Hurry up and catch up!

A wise man once told me, "you can't play catch up on the back end." Only now, as I sit upon the new stairs of Gymfinity overlooking the huge task before me, do I fully understand what he meant. Trying to build a dance studio, while simultaneously setting up a gymnastics facility has proven to be a daunting task. I still feel up for the challenge but I am certain I have set things up to be tough.
As I look out at our large dance floor area I can see piles of gym equipment, office supplies, and garbage that I wish I had taken the initiative to move out weeks ago.
Don't get me wrong, I've been working hard, and accomplished quite a bit during the last few weeks. Yet I can see in my minds eye where I fell into the trap of stopping short, cutting corners, or at the least not thinking ahead.
Stephen Covey says, "begin with the end in mind", I hope everyone keeps this in mind when undergoing projects of their own. I also hope everyone remembers that if you don't feel like doing as Mr. Covey says, remember what Mr. Biggs says, "you can't catch up on the back end."

"Gymfinity Gymnastics, where fitness and fun are number 1!" www.gymfinitygymnastics.com www.gymfinityjerod.blogspot.com

getting close....

Thanks to everyone who has helped Gymfinity Gymnastics get this far. The gym portion is in the homestretch and I'll be working on the dance studios this weekend, pics to follow!

bar pit continued....

Assemble inner walls


Joist and brace

Hey lets build a bar pit

Above ground bar pit assembly.
1. get a big pile of wood, (make sure the guy who delivers it drops it in the right place, or you'll have to move every stick of it).




2. Layout the wood in the desired shape.
4. Assemble walls

Let there be light

A lot of work got done today and things seem to be really coming together. Check out these pics:Gymfinity Gymnastics, livermore's shining light in the world of youth sports

Or at least a shining light in the bathroom and hallway of a building in south vasco. : )
Seriously though a lot got done today that I didn't get pics of. The handrails on the stairs were installed; all the lights and outlets; partitions in the bathrooms; doors were cased. Plumbers weren't there so no toilets yet but they said they would get them in tomorrow.

Work for tommorrow for any volunteers, we will be setting up some more equipment and moving a lot of stuff around tommorrow so anyone interested can come by between 4 and 7pm to lend a hand. NO CHILDREN NO CHILDREN NO CHILDREN........ it is still a construction site so appropriate footwear and mindset is a prerequisite.

Dude, that's heavy

If you can't read it is says 2.5 tons. That's 5000lbs. That is the weight of all the garbage, scrap metal, lumber, and busted concrete I loaded into a trailer and hauled to the dump, and let me tell you it was heavy. It took all day to load but if it isn't done we don't get a bar pit so that's how its gotta be.

Practice updates for girls and gym set up

OK first off lets get up to speed on practice for next week so that everyone is clear on the situation. The situation is that the city has come to our aide again and is going to send out the building inspector just as soon as the plumbing and electrical is in place to give us our final inspection. The problem is that the plumbers that were scheduled to start on Friday could not come out because the bathroom flooring wouldn't have been dry enough yet. So this has bumped back every other contractors schedule in turn, and thus bumped our final inspection to Wednesday. So now we are going to have to cancel practice until the inspectors come. On top of that we cannot work out at CGA or Marie's gym because of the switch to afternoon schedule. So the schedule for the rest of the week is as follows:

Mon. Tues. Wed.: cancelled
Thurs. Fri.: Lvl 4: 4=7pm
Lvl 5: 4-7:30pm
Lvl 6 and above: 4-8pm

Sat.: Lvl 4: 9-12pm
Lvl 5 and above: 9-1pm
Dance is also going to have to change their schedules, and should get an update from Crissy or Rochelle. Just remember everyone, we have already done the impossible in getting this far this fast. I know no one wants to deal with switched schedules especially with school starting but to ease the pain I'll include some pics of the new gym I took today;
Doors installed, small dance room painted:

Gymnastics area partially assembled:


That's the view from the mezzanine

In the homestretch!

Sorry everyone it has been quite a while since I updated everyone. I'm also sorry that I haven't got any pics to post today. Well here's the latest and greatest. The gym has been painted; doors have been hung; flooring in the bathrooms, break room, and janitors closet; windows in the lower waiting room, and it all looks great!
We have managed to get to this point in just over a month of construction. To say this is crazy or impressive would be a massive understatement. If it had not been for all the help we've received from the city and contractors we would still be playing phone tag with the city with no build out, no dance studio, a big wall in the middle of all of it.
Next week the bathrooms will be finished up, the carpet installed, the dance floors installed, and if all goes according to plan the final inspection will happen by Wednesday. A few more days and we'll all be dancing and tumbling and our silly little heads off.
Keep yours eyes out for help requests that i'll send out.

goodbye courtney

Well today we said goodbye to a great coach. She will be missed a great deal by parents, students, and Juli and I. Courtney was reliable, respectful and had a great attitude. We wish her nothing but the best at Sonoma State and hope she comes back to visit us.

Bye bye Courtney

Ready for paint and a logo

"Gymfinity Gymnastics, where fitness and fun are number 1!" www.gymfinitygymnastics.com www.gymfinityjerod.blogspot.com

Walls textured, taped, and ready to paint.

"Gymfinity Gymnastics, where fitness and fun are number 1!" www.gymfinitygymnastics.com www.gymfinityjerod.blogspot.com

Please guys no visitors at the gym.

Sorry everybody the gym is not open to visitors right now it's extremely important that we observe this. The gym is super dangerous to be in, and yours and your child's safety our at risk. I'll take some pics to update everybody. Thank you guys

Saying goodbye to Courtney tomorrow at 11:30

We"ll be saying farewell to one of our favorite staff members so come on out to the acro gym off of preston tomorrow to wish her good luck, and relay her any last minute college advice.

Video Bar

I recently updated the video bar on the side of the blog to only show gymfinity tv videos, so if you haven't seen the videos on you tube you can check them out right here.

Ha ha, suck it China!

And congratulations to Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson on their gold and silver medals in the all around finals. It is great to see the fruits of two lifetimes of hard work and dedication. Nastia finally showed us her full potential last night and it was amazing. At almost every event the last year she has bombed on one event or another and just missed beating shawn. Well last night she was running on all cylinders and by the end of the day had a 6 tenths lead on the rest of the pack. Today was a great day for the USA and USA gymnastics so enjoy it and lets continue to support our team for the individual event finals. And then London...........

Keep checking gymfinity tv

Gymfinity tv has several new videos up on youtube, check'em out!

Now it feels real

I've got some really exciting pics of the gym construction. It is wild walking in and not being able to see through everything. It certainly makes the front entryway seem a bit tighter but oddly enough it's not in a bad way. The second story storage area actually looks rather striking shooting twenty feet in the air with the dance floor on the other side. Tomorrow starts the tape, texture, sanding of the drywall. Expect to see paint get thrown on real quick. Check out these pics.

Crazy Olympics

Phelps sets records every time he entered the water, the men's gymnastics team gets the bronze, girls gymnasts get the silver.
Just reading that it sounds like we did great so far, but I fear that all anyone in the gymnastics community will remember was Alicia Sacramone's performance this evening. This really stinks since Alicia is easily my favorite gymnast on the team. And even though the Chinese would have more than likely won the gold simply based on a superior performance, the loss of the gold will rest on Alicia's shoulders alone in the eyes of the general public. This is the USA after all and it seems at times that the only thing we like more than a winner is a someone to blame.
I certainly hope that we all can take a look at how great all of the American competitors have done and lend them our support during the rest of the Olympics, and maybe send out your thoughts or prayers to the Alicia and the rest of the girls who still get to perform later this week in individual events.

Who knew building a gym was so exciting.

So you wanna know what I got to see for the last 10 hours......That's me with the scissor lift raised a little more than 20 feet in the air with me balancing on top of the handrails, staring down at a cement floor. Why would I spend all day doing this you ask.
Can you see the black video wire that ran all over the gym, it's right there zip tied to the conduit. Come on there's over 300 ft of it...... of course you can't see it, I spent all day doing everything I could to make sure you never do. But now it's done and all we have to do is plug the cameras in.

Sorry, lots of new posts!

Just wanted to let y'all know Juli posted a new video to youtube so go check it out now. OK so check it out. No go do it now, stop procrastinating.

Goodbye Corina

I wanted to wish Corina and her family all the best today. She has decided to move on to bigger and better things and we will miss her and her parents, who were always a big help at both the meets and at the gym.

When I heard that she was going to be leaving I had something of an epiphany. Just the wording that I used when I thought about it, "she would be leaving." There are a couple of ways that people that leave the gym, each one brings about its' own set of reactions.
Something I wasn't expecting when my wife tricked me into buying the gym, that I would develop the kinds of relationships that we have with the students and their families. You end up spending hours every week with these people in a positive environment and you can't help but to end up as some kind of crazy dysfunctional family.

Inevitably though people leave, for one reason or another all of our students leave us eventually. And it seems to be in one of two ways. The circumstances are always different but it seems to come down to two things; they either quit, or they leave.

There are times when a student or a client is not satisfied with what Juli and I offer at Gymfinity, and that's fine. We don't cater to everyone, we offer a place that fits us and our beliefs and if you don't hold those same beliefs to certain extent eventually you or your child will quit. These tend to be cold, sometimes very unpleasant events. But we understand and if a person isn't happy we'd rather they go where they're happy. The other situation is where a student leaves. These are simply the opposite, where a student and their family say goodbye. These are actually harder in a way because these people you wish wouldn't leave.

Regardless we are glad to have everyone that we still have and look forward to a future with you and we will just have to learn to deal with it when it comes time for you to leave.

Thanks to everyone

Thanks to everyone who came out to the parents meeting last week. We will have info on the silhouettes next week, and I'll send it out in an email. We like the attitudes of everyone who attended, juli and I were very pleased. I hope to be able to personally be more active this year and look forward to working with everyone.

Parents meeting

We look forward to seeing everybody at the gymnastics parents meeting tomorrow. Lets keep this one parents only as the gym right now is not a gym, it's a construction site. We just don't want little ones running around when the place is not set up only to get hurt. Thanks everybody, see you there.

So you think you can dance????

No this isn't a promo spot for the dance competition on fox, but a shout out to the girls of Gymfinity's dance program The Dance Studio. We look forward to welcoming these new students and their parents into the Gymfinity family. We're getting the new dance floors put together, the mirrors have been ordered and weve got a geek squad member help us track down the best stereo equipment for our two dance floors. Good luck at tryouts this week everyone and welcome.

Whoa the poll closed!

I didn't even notice that we'd passed the deadline for the poll on the new Gymfinity slogan.
And the winner is.................................

GYMFINITY GYMNASTICS

Where the possibilities are infinite!

Thanks to all that voted and to those of you who didn't, well no complaining you had your chance.

Oh, I also found it interesting that the saying that I put up as a joke ended up in second. I don't think putting out fliers that read "Bring your kids here and pay us tuition!" would bring in the customers.

Because gym memberships are expensive.

That's right an intelligent few of us have taken advantage of all of the times I've offered to let everyone help move equipment. Now those people can avoid the expense of costly gym memberships, and they get to help the new gym get finished faster, wow aren't they lucky.

Seriously though, we did have to move a ton of the equipment again and I would like to thank my brother, Glenn, Doug, Dave, Sean, John, and everyone else who has shown up to help over the past few weeks. Sorry if you weren't mentioned but I write these things at 1am.

Regardless here is a quick pic of the fruits of our labor.
I know it's awe inspiring, isn't it.

Looking "cool"

the sweet cooling set up by the worlds greatest heating and air company Signal. The things I'm most pleased with would have to be the big heating system that went up today, as well as the A/C over the mezzanine. The heater is the big unit that we all sat and stared at this last winter, it now resides over 20ft in the air ready to blow warm goodness all over the gym. The A/C over the mezzanine is a trick setup with ducting that runs over the top of it and will, at our command, dump cool air over the sweating masses. I can feel the year round 73 degree temps already.

Oh and let's not forget the 10 wall mounted fans that will be mounted next week. No more of Jerod having to lug around a 100lbs fan from event to event.

Other gyms will tremble before our mighty climate control system! Bwa Ha Ha Ha