Fat Karate Instructors

I have studied martial arts since 1995 and one thing that has always amazed me is how many morbidly obese karate instructors there are out there. Now I'll admit that I need to lose about 20 lbs and cut my body fat in half to be at a healthy body weight but I am very average size for a woman. These people must have been in top physical condition at some point and then they just let it all go. We all gain weight over the years but there is a difference between needing to go up a couple of sizes in your clothes and having to buy your pants online.

My first karate instructor was awesome. He was right out of a movie: middle aged, super fit, kind of scary. He spent most of time during class teaching techniques to the students; he rarely worked out with us. It was obvious that he was working out on his own time to maintain that level of fitness. When we went to karate tournaments or seminars I would notice how some of the other instructors were really fat. I was glad that they weren't my instructor and wondered how beneficial their training was to their students.

I understand how it happens. You become a 5th degree black belt and open your own karate school. There isn't anyone there to challenge you so you have to have the willpower to challenge yourself or seek out people who are more knowledgeable than you to continue to grow as a martial artist. So you spend all your time building your school and passing your knowledge along to your students. That ravenous appetite that you had when you were working out 12 hours a week is still there but you are no longer working out regularly so the pounds start piling on. The food is filling the hole that karate once filled. If you don't find another hobby to commit yourself to once you stop regular karate training then overeating is just as easy a vice to pick up as any.

A handful of my karate friends turned to excessive drinking and partying when they stopped practicing regularly. Others gained weight. Some found something else to fill that part of their life: children, spouses, a new career, etc. I'm sure it might seem odd to someone who isn't a martial artist to understand how karate can be such an important part of a persons life. What you have to understand is that a martial artist, a true martial artist, not someone who took a few classes at their local mall franchise karate school, but a real martial artist is defined by their practice. Before I started karate I didn't have a sense of who I was. It was like there was this piece of me missing that I could never explain and karate was the answer. My self esteem, my friends, my personal choices, everything changed after I started karate. When I stopped practicing karate after 10 years of consistent training I lost myself. A new job, moving to a new house, meeting my husband all took my attention for a while. But while I found myself fulfilled in areas of my life that I hadn't been previously I still felt off. It wasn't until I started training again this year, after 4 years off, that I felt like I was myself again. i proudly show off my bruises and complain about my sore muscles. I feel like a martial artist again and I love it.

My previous three karate instructors were morbidly obese. I found fault at each of these schools because the training didn't compare to the training that I had received at my first school. It wasn't until after I left these schools that I realized that each of these men were miserable. That they had lost themselves at some point and that they weren't happy in their lives. I wasn't in a position to help them and honestly, even if I had inquired, I doubt I would have been able to do anything to help them. My current karate instructor reminds me of my first instructor. He is intense but happy. His life appears to be in balance. He works out with us all the time and talks about his workouts outside of the dojo. I feel like I have found a great school to train in for the first time in a long time but I can't help but think of the instructors that I have left behind and where life has taken them. They remind me of how dangerous it can be not to cultivate my spirit. I will not let myself become like them; I will not lose myself.

What's Wrong With College Football

1. Pre-season rankings. How do you know a team is number 1 this year if they lost half of their team to the NFL at the end of last season and half of their current starters are freshman? I know they do it in college basketball too but in college basketball their postseason success isn't determined by their ranking. Which brings us to....

2. The BCS and bowl game system in general. So explain to me why its good for college football for mediocre teams from big conferences to play in 30 meaningless bowl games rather than to use some of those same games for a playoff? I went to a Big Ten school and I think that automatically giving the Big Ten and other big conference schools a place in bowl games without any consideration for how good other teams are is ridiculous. We will never know which team is the best because if you aren't in a big conference then you can never be a national champion. If you don't have some human selection committee, like they do in college basketball,in addition to the polls then college football will never get it right. Strength of schedule, AP and USA today polls with input from biased coaches and sports writers and other strange statistics that play into the BSC formula are not an accurate assessment of which teams are the best. Lets be honest, the bowl system rewards big time schools with big time money (that they really don't need) and the bowl games in no way reward the most gifted teams. People don't get excited about post season college football the way they do about college basketball and March Madness and they never will unless something changes.

My proposal would be a 12 team playoff. The top 8 teams in the BCS get an automatic bid into the postseason (I don't think we'll ever get rid of the BCS completely). Then a panel of experts selects 4 at large teams to also be in the series. The top four teams in the BCS get an automatic bye and do not have to play the first week. The #5-#8 teams in the BCS play against the 4 at large teams. The four winners of those games face off against the #1-#4 teams in the BCS in the second week of the playoffs. Then the third weekend you have the final four teams face off to determine who will play in the national championship game which would be played a week later. The 4 bowl games that host these playoff games and the national championship would rotate every year with a pool of tickets set aside for the home teams to buy once they are determined. The teams that are in this pool would be announced the last week of the college football season which is typically around Thanksgiving. These teams would be out of eligibility for other bowl games which could still honor the conference ties that they currently have. We already know that the results of most of the 30 bowl games are meaningless so lets not pretend like they are anything more than an exhibition game in a really cool location and and excuse to take a vacation on your university's dime.

3. Crappy non-conference schedule. This is a personal gripe but its not just my team that has this problem. As a Penn State alumni and proud football fan, I am sick of the 4 cupcake teams that have been on our schedule every year since my freshman year in 1994 and I'm sure many years before that. Why is everyone surprised when we lost to Iowa last weekend when we were tested by the likes of Akron, Temple and Syracuse in the previous weeks? And really, was anyone surprised when USC beat the crap out of us in the bowl game last year? We don't play teams of that caliber on a regular basis so why should we expect to be able to hold our own against them? Our opponents in previous years have included such football powerhouses as Rutgers and Coastal Carolina. Virginia Tech played Alabama as a non-conference game for their first game of the season. Yes, they lost that game but by playing against big time schools they have made their program better over the years. We will never win another championship unless we start to do this as well. We should have never been ranked #5 in the first place. If we would have gone undefeated this year and went into a national championship game ahead of Virginia Tech (who I hate with a passion) if their only loss was to Alabama, a much better team, I would have been pretty disgusted with the system.

I still love college football but it is in need of a serious overhaul.

Where Have You Gone Dave Matthews?

I love live music. I went to my first concert when I was 11 years old and I have been addicted ever since. I have seen 100+ live acts in my 33 years and plan to see plenty more in my lifetime. This past week I saw The Dave Matthews Band for the sixth time. I hate to say it, but I think I have outgrown this band.

I became a fan of The Dave Matthews Band (DMB) in 1994, when they released Under the Table and Dreaming, their first major studio album. When I saw them for the first time in January 1995, it was a life-altering event for me. It is the first concert that I can remember where every song, every note, everything was perfect. Even the crowd, which can often ruin an otherwise great concert, was perfect. The next three shows were very similar to this show: enthusiastic but respectful fans, great sets, great atmosphere.

People started referring to DMB as the new Grateful Dead because of the cult following that they elicited. I wasn't one of those fans who followed the band from town to town but I had every album and listened to them constantly. I prided myself on being one of the fans who had been around since the early years before MTV and pop radio started playing them in heavy rotation.

My fifth concert experience in 2004 was pretty miserable. The crowd was very young, mainly teenagers and college kids but also plenty of pre-teens there. I was almost 28 at the time and felt like a senior citizen. DMB only played a couple of their upbeat hits that night. The set primarily consisted of extended versions of some of their slower hits and newer, more obscure songs. Goodbye brilliant musicianship, hello endless jam sessions with little to no melody. But the crowd of high teenagers loved it. They weren't there for the music, they were there to do drugs, hook up and be seen. The lack of crowd sing-a-long at this show was kind of eerie compared to the earlier shows.

DMB albums started to turn south at this point as well. It seemed like the band, like most of pop culture, started to cater to the tween to teen generation of kids. The music became simpler and less unique. The concerts were merely background music for the live after school special playing out at the shows. But of course, this is when they received the most critical acclaim. Everyone and their mother became a DMB fan at this point.

I didn't buy the next few DMB albums. What I heard on the radio didn't inspire anything and barely resembled the band that I had fallen in love with a decade ago. When the newest album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, came out earlier this year it seemed like the old DMB was coming back. Musically this album sounds like the old DMB. The music is good again and the lyrics are more thoughtful and less pop. My husband had never seen them before so I decided to check out the band on their latest tour.

We bought lawn seats to the show this year. I had stadium seating right in the middle of 90210 at the 2004 show and it sucked. At least on the lawn we could distance ourselves from the rowdy, high, drunk, rude teenagers that were there to put on a show and not witness one. We were happy when we found a lot of people just like us (music lovers that weren't trashed or 12) near the back of the lawn area. There was plenty of ridiculous behavior in front of us but we were able to distance ourselves from it and have a good time.

While this show was much better than the 2004 show it was no where near the epic experiences of the earlier shows. They played a few of their upbeat hits but once again seemed to focus heavily on the slow, dirge-like songs. While their new album is good, playing almost every song from that album consecutively rather than mixing them in with older hits was a mistake. They lost the crowd for several songs at a time. A lot of the people at the show didn't seem to know there was a concert going on. These people were having very loud conversations with each other and on their cell phones. There were walking around, sending text messages, laying on the grass making out or dancing manically to the drug-induced hippie beat in their head whether or not music was playing or not.

My husband and I left early on in the encore to avoid traffic. People had started leaving in significant numbers 30 minutes or so before we left and a lot of people left at the same time that we did. DMB started to play some of their classic hits during the encore but by then we had our fill. Sitting through 2 hours of mediocre music to get to the good stuff if just unacceptable.

Of course the band didn't notice the droves of people who left early because all they could see were the crowds of trashed teenagers pushed up close to the stage. These people "danced" non-stop and screamed every time a new song started. The band couldn't see the back rows of the reserved seating or the big empty spaces in the lawn. If you check out Live Nation or some of the other concert websites you will see glowing reviews of how great the concert was and how DMB is the best band around. These reviews were written by the teenagers.

So while I feel like I can be a fan of DMB again, I doubt I will go to another concert. They are catering to a different group of people and I don't really want to hang out in that group. DMB now joins Counting Crows, another band that puts out brilliant studio albums but is horrible in concert, as a band that I must love from afar. If you like jam bands that will turn a 5 minute song into a 30 minute opus to mediocrity then you should go get tickets to the show. Otherwise, save your money and enjoy the music at home.

Dog Pet Peeves #1

People who don't pick up their dog's poop. If you're in the woods its okay but in a neighborhood or at the local park with lots of people it's just rude. You people are the reason that dogs aren't allowed in a lot of places.

Parks and trails that provide poop bags but no trash cans. Seriously, one of our favorite 3 mile hikes only has a trash can at the beginning of the trail but it has poop bag receptacles all over the place. Who is the genius....

People who walk their dogs without a leash when they are in very busy places. That's great that your dog is well trained and all but you have no idea what he might react to and it makes me nervous to watch him roaming all over the bike path 100 yards ahead of you as bikers and other dogs whiz past. I love you people who yell "My dog is friendly" as me and my leashed dog approach you and your unleashed dog. Well is my dog friendly? Will our dogs get along? How will my dog react to this strange, wild dog jumping all over him? My dog and I have both been bitten by "friendly" dogs.

People who don't walk their dogs at all. If one more person says "I can't walk my dog" I'm going to scream. If you never taught your dog how to walk nicely on a leash, he isn't just going to pick it up naturally. It's not second nature to him; you actually have to do some work.

Ditto for people who get mad at their dogs for not "eliminating" in the exact place and time that you want. If you don't exercise your dog regularly or properly house train him and he messes in the house, that's your fault. If he goes in the house, the 5 minutes that you left him alone in the yard probably didn't do it for him.

People who stand in their front yard with their high energy dog on a leash. Seriously, would it kill you to walk around the block? I'm sure Rover is enjoying standing in the front yard while you yell at him to go to the bathroom so you can get back in the house as soon as possible.

People who keep their dogs in crates too much. If you want to crate train your dog fine, but don't use it as a cage that you can put your dog in because you don't want to deal with him when you have company or when you're too tired. The same goes for leaving your dog in the yard, garage, bathroom, basement. Dogs needs interaction with other dogs and people. If you aren't willing to put in the time and incorporate that dog into your life then you shouldn't have a dog.

People who bring their dogs to road races, festivals and other events where there are tons of people. Usually I see these people yanking their dogs around and yelling at them for being interested in all that's going on around them. I know you like to hear people say what a cute dog you have but it's incredibly frustrating for the dog and the good dog owners around you to see your dog trapped at the Carnival all day. He would much rather be sleeping in his warm bed in his favorite spot at home. Same goes for people who drag their dog around town on errands and then leave the dog in the car for hours or people who take their dog on trips with them only to have the dog locked in a hotel room or boarded for several hours at a time.

People who carry their small dogs every where and don't walk them or exercise them. All dogs need exercise. Just because your dog weighs 3 lbs doesn't erase the fact that he is a dog that has the same basic exercise and behavioral needs as other dogs.

People who say their dog gets plenty of exercise because they are in the yard all day. Well that's like saying that because you have a gym membership you're super fit. It doesn't work that way. You need to interact with your dog and play with him. You can't just throw him in the yard and expect that to cover his exercise quota for the day. Electric fences or real fences, an unattended dog is susceptible to bad people and other animals that can hurt him or at risk for running out of the yard because he is bored or excited. Do you know how many dogs get hit by cars every year because their owners left them alone in the yard and they escaped? Do you know how common it is for a dog to run through the electric fence barrier if the stimulation is strong enough?

People who smack their dogs. If you don't' train your dog and then he acts badly you can't punish the dog for that. If your dog has developed bad habits then work to get rid of those habits either on your own or with a professional trainer. Spot doesn't understand that you are smacking him on the butt because you don't like him jumping on people when they come to the house. He has probably made the association that bad things happen when people come over and it will just keep getting worse until he develops a fear of people. Fear will lead to worse behavioral issues and possible aggression later. When you scream at your dog and smack him you are doing that for your benefit, because it makes you feel better. You are not doing anything for that dog.

People who leave their dog unattended in their yard without a fence (electric or otherwise). These are the dogs that you see roaming from house to house. The dogs that follow you when you're walking your dog or when you out for a run or a bike ride.

People who buy dogs from pet stores. Puppy mills supply these stores. Reputable breeders don't sell their dogs to pet stores.

People who won't even consider rescue because they want to know where their dog came from and they want a guarantee that the dog will never be sick. Sorry folks but dogs get sick. It's unfortunate fact of life no matter where you get your dog from. I've actually had people say to me" You got him from the Human Society? I didn't know they had dogs like that". Really, some people are that ignorant.

Adoption Diaries

I have always had a fascination with adoption. While I don't want to have children, I have always felt that if I did I would adopt. I'm guessing that whatever it is inside me that drives me to rescue animals that other people have cast aside and deemed "less desirable" than other animals is what would drive me to adopt a child.

I have seen every episode of a An Adoption Story on Discovery Channel Health at least twice. Unfortunately they stopped making new episodes several years ago. So I was very excited when I heard that the Women's Entertainment (WE) was reviving the show. I have watched two episodes and don't plan on watching any more. The new show only focuses on open adoptions of newborns and doesn't even present the other types of adoptions that are out there.

I can understand the appeal of open adoption to a young mother who doesn't feel that she can raise the child but doesn't want to lose all communication with the child. And I guess if you really want to have a newborn baby then open adoption would appeal to prospective adoptive parents as well. Personally, if I carried a child to term, that would be my baby. I would find a way to make that child fit into my life. After being pregnant for 9 months and going through labor and all the emotional highs and lows that accompany the miracle that is childbirth I would be emotionally destroyed if I gave up that child. My husband had a vasectomy. We knew we didn't want children so we did the responsible thing rather than deal with an unwanted and unplanned pregnancy. But if we were in the <1% of people who find themselves pregnant after surgical sterilization then we would make it work. I am a strong believer that everything happens for a reason. Whether you want to call it religion or spirituality, I would not fight the universe if it were so determined to give my husband and I a child. I would accept that there were forces much greater than us plotting our future and not question it.

Millions of people do it every day but I just can't get past the adoptive parents having to share their child with the birth mom forever. The obligation to keep the birth mom in the child's life would just be too big a price to pay for me as an adoptive parent. The best part of the old show on Discovery Channel Health was that it focused on all different types of adoptions. There were open adoptions but there were also adoptions of older children domestically and abroad, the adoption of babies and infants domestically and abroad and the adoption of children by foster parents. By showing all of the different types of adoptions and how successful and happy the families were in the end it opened people's minds to the other options that were out there if you couldn't or didn't want to have a child naturally.

There is no shortage of parents looking to adopt newborn babies in this country. On the flip side, there are plenty of children that age out of foster care every year. Meaning that they live in a group home or foster families until they reach 18 years old and then are thrown out into the world to make a life for themselves. Can you imagine waiting for parents year after year after being abandoned by your birth parents? I can't imagine the psychological damage that this does to a person. The movie Antwone Fisher, starring Denzel Washington, tells the true story of someone who went through the experience of aging out of foster care and how it affected his life. The movie received mixed reviews but the message from the story is undeniable: growing up without a solid family structure prevents you from having a fully developing emotionally as a healthy adult. Note that a solid family structure can exist in a home with a single parent, grandparents/aunts/siblings and from a gay couple and an unstable homelife can come from a two parent household.

I think open adoption is a great option for people who insist on having a newborn child and I think it is a much more reasonable option than fertility treatments that lead to litters of children and present a greater health risk to both the other and the child. But I think that by only focusing on the segment of adoption that doesn't need any promotion, WE is doing quite a disservice to the general public and the unadopted children of this country.

Chale Update

I just realized that I never followed up on Chale's cancer diagnosis from June. A cyber friend of mine just lost her German Shepherd to Cancer earlier this week so I figured I'd provide an update on my boy's status. We went through many of the same challenges that she did with her dog but have had more positive news since the initial diagnosis.

After receiving the cancer diagnosis in June we were very sad but hopeful since Chale showed no symptoms of Cancer other than the low platelet count. We were dealing with the side of effects of the prednisone but, other than that, life was relatively normal. Two weeks after the diagnosis, his right front leg swelled up to more than twice its normal size from the armpit all the way down to his toes. We took him to the emergency vet to have it checked out. We were told that a chest x-ray was needed to determine whether or not there was a mass that was was restricting his blood flow and causing the leg to swell. While we were prepared to lose Chale after the initial diagnosis, we were not prepared to lose him that soon.

Luckily, the chest x-ray came back clear and there were no masses found. After meeting with an internist we were told that Chale had been misdiagnosed with cancer. The high dose of prednisone that he had been given to prevent tumor growth had actually masked the real problem, a blood clotting disorder likely caused by an auto-immune disease. It was a blood clot that had made his leg swell up and brought us to the emergency room. If that blood clot had not developed and we continued treatment for cancer it is possible that Chale would have bleed to death.

As if we weren't already pissed off enough at that point, the internist went on to say that he thought Chale had been misdiagnosed with Lyme disease a year ago, that his seizures (which started 5 years ago) seemed to be linked to an under active thyroid that went undetected and that the urinary tract infection that he developed earlier this year should have been recognized as a symptom of the auto immune disease. So essentially, our baby has been treated for the wrong illnesses for at least a year and a half now and these incompetent vets could have prematurely ended his life.

The only comfort that I can take in all of this is that Chale has not been suffering. We have been living our lives normally and he is his normal perky self. His quality of life has never been compromised. I think the worst part of all of this is the feeling of helplessness that we felt at the hands of so called experts. How were we to know that the vet missed something when they tested him in the past? Why would we ever question someone when what they say makes complete sense to us, the naive pet owners?

Chale has not had a seizure since March 2008. But it would have been better to add thyroid medications to his diet rather than raising the doses of the two anti-seizure drugs to the high dose that he is on now. The anti-seizure drugs are known to cause kidney and liver damage over time. While Chale's liver and kidney tests show that there has been some damage he is still in the high end of the normal range for a geriatric dog. I credit this 100% to the holistic supplements that we added to his diet to support his liver and kidneys at the same time that we started the seizure medications. Thanks to awesome support from some great alternative vets.

The high doses of antibiotics and steroids that Chale has received for Lyme disease, Cancer and the urinary tract infection essentially allowed the outward symptoms of the real problem to go dormant. If the blood test results would have been looked at more closely or additional tests performed to confirm the diagnosis, who knows what we could have avoided. But I'm not going to torture myself by thinking that way.

Chale is currently on a low dose of prednisone (an eighth of the dose that he started on) and ideally will be weaned off it completely over the next several weeks. We no longer see any of the side effects of the steroid since he is at such a low dose. The doctors have not clearly determined what has caused the blood clotting disorder but they are leaning towards ehrlichiosis, or another tick-borne illness, that should have been diagnosed and treated in 2008 instead of Lyme disease. Unlike cancer, Chale's body produces plenty of fresh white blood cells like it does in a healthy dog but the disease uses them up, resulting in the consistently low platelet count. Chale's platelet count has been in the normal range since we started him on azathioprine when we went to the emergency room. We still have the possibility of adding a blood thinner and thyroid prescription to his life but that is the least of our worries.

Chale will be 9 years old at the end of 2009. I understand that he is an old dog and even a health German shepherd doesn't live much longer than 10 years typically. But I cannot accept him dying prematurely from something preventable. So no, we won't be getting a new fence this year because of the thousands of dollars that we have spent on Chale this summer but I'd much rather have another year with my dog than a fence any day.

My only recommendation to my pet loving friends is that if your dog has a Lyme positive test, make sure it is actually Lyme disease. A Lyme positive test just means there has been exposure to an infected tick. That doesn't mean that the disease was passed from the tick to your dog. It can actually mean that the tick passed a completely different disease to your dog or that while your dog was exposed he did not contract the disease. Chale showed not symptoms of Lyme disease and had a very low positive diagnosis. According to our new vet these results should have lead to additional testing before treatment. He indicated that Lyme disease is commonly incorrectly diagnosed so before you get those antibiotics don't be afraid to ask questions! I hope no one else has to go through what we've been through this summer.

There is an episode of Mystery Diagnosis on TLC where a person went through our exact misdiagnosis. It explains all of this technical stuff much better than I have.

Breaking Up is Hard

Phil, my boyfriend from 9th grade. I'm a jerk. I'm sorry I wrote you a note and broke your heart. But you had to know that you were just the rebound boyfriend from Jared and that I was just using you to boost my self esteem. Because of you, I put up with people's crap much longer than I should because I fear that they to will accuse me of being a liar and quitting without really trying. Steve, Adam, Christian, ditto. Just insert a different ex-boyfriend's name.

Shortly after Phil, there was Lisa. My best friend in intermediate school. We definitely went in different directions in high school but she still told everyone we were best friends. It wasn't hurting me and really, I was no where near as cool as I thought I was. So why did I have to write you that note spelling it out, sending you crying from the lunch room. To this day her family hates me even though Lisa and I made up just a couple years later. Popularity is fleeting. I wish I were a better person back then. It is because of you that I will never turn down a friend request on Facebook no matter how brief my interaction was with the requester.

Sure, I told my freshman college roommate that I would room with her again sophomore year and then went to the housing office and changed my preference but that sort of passive break up is much easier on the soul. For most of my late teens and 20's I just let relationships get to the point that they were complete crap and then the other person ended them. I would always be surprised when they ended the relationship like it was some tragic loss. I was sad because I had lost something familiar, not something that was valuable in my life. A couple days later I always realized that the relationship had been gone for a long time and that I'd been wasting my time for years. Then I was angry at myself for being the victim and not taking the initiative to end it myself. Of course, I repeated this cycle over and over again. I'm sure a therapist would have a field day with this.

Lately, the people I have collected would best be described as acquaintances. These are people that you meet by chance or circumstance that you don't really consider your friends but they somehow find a way to weasel themselves into your life. The girl at the gym who always says hi to you who one day asks if you want to sit together when you bump into her at the food court. You say yes because it seems harmless and then spend the next 4 years of your life trying to unfriend her. Or better yet, the woman who you meet at a business conference who finds out that you both have dogs and like to run and is suddenly planning play dates and races. One week later you find out that you have nothing in common with this girl (seriously, how many people in the world have dogs and run, that's really not the basis for a friendship) but somehow find yourself going to parties at her house and dragging your husband to dinner with her and her miserable husband for an uncomfortable evening of bad conversation and nervous laughter.

Is there a target on my back that says "Please become excessively clingy to this woman and feed on her like a parasite"? The funny thing is I'm really not a nice person. Sure, if we're friends I am nice and compassionate but to the outside world I am bitchy, sarcastic, opinionated, obnoxious, inappropriate and loud. But that seems to be what attracts people. "Oh Denise you're so funny" or "You are crazy" are said to me on a regular basis. No really, I meant it when I told you to go away and I can't stand you. It wasn't a joke. How can I let my guard down when I meet new people without worrying that I'm going to end up with another leech? It's almost impossible not to be mean to these hangers-on because they just don't get the subtle comments. But I probably won't be mean. I'm all talk at this point. Maybe two out of every 10 leeches will get released. I'll just deal with it until one of us moves or they get the point.

Oh John, you were a horrible personal trainer. That's why I kept cancelling our appointments. You are a total meat head who spent more time looking in the mirror and flirting with the skinny girls than you ever spent on me. You never even listened to me talk. I'm glad that you no longer work at Bally's so I don't have to worry about hiding from you when I'm in the mall. Just because I'm not skinny doesn't mean that I've never worked out before. You talked down to me and made me feel like crap and I hope that someone tells you this before you ruin someone else's self esteem.