January 24, 2026
Well, it’s been a while since posting. I have been traveling extensively, enjoying an awesome Holiday Cruise offered by the Italian Cruise line, MSC. After hearing mixed reviews for MSC, we came away with a very favorable impression. The standard rooms were generously sized, and the upgrade to an unobstructed balcony was not that expensive. The food was good, and the Italian food, four different pizza types typically at any time, and all the different pastas, were awesome. A vegan and or vegetarian option appeared on the menu every day, and the buffets offered similar options. MSC’s island in the Bahamas I found delightful, and the walk from the boat was extremely short !!!!!
On the other hand, the magic show was kind of meh. But the comedian was pretty funny, although many in the audience were not catching on to the subtle humor. And exiting the ship with your own bags to get an early start was a mistake. Next time, I will wait until near the end and let the ship’s crew take the bags down.
Immediately after the cruise, we flew off to Washington State to be with my two daughters, one who flew in from London. That was an awesome two weeks, and now I am back.
What I did take away from all this travel and fun, which is unusual for me, was the difficulty in maintaining my supplements. I took my morning pills, but skipped the Morning Routine mixture. So be it. Now that I am home, I expect to return to it.
One health-focused positive thing I took away from the Washington State trip involved learning to use an under-the-desk exercise machine. My daughter had two different types, and I was able to try both of them. One was clearly superior to the other, and low and behold, when I came back one, my daughter sent me that version for use here. It’s amazing and all I hoped for so far !!!! For you see, my arms, shoulders and upper body are in excellent shape, which I believe is owing to the 3 to 4 hours or more of video games I play on the desktop or laptop computer. (I am a League of Legends nut) Hour after hour of micro-manipulating both a keyboard and a mouse has helped me maintain my upper body.
I have often thought that if I had leg exercises of longish duration like my game playing, that my lower body would respond to it positively enough now for the next winter’s plan trip to Whiteface Mountain for skiing.
I have had this machine now for 4 days at home, and I have been using it while game playing as well as when I teach High School Math remotely. That added up to 6 hours a day, and I have logged 24 hours already with this machine. My legs are responding. That level of exercise is also good for PCa reduction and so I hope to keep it going. This particular machine operates in two extreme modes, feet forward, or feet back. It’s a bit of cross training since the leg motion is different between the two. And changing the resistance has been great. I started on level 2, and have already moved to level 3. When I stand up after an hour or two of pedaling, my legs are wobbly with apparent exhaustion that remain undetected while I was using it.
Most importantly, when I went shopping with my wife for Snow Storm provisioning, I hopped out of the car and my legs felt great throughout the shopping experience. Sometimes I have been prone to wanting to just wait in the car because my legs would give out sooner or later during the shopping.
Can this machine bring me back to four years ago when I took Whiteface Mountain by storm? Stay Tuned !!!!
Great Science to Everyone !
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