The Best Fitness Advice: How to Get Free Potato Chips

In case you were wondering, and I'm sure you weren't, this is my favorite workout video:



The woman in the green yoga pants is an individual that goes by the name Betty Rocker. She used to put out a series of free workout videos on YouTube with the hope that you would eventually buy into her nutrition program. She still puts out videos but with less regularity. Her workouts are generally in the 15-minute range but will kick your butt.

The posted video is 36 minutes and while it doesn't require a lot of jumping around as most of her workouts involve, it is definitely ass-kicking. I have been doing it for over a year and have never done the whole thing. I can do two-thirds at one stretch but my usual routine is a 1.5 mile run, followed by one-third of this video, followed by sit-ups and other calisthenics. The whole routine takes 45-60 minutes.

Now that I have my Health app linked in with my Walgreens app, I should be able to earn enough points to buy potato chips in no time.

Julie McCoy . . .

. . . was a character from the television show "The Love Boat" which ran from 1977 to 1987. More recently, Julie has become Hubby's nickname for me because I carry around a virtual clipboard of sorts with all the entertainment options available to us at any given moment. My Google calendar keeps track of what's playing in the Seattle, Vancouver, and Portland theaters; Pacific Northwest brewfests; art walks; and, concerts.

There's so much going on that someone has to keep track of it all.

If you want to know what's going on, all you need is WUV. (Just click on the link or look for the WUV tab at the top of this page.)

More Than 100 Reasons Not To Move To The Desert

1) It's hot.

2) Still hot. 

3) It was 106 at 10:26 pm. 

4) The forecast was for 90 at sunrise. 

Still, I went out around 7:30 to fetch the newspaper and 93 felt refreshing. Go figure. 

5) 124?! Are you kidding me??

6) You get the picture. 

Plan Your Summer Vacation Now!

The Spamerican! Tour

Note the Spam Museum is in Austin, Minnesota.

Meet you there?

Now & Then

What are Now and Then up to now? Same old, same old. They're bumping around in the back of my brain. But they're thinking of making a break for it, finding new life on fresh pages.

Sure, I say that every year but this time I mean it.

You know, unless I find something else to do.

Problem Solved

I finally got around to cleaning up my office recently. The problem arose as to what to do with my In Box, overflowing with paper.

I shoved it in a closet. Hey, I figured, if there's something really important in there someone will be sure to let me know.

Is it me or is Starbucks getting desperate?

They keep sending me emails, offering 30, 50, 100 stars! The last one read, "Come in before 10am and collect 30 Bonus Stars on almost anything you'd like . . . "

Please, just buy something.

Maybe not like you . . .

Forbes | From Tax Geek To World's Fastest Triathlete: A Q&A With Olympic Gold Medal Favorite Gwen Jorgensen

" ...before Jorgensen was the top female triathlete on the planet, she was a tax geek, just like you and me. That’s right; at the time she was identified by USA Triathlon as having the necessary swim-run background to excel at the sport, Jorgensen occupied a cubicle in the corporate tax group of Ernst & Young in Milwaukee, doing the things young tax geeks do: formatting spreadsheets, loathing busy-season dinner choices, and using the Internal Revenue Code to prop up a second monitor. "

Go, Tax Geek, go!

Last Week Tonight

A humorous, if not horrifying, look at the debt business. And, make no mistake, it is a huge business. It's 21 minutes long - just long enough to watch while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.




For a tax geek perspective on the story, you can read about it (in far shorter time) at Forbes | John Oliver Buys And Forgives $15 Million In Medical Debt: But Is The Forgivness Taxable?.

What the floss?

I went to the dentist recently and came back empty-handed. No lollipop, no toothbrush, no floss. I didn't even get a dentist because he had already gone home for the day. I saw my regular hygienist and the dentist phoned it in the next day.

At the end of my treatment she offered, "Do you need dental products? A toothbrush? Floss?" To which I replied, "Need? No." But that wasn't really the point. The point is I've come to expect the free toothbrush and floss. Because, otherwise, why go to the dentist hygienist in the first place?

Also, there is a toothbrush hierarchy. The new toothbrush is to replace my old toothbrush which becomes the travel toothbrush; the travel toothbrush becomes the boat toothbrush; and, the boat toothbrush becomes the one under the sink that I keep just in case I need to clean some really tiny thing.

Now, you might wonder why I would need or care about a $1.50 toothbrush if I have a boat. It's not about the $1.50. It's about the fact that I have to put cardboard the size of a playing cards in my mouth before I have my head irradiated every 12 months. I don't want the dentist - the dentist who, btw, tells me i should come see him twice a year - to get my teeth scraped with a torturously sharp metal toothpick while I gag on my own spit.

But, wait! There's more! I can also get my gums poked once a year with a teeny tiny depth gauge just to see how far they can sink it below my gum line. They tag team for this event. One pokes while the other records the reading. I hear one call out 1, 2, 3, or 4 while the other one scribbles. Greater depths merit a lecture on the value of regular flossing.

For this I pay a subscription which is to say I pay in advance of services. For an annual sum, I get two scrapings, buff, and waxes, one gum prodding, and one X-ray per year at the risk of brain tumors. (Do we know if the rats in this study had good teeth?)

Sure, I can read yesterday's paper in the waiting room for free but is it too much to ask for a free toothbrush? (And can you make it red?)