Stunning location and amazing view of the Golden Gate bridge.

... from my puppy pet training!

Pic from The Palazzo Las Vegas, it was installed to ring in the Chinese New Year, happy year of the dragon!

Taken at Venetian Resort & Casino

Since I started working out at home I realized how convenient it could be to exercise whenever you want and the way you want. It does not substitue to my fitness club membership regarding social relationship, but it's a good complement to keep me on track even on busy week and weekend.

Thanks to the Californian weather, cars can sleep in the driveway and garage can be use for more usefull things: Building computers in garage has already been done many times :-) so I decided to think different and build a gym. Here is how I did it:

1. The easy part: Cleaning out he garage and taking down shelves and wall cabinets
2. The engineering part: Adding structural beams and building attic ceiling with plywood floor, aluminium stair and a mounted stub pull-up bar
3. The geek part: Connecting cables for electricity and audio 
4. The hard part: Insulating walls with fiber glass and adding drywall and wall wood panels (the drywall lift was required for the ceiling) 
5. The painfull part: Finishing the room, sand and paint the ceiling, walls and floor 
6. The enthusiastic part: Connecting recessed lightning, ceiling in-speakers and amplifier, mounting glassless mirror, white board and bike hanger, etc.

I also insulated the garage door, I tried with a garage insulation kit but it was not working well with our type of door so I brought it back and simply used insulation foam sheets, clean, easy to cut and put in place.

This project was a workout by itself and thanks to my dad Daniel aka site foreman, 3 weeks and ˜25 trips to Home Depot after, we were able to move in our fitness equipements and start to exercice :-)

I took these shots from a Ferry arriving from Sausalito, so no way to use a long exposure or even be really stabilized, those kind of pictures taken from Alcatraz Island should be amazing! An Alcatraz night tour might be the right opportunity.

 

The One World Trade Center building under construction, I wished I had enought time to visit the 9/11 Memorial, I'll go there next time

The Empire State building from the corner of 34th Street and 9th Avenue, home of B&H Photo

Quick iPhone snap from Time Square while going to New Jersey.