Not your typical agent  9-16-12

We have several real estate agents that work out at Classic on a regular basis. I am not completely sure if Tara wants to remain anonymous so I will alter her last name and identify her only as Tara Wolf of Michael Saunders and Associates. 
It has been a very typical past several months for Tara. Let's see...she vacationed in Europe (but who doesn't?) and hung out in Canada in a hot spot 300 miles north of Minnesota. Upon returning, Tara sped off to Boca Raton and bought a BMW for her son (after all, his grades were very good.) Shortly afterward she discovered a FOUR FOOT HIGH bees nest clinging to the eaves of a home she was inspecting. Don't worry, they were not killer bees and no one in the removal service she retained was stung to death. After the bees, it looked as though summer might begin to wind down for Tara until she checked on the former owner at a house she had just sold. No one had seen the lady (in her early sixties) for days, and Tara did some sleuthing. Tara's client had not ventured out...because she was dead! The 911 operator asked Tara to flip the body over to make sure and Tara's workouts at Classic would have enabled her to easily do so, but the maroon and purple color made any further disturbance quite unnecessary. To make matters worse, the poor woman had left a water faucet on prior to her demise! The new owners thus not only have to deal with a possible ghost BUT another 20 bucks or so when the next water bill rolls around! As for Tara, she now has to listen to new potential business slogans from her personal trainer. How about: Tara Wolf is such a good agent that her clients are thrilled to death! No? How about: People are dying to sign up with Tara! Still no? Okay...After Tara sells your home, you can REALLY relax!    

A wild 80th birthday party   9-9-12

One of our clients is named PW. He is originally from Kentucky and the letters are an abbreviation for his first name and middle name...neither of which he uses. After one says the name several times, it begins to grow on you. PW had his leg badly shot up in the Korean war and has survived lung and prostate cancer. He had a triple bypass two years and six months ago. He filtered a huge quantity of both distilled and fermented beverages through his liver and kidneys until he was forty. PW also stopped supporting the tobacco industry at around that time. Needless to say, many of his relatives and long-time friends are ASTOUNDED that he has arrived at his 80th birthday in one piece. The icing on the cake is that the man looks like he is in his early sixties. He plays golf and plays/manages on three different softball teams beginning about this time of year. He still finds time to work out at our facility twice a week when he and his wife aren't cruising the planet's oceans. 
Last Saturday, the staff at Classic attended PW's 80th birthday blowout at Stoneybrook Country Club. There were only about 90 people there...a very intimate affair. The entertainer had a long white pony tail and a repertoire of songs that ranged from Neil Diamond to Johnny Cash. He was fabulous and I want to hire him for my 80th birthday. I began eating immediately by sidestepping the guest of honor and pouncing on the cheese-filled puff balls at the appetizer table. Gradually, I was able to fill my plate with an absolutely delectable mushroom goody presented in a little pastry shell. We soon discovered that the placeholder/name cards on our table were the key to getting fed. One star meant that one had requested the charbroiled pot roast dinner. No stars meant that one had requested the salmon. I had one star on my placeholder...and asked Sue to draw in a second with her pen. It worked! I received TWO dinners, the second arriving soon after the first. Then in a stroke of luck, I visited PW's table of honor and noticed that his granddaughter had not touched her pot roast! She caught me staring and graciously offered it up. I hesitated for a millisecond and then accepted, spiriting it away to my table before anyone else at PW's table noticed the dinner was available. 

Sue danced with PW, but I did not. He seemed to be holding her a little more tightly around the waist than the dance moves required, but they assured me that I was reading too much into it. The astute reader may notice a young man standing in the background of the above picture. He is wearing a short-sleeved black shirt and holding a drink. That young man is Joe, our chief assistant trainer at Classic. He finished his entire dinner. I knew he would. He is a very nice guy but for some reason a little protective whenever he and I go out to eat together.   

Sports Cars, Legroom, and a New Mission  8-26-12
An attorney who works out at Classic has his eye on a slightly used Porsche Panamera. He is six foot five and claims it is the only Porsche that requires him to actually put the seat forward one notch after he gets in. Although it has four doors, I think most readers will agree that it is nevertheless a very sporty looking vehicle. It is 55.8 inches tall, but looks even lower to the ground when it's moving. 

This is the exact color and style of
my Corvette, but I have some gorgeous
Italian  Momo wheels on mine. 

We currently reside very close to the Fitness Studio so I usually walk to work in the morning with my old dog. It takes a while to cover the five-house distance, especially if she has not gone out at night. For this reason most of our clients have not seen my Corvette in the parking lot, which is just as well because I don't have time to give EVERYONE a ride! I have several vehicles but my personal favorite is still this old Corvette, which fits me like a glove after I squeeze through the door. I am only six feet tall and at 55 years old have probably stopped growing, which is a good thing because my Vette is only 46.7 inches tall and more head room is only possible with the top removed...an unpleasant prospect during a Florida thunderstorm.

This car was a LOT slower than it
looks. It had 68 horsepower at it's
disposal---I think my lawn tractor
has more.

One of my first cars was a 1968 Triumph Spitfire. It was a very slow British sports car that combined vibration and impracticality with unreliability and led me to open a very  profitable specialty car repair business. A more appropriate name would have been Spitsblacksmoke or Spitsouttransmissionparts. Although I was already six feet tall when I purchased it, I weighed about 80 pounds less. It was slightly taller than my Corvette...47.6 inches, and would fit beneath the trailer of a tractor/trailer rig! I was quite daring as a teenager but never once drove the vehicle under a moving rig. I remember the seating as being a little tight in my 20's, but the attorney has me wondering if it would now be possible to fit in this vehicle at all any more. I am determined to try. There is a very large car show at Sarasota Square Mall every winter, and I recall seeing several vintage Spitfires there. This year, before dinner--when I am feeling svelte, I am going to the show and pose as an interested Spitfire purchaser. Prior to that, I shall check Ebay for a VERY LARGE shoehorn. All results will be reported here after the show.     

Deceptive Advertising 8-18-12
I realize that I should finish my report on the Sarasota Yacht Club, but warning my clients about this scam has become an immediate priority. Most of the business people in Sarasota are very honest and treat their customers fairly. They have to. Sarasota is a small "big" town and word--good or bad--travels fast. Thus I am sad to be the first to report on a business deception that is going on just two blocks from where my workout studio is located. The offender is a well known business called Splish Splash and they are part of a much larger franchise. I have gathered photographic proof of a grossly misleading come-on displayed on their pylon 
sign---directly in front of their building. I doubt that the parent company knows of this. If they did, they certainly would not condone it. 

As I drove serenely along Tamiami Trail in route to signing up at the new Costco, I spotted an intriguing promise on the marquee. It hinted there were women in the store with swimsuits that were practically FALLING OFF! I have been to Miami South Beach on several occasions and was APPALLED to see women on the beach wearing only the bottom half of their swimsuit. It was thus hard for me to envision any less than that! But the sign clearly stated that swimsuits in that store were up to 70% off! I turned immediately and went inside. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that what they claimed was not true. Granted, they were having some kind of a sale, but had they  lettered the sign honestly, I would NOT have been enticed so easily.  Please people, do not be fooled like I was. I shall post the phone number soon. If each reader calls the manager and complains soon, our collective voices will be heard and this deception will end!

Just Another Day at the Yacht Club 8-12-12

We were invited for lunch last Wednesday to the Sarasota Yacht Club. Naturally, we accepted. We have all passed the Yacht Club on our way to St. Armand's Circle. It is the one at the west end of the Ringling Bridge---to the left. How many of you can say, however, that you have been to lunch or dinner at this venerable locale? You can? You too? And you saw her with my dog? Okay, stop sending emails. I did not realize that so many of you have been there. Nevertheless, it was my first time. After meeting our host and his lovely wife inside the front door, we toddled off to the dining room. I was somewhat concerned that my denim shorts and best t-shirt would not be suitable attire for such an exquisitely decorated venue, but observed several people at the pool beyond the tall windows wearing much less. I try to avoid white bread or flour at all costs, but the bread basket had tiny little croissant-shaped blueberry muffins that tasted twice as good as they looked and smelled. I indulged without guilt. I ordered grouper fingers as an appetizer, and french onion soup only because the waiter promised it was very cheesy and salty. In keeping with the grouper theme, I ordered the blackened grouper sandwich as well. In the past, I admit to pulling the old "Look out there at the topless woman!" trick in order to distract others at the table. But this afternoon, summoning as much decorum and willpower as possible, I concentrated on my own plates and not once did I borrow from those of my hosts. Everything was excellent. After lunch, we were offered a tour of the entire facility, which we eagerly accepted.  To be continued      

Congratulations to Lisa!   7-28-12

On behalf of the entire staff at Classic Personal Trainer, I would like to congratulate Lisa R on her successful weight loss. She is down 26.2 pounds thus far. How long has it taken? She has been working out with us and paying attention to her diet for just over two months now. Why was it important to Lisa to lose this weight? Because a couple of years ago, a perfect storm occured. Lisa got married and stopped smoking at around the same time! The two newlyweds fed each other cake and pasta and every other delicacy that came across their plates. Poor Lisa was deliriously happy, but up 40 pounds! He said he did not notice the extra pounds, but Lisa's catwoman suit (it's a Halloween thing) had become very, very tight. She was determined to wear it again. We were determined to see her in it. Incidentally, after losing 23 pounds Lisa was promoted to manager at her bank...the Big Cheese, the Head Honcho, the Boss. How coincidental that soon after working out with a trainer at Classic Lisa gets the promotion she has been seeking for some time.... Does everyone who works out at our studio get promoted? Well no--not the retired people. But at the rate that Lisa is climbing the ladder, I would expect to see her as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve before too long. The next time I write about Lisa, I will pass along what she meant when she confessed to "misbehaving" in the Catwoman suit.   

Have I reviewed pics of Lisa in the
Catwoman suit? Why, yes I have!

Integrity 7-22-12


At Classic Personal Trainer, it is no secret that we do not work out continuously for the entire hour. There is some down time between sets. During that downtime, I hear some of the most interesting things imaginable from my clients. Some of it is just venting of course, but some of it affects the way I see  the world outside of the studio. One such incident happened last week. I was working out with the retired CEO of a very, very large lingerie company. I will not name names at the present, but let us call the company Mark's Secret and the clients name "Clyde." One fine morning, the CFO that reported to Clyde was bursting at the seams. He had just purchased a home the previous day. At the closing, the CFO had devised a plan to save himself many thousands of dollars. Knowing that the seller of his new home intended to go from the closing directly to another in which he was to purchase his dream home, the CFO sprung his surprise. He loudly announced he would not pay the agreed upon price! He wanted to pay less...much less. The condition of the home had not changed. The appraisal came back fine. The CFO had merely decided that the seller was in a vulnerable spot and ripe to be taken advantage of. The CFO had intentionally finagled a very low deposit that could be left on the table if need be. The seller, desperate now and watching the minutes until the second closing tick away, caved. 
The gleeful CFO could not wait to share his triumph the next morning with Clyde. He recounted the major points of his coup. He waited until Clyde could absorb all of the cleverness of his manuever. But all Clyde could do was think about the bottle of mouthwash in his excutive washroom. The vile taste that the deal left in his mouth was rising. It was too late for Clyde to help the hapless victim of the previous day's home closing, but there was something he could do that morning. 
Clyde fired the CFO on the spot. No million dollar salary. No severance package, and to Clyde's way of thinking, no financial scandals down the road initiated by a morally-impaired CFO. I found myself wishing that we had more executives like Clyde before the banking and real estate world crashed down around us in a cloud of greed and we wound up bailing them all out with taxpayer money.