Here is an interesting link:

http://web.archive.org/

It is an archive of the various changes web sites have gone through over time. A lot of popular commercial sites started out pretty rudimentary 6 or 7 years ago.

So i joined a new gym. This is the 3rd gym I have belonged to as an adult. The first one was the one that was included with the rent at Harbor Point. Then there was Rama Fitnes sin the Rama Plaza which featured Rama Cleaners and Rama Pizza in Norwood, MA.

The new gym just opened and is near my house and there are no contracts or initiation fees.

Friday night found me taking my inagural trot on the treadmill, watching a silent re-run of Saturday Night Live on Comedy Central as Justin Timberlake's "Boyfriend" pumped through the sound system. I found myself subconciously jogging along to the tale of adolescent pining. Or whatever you call under 30 pining.

(brief break from the gym thread - [my gorlfriend thought that my postings were too scattershot so I am trying to polish my segues to a nice glow] - I have found the one advatage to turning 30 and looking older is that you can kind of bs your way through situations and have more gravity. The same gravity which brings the skin around your face down lends you an air of gravityand people don't brush you aside like when you were 21. " We make our own gravel to give weight to things .. something, something .. and then gravity sings" - Ani DiFranco)

Gymy Gymy Games
JImmy JImmy James

So, everyything in the gym was new and smelled new and their were the requisite mirrors and overhead tvs and some folky looking Mexican tapestries on the high walls. It was funny watching guys walk in for the first time and turn into the women's rooom by accident. I made that mistake myself, and then saw like 3 people after me make the same mistake.

Does anybody else's mind work like this when you join a gym: You think in you head "Should I go 5 or 6 times a week, at 6 in the morning or every night at 7? Should I hire a perssoanl trainer for a few sessions?" And then 3 weeks later you are making excuses to yourself why you do not go. I guess that is how gyms make money.

Oh, I forgot - I was a member of one other distinguished fitness establishment. The Norwood Public Gym or whatver it was called in the Town Hall building. Entering the basement of the building was a little unsettling. Therew ere clipboards hanging up with registered sex offenders pictures. I don't know what was worse seeing thosee pictures every time I went in, or thinkning I recognized some of the guys who would walk up and down Washington Street in Norwood and shake their forearms at passing motorists.

And then before you got to the old school smelly back room there were a slieu of pictures of the glory days of the Recreation Department from the 70's where all the guys were wearing tight pants, had hair-cuts like one of those MOnday Night Football commentators in the day and had a mischevious glint in their eye.

On the walls of the gym were these bizarrely disproportionate painted bikin-clad nautilus couple with overly exaggerated muscles like they were Super Heros. The machines were old and creaky and dusty, but the free weights were sufficient. I've noticed that a lot of guys in their 30-50's just sort of stalk around the gym like tough guys and then do like 8 reps and then stalk around some more. They are not doing any pre set program. they remind me of the aging over weight high school football star who still thinks she has it.