Well, I was reading the newspaper on my iPad...

[Insert shocked sounds from you. You're thinking: "She's reading the newspaper?!?!"] well, yes. I do read it on occasion...like reading the headlines when I'm at Starbucks waiting for my drink (so, every day). But I also have USA Today on my iPad. I like USA Today because they have short articles on pretty much everything. It's just short enough for my attention span and in clear language so that I don't tune out because it's complicated or boring. So I like it, and I learned a few interesting things: 1) Starbucks has a new logo (there was a blog entry that was somewhat about this on the My Starbucks Idea blog, but I didn't really get that there was a new logo because the entry wasn't really fully clear on that) that doesn't have words. 2) Despite being a top-rated show, Idol stars don't really have much success (well, some have, but in recent years many have not become stars). Apparently, watchers don't necessarily go out and by the winner's CDs. 3) The consumer electronics conference is this week and Apple totally owns (which I know, as I read the news on my iPad, am writing this on my MacBook Pro next to my parent's iMac while charging my iPod and waiting impatiently for the iPhone to come to Verizon). There will be more tablets, a better version of 4G, and other miscellaneous things. Then I read this funny article: "Final Word: Getting juiced up over the old fitness routine" by Craig Wilson. Here's the article:

Like the rest of the world, I'm at the gym this week. But unlike the rest of the world, I'm at the gym every week, not just during these post-holiday-get-back-in-shape days of the new year.
I'm not bragging. Far from it. If you could see me, you'd be shocked that I go to the gym as often as I do.

What does he do, you'd ask? Hang out at the juice bar? Talk to the trainers? Sleep in the sauna?

I've been known to do all of those things, yes, but in fact I do actually venture into the workout area, too.

I even have a routine. Leg lifts. The elliptical machine. Water break. Free weights. Then I take my shower, get dressed and walk home.

I count the walk to and from the gym part of the routine. My only goal here is to get my heart pumping enough to remind myself that I have a heart.

Despite all this rigor, I have lost no weight in five years and have now concluded that the "middle" in middle age is the bulge around the waist.

It doesn't help that I still pretty much eat and drink what I want. (No need for the dietitians of the world to weigh in here, pun intended. I know that diet and exercise are to be done in tandem. I've just never tried it.)

Call me a gym rat but without a gym body. Sad thing is I still pay the same price as those guys who actually end up with six-pack abs and rock-hard butts.

It's probably more correct to refer to me as a gym tortoise.

This week I've been surrounded by hundreds of people I have never seen before, each running a mile a minute on the treadmill or climbing those stairs that take you nowhere.

Some even sweat, something I try to avoid.

Maybe they're trying to shed their holiday pounds. Maybe they're getting their bodies ready for the romance of Valentine's Day.

Maybe they'll still be here in July.

I doubt it. They're gym hares. They run, then burn out. We tortoises have seen them before and trudge on.

A new, young personal trainer came up to me the other day and asked if I wanted any New Year's tips on exercise and diet. He wanted to know if I was interested in putting together a new routine. He could work one up. How about looking over my diet, he suggested. I was a project, someone he might be able to whip into shape.

No thanks, I said.

I told him I'd been coming to the gym for years now, loved the place, and was actually quite happy with the way things were going.

"Really?" he asked, sizing me up once again.

"Really," I answered, heading to the juice bar.