My Brilliant Scheme

I was reading this FARK thread the other day regarding how gyms and fitness facilities don’t tell you things so as to keep getting your money when I had a brilliant idea. It’s sure to net me quakagillions of dollars, and yes, that’s a real number arrived at through rigorous financial analysis.

First, my fitness facility will be in Arizona or Southern California. Not the nice parts, but the parts where there’s not much but rocks and it’s really hot most of the time.

It wouldn’t be a gym as such, though there would be exercise machines on site. They’d be a little worse for the wear, and some of it would be actually makeshift, but that’s okay because you’re not really going to spend a lot of time there. It’s not where the real weight loss is going to happen.

Now, this is going to be a bit of a sprawl, more than you’re used to down at Gold’s or Curves or whatever. You’ll have a bedroom, and the shower and bathroom facilities will be nearby… but not as close as you’re used to. In fact, it’ll be at least 100 yards to the toilets, which isn’t much when you consider that the kitchen will be almost a mile away, just a bit uphill from the bedrooms. There will also be a store, where you can buy pop and snacks and stuff, but that’ll be almost two miles away, and the only actual path that takes you there directly will actually be about three miles long. Otherwise, you’ll have to climb over some piles of exciting rubble to get there.

You can have all the water and ice you want, but you have to go get those, too. They’ll be closer, just about five hundred yards from your bedroom. The water will come in convenient 1.5 liter bottles. Only.

There will be plenty of medical personnel on-site, but you never can tell when they’ll be drunk, or busy piercing tongues, or what-have-you. The chief medic will mumble unintelligibly when you go see him, but expect you to follow his advice to the letter.

Every day, your “workout” routine will consist of two four hour shifts of standing around, eight hours apart. You’ll get to stand in the shade, but you can’t sit down. The most you can do is lean on a pile of sandbags. And speaking of which, in between shifts, you could conceivably spend a couple hours filling sandbags for no readily apparent reason.

Oh, and the required attire: everywhere you go, you have to wear long pants and long sleeve shirts, boots over the ankle, a helmet, and about sixty pounds of deadweight on a vest. Including the standing around time. You can take it off to go to the bathroom or the shower, most of the time, or if you actually decide to use the exercise equipment. There’s two vehicles, but they’re really only for emergencies. Well, that’s a lie. They’re for the fitness instructors to drive around in. You can only ride on them if they happen to be going in the same direction you are at the same time.

Also: things will randomly explode for no good reason. You probably won’t be in any danger from it.

Best. Idea. Ever.

Advice to the Neo-Pro

Cherie Priest, who seems to be quite the hoopy frood, offers an exhaustive if-not-complete litany of what to expect after your first book comes out. Sadly, I’m not able to compare it to anything just yet, what with my lonely short story sale being all that qualifies me as the neo-est of neo-pros. (It’s such a lonely sale that John Scalzi deigns to wave at me with only one finger at cons.)

But it’s some cool observations on the writing life, and oddly, stuff that I’m sorta looking forward to. Even the weird and lame stuff. Go check it out.