True Fitness Gym 2nd Visit

Last July 2006, I got a call from True Fitness and invited me for a tour and a free pass to try out their facilities for one week. I chickened out from them after looking at the price. I've blogged about it: Are You Health Conscious?.

Last Thursday, I got a call from True Fitness again. They are again inviting me to come and pick up their 1 week free trial pass. Only this time, they have a system that sends out SMS to remind you of the appointment you made with one of their consultants. I missed my appointment I made on last Friday evening because my boss had a farewell evening tea for me. Yesterday, they called me up again and scheduled another appointment. I was hesitant at first but thinking about it, "Oh what the heck!". The appointment was made this morning at 11am.

I think I should take back what I've said in my previous post by just save your money and jog some place free. If you have the time and money, go ahead and become a gym member (No sales commission for me though). Your health is far more important than your money. It is so easy to crawl back into your unhealthy lifestyle especially for a TV potato couch like myself. At my former office, there is a gym and a swimming pool just 4 floors below that I can just pop in and work out. I never did. Tomorrow, I'm going to work at a new office and that place is also equipped with a gym and swimming pool (I'm just so lucky, don't you think? hehe..). Hopefully, I could make use of it wisely before I consider a paid gym membership.

So, back to gym tour. Again, I had another tour with the gym consultant by the name of Kimy. He's a nice Malay dude (skinny like me also) and I was really comfortable with him. During the tour, I did noticed a couple of new machines and here a tip, if you don't like the crowd when you want to work out, crawl out from your bed and come do it on a Sunday morning. There is less crowd during that time. I also had a 'fat test' where I scored "Acceptable". I think I should increase that level to "Good" and build up more muscle to gain more weight.

Now comes the hard part, pricing. After Kimy did his True Fitness presentation, he did the dissapearing act and call upon his manager. His manager came out and discussed about the price that would be affordable for me. There was a joining fee of RM500 and RM140 processing fees. All that was slashed and I only need to pay a RM50 deposit to secure a price of RM159 per month. Their price has now gone up from the last time I went there. I thought they are going to lower their price as more and more people are signing up with them. Anyway, they preferred paying using credit cards, unfortunately I don't have one. I then managed to talk to Kimy to hold on to that price until I have the cash to pay up for the membership. However, I finally got my free 1 week trial pass for me to use all of their gym facilities.

I then tried working out using the threadmill and a ski running machine. My leg trembled after that since I have long never went on working out. I think I should cut a few hours of watching TV and plan out more time for working out.

By the way, while Kimy was giving me the presentation in the lounge, there was a couple in front of me across the table and the guy I saw look really familiar. I'm not really sure if he was the guy since he wasn't with his girlfriend or maybe his girlfriend looks different or so. Furthermore, I've never even met the guy yet but he has an awesome blog. The guy was wearing a sleeveless shirt and a short (black and dark blue), a pair of rimless spectacles and some big sized sport shoes. Elaneman, was that you?

Stay healthy and prosperous everyone.

Why Today's Internet Connection is Down

This morning, I realized that the internet connection was unusually slow. I thought maybe it was just my area that was slow since I've accustomed to the slow broadband connection at home eventhough I'm on a 512kbps. So when I got to the office, I logged on internet and it was still excruciating slow. My office uses a 1MB broadband connection. I had no other choice but to do some other offline work instead of bothering to do stuff online.

My web hosting where I host my company's website is already dead more than a day. Shooting them an e-mail didn't work and trying to call them doesn't seem like something worth trying since the data center is located somewhere in the United State. Nevertheless, for a web hosting fees of less than USD10 a year, it's no big deal. The sad part is, I've parked 3 other domains using the same web hosting and incoming traffics to all of the other websites is also compromised.

So, why is the internet at my place here in Kuala Lumpur down? A friend of mine who happened to work at TM Net, the main Internet Service Provider told me that their internet exchange server in Taiwan got hit by the earth quake last night. The magnitude of the quake was 7.1 and 7.2, less than the previous 9.3 magnitude quake that went off the coast of Indonesia. It triggered the tsnunami warning after 2 years since the last one but the tsunami didn't happened though. More of the news here.

This is what TM Net official website announced:

I had to use Googlepages to host this image since my Photobucket image hosting can't establish any connection from where I am. It also made me realized how dependable I am to the internet. I wonder why Google is still accessible at the time of writing while Yahoo is out of reach already. Maybe the have a server farm nearby where I live. Content and web pages hosted in my country and nearby is accessible however apart from that, it's dead or extremely slow.

Here's an announcement by Jaring, another internet service provider:

They are more or less the same boat because they also share internet infrastructure. I hope they could find a way to overcome this problem.

Tips To Drive In A Flash Flood

In Kuala Lumpur where I live, when it is reaching year ends, there will be rain almost every evening. This would last for several weeks. Maybe it is the monsoon season or the cloud get saturated, I don't know, ask the Meteorology Department if you want to know more. Last Saturday was my re-exam day for my Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA). I finally finished my first semester, now another 3 more semesters to go. After the exam, I went and had lunch somewhere in Shah Alam. I then went to Seksyen 2 in Shah Alam to meet friends of mine. They're having lunch there and asked me to join them. It was raining badly by the time I got there.

My car's air conditioning is broken so I had to wipe away the moisture built up inside my car with tissue paper. I hate driving in the rain. So, I arrived at the eating place where my friends was eating lunch. A few minutes later, the water level rose up above our ankles. People were still hanging out by then and was hoping for the rain to fade away soon. The rain kept pouring in and since the eating place was just next to a big drain, the drain was however clogged though, the water kept on rising. Then people started panicking, the dining table almost got washed away by the streaming water. I had no choice but to save myself. I then saw a couple of cars were now submerged by the water rising. I was concerned about my car so I rushed back to my car while walking through the knee level flood water. Luckily the water level at where I parked nearly touched the lower portion of my car so my car can still be driven. It was a horrible experience.

I didn't manage to get any pictures while at the eating place because I left my camera in the car. On my way to Klang, there was this horrible traffic jam just before the Sg. Rasah Tol. The reason:

I somehow manage to maneuver through the flood water and made my way to Klang City. I saw many stranded motocycles and cars while going through the flood water.

Tips To Drive in A Flash Flood

1. Make sure all your car windows are closed because you'll never know some lorry or bigger cars will barge through the flooded area and splash a big amount of water right on your car's window.
2. You must be confident enough to drive your way across the flooded street, if you have a lowered car or the water level can seep into your engine, then just don't cross yet.
3. While you are driving your way across the flood, DO NOT release your accelerator pedal or else the water can go inside your exhaust system and of course, stall your car.
4. If you drive a motorcycle, make sure your engine is kept warm. The flood water can immediately cool off your engine block and causes your piston to be jammed and you'll get to nowhere.
5. Last thing, if you can afford it. Have your insurance policy covered with flood protection or you'll have to pay for your own repairs.

Have a safe rainy journey ahead.

Are You Health Conscious?

Two days ago, I received a call from a lady who said she was from some kind of fitness centre. At first I thought it was from Fitness First because I didn't hear the other word apart from Fitness. After clarifying, it was from True Fitness another operator of modern gymnasium for urban citizen which is popping out in KL City. As a former telemarketer, I know how and what they are going to do, however I think it wouldn't hurt to make an appointment to see what they have to offer.

I went to True Fitness which is located at Desa Sri Hartamas. I normally go back and forth over the same route and see the Fitness Centre everyday but I haven't had the interest to see what it's like inside there. So, the consultant that made an appointment with me was named Vera, I'm not sure if she is a Chinese or a Malay or other races but she was nice. She gave me a tour of the facilities. The place is huge. It was bigger than the Fitness First Centre at Damansara Uptown and Subang Jaya where I went 2 years ago. They also have a lot of classes going on almost the same as Fitness First but the unique part is, there's Yoga Classes. They also have plenty of spaces for the members to do their workout.

So, after all the tour and sightseeing around the vicinity, now comes the hard part, The Membership Payment. I have no whatsoever budget to join a gym club yet. The consultant went ahead and showed me the catalog and the price. As expected, the price is too steep for me. Imagine RM500 just for the joining fees, RM90 for the application fees and RM215 per month, my god..I would have to bootstrap like crazy if I were to join this club. The consultant then act if she was going to help me with the payment, yeah she was right, she slashed a few ringgit here and there. That's not helping, that's just downsizing the figures and hope that I feel gratitude of her helping me. She then did the dissapearing act, as if she went to the managers room to get even a lower price. She's not going to fool me, I know that she didn't go and see her manager, she just went inside her staff room and waited a few minutes before coming out and pretend to bring good news. So, what I did, I did my dissapearing act while she was away. I ran out the gym, started my car and drove away. Oh, I also switched off my handphone so that she couldn't reach me. My phone then got an sms that she tried and called me 5 times. I have a feeling that she'll contact me again pretty soon.

What have I learned? I learned that I need to exercise to build up my body strength. I am becoming weak just by sitting down in front of this laptop. I have a free gym facility down at my office but I hardly ever use it. I'm so ashamed of myself. I need to change.

If you like to read more about gym reviews around Kuala Lumpur. There is one blog that I recommend:

Mun Blog | The site for the gym goers. Be Strong. Be Fit.

I not sure if the blogger is a 'he' or a 'she' but the reviews Mun Blog gave is very good. Read Free Trial at True Fitness (1). You can see pictures and other related stuff about the gym that I went.

Be Strong. Be Fit.

P/S: You don't need to have membership of a gym to have a healthy lifestyle. Save money and go for a jog at the park is sufficient enough to maintain a healthy body.