Since TSRum complained that I haven't made any posts lately, I figured I'd take his advice and tell you all about my weekend.

As lame as it might sound at first, I've been a member of an online dating community for about the last year. Now that I've said that, let me challenge you to think about how social networking sites, which a dating site really is, have changed how people view the internet and making friends therein.

Anyhow, back to the story. Sometime a couple of months ago, I started talking with a young lady on there and it seemed to be going well. When she suggested that we meet up, I had no qualms with it. We met a couple of weeks ago for a cup of coffee and to meet each other face to face. We spent probably 3 hours or so sitting outside in the perfect evening weather, just talking and getting to know each other a bit. After we went our ways that evening, I got home to find a message from her saying how much she enjoyed it. A couple of days later, she sent me another message, saying that if we didn't plan to get together again, it may not happen. Thus, we made plans to meet up for bowling and dinner, and those plans were executed this past Saturday.

I picked her up and we went to the bowling alley just down the way from my place. The first game was mine, but she leveled the stakes on the next game. We bowled a third game, just for fun, and somehow I threw one of the best games I ever have.

After we got done bowling, we went to find dinner. We had previously discussed what was in the area, and she said that Olive Garden was fine with her. So off we went. As we were finishing dinner, I realized that it was really much earlier in the evening than I thought, so I asked her if she'd like to see a movie. She agreed, so we went down the way to the theater.

We had an hour to kill before the movie started, so we sat on a bench outside in the (again) perfect weather and talked for a bit. We went back in to the theater just in time for the staff to finish cleaning house for the next show. We sat and poked fun at the pre-show advertisements for a bit, then the show started.

The movie, "Up", was pretty entertaining and I think we both enjoyed it equally. By the time it was finished though, I was feeling like the old man that I'm drawing closer to being and figured that 11:00 was probably a good time to call it a night. We jumped in the car and I took her home by way of downtown Houston.

You're probably wondering all the details: Did I kiss her? Did we hold hands? Where did it go from there? Quite frankly, that's not really your business and out of respect for the both of us, only a very limited few shall know the answers.

I think it went quite well. I left her a follow-up message that evening to tell her that I really enjoyed the time together and that I hoped we could do it again soon. I'm not going to make the mistake I did several times in the past and push for an answer, but I am optimisically under the impression that she had a good time and is looking for a repeat soon as well.

If you know me fairly well or if you have been reading my blog for very long, you know this is the end of a proverbial drought for my "love life", for lack of a better term. I'm finding that the social skills I've developed in my career have really been a benefit to my personal life as well, though. Don't get me wrong, I still sometimes wonder what the next topic of discussion should be and feel that brief moment of awkward silence. I don't think that will ever go away, but I only hope that whoever I am in such a relationship with will understand that we're all human and not hold it against me.

Overall though, this has been a great experience and I hope I can get to know this young lady better and build a relationship with her. :)

Yeah, I fail on multiple counts. I just realized that one of them is with how this site renders in Google Chrome, particularly with forms. I guess I'll have to look that over later this weekend...

But really, the other place where I fail is in posting any sort of updates about myself, rather than this site or the government. Time to change that!

A couple of weeks ago I got a card in the mail from LA Fitness with a promotional "$0.00 signup fee" offer. Knowing that I was out of shape and that I needed to do something about it, I decided to go sign up. The gym is less than a mile away, so it's the perfect anti-excuse for getting back in shape.

I met with a trainer the first day I went, and he put me through one of the most intense workouts that I have ever experienced. It wasn't so much about the amount of weight on the stack, but it was about the reps and the type of reps I was doing. Since they're big on anaerobic exercise, it was all about keeping my heart rate up between the sets on the machines. The benefit to this is that it burns fat and builds muscle a lot quicker, but the muscle that is built is the "lean muscle". The figure they gave me was that 1 pound of lean muscle burns 500 calories a day at rest. If I can get rid of the fat and pack on lean muscle, I'll be doing pretty alright, I think. :)

But anyhow, I worked so hard that night that I was just on the verge of fainting and/or losing my lunch. It was a very similar feeling to what I experienced when I was in Las Vegas, but it was different enough for me to know that it wasn't so much a bad thing as that was. I ended up having to sit down, at which point my vision started to get very dark, and my ears felt like they were filling with water. When I was coming back from that, I decided I should get near a suitable receptacle, should I need to expel my lunch. After a couple minutes I knew I was doing okay, so I went back out front to meet with the trainer again. He and I both agreed that I needed to just call it a night, so I did.

I met with him again on Friday, when he had me work my triceps, chest, and abs. I was able to go that workout without feeling faint, but I felt like I had been whipped after I was done. For a couple of days after that, my arms were aching, but not too bad. But the following Monday it was bad enough that I couldn't bend my arms at all. I tried to work from the office for a couple of hours, but due to the arrangement of my desk it just didn't work. I ended up coming home to finish out the day. It made me feel pretty lame because I had to work from home just from post-workout pains, but meh.

I finally got over those aches, and went in to meet with a different trainer on Wednesday. She had me work my biceps and shoulders, which wasn't too bad... or so I thought. I had a little bit of trouble fully extending my left arm the following day, but it didn't really hit me until after Friday's workout.

Friday (yesterday), I met with yet a different trainer. He had me focus on legs and abs, which I did alright with. During the duration of that workout I did feel like I could vomit pretty easily, but I was able to hold it down. I had to cut my 20 minutes of cardio down to 8 minutes because my legs were shot, so I came on home after that.

The trip up the steps to my apartment were murder when I got home. It was so bad that I had to stop and catch my breath part-way up the steps. When I unlocked my door, I dropped the keys on the floor, but didn't have it in me to lean over and pick them up so I just kicked them in the door. :P

This morning when I woke up, I was aching really bad. You'd think it would be my legs that were aching, but it wasn't. See, I've identified that it takes 3 days for the ache of a high intensity workout to hit me. That's right, my biceps are the killers today. I can't lift my arms very far and I can't straighten them out because the muscles ache so bad. I'm even feeling it up in my forearms!

So yeah, that's what's been happening lately for me. Kinda dull, but meh, at least I'm doing something good for my body.