Trail Maintenance

I like to hike on the trail that runs parallel to the bike trail. This trail is on BLM land, same general location as the washing machine pit. But I don't like being poked and bloodied by Spanish Thistle. This type of invasive weed which is native to California has spread all up and down the state.

Spanish Thistle is about as painful an encounter as cactus. This year has been especially wet with much greater than average rainfall in Northern California. As a result the normally small patches of thistle scattered throughout the trail has been replaced by huge fields of thistle, encroaching on my favorite walkways and making hiking an unpleasant experience for myself and Fluffy.

I decided that this situation was simply unacceptable. Today after walking through the trail one more time with Fluffy, I dropped her off at home and loaded up the car with shovel and clippers. Temperature was not too bad, around 86 degrees. Nevertheless, I brought a thermos filled with cold water. I arrived around 1 PM and surveyed the scene one more time before I got to work.

Thistle Everywhere

I thought I could get the whole thing done within about an hour. That turned out to be an optimistic prediction. An hour turned into 3 hours. I was pouring sweat after about 10 minutes and taking cold water breaks about every 5 minutes. The 2nd section had much thicker growth and took longer than the 1st section. I was exhausted but my job was still not done. There was a little rock hump that has always been a pain in the rump to climb up because it is slippery. I chopped down the hump and created a makeshift staircase out of large boulders.

Implements Used

My job done, it was time to go home. I really should have worn gardening gloves because my hands were a bloody mess. I gulped down about a gallon of water when I got home and immediately took a refreshing shower. Ahhhhhh yes.

Life at the Gym

Since I am no longer riding my bike, I spend a lot of time at the gym and the closest one to home is CFF (California Family Fitness) at Sunrise/50. I either go in the afternoon around 4 before the herd of cattle come in after work or I go at night at about 8:30 - 9. Favorite activities are stairclimbing and eliptical and weightlifting. And no, I have not seen that woman with the grandma perfume. She just made a one time appearance, thank goodness! As for how I pass the time away while climbing stairs, I don't want to listen to music because the ear buds keep falling out and watching TV from three rows back is not enjoyable. That leaves people watching and believe me there is a lot to see, some pleasant and some not so pleasant. Among the interesting people are a couple I call Kitty and Beefcake. She is Kitty because of a small tattoo of a Kitty on her right ankle. I know Kitty lives in Gold River because I was standing behind her once at the Bel-Air market on Sunrise. Beefcake is her boyfriend or husband. Kitty could be Hispanic. I can't tell but she is very attractive, probably early twenties with long, dark hair and dark eyes. Beefcake is, well a beefcake. Short blond hair and just generally thick all around. The fun is when they work out together on the cardio machines. The truth of the matter is that Beefcake can't keep up with Kitty who has tremendous stamina. He can usually last around 20 minutes before he peters out while Kitty is still going strong. She sometimes teases him about it which I imagine he probably doesn't like but that's what happens when you focus too much on heaving weights up and down and don't spend enough time working up an aerobic sweat.

As for me, I usually get drenched and that is how I like it. Others don't seem too enthused when I head over to another machine dripping but I am diligent about cleaning my mess up.
Usually when I go there I really have no interest in conversation. I just do my thing, sweat, change my shirt and exit stage left. Last few weeks have had more social interaction. For example, I met Ortega Rodriguez from Durango, Mexico while playing with pumpkin in the pool. Nice guy. Likes to joke and I have someone I can talk to in Spanish. Oh yea, last night I was in the locker room, a place where I have even less interest in talking to anyone when a stocky Russian guy next to me holds up his smelly, sweaty shirt and proclaims in a thick Russian accent that his shirt is too sweaty. I look at him and then hold up my dripping shirt. I thought I had him beat but he hadn't even started working out yet. Yecch! I am out of here!

That's all for now. Tomorrow is wedding in Bay Area.

Stop Wearing Grandma Perfume!

I mind my own business when I go to the gym. I go there, get sweaty and get out. I realize that I have an overactive sweat gland so I am extra careful to spray and wipe off any equipment I touch thoroughly. Minimum requirement for me is decent equipment and good air quality. That means that the CFF club on Greenback in Citrus Heights is out of the question. Low ceilings in a small space mean poor air quality and I avoid that place like the plague. As I stated in the post below, Folsom is the best but Sunrise/Hwy 50 is closer to home and that's where I was today.

I am going to be real specific here in the remote hope that the woman exercising next to me today will somehow read this blog and make some changes to her personal hygiene. The stairmasters are the machines that have a rotating stairway that resembles a never ending escalator. That is one of my favorite cardio machines because it is such a great workout at high speed. I am talking level 12 and above. Anyways, there are only 3 stairmasters in the whole gym and they are located in the back corner on the second floor. I was on machine #1 which is on the far left and there was a woman on #3. About 10 minutes into my routine a young, attractive looking black woman climbs on #2. Instantly my nose was assaulted by the overpowering stench of grandma perfume. In case anyone is wondering what grandma perfume is, that is perfume some old women use to hide their own unpleasant odors. Unlike the light, subtle fragrances that young girls wear to attract a man's  attention, grandma perfume or GP is strong enough to cause dizziness, nausea, allergic reactions and even fainting among sensitive people. And yes, I am sensitive.

Why oh why would a young woman cover herself with this awful scent? And in a gym, no less! Whoever you are, please leave the GP at home. Believe me, your natural scent couldn't possibly be anywhere near as bad as what you slathered yourself with this afternoon. I suffered through the whole experience, angry that the ceiling fans weren't going faster, waiting and hoping she would jump off early and go away. Instead, she ended the exact time I ended. Just to make sure we didn't meet at the cleaning station, I jumped off quickly and ran over to grab a few paper towels and cleaning solution. I wanted to be as far away from this walking stench as I could. The weird thing was that she was very attractive yet I couldn't get far enough away from her.

More Life at the Gym

Bike riding is on hold because I literally rode my bike into the ground. That means more time at the gym. California Family Fitness is probably the best chain of gyms I have experienced. It is certainly better than 24 hour fitness. It is strictly a local chain with clubs in the Sacramento area only. As for my personal favorite, that would have to be the Folsom club on East Bidwell, hands down. It’s big and new and the air is good in there. Air quality is most definitely a factor since I don’t like to smell stink or any other smell while working out. I will get into more detail about that in the next blog but first a little more about the Folsom gym. I used to go there right after Tai chi class at Folsom Lake College during the last two semesters. Sometime near the end of the last semester, I had just gotten out of my car after arriving from the college and was on my way to the entrance from the far end of the parking lot when I noticed a fire truck and police cars right near the entrance at around 8:30 PM. Hmm, that looks odd, I thought. As I got closer, I saw paramedics working on someone lying in the street. Oh shit!, I thought. Some asshole in a giant truck or SUV must have mowed someone over because that parking lot is typically filled with large play toys of the affluent and it is not uncommon to see some rich punk peeling out of the parking lot after lifting weights. I watched with a growing sense of shock and sadness as the paramedics started to put away their equipment and finally cover the man with a sheet. On my way inside, I asked the front staff if they knew what had happened and one woman said he had just finished playing a round of racquetball and was on his way out when he simply collapsed right there on the pavement. He was a middle-aged guy in his forties from what they described. Wow, that’s scary!