache in my back got me to thinking, It's gotta be the shoes, because bad footwear does contribute to chronic back pain. So last  Saturday I took my cheap ass to a shoe store in Alexanderplatz and made a point of getting a pair of NAME BRAND kicks -- on sale, of course darlings. Did you know they still make British Knights?! I didn't. Wound up buying a pair of black & gold Adidas (my first pair) because when in Rome....

On Sunday I was supposed to go to Cologne but when that plan fell through I found myself in, of all places, a flea market. Told myself I'd just stroll through. Yeah right. When I left there -- in under an hour, thank ye very little -- I was the new owner of a pair of fine leather gentlemen gloves, an H&M sport coat, a leather billfold, and an electric adapter for my EU machines when I go back across the Pond.

After a light Sunday workout -- abs and weight-free routines -- I strolled back through the flea market but, probably for the best, found no had-to-have items...yet since I was in need of a cell phone (this was two days before I reclaimed my 'handy' from lost & found) I went across the street to the local Media Markt and actually did not buy the cheapest phone on the shelf. Omg, sometimes I frighten me! My new Samsung slides open and includes a camera, camcorder, dictaphone, FM radio, headphones AND receives calls. I also picked up a mouse for my laptop.

And just like with the Adidas I made sure to claim a tax-free receipt of purchase so that when I go through Customs I'll receive a cash refund of the sales taxes. Hello!  

Someone found my lost phone

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Well I'll be doggone! After going two weeks without a cell phone I find out my lost phone was found and turned in to BVG's (Berlin public transportation department) Fündburo, or, Lost & Found office.

It never occurred to me that someone would not take the phone for themselves. Am ashamed of that but not ashamed to admit it. Several days after leaving my phone on the bus my flatmate offhandedly asked if I'd reported it to the city's lost & found. Whuuh? The thought never crossed my mind! I felt so stupid to have neglected such an obvious first step (then also, I wasn't terribly bothered with the lost so naturally I exerted no energies in its recovery).

Germans are such honest people 

So: I phoned first and described things as best I could remember and was surprised as all hell when the gentleman came back on the line and said, I think someone has found your phone, and proceeded to give me metro directions to the office; I got over to the building before it closed and waited in a short line. Everybody who lost something walked out with that something back in their possession. Then it was my turn and, lo and behold, archived in a metal filing cabinet was my cell phone! Das ist gut!

After showing viable identification and paying 7€ the cheap and near antiquated gadget was again mine. There was even a new text message on it.

Germans and Canadians -- despite my opinion of Canada its citizens have a stunning reputation for returning even loaded wallets! -- are such honest people when it comes to returning other peoples' stuff.

I lost my phone and I don't care

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Last night I lost my mobile phone on the city bus and was pissed for all of one minute. I shrugged it off. What bothered me, really, was that no one called my attention as I got up (assuming, that is, if any one spotted my phone as I left the seat). It was cheap used 'handy', as they say in Germany, and I was glad to be rid of it. Even more glad I didn't add minutes to it earlier in the week like I had intended to do. Now to have put money on it and then lost the doggone thing: THAT would have pissed me off.

C'est la vie.

A day of buying, buying, buying

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I hate spending money. And how! But you gotta do what gots to be done when it gots to be done. Money is no good if you don't use it. Just ask that old Indian woman who lost her mattress full of about one million dollars...hahaha. That'll teach her to hold out on her family.

So today I bought another set of hair clippers to replace the one I just bought two weeks ago -- from a nickel & dime chain called Pfennigland (A German version of the dollar store) -- that got busted against the tub yesterday while I was in the process of cutting my hair resulting in 1) a jacked-up head and 2) a chink of enamel being chipped off which meant 3) I had to purchase a tube of enamel repair to white out the black speck.

After dinner and a nap I went out and found a used cellular for 20€ to replace the old one from last year (30€) which I choked and twisted to mechanical smithereens this morning because the damn piece of crap didn't turn on; that's the second time in four days the wake-up alarm slept in! Thank goodness I was already awake this time and didn't miss my appointment. But, nope, no room in my life for crap. Don't need what doesn't work. And I don't like phones anyway.

No room in my life for crap. Don't need what doesn't work

And since I was already in the store, and pleased with my clippers purchase (8€; and made in Germany, not China thank ye very much), I decided to spend a few pennies and try out this anti-sweat spray (because, baby, it's HOT in Berlin!). I think it works like talcum powder but only liquefied...liquid talcum. Smells nice and, at least, won't dust up my shirts.


Man, a bad hair day is a bitch...but now my head is back to its handsome bald self. Mama mia!

bad hair day

Prince came to Berlin & now Internet dead

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The artist still known as Prince performed a concert two nights ago. Didn't go. I wanted to but tickets weren't...cheap to come by. This morning I read OnTheRedCarpet.com that he won't be getting giggy with iTunes and the whole clickable Internet thingy anymore, regarding the Internet as "completely over." Over as in dead, yesterday's news, unprofitable. So how will the music man release his new album 20Ten? Why as surprise CD inserts in some European newspapers. Just like a surprise in the cereal box! I can dig it. Booyah!

Asus help hotline is "out of service"

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The Asus hotline number is BOGUUUUS. Asus just recently set it up and, after finding out about it yesterday, I dialed the number this morning only to be informed by the operator "The number you dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again. (pause) The number you dialed is no longer in service...." So much for that customer service...Taiwan. 


With little recourse left to me I broke down and bought a brand new external DVD-ROM drive. Was hoping to find an off-duty Geek Squad around campus or, barring that, an external drive on the cheap via Craigslist or something. No dice. Yours truly was left to his own devices. Actually found it cheaper in the college store than Staples or K-Mart. The restoration was easy and successful. So:

GOOD NEWS = my netbook is back in business.

BAD NEWS = recovery failed; the repair wiped out the stuff stored on the harddrive and desktop.

But, hey, I dare not complain----much. Thank goodness I'd already emailed the MS. to myself! C'est la vie.

To revive my down Asus

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Since my Asus netbook conked out over a week ago I've had a hard time in getting it back up and working. The computer manual isn't very helpful, the users forum on the company website is somewhat encouraging but the support DVD that came with my midget computer is less than helpful so since the computer hasn't any disc drive. Minor oversight by the publishers...or sick humor?


Just now I came across "NEW ASUS HOTLINE NUMBERS" on HypergearMagazine.com.Will have to wait until the weekday to call them. Fingers crossed.


Hypergearmag.com

Views from my apt (Puerto Vallarta)

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Look out the windows, open the door, chill on the ledge and this is what I see: the Pacific Ocean's Banderas Bay, thatched roofs, palm trees, some tourists parasailing, and sunny weather. These snapshots were taken with my Asus netbook, whose built-in camera lacks a zoom-in feature but is suitable, and made, for webcam. As most folks know, I never carry a camera.

It is a gorgeous Sunday; think I'll pop by a garage sale before heading to the beach.

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My brand new mini laptop (Toronto)

The one high-tech gadget I find it hard to do without is the Internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, technically the computer is the gadget but you know what I mean. Cellular phones and the whole palm pilot craze do nothing for me but email is super important to me; and, of course, there are my web logs. I always chose youth hostels that offer free Internet (or free breakfast) otherwise it's off to the Internet cafes for me. Satis! So I finally went out and bought a laptop the other day. Hello wi-fi.

After price-hunting up and down College Street I snapped up one of those new mini models on the market---brand new!! At $270 (+11.5% Canuck tax) I think I got it at a deal. Told myself not to spend more than three hundred dollars and I pretty damn well hit the mark; and it's brand new!!

it's compact, cute and sexy black---just like me. But as an avid traveller...I do loves to travel light!

Asus PC900HD. Am a fast typist so the small keyboard will take some getting used to but the small screen is pretty okay...plus it comes with a built-in webcam...ooh la la. Chi-ching. The real kicker for me, though, is its small size. Sure, it's compact, cute and sexy black---just like me---but as an avid traveller/backpacker I love the fact that the doggone thing is no larger or heavier than a philosophy book. I do loves to travel light!

Now I feel like a hip Japanese/Chinese/South Korean traveller. Hehehe