Passing the time..........

.....on the treadmill at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
Last Wednesday (June 13, 2007) I found myself on a treadmill next to an obvious college-girl.
She was paging madly through one of those dreaded 8&1/2 by 11 college-physics workbooks, the kind that’s all schemetical-diagrams and problems to solve.
The Canandaigua YMCA has five treadmills lined up side-by-side, among at least 22 cardio-machines in the exercise-gym: six bicycles (two of which are recumbent), six ellipticals, one rowing-machine, and at least four stair-machines.
And that’s just the exercise-gym. There are three more treadmills and three ellipticals in a small separate cardio-room.
The treadmills are state-of-the-art; upgrades installed last fall (we joined last March). They monitor heart-rate — the treadmill at the Physical-Therapy gym didn’t.
All five treadmills face the main-drag out front, so you can monitor the goings-on outside.
Amazon-lady ambles by, fresh and sweaty from her daily run; snarling at passersby.
People walk by with dogs and baby-strollers, many dragging slowly on cigarettes.
A bemedaled vet roars by in his motorized wheelchair, tiny Old Glories flapping gallantly in the breeze. (“What that things needs is a 350-Chevy!”)
Gigantical pickups trailering 89 bazilyun tangled zero-turns cruise by, headed for a lawn.
Giant semis roll by, and dump-trucks on the Johnny-Brake (“illegal in 50 states”).
How anyone could glean anything from a hurriedly-flipped workbook I’ll never know. (Must be because I majored in History.)
She could just as well been reading Cosmo, a magazine frequently glanced at (and tossed onto the floor) on the cardio-machines.
I do 36 minutes — no reading whatsoever — just watch the frenzied parade out front.
Part of my entertainment is to see if traffic stops for pedestrians occupying crosswalks.
Canandaigua has instituted the new New York State law whereby motor-vehicles are supposed to stop for pedestrians in conflicting crosswalks.
There is a crosswalk across the main-drag right in front of the YMCA, so I get to watch from my treadmill to see if traffic observes the law.
That crosswalk is heavily marked, but doesn’t have the tiny yellow “Yield-to-Pedestrians” cones the other crosswalks have.
Pedestrians approach with great fear and angst, looking carefully before they set out.
Granny zooms by in her white Park-Avenue, utterly oblivious to all-and-sundry (“Gotta make Bingo”).
Angry Intimidators in gigantic black Hummers blast through, giving the finger to anyone in their way.
Sometimes traffic stops as pedestrians saunter gingerly across.
So far, I’ve seen no accidents, but that’s because the pedestrians are wary.

I first began to get back in shape at a Physical-Therapy gym in Canandaigua — about a year. They had quite a bit of cardio-equipment, but I got thrown out for inadvertently outing a patient. After which we joined the Canandaigua YMCA.

Amazon-lady.

A zero-turn (this is a picture of my Husky zero-turn [48-inch cut, 18 horsepower Briggs V-twin], although it’s small) is a riding-lawnmower with two separate hydrostatic transmissions, one for each drive-wheel. One tranny can be reversed, so that the thing can be spun on a dime. A zero-turn doesn’t have to be navigated all over the lawn — it’s cut/spin/cut/spin/cut/spin/cut/spin. Compared to a non-zero-turn it can cut mowing time in half: due to no navigating. Most mowing services have switched to zero-turns, and I have one myself: although it’s a “residential” mower, not “commercial;” which cost way too much. There is a learning-curve. I’ve taken it into the ditch once. It wasn’t easy to extract.

RE: “The Johnny-Brake......” Large trucks often have a way of converting the motor into an air-compressor, to help slow the truck dynamically (beside the wheel-brakes). Quite often towns prohibit the use of Johnny-Brakes.