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Another One Bites the Dust

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

The Daily Record ran a story this morning about the Headquarters Plaza Fitness Club abruptly shutting down in Morristown. This echoes the same out-of-the-blue closing of the Ocean Fitness Company – both gyms were owned by The Fitness Company, a group out of Holmdel.

There is something up with The Fitness Company organization. They aren’t returning phone calls and they aren’t refunding membership fees even if you joined an expensive plan the day before they closed up shop. It would appear that a bunch of greedy punks are running the show over there – or at least a bunch of greedy punks took over the company and are now running it into the ground. This is a shame for many reasons, not the least of which is the community aspect of health clubs. The Ocean Fitness Company was more of a place-based company than it was a branch of the The Fitness Company. In fact, two years ago it changed its name from “The Fitness Company” to “Ocean Fitness” to reflect that fact.

The same is true of all gyms and health clubs. The people who go to these places form friendships and expand their personal networks. To see such innate community building torn apart because of some person’s greed is a shame, yet par for the course in New Jersey.

Here’s hoping that someone investigates the sudden closing of these clubs and that those who have been screwed out of a great deal of money join together and sue those who took that money.

Posted in Gym Stories | No Comments »

The Ocean Fitness Center Closes Up Shop

Sunday, November 25th, 2007

According to the Asbury Park Press, the Ocean Fitness Company closed their doors on October 3rd. This was news to some of the gym-goers (and to me) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is their 20 years of continuous operations and the recent multi-million dollar renovations at the site. From the Asbury Park Press:

Ocean Fitness Center, a health club on Route 35 at Deal Road, has closed its doors.

The club’s owner, The Fitness Company, posted the news in a letter on the door. It thanked patrons for 20 years of membership.

“We apologize for the sudden announcement and the closing of the club,” the note states.

This is weird for so many reasons. First of all, the Ocean Fitness Center was located in a great building and was the only gym in the area that had a full-size pool and jacuzzi. Believe it or not there are a bunch of us who live less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean and still demanded to have a pool at our health club! Probably has something to do with those bitter freezing months each year…

I was a member of The Fitness Company from November 2003 through May 2006. I quit the gym at that time because the renovation of the swimming pool was supposed to be a quick, 3-month project in the summer of 2005 and it actually wound up taking until last February to complete. I did, however, rejoin the gym for the summer of 2007 and got some good use out of the pool before my membership expired in September. I chose not to renew.

This is striking news because I was just planning on going back to the gym this week and setting up a time to restart my membership (likely in the middle of December after I’m done teaching for the semester and I get back from a trip to Miami). It’s weird that they’re closed.

There are other gyms in the area to choose from including Workout World, Newberry Fitness, Jersey Shore Fitness, Gold’s Gym, Pearl Street Gym, and Edge Health and Fitness Academy (among many others). None of them really strike me as a place that I’d want to join right away, though I used to be a member at Gold’s Gym and if their prices are still as high as they were last year, then there’s no way I’d go back there again.

In a best case scenario, another gym would step in and take over the vacant building where the Ocean Fitness Center once occupied (and maybe change the dreary interior from that urine yellow to a bright white). Anyway, I’ll be keeping an eye out for gym membership deals in the next few months – let me know if you find any!

Posted in Gym Stories, Local People & Politics | 1 Comment »

BIG Update

Saturday, September 11th, 2004

First and foremost, let’s not forget the history of today… Be sure to say a prayer in whatever religion or manner that you subscribe to. If you’re not religious, then at least have a deep thought about the events of three years ago – it’s the least that we can do.

Some of you might notice that my latest post about the great gyms at Rutgers University, the classes that I’m taking, and just what I’ve been up to this past week is gone! The server people moved us to a different machine in their database…just so happens that yours truly updated during the move! They’re looking for that lost update, but I told them not to go nuts over it – I mean it’s just a blog entry!

Tomorrow’s update will talk a bit about what I did all day today (basically it’ll be about the regional conference that I attended/hosted for my fraternity this morning).

However, I figure that today I would just talk briefly about my comings and goings in the past few days.

I got a job at the Ocean Place Spa and Resort on the beautiful Atlantic Ocean in Long Branch, NJ. I start next Friday doing some Front Desk work – it should be a nice change of feeling from my latest job (working in the real estate office for two years). The real estate office had its ups and downs (mostly downs), but one of the things that made it difficult to really enjoy was the fact that the Owner worked there in the office as well as the Financial Administrator and both were aged 45 and 65, respectively. It makes it tough for them to relate to my 23-year old issues and concerns, but they did a fine job. However, the new job has a Front Desk Manager who is 27, two Assistant Managers who are 24 and 25, and a front desk staff who range in age between 21 and 24. Not bad! Bottom Line: It should be a lot of fun (and it’s only part-time for two or three days per week!).
I took a dip in the gym’s pool today for the first time in at least three weeks (probably longer). I have to say that it was extremely refreshing. You all know that I was swimming everyday for the longest time, but in the past few weeks between planning today’s conference, getting ready for going to Grad School, getting a job at the hotel, preparing for my guys to all move back into the area, and dealing with life in general it’s been hard to find an extra hour or two in my day to jump in the pool! When I did get in the water today, though, that feeling of, “Ahhh, nice” came back. I like swimming – I’m going to start swimming more again.
Homework! Damn it! I’m 23 friggin years old and I’ve got friggin homework to do! The bulk of the rest of my weekend is going to be spent doing the work for only TWO of my classes for this coming week. Sucks, doesn’t it? But hey, like I said to my friends the other day – I’ll put in the extra hardwork for the next year and a half to make a butt-ton more money for the next 50 years of my life!
Make a comment! What are you waiting for? Give me a great caption or idea on the picture that I posted the other day! For those of you who are wondering, the guy in the picture is a good friend of mine and an active reader of the blog so you can be sure that your comments are being read! Click here to see the post or scroll down to view it.
New ads on the blog. You might have noticed that if you click a link on this page it takes you to an advertisement and THEN to the page that you originally intended to go to. It’s a new form of advertising that Mamma.com is offering (our advertisers) and I figured why not give it a shot, huh? Feel free to let me know your thoughts on it. Running a site is expensive business these days – especially one that isn’t out to make money like TBL. Just to make money to pay the bills is hard enough alone!

That’s what I got. I’ll be back tomorrow with a few thoughts on my regional conference!

Posted in College & Fraternity Life, Computers, Internet, & Technology, Gym Stories, Money, Jobs, & Finances | No Comments »