closed

The vaunted Canandaigua YMCA is closed all this week (September 3-9) for “maintenance;” whatever that means.
The exercise-gym is being expanded and reconfigured. I work out in company with slamming jack-hammers and flashing cutting-arcs.
Cinder-block (concrete-block, cement-block; WHATEVER) and brick walls get hammered out, and massive steel I-beams get removed. Adjustable screw-jacks are holding up the roof-trusses.
Well, no impediments yet, although some creaky old geezer was querying the receptionist about where he could get an “I survived the YMCA-reconstruction” T-shirt.
....Threading burly he-man construction-workers in grungy reversed hard-hats dripping with sweat; myself in only a railroad T-shirt and (dread) bootie-shorts. —And a Forrest Gump memorial sweatband, for crying out loud.
I get the feeling the construction guys will go into Extreme Home Makeover mode this week, and trot in the blue-helmeted minions wielding crowbars.
Maybe not. They seem pretty decent — getting out of our way; avoiding being pompous engineer prima-donnas.
A building-supply truck came the other day and unloaded a passel of cinder-block (concrete-block, cement-block; WHATEVER).
Contrary to standard engineering practice, it was not unloaded into the stratosphere (must have been the ISP).
Masons are building a new block wall that extends the exercise-gym toward the street.
It’ll mean demolishing the old wall — bring in the blue-helmeted minions; or perhaps the Blue Angels could drop the Big One.
We could watch a ‘pyooter-monitor in our giant 2 mpg stretch Hummer as the old wall is destroyed. Amazon-Lady in a blue helmet!
The Y not being open all week frees up about 4-4.5 hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — 12+ hours total.
It means at long last I can probably road-test a Suzuki SX-4 on the interstate, as I’ve wanted to do for months — and finally begin to move on an SX-4 if it passes muster.
Other errands are our visit to Verizon and buying a shredder. We have to return something to Sears, and Sears is near the Verizon and shredder stores.
There also is our old VCR to contribute to charity. It was replaced by our combination DVD/VCR, and it still works.
But as usual there is mucho lawn to mow; and that’s what I’ll probably do today (Monday, September 3, 2007, Labor-Day).

RE: “railroad T-shirt....” Since I am a railfan, many of my T-shirts have railroad emblems printed on them.

RE: “(dread) bootie-shorts........” I was loudly excoriated for wearing running-shorts (so-called “bootie-shorts”) when I work out or run. Apparently today’s modern youth wear “baggies” that droop down over the knees, and running-shorts are way uncool.

RE: “Forrest Gump memorial sweatband.....” My brother-in-Delaware poo-poos sweatbands as uncool, so suggested a source for sweatbands was www.forrestgumprunningapparal.com, an invalid link.

RE: “pompous engineer prima-donnas.....” My macho blowhard brother-in-Boston was trained as an engineer, and noisily claims engineers have superior intelligence — like him.

RE: “Contrary to standard engineering practice, it was not unloaded into the stratosphere (must have been the ISP).......” My loudmouthed brother-in-Boston noisily claimed intellectual superiority because he pumped concrete over his house for a garage-slab. He also tried to get wireless Internet to his laptop while he visited here, and since it was erratic he noisily blamed my Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). —My Internet is not erratic.

Amazon-Lady is a muscle-bound YMCA employee — a man-eating character; although nice.