Tag Archives: Zumba

A Barn and Beyond

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This is a barn in Osage County that I have passed a bunch of times on my way to Woolaroc, Pawhuska, or Osage Hills State Park. I think it is beautiful and appears to be reasonably well taken care of by whoever owns it. I’m sure that it is full of mice, snakes, bats. What barn isn’t?

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Earlier this month, my wife took me to her new place where she is going to teach Zumba classes. Titan Sports Performance Center in Jenks, OK. It is ginormous. Lots of indoor volleyball and basketball courts, two indoor soccer fields, a Martial Arts Academy, a Sports Performance Center, and of course a huge space for Zumba and other exercise classes. Plus it has a bunch of outdoor soccer fields. It also has a huge area upstairs where parents can sit and watch their kids play or practice whatever sport they are in.

I met her boss when I was there. Really, really nice guy. I told him it was a great facility and he did the karate of thing of putting his hands together and bowing to me. My yoga teacher does a similar thing at the end of her class. Puts her hands in “heart position” and says “Namaste.” I put my hands together but hadn’t yet said “Namaste.” I don’t know why. I’m a guy, and an engineer, and a Republican. I’m not sure I’m allowed to say such a thing.

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Look at all those air conditioning ducts. Don’t you know the electric meter about spins off the wall during a hot summer day.

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Here is one of the indoor soccer fields. It is all enclosed. Is that like some sort of Mad Max Thunderdome death cage kind of soccer they play in there or what?

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And acres of outdoor fields. Out in the sun.

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The Health Club that we belong to has smoothies. One day they had a blueberry smoothie on special so I signed up. It was just as good as it looks.

Anyway, a wide ranging post today. I hope your day is going great.

Commitment Day 5K Road Race

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My new cell phone has a “cut in” feature where it puts a selfie in the pic. I love it and almost nobody else does. I love the goofy look on my face.

My first race of 2016 was the Commitment Day 5K in the Tulsa suburb of Bixby at Lifetime Fitness. It was a fun race for several reasons. First it started at 10 am instead of the crack of dawn which made it more doable for us old farts party animals who like to sleep in stay up late with our wild and crazy friends. Second we had a Zumba warmup. That was unexpected! My beautiful wife became a Zumba instructor and I have been wanting to crash one of her classes and video a couple of her routines. Something about the way she looks at me when I talk about it makes me think that she is not near as excited about it as I am. 

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Well we had Leslie who led us in the warmup. She really did have more than a half dozen people she was leading.

See!! I’d of participated but I was doing my blogging journalistic duty of documenting the event. Really. Actually I did try a few moves. I think i have lots of potential. In the engineering sense in that a rock at the base of a mountain has a lot of potential energy to gain by somehow getting to the top, not that it has any chance of getting there.

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Enough of the dancing, this is racing. We moved over to the start line. I did my usual start at the very back. Sure I have to weave through walkers and baby strollers but I like passing people from start to finish and it is not like there is anything on the line anyway.

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This is the finish. I love seeing young people kicking hard at the end. And see the group of three ladies behind him? Lots of people just jog along a chat with their friends. Usually that breeze pass me like I’m standing still.

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We had the gym to relax in after the race. Lots better than huddling behind cars and trailers like most winter races. The facilities were first rate.

The race was an out and back type arrangement with hills and dips near the turnaround.

I finished fourth in my age group. I don’t know how many were in my age group but I suspect the answer is approximately four.

It was a fun, family, oriented race and I’ll probably be back next year.

Saturday Catching Up

A lot has been going on lately and I need to tell you about it.

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My beautiful wife Heather has become certified as a Zumba instructor and is now teaching classes at our gym.  Check this link if you want to see a video demonstration of Zumba. (I am not embedding the video because so many of them have the auto start enabled which is annoying.) Anyways she works hard coming up with routines to make the class interesting for the customers. She is having a lot of fun at it.

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Son Logan just finished his Junior year at his new school. He did very well. As you may recall he has Asperger’s Syndrome and had been in a special needs school since second grade. This year he switched over to a college prep Christian School. The academic load zoomed up off the chart over what he was exposed to before and he responded well and has made all A’s and B’s. He has worked his butt off to do that and has learned a lot about academics.  Heather learned American Sign Language and I got a pretty good refresher in Geometry and Biology. Geometry has changed much in the last 44 years but Biology has zoomed forward a bunch.

I had to bite my tongue in biology on the whole Creation Science vs Evolution thing, because it is a Christian school,  and I told him before he got into it that his Dad was a Christian and also a die hard evolutionist and further I didn’t see any contradiction between the two. I also told him that he was old enough to decide for himself what he wanted to believe. Hopefully I haven’t scarred the poor child or caused him to get a bad grade. I have a feeling that I may have made it on a few prayer lists as well. No harm in that though.

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And let me see, in my new job as Director of Project Development I actually had somebody call up and offer me a ticket to the Big 12 Conference Baseball Championship here in Tulsa that past week. After spending 21 year entertaining and hustling drinks for other people it felt strange to be on the other side again but I made the most of it. We sat behind a scouting team from the Baltimore Orioles. They had radar guns, complicated charts and nice haircuts. The guy on the far right had a big old giant World Series ring on his finger also. I don’t know who he is but when he stood up I could see that he was big, real big. It was all very cool. And you know something college baseball is good although I still don’t like the “ping” of the bats instead of crack of a wood bad. But hey, I’ll get over it.

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And last Sunday Heather and I went to the Hopjam festival sponsored by Hanson. It was great. Great music and great beer. What a combination.

Also, we are fixing to (as we say in Oklahoma) on our family vacation. All you burglars out there don’t get too excited because we have a full time house/pet sitter.  I’m going to be taking a digital break so I won’t be posting for about a week and a half probably starting late next week. I’m a host of the Skywatch Friday meme that comes out on Thursdays and I have already prepared the next two week’s posts. I hope that I didn’t screw up the linky’s or the posts or anything because there won’t be much I can do it about it.

Anyway, what is new with you?