My life has been very busy. I took a few days off work to accompany my son, Brad, to Sydney, Australia where he’ll attend University of New South Wales this year (for 3 years actually) studying and working on a research project of Artificial Intelligence and Robots. His first week included seeing miniture fully programmable robots playing football.
Sydney has had two weeks of very heavy rain (in the middle of summer) which has caused flash flooding and made Brad’s initial days in a new city a lttle less fun than he’d expected. The redeeming factor, if there has been one, is that the city has an excellent rail transport network, which along with the buses and harbour ferries make getting around very fast, inexpensive, and easy.
Auckland, by contrast, has had balmy summer days basked by sunshine with just a little rain, very humid at times. I’m happy that I work in an airconditioned, 17 degrees C, studio. Customers comment on how pleasant it is to come in the door into the cool temperature and to be able to do their workout comfortably.
The Vibra-Train studio is busy most mornings with the first customers arriving around 6.20am (our weekday hours are 6.30am – 10pm) and if I’m rushing to work arriving at 6.25am it’s possible to miss my first few clients so I have to ensure I’m “up with the birds” at around 5.20am. We have an open studio where customers can walk in without appointment as we have 9 machines of varying force and instructors to fully supervise all. This system works very well and prevents the back-up of waiting customers as can happen when sessions are booked and someone arrives a little late. We can also run classes, if wanted, where customers arrive at a set time.
Already this year we are seeing great results. This morning’s clients included a young triathlete who at first could not hold position on the level 2 machines and was particularly poor at the upper body poses ( tricep dip and push-up) but has grown in strength and holds perfect position for the whole 60-120 seconds and is now able to hold his body weight in a 60 second pull-up using the vibrating handlebars of the Vibra -Train machine.
It wasn’t enough for my son and me though. Flying in with an early morning arrival time we picked up a pre-booked rental car and headed for the mountains. Hoping to ski at Mt Hutt we were a little disappointed when looking up snow conditions on my son’s new Google phone we read that Mt Hutt was closed due to inclement weather. Porter Heights was open so hoping it would remain so we drove on.
Kea, New Zealand alpine parrot, were interesting to watch. They are curious, intelligent birds who have almost no fear of humans so they sit on your car pecking at edges of paintwork or rubber, or demolishing your windscreen wipers right before your eyes. I was told they have a habit of rolling stones down the iron roof of mountain huts and so keeping trampers awake at nights.
