Charles Atlas and Personal Exercise Fads

I have a garage loaded with old exercise equipment. These have been my last eight personal exercise fads going back the last five years:

1. Bike riding
2. Eye Toy
3. The Bun Roller
4. Weight Lifting
5. Running and jumping rope
6. Disc golf
7. Racquetball
8. Going to the gym

Yeah, I switched them around, so it's not like I did one thing and then stopped doing it and started another.

Anyway, my new thing is the Charles Atlas course - maybe not for the rest of my life but at least for the next ten weeks.

I'm very impressed. The course builds muscle mass without the use of one free weight or any other equipment besides a chair. They're isometric exercises - you need no equipment and they leave you feeling better than you started. You do the lessons for about 15 minutes every day and, at the end, you feel like you have more energy than when you started. Ladies and gentlemen THAT is a great exercise program.

It takes care of stretching and strength training - the only thing missing is cardiovascular training. For that, I plan to run a couple times a week.

Anyway, all the best -

Jim

Fried!: Fast Food, Slow Death

If you know me or my work, you know I like to write science-fiction westerns. However, as a former laborer in the "fast service" industry, I couldn't resist the opportunity to write a story for an anthology called Fried! Fast Food, Slow Death. With a few years worth of shifts at Carl's Jr. and Pizza Hut on my resume, I had plenty of experience to draw on.

This November, my story "The FNG" will appear in that anthology published by Graveside Tales.

Science Fiction Trails #2

In my novelette "Grower" that's set in the period just after the Civil War, African-Americans have been freed. Slavers have set their site on another race: trolls. It will appear in Science Fiction Trails #2 scheduled for release by Pirate Dog Press in November.

Another science-fiction western story of mine "The Bullet Magnet" is a reprise of the famous Four Dead in Five Seconds gunfight. It appeared in Science Fiction Trails #1. That paperback is currently available on Lulu.com.