Tampa Taxi Shots

Louis Baltz and Ken Snell of All American Gym I found this photo today of Louis Baltz and Ken Snell on a Lakeland Ledger post about the iconic gym. It really blew my mind. I began working out with weights at the All American Gym in 1980. In fact, I remember working out there the day after John Lennon was murdered (that will show you how old I am). I remember the gym well. It was a "dungeon gym." You know, the kind of place where Arnold and Franco would workout at. Even today, this style is still preferred to serious bodybuilders and power lifters. The reason is the "big five" are promoted here - the squat, the deadlift, the bench press, the military press, and the barbell row. Its as simple as that folks. If you want to get big and strong, you have to lift big and strong. Its hard to find places like this to work out at nowadays because the commercial gyms must cater to the masses and they have too many rules about deadlifting, working o...

Tampa Bay on New Years day sunrise 2017 Have you ever felt defeated? Have you ever felt like you're life has stalled out? Have you ever felt like giving up? I have. The last ten years of  the taxi business have just about done me in. It has been miserable with a bad economy that was near a depression and it took everything I could do to just survive. I made no money. In short, I suffered badly. (I will not mention Tampa taxi politics. The companies did what they had to do to survive. Their actions were not often in my best interest.) My only hope was that the economy would get better. It began to. And as it did, Uber came along. That was the death kneel. Talk about timing. For ten years my life has been in purgatory and I almost died. The stress and the bad food left me with chronic heart failure. My weight had climbed to 295lbs (I am 5'8"). My blood pressure was 210/150. By rights, I should not be alive. The doctor sent me to the emergency room. He later t...

#TampaBay #Buccaneers will give #DallasCowboys a fight Sunday. They will at least beat the spread. This tweet is #bigboobs model aproved. pic.twitter.com/6vm5SETl9a — The Howling Hack (@CigarCityCabbie) December 15, 2016

My new battle ropes In April 2015, I lay in an emergency room at 298 lbs with a blood pressure of 222/165. They thought it was over. So did I. I could not have felt worse..dizzy, passing out, ringing jack hammer sound in my ears. Years of sedentary lifestyle, and bad food, had caught up with me. Luckily, I made it thru the day and decided to do something about it. I started swimming for exercise and a year later competed in a Masters swim meet. My weight was going down but I still needed to do something else. I then started a weight training and HITT cardio program. I started keeping a tracker on my phone on June 30 2016 and you can see the progress. I am down 24 lbs (probably 30 lbs in fat because I have gained muscle size) I am feeling better but I still have a long way to go. I love all the exercise toys and today I got a new one...battleropes!!! (The guy in the photo is not me). But, give me some time and I will get there - even being over 60. I got them today and when I got ho...

Getting into shape For years on Facebook and YouTube, I was called "Fatsano" because I was overweight. I really did get tired of hearing it. So, for the last year I have been doing weights and cardio 3 days a week, and swimming two miles 3 days a week. It is working for the good. To my haters..What's my ass taste like now!?