Paul Ketchum

Author: Paul Ketchum

  • I Bought Some Kettlebells

    I Bought Some Kettlebells

    I bought a few kettlebells this weekend from Titan Fitness. The kettlebells that I purchased are “competition kettlebells”, whatever that means, I have never seen anyone compete with kettlebells. I guess “competition kettlebell” only means that they are all the same size regardless of their weight. I like them (although I don’t actually have them yet) because of the uniform size and because they have different colors to help identify their weights.

    Product Overview

    Competition Kettlebells are perfect for boosting strength, burning calories, and taking your workouts to the next level. They come in sizes ranging from 8 KG (18 LB) to 32 KG (70.5 LB) and are designed with a hollow core steel construction that keeps each kettlebell the same size, so you can focus on form as you progress. Each kettlebell in the set has consistent dimensions – 8.3″ in diameter, 11.4″ tall, and a 35mm handle width – making it easy to move up in weight without adjusting your grip or technique.

    To make it even easier to tell the difference, the kettlebells are color-coded and feature a laser-etched Titan logo along with clear weight markings in kilograms. The smooth polished, durable handle is wide-looped, and the kettlebell’s rounded shape with a flat, stable base ensures it won’t wobble during your exercises.

    Kettlebells are great for full-body workouts, helping you target multiple muscle groups at once. Whether you’re doing swings, deadlifts, squats, get-ups, snatches, or other moves, they’re perfect for strengthening muscles, improving balance, and boosting your core, all while providing just the right level of resistance for both upper and lower body exercises.

    So far I will have the 8kg (18lb), 14kg (30lb) and 16kg (35lb) kettlebells. I can’t wait for them to arrive! The picture at the top of this post is from the Titan Fitness website.

  • Two New Benches

    Two New Benches

    I recently purchased two new gym benches from Titan Fitness and they are both beasts! So far I’m really pleased with them, they are both built very solid. The flat bench arrived with a small scratch in it thanks to FedEx but it’s not the end of the world. Both the incline and flat bench are very well made and if the powder coating was a little better I would say they surpass Life Fitness in quality. Life Fitness is the brand Planet Fitness uses and their similar incline bench costs $1,800, paying $500 for the Titan Fitness incline bench was a no brainer.

    Our home gym will eventually be in our basement, which is being renovated at the moment. The photos here are from the Titan Fitness website and I’ll probably update them with my own once our basement is a little bit more presentable. One thing I really like about both benches is that they can be stood up one one end for out of the way storage.

  • Learning A New Language

    Learning A New Language

    Learning a new language when you are over 50 years-old seems impossible but it will not stop me from trying. I know I will never learn another language well enough to speak it fluently and have a conversation with someone but I might learn enough to understand some things that I read and hear.

    One of my hobbies is model railroading and the area of the world that I want my model railroad to emulate happens to be Germany. There is a lot of information online regarding German model railroads but most of it is in the German language. I think learning a little bit of the German language will help me greatly with constructing my model railroad and it will help one day when I travel (with my family) to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I am trying to learn German with the help of Duolingo.

    Some of the languages that I have tried learning in the past include Spanish (one of the very few other languages that they teach in American schools), Russian, Italian and Romanian. Of the languages that I mentioned, the language that I was most serious about learning was Romanian. Learning Romanian seemed like a good idea since Adriana (my wife) is from Romania, I have visited the country many times and I once had the idea of one day retiring in the country.

    There is one problem with trying to learn to speak Romanian, it is an incredibly difficult language to learn, maybe the most difficult. I have learned a fair amount of Romanian words but to pronounce and use them correctly in a sentence will never happen.

    So far learning German seems a little bit easier than the other languages. I think trying to learn a new language is good for the brain so hopefully I will keep at it for a while.

    Before posting this I had Adriana proofread it, she speaks Romanian (her native language), English, Italian and French fluently.

  • Getting Healthy

    Getting Healthy

    While leaving work on a Friday in December of 2024, I slipped on some ice and hit the back of my head on the ground. I don’t remember if I blacked out or not but I do remember getting up quickly and putting my hand on the back of my head and finding blood. I grabbed some paper towels from my companies restroom and drove myself home without telling anyone at work that I had fallen.

    I called Adriana on my way home and told her that I had fallen and hit my head and that it was bleeding. When I got home Adriana tried cleaning up the wound but said it was bad and I would probably need stitches and insisted that I go to the hospital.

    They cleaned my wound at the hospital, put a large bandage on it and sent me home. I wasn’t given a CT scan, which should should have been done.

    By the following Monday I was back to work and everything was fine. In mid to late February of 2025 I caught the flu and called off of work on a Thursday. The flu was the worst I ever had, it was much worse than Covid, it gave me bad sinus congestion and it was the first time in my life that I ever experienced migraine headaches.

    On the Friday after calling off of work (on the previous Thursday) I was still at home with the flu and while I was at home I put my right hand on a table and immediately felt numbness in my hand and I thought I had pinched a nerve.

    The numbness in my hand lasted through the weekend so on Monday I called my family doctor and went to see him. My family doctor told me to take baby aspirin, which was a mistake and sent me back to the hospital for a CT scan.

    They gave me a CT scan at the hospital and found blood on my brain. The doctor at the hospital in my hometown sent me to UpState Hospital in Syracuse, NY which has a neurology department for “observation”. UpState Hospital in Syracuse, NY is a giant shit hole and should be avoided unless you’re close to death and even then you probably don’t want to go there.

    I was off a total of 7 days from work and the numbness I felt in my right hand and arm eventually went away. This experience and a planned trip to California sent me on a journey to get healthier. At the time this was going on my weight would fluctuate between 187 and 192 pounds, which was way too much for someone who 56 years-old and 5 foot 9 inches tall.

    I started exercising (we eventually joined Planet Fitness) and I started watching my calorie intake. I installed the Yuka app on my phone and gave up eating junk food (for me, this is any food that scores below 50 on the app).

    I was able to get my blood pressure and cholesterol levels down to where I no longer need to take medication for them and my weight fluctuates between 165 and 170 pounds now, it was between 160 and 165 pounds but I haven’t been as strict with my diet lately, I’m working on getting it back down.