Travelling Rings

Travelling rings look totally cool. Here's a bit I stole from the swingaring website since they explain pretty clearly what it's about.

"Traveling rings are unique outdoor physical fitness equipment that provide enjoyable and challenging exercise for the whole body. The structure consists of support posts and a top beam from which 8-10 rings, spaced 7-8 feet apart, hang on swivel chains 6-7 feet above the ground. Ring swingers "travel" from one ring to the next by using their arms, legs, and trunk to build momentum. The swivels enable the swinger to spin around and encourage more creative use."

There is a video about it too.

The best bit is that they are in Santa Monica which is close to where Jen lives. So my fitness goal is now to go there and be fit enough to use them.

The first step is working out with kettlebells. I ordered a DVD about it which I just got today and it looks really cool. It's all about full body exercises. I've been finding the writings of Josh Hill very enlightening as well. He's the one who inspired me to buy a kettlebell (by writing about the 300 workout), and had the link to that travelling rings video.

I'll be taking some before and after photos, but I won't be posting anything until the after photos are worth seeing.

Adventure holiday

Who wants to go halves with me in an adventure holiday.

Pointy teeth

Something to add to my wishlist.

And some other toys

Unnatural ichor

I bought myself a caesar salad for lunch today, from one of those places that has it in a big tub, and they scoop you out a serve, being very careful of course not to give you too much of the good stuff they arrange artfully on the top to make it look like there is lots of it.

Because of this artistry, it appeared that the dressing was just on the top and not on the lettuce where it needed to be. So I made a simple request - Could I have a little more dressing please? Now, I was ready to be told that it would cost extra, and I was ok with paying for extra mats. But instead he told me, in a very grumpy way, that it already had dressing on it. He wasn't even a grumpy, old guy. He was relatively young and good looking and should have been happier with life, even if he was working in a cafe which (I was soon to discover) sells dodgey salad.

Now, one of the guys had to go 'out the back' where they keep the dressing to put it on - hence the apparant inconvenience - and on eating said salad I realised it must be because they keep it in a huge vat. It was quite clearly insipid institutional style dressing usually served in university food halls and hospital cafeterias. Not the creamy goodness that you're supposed to get from a place serving real food.

I have never worked out for sure how they make this vile stuff but I am beginning to suspect it is whole egg mayonaise. Either that, or it's secreted from the glands of huge pulsating insect queens much like slurm, but without any of the otherwise appealing qualities.

Photos at last