Miller's Army Filler: Snow PT

As mentioned previously, I would be going to New Jersey and New York with my wife and her family. She had a voice audition for graduate school at the Westminster Choir College at Rider University. The downside of this is that I found it very difficult to keep up with my physical training.

Thursday: Our flight flew out as scheduled at 0800 out of Orlando. The day we left Orlando, the temperature was around 80 degrees. Needless to say, I did not need the coat I had packed away with a liner.

Flying in told me that I would need that coat…

That white color is from all of the snow on the ground.

After flying in, getting our rental car, we attempted to drive to my wife’s aunt house. However, it became quite comical to and sit watch us figure out on the Garden State Parkway that we were heading way out of the way. Rather than driving just 40 miles to Hamilton, NJ, the GPS unit we were using wanted to send us 112 miles almost to Jersey Shore. However, I scouted this trip a little ahead of time. I realized that a 2 hour drive was a little longer than 45 minutes. Problem turned out to be that the house was too new for the GPS unit my father in-law bought. Luckily, the address showed up in Google Maps in my wife’s phone. We ended up using the GPS to find our way to the school that my wife was going to be auditioning the next day.

This worked out because my wife was able to find her way around the school and then able to know where to show up the next day. We both enjoyed ourselves sniffing around. Compared to going to UCF it felt like real or traditional school. Nothing against UCF, but UCF does not have the school-feeling that universities usually give off. They focus more on putting in more palm trees.

Aside from the UCF bashing, we were then able to find our way over to her aunt’s house. I found out that her aunt had a treadmill. Problem was that it was very loud and not very convenient to use during most of my time there. I used it for all about 10 minutes. However, I did do some sets of push-ups and crunches to try and maintain some strength during vacation.

Friday: My wife’s audition went very well. They congratulated her on her job of helping to bring back the Opera program at UCF. I will let her talk about this more in her own blog. Friday turned out to be a lot of fun; was due mostly in part to meeting more of her family, some wine, and real Italian food. The nice part about this dinner was that it was fairly nutritional and not very fatty or oily.

Saturday: Had an interesting day. We had some more family fun for breakfast before we left New Jersey to head up to New York for the remainder of the trip. The first stop was to head to Queens, NY. I have never been to New York much less near any of the five boroughs so it was interesting to see a foggy Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridge.

We got to spend some time with another one of my wife’s aunt’s house and try some good ole New York Chinese Buffets. Food was amazing, too bad I did not eat that much (Trying to make weight when I leave). I did load up on the largest sushi selection I have seen in one place.

After Queens, we drove about 2 hours north to Newburgh, NY. We got in at about 0000hrs. This was one of my wife’s other family members. Time for bed.

Sunday: Super Bowl! Prior to watching Christina Aguilera ruining the National Anthem and the Black Eyed Peas making my ears cringe, I did some snow PT. What this means is that I got shovel a boat load of snow off Aunt Bridget’s deck. What I did was systematically engage different lower, core, and upper muscle groups. This included using squatting movements, side turning movments that used either side of my obliques, and using my biceps when lifting the snow shovel.

Before: 2-3 Feet of snow

Biceps

Chipping some ice

After

I got to try some real New York pizza and see the Orange County Choppers building. You could say that not considering the whole family feud, seeing the OCC bikes in the show room would be similar to my Graceland.

The front of the Orange County Choppers Building

Air Force Jet Bike

Venom Bike

FBI Bike

Tank Bike

The Firefighter Bike

Me in front of the Space Shuttle Bike

Good New York Pizza

When we got back home, my brother in-law and I decided to make a snow man. I know it sounds childish but I only got to make one in my childhood and it was a long time ago, so could not help ourselves. Now for you that have not made a snow man in a while, you know that making the large piece of a snowman, it can very heavy. I then used idea of making a very big bottom to engage and wear out my glutes, quads, and hamstrings.

We found a very large icicle and decided to use it in a G rated fashion for these pics.

Monday and Tuesday: On Monday, we got to go see Paul Jr. Designs. It was a shame that the door was shut, or else I could have gotten some better pics. I did however get to chit chat with one of the camera crew for American Choppers.

We then got to see more lovely snow covered country.

Tuesday was fairly uneventful except that the weather started to turn cold very quick. Newburgh, NY started out the morning at about 39 degrees. By the time we left around 1200HRS, the temperature dropped down to 32 degrees. The forecast also called for the low that night to go down to 6 degrees. Needless to say, we were leaving just in time. After, eating at a not so great diner that would not like my Yelp review, we headed back to Newark International Airport. We then go to sit for about 2 hours to wait for a plane to leave late.