On Friday, (after a quick swim in the pool) I did some shopping with my Mom and then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding rehearsal. After a few more dips in the pool, I went to the rehearsal at the Meadow Wood Manor in Randolph, Morris County, New Jersey (which is a beautiful facility, by the way). The rehearsal dinner was at La Strada (in the same town) and the food was outstanding. At the rehearsal dinner, the bride and groom-to-be gave the bridal party and the groomsmen some presents. I got some funny gag gifts – How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) by Ann Coulter, an Obama for President deck of cards, a Snuggie, and Go Dog Go (my favorite children’s book). I also was given a really nice pen, which is great because it’s really something that I needed.

On Saturday, I slept in a little bit before spending some time in the pool with the groom and his brothers (the other groomsmen). To the bride and grooms’ great credit, the entire day of the wedding was planned down to the minute so after I cleaned up after the pool and got lunch, the guys were transported to the Meadow Wood Manor and sent down to the game room. As the guests filed in upstairs and the bride arrived, the guys played some Wii and had a toast to the groom.

The there was the wedding, which I don’t think I need to get into too much detail on. It was a spectacular wedding – definitely the best wedding I’ve ever attended (and that’s not just because I was the best man – it really was that good). I can’t say enough good things about the Meadow Wood Manor and how amazing their service was, how delicious the food was, how elegant the decor was – it was just perfect. On top of that, the owner of the facility was on hand and personally attending to each of the tables to be sure that everyone was satisfied. You honestly don’t get that type of service any more. Very impressive facility and very impressive service.

To let you know how good the wedding was, I thought I’d share this picture of me and one of the guys that I advised in college:

Yeah. A little alcohol, a little Bon Jovi, and a lot of good people and that’s what you get! No complaints from this end, though.

Both the bride and the groom have amazing families and I was honored to meet and become friends with them. I was also honored to stand up and say a few words after the bridesmaid (the bride’s sister) gave a speech. It was a great wedding.

The next day I suffered from some pretty severe heartburn (pounding Yuenglings will do that to you), which I actually was battling through this morning. But, today was back to work and – as such – back to putting new content on this blog!

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.