In the news...

(Image from: http://www.mediabistro.com/)

I was reading the blog "Mark's Daily Apple" this morning and came across this not so fun fact...

"So what are the big winners in the grocery aisles these days? Totino’s frozen pizza, Yoplait yogurt, Progresso soup, and Betty Crocker dessert mixes. (Moment of awkward silence.) Want more news (that probably doesn’t feel like news)? Only two Dow Jones stocks had a positive upturn last year, and McDonalds was one of them. Pardon us, but we don’t know whether to laugh or cry."

It came from his post titled "Recession Diet". To read more visit: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/recession-diet/

In other news living in the south has been quite amusing regarding any "winter weather alerts". The local schools here were cancelled two days in a row (the first day by midnight the night before) without even an inch of accumulation. Now, I can recall a few times from my youth when school was cancelled due to unreasonably cold weather or extremely icy conditions but neither of those situations apply here. People drive 25mph on the highway if there is even a few snowflakes falling from the sky. Corey and I almost choked on our dinners watching the local news Monday night as the weather reporter was "on the scene" discussing that "some areas received upwards of two inches of snow". However, the location where he was had green grass in the background. It was ridiculous! But amusing nonetheless.

Lastly, Stay Active CrossFit is an official CrossFit affiliate and opening weekend is a week from this Saturday. There is still plenty to do, but the website is ready to go for the moment. If you haven't checked it out since yesterday please go visit: http://www.stayactivecrossfit.com/ as she had a bit of a face lift yesterday and is looking much better! Mr. Boggs did a great job with the final title.

Getting Down to Business

Above is our logo for the clinic. Thanks to Corey's buddy, Cody Boggs, for doing such a great job! He should be done with the CF logo by the end of the weekend. The clinic website is close to done and I have been working away on the website for our CrossFit affiliate. Cody is doing the lay out for me this weekend (I'm a computer dummy as you can probably tell by the quality of my blogs) after which I will finish the content and hopefully have it going early next week. I've added the links to the blog here. Presently the link for the gym just takes you to the clinic's page, but it will be it's own site soon!

In other news we are presently in Asheville, NC. We arrived on Monday Dec. 29th and our days have been filled since arriving. The weather is beautiful and the people are great! While we have found a place to live we are not yet moved in and our current residence is a Days Inn about 20 minutes from downtown Asheville. The move-in date was expected to be this coming Monday the 12th, but looks as though there is a complication with getting the water and electric hooked up. Not too much of a problem as they are covering the cost of the hotel, but I'm REALLY wanting to unpack that van already. I'm tired of feeling like a hobo (as Kathy called us haha).

In other news we secured a location for our gym and office combo. It's in a 2000 sq ft studio of the River Arts District in downtown. It's a great space and I'm extremely excited to get started there. We ordered olympic bars and bumper plates last week. We still need to get a few more pairs of olympic gymnastic rings and the rest of our equipment will be homemade or purchased after we have some members secured. We will be making plyo boxes, medicine balls and parallettes and on the shopping list for another day are some C2 rowers and GHD machines.

The last major thing we need to do before opening is the construction of a pull-up station. A few nights ago I was up late searching other CrossFit affliate blogs and checking out their pictures for various different set ups. The problem with the space we have is that we are unable to secure the pull-up system to the ceiling and the floor units are more than doable but not quite as common. Our landlord is going to put us in contact with a good welder as his family is in the construction business. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

I took photos of our move including the packed to the max van, but those will have to wait. The connector cord to upload is hidden somewhere in the depths of the van. And yes I still plan on beginning a blog to include Corey. But the gym site is priority at the moment.

In the meantime here are a few photos from me and Corey in action during kipping pull-ups. While in Ohio we went to the CrossFit affiliate in Barberton to see how they run things and get a work-out in. The best part was that one of the girls I trained at school in NY is from Canton and was able to bring her dad to Barberton and meet us for the work-out. It was a lot of fun and great to see her and her dad getting after it!

Below is a photo from CrossFit Balboa as they have a new pull-up station that would be ideal. Cost and design is going to be our limiting factors. The ladder like bars you see are for plyometric pull-ups which are incredibly fun. Probably as close as I'll ever get to being a gymnast on the uneven bars.

Happy New Year!