Tarkblog

Here’s a brief layout of the cardio area of the gym (it’s actually bigger, but I’m only highlighting the areas of interest).

E# are elliptical machines, while TM are treadmills.

The small rotated rectangle at the bottom is a big rotating industrial fan.

Okay, now for the story.

I like doing the elliptical machines. I go for an hour, level 14, and usually burn around 1000 calories. I read while I’m on them, usually Businessweek. If I’ve exhausted my BW, then I’ll read Time, Newsweek or something else. Sometimes I’ll also watch shows I’ve downloaded from the Tivo and burned onto the iPod. But usually it’s just reading.

When I get there in the mornings (5:15 or so), there is usually an old guy that has already beat me there. He likes using the treadmills toward the top of the picture. Specifically, the 2nd one over. He also like the fan to be blowing on him, so it turns it on to oscillate and it blows really really hard.

As you can imagine, this wreaks havoc with the people on the EMs. Most of them don’t like gale force winds hitting them from behind while working out. I personally REALLY don’t like it because it makes whatever magazine I’m reading flip pages. That’s really annoying.

I usually have the luxury of being there early, and I like to grab EM6 since it’s out of the line of fire of the fan. Barring that, I’ll go for EM1 as I can usually find a way to rig the fan to not blow on me, or at least not very hard.

This morning both EM1 and EM6 had people on them. I had to decide between 2 and 5, and based on today’s fan positioning 5 wasn’t in the line of fire. So I got on it. And no fan problems.

That is, until about 45 minutes into it when a older lady, whom I’ve given a nickname that isn’t repeatable among mixed company, came in. This lady like to get on the EMs for a few minutes, but she doesn’t like the fan blowing on her. So, she just rotates the fan so it’s not blowing on her, and instead blowing on everyone else.

She did this to me two days in a row once. I was pissed, because then I have to stop, get off, and find a new way to rig the fan. Usually I just turn it off, because by that time the old guy who turned it on in the first place is almost done with his workouts.

On the third time she did this to me, I got off and went over to her machine and nicely asked her to NOT turn the fan on me. I explained how it made the magazine pages blow all over the place, and the fact that I didn’t like it any more than she did. I told her to simply turn the fan off, and all would be well in the world.

This morning, she rotated back on me again. And again I had to get off, and turn the fan off. Adding to my ire was the the fact that I didn’t get the fan turned off the first time (apparently you have to pull the chain 3 times), so I had to get off again and do one more chain yank to get it off.

I was livid. I only had about 15 minutes left to workout. She only is on the machine for 5-6 minutes before leaving and doing something else. And she doesn’t have the courtesy to just turn the fan off.

I’ve helped this lady before when she couldn’t figure out how to work a machine, and I’ve helped her lift some weights onto some equipment in the weightlifting area. And she repays me this way.

Next time, I’m just going to wheel the fan over to her machine and turn it directly on her. Then I’m going to yell a big profanity directly into her face and possibly prank her in the face with a fist.

Okay, none of that is going to really happen, but it felt good to write it out.

Damn you old lady. You really make my day start off with a bad note.

I work in the basement. In the basement the bathrooms are different from the rest of the building. There are two bathrooms, men’s and women’s; one door, one toilet, one sink. All of the other bathrooms in the building have multiple stalls. When the bathrooms are not in use the door is open. Due to the uniqueness of the bathroom, there are a few individuals that visit the bathroom. Do they think they are being sneaky by dropping by the basement bathrooms?