There and back again, to see how far it is...

This morning MrGrumpy had to take his washing to the laundry, it was that time again.
After dropping off his washing he was not sure what to do, he did not want to do too much climbing so chose to take a drive down to Capitola and the see what he could find to do there.

When he got there, the sea fog was still lingering, so he started to walk, he soon found himself at Opal Cliffs watching the surfing and taking photos along the way.

He carried on walking, and walking and after quite a long walk, he arrived at Santa Cruz. By the time he walked down the broadwalk it was well past beer o'clock, he found a bar and ordered a refreshing beer. The beer went down really well, not it was time to find some food.
Food is always a chore, after walking down the road and checking his options, he went for a chicken kebab at Falafel Hut. It was pretty tasty and set him up for his walk back to Capitola.

He headed back, this time keeping to the roads rather than walking along a section of the beach, this and the fact he knew where he was going, made the walk back seem quicker.

Back in Capitola, he went to the Britania Arms and treated himself to a pint of Old Speckled Hen, the first 'English" beer he had had since he was in the US.

Just a bit more walking to get back to the car, then a little drive back up Highway 17 to home.

There was no doubt that he managed his steps today, he had walked  over 28,000 steps which is the best part of 14 miles.

Time now for MrGrumpy to relax and watch Netflix.

Friday... woo hoo...

Even though MrGrumpy is in the office by about 7am each day, it always seems harder work when he has an early conference call.

This morning was busy, he had a call, then out of the office for a meeting, then back to sort out stuff for next week. It was midday and he felt like he had already done two days work.

By mid afternoon, it was time to call it a week. Time to head off to the cinema, todays movie of choice is Savages, pity it is not on the IMAX screen. He does hope it is not on screen 7 at the AMC Mecardo, because that screen has a scratch and the right channel of audio just crackles.

Before the cinema MrGrumpy tried out In-N-Out Burger, several MrPeople had recommended it to him, today it was time to try one. He ordered Cheeseburger, Fries and a Soda (somewhere about 800 calories), but it had been a bad week for a diet, so he had it anyway.
It was not bad, the burger was a bit thin, but tasty (especially as they don't put in pickle). He did prefer the MrFiveGuys burger that MrWhiteSox had introduced him to.

At the cinema there was a bit of a queue at the ticket desk, unusual for this time of day, but then he noticed that the automated ticket machines were "Out of Order". He got his ticket, this time it was on screen 15, he hoped that would be better than 7. It was, no problem with the image or sound, they could do with turning the volume up a little more - at times it is just too quiet. Anyway he sat through the trailers, a few new ones for movies in September and October.
The movie was pretty good, several quite gruesome violent scenes, but the story was good and kept MrGrumpy interested for all 3 and a bit hours. The ending was not quite what he was expecting, but he won't spoil it for anybody.

When he got home, he got changed and went out for a brisk walk, the plan was to test out the sports watch he had got cheap from MrAmazon. It measures heart rate so MrGrumpy can check if he is walking fast enough to really make him fitter. As well as the sports watch, his iPhone was tracking the walk using Nike+, so he would have quite a lot of data from this walk. He was more like a portable data logger than a walker.

After the walk he had done just over 5 miles at a pace of 15m 40s per mile, not too bad for him and it did include a 200ft hill at about half way.  From the hill he could see Monument Peak across the valley, this is the peak he hiked up by accident last weekend. The heart rate monitor gave him an average reading of 118 bpm (67% of his max) which would class as quite a good 1h 20min aerobic workout.

Whatever happened to Thursday...

This is a late posting for Thursday, MrGrumpy found the exercise and long working days catching up with him.
This was a surprise as he did not work on Wednesday, maybe all the extra sunshine and good food, just tipped him over the edge and tiredness caught up.

After work, he just went home and relaxed, nuked some food and watched NetFlix. He only managed 5000 steps but his legs are recovering from the hike combined with the attempted Jogging the other day.

Independence Day

MrGrumpy got up early and went out for a walk / jog, he did not manage to jog very far before his leg knotted up and he generally reverted to walking.

It was already looking like a nice hot day was to follow. Back in the street, people were busy setting up chairs and BBQs ready for the days events. The local community have a little parade with kids, dogs, cars, bikes and a couple of floats, obviously with quite a few stars and stripes.

MrGrumpy got to meet a few more of the locals, he met MrEngineCollector who had a workshop full of stationary engines / pumps and yard full of old carts. There was also Mr55Chevy who had a 55 Chevy and several motocycles in various states. MrAirCon was relaxing with a beer after working the BBQ and avoiding the water bomb fights that were going on.

DJ MrBoyBand wanted to buy an iDevice for a friend so MrGrumpy met up with him and gave him a lift to one of the local malls. While they were having a pint, emails were being exchanged between MrBombsAway and MrFullFatCoke trying to arrange a time we would meet up for a BBQ this evening.

After some confusion over what time they were all going to meet up, MrGrumpy collected DJ MrBoyBand and MrFullFatCoke the drove them over the the BBQ.

MrBombsAway and Mr7LtrVette were great hosts, after a beer they all went to look at the Corvette and various other vehicles in the garage. Mr7LtrVette took them all out for a "quick" little jaunt in the Corvette.
"Quick" was an understatement, with 0-60 in the 3.x seconds and a top speed of lots, all three of them came back grinning.

The steak that Mr7LtrVette expertly cooked in the BBQ was excellent, one of the best streaks MrGrumpy had eaten, most defiantly the best cooked on a BBQ (it was also about the size of a roast that he and LittleMissNaughty would normally have).

Pre Independence Day

MrGrumpy's mustang has now covered 163,000 miles, over 3000 since April. It will soon be due another oil change (@ 163500 ish).

This evening MrGrumpy is meeting up with MrCrazyRunner, they are planning on a going for a traditional English meal (Curry). Of cause this will mean MrGrumpy having to go out for a walk when he gets home (to keep within his daily food budget).

MrGrumpy & MrCrazyRunner met up and walked a block or so to the curry place, which was closed, they had arrived a few minutes early, so stood outside and chatted until they opened the doors.

The Curry was good, filling and not over spicy, the both had a bottle of Kingfisher and MrGrumpy went for a chicken dish with naan, MrCrazyRunner went with the vindaloo, rice and naan (so is that his secret to running fast).

It was a nice evening, chatting about stuff, drinking a beer and eating. At home MrGrumpy was down on his steps, so he needs to go for a walk round the block at least.

MrGrumpy and the Suspect Package

Unlike most mornings, today is cloudy, MrGrumpy expects by lunch time the cloud will be gone and normal sunny survice will be resumed.

MrGrumpy received a suspect package, he was not expecting any delivery and he found quite a large box when he went down to reception to collect it,  it was from LittleMissNaughty.  

Food Aid for MrGrumpy

Upon opening the package, he found an assortment of goodies, 2 x CD's, Camera and Car Mags, Cuddly toys, T-Shirts and English food... (6 x Cream Crackers, 2 x Digestives, 2 x Ginger Nuts, 3 x Massive bars of Dairy Milk to name just a few).  
Remembering them off the top of his head was like the conveyer belt from the generation game... (he is showing his age now)...
They are going to last a very long time, unless MrGrumpy has a relapse and starts eating nice stuff again. MrGrumpy dreads to think how much it cost to ship them over and is amazed that customs did not steal the diary milk or Top Gear magazine.

The world infamous DJ MrBoyBand is in town, so MrGrumpy is going to meet him for a diet coke before he heads off home.

MrGrumpy is short on his number of steps today, only 5000, but he did do 20 minutes in the gym (without the fitbit) so that should make up for it.

MrGrumpy met up with DJ MrBoyBand and MrFullFatCoke at their hotel, they had a drink and some food. MrGrumpy just had lentil soup and a pint of beer, with any luck he would still be within his daily budget.

You never can tell how a day is going to turn out.

MrGrumpy spent all morning sat on the sofa listening to Pandora, it was lunch time before he finally got off hit but and went to get the car washed (for $6 it is not worth doing it himself).

While getting the car washed (which did not take long), he was chatting to MrV8Challenger, who said there was a car show on today over at El Camino Real / Scott. When the car was cleaned MrGrumpy paid MrCarWash the 6$ and gave them a $3 tip. He tapped in the intersection into MrSatNav and headed over to see if he could find the car show. At the intersection there was no sign of any cars, not knowing which way to try, he pulled over to the side of the road and consulted MrGoogle, but could not find anything.

He carried on driving and as he was heading towards the east bay hill, why not find a park and go for a walk, he had only done about 300 steps today and that was 9700 short of his target. It was not long before he found a sign and followed it to the "Ed Levin county park", it cost him $6 to park, so he had to make the most of it.

He parked by the lake and intended to walk around the lake until he got his required number of steps, little did he know what he was just about to let himself in for. He walked across the end of the lake and there was a route leading up a little way, he followed it as he could get better photos of the lake from up there. Anyway to cut a very long and exhausting hiking story short, he followed the trail to the top on Monument Peak, about 5.8 miles and 2000+ foot elevation change. He was close to giving up at times, it was a good job he had a bottle of water and snack bars with him, otherwise he would not have made it. The full sun did not help, there is little shade and it was pretty warm.

He found later this hike described as "this trail is not for beginners or casual 'neighbourhood' walkers. It is somewhat steep and continually demanding." He really should do some research before taking on these challenges, but if he had then he would not have attempted this. The views and sense of achievement really made it worth wild. Even the walk back to the car was tricky at times, it was so steep he was surprised that he did not slip and slide down a several hundred feet on his butt.

Legs aching and pretty tired he headed home for a relaxing evening. On the way home he went to the local store to buy some essentials, oh how his shopping basket has changed...


After a disappointing weigh-in this morning he tried again, after all that hiking had he lost any weight, well yes, over 3.4lbs in 12 hours, a bonus for the effort he put into the hike.