You know, when I take time off from work I have to use my vacation days. Yet, most of the times when I use those days I’m actually not “vacating” anything. In fact, most of the time I’m doing some type of volunteer work for the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation.

So…

Now that I actually have a few days off, I’m thinking about heading to the beach. Believe it or not, for the last ten years I’ve lived a few minutes from the Atlantic Ocean on the beautiful Jersey Shore and yet I’ve probably been to the beach less than ten times in these ten years. It’s bizarre, really. In addition to the beach, I plan on going to the movies and seeing whatever’s big right now (maybe Toy Story 3 is still playing? What’s good?) and probably sitting out in the backyard of the townhouse and doing a little sunbathing.

Should be fun!

On Thursday, July 16th journalists started their day bright and early at Leonardo State Marina where they had the chance to test ride two new revolutionary personal watercrafts. The 2009 Sea-Doo RXT iS and the Sea-Doo GTX Limited iS – both with 255 HP, which would beat a Ferraro off the line!

What makes these models so extraordinary is that BRP has created the first watercraft with on-water braking and suspension systems. The safety on these models has even caught the attention of the United States Coast Guard. The Boating Safety Award was presented to BRP by the U.S.C.G. back in February at the Miami Boat Show.

Reporters who attended the demo day took an extended ride through Leonardo, Highlands, Atlantic Highlands and even the Atlantic Ocean. While on the water the journalists had the opportunity to test out the power, suspension, brakes and much much more. We made a pit stop and docked the Sea-Doos at Windansea and grabbed a bite to eat. Everyone who saw the Sea-Doos, did a double take and then came to us with questions, which of course we were happy to answer. At 5 PM we called it a day and packed it in.

To learn more about the GTX Limited iS and the RXT iS please visit Sea-Doo.com

Sounds like a lot of fun if you ask me. The next time such an offer pops up, I definitely need to take off of work in order to attend!

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!

Well, it was about 2 years ago that they closed the pool “for the summer for renovations.” And since no one ever really knows what they’re doing when they “renovate” a property in New Jersey, you can imagine what happened. The summer turned into the fall, which turned into the winter and then the spring and we were at the full 1 year mark and the pool was still closed. At that point, I canceled my membership and joined the brand new gym right on the Atlantic Ocean.

The new gym was fun and it was nice to be at a place that was brand new. But I never really caught on to working out there. Maybe it was the 5:30am workouts or maybe it was the fact that at 5:30am they STILL had the music blaring throughout the place. I’m not sure. What I DO know is that my old gym finally got their stuff together and re-opened the pool. So, a few weeks ago I canceled my membership at the new gym and bought a summer-only membership to the old gym with the pool.

Last night I went for my first swim in the pool. It was great! Of course, there really wasn’t anything major done to the pool in terms of renovation (or at least nothing that I could see). It makes you wonder why they shut it down in the first place, but I digress.

Anyway – I went swimming and it was fun. I win.