TWO THINGS

—1) Back to the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA

I’m quietly blasting away on an elliptical, and the one next to me is out-of-service for repair.
Two Precor technicians are tending to it — all the cardiovascular machines are “Precor.”
Their drill is to replace the interface, the elaborate keypad ya use to program the thing.
The technician removes the interface, unplugs the green plastical printed circuit-boards, and installs the new interface. Then he mounts the elliptical to test it.
“Wait a minute!” he says. “How come I’m seeing ‘incline’ instead of ‘crossramp?’ Why am I seeing miles instead of steps?”
He looks at the model-number and says “this is the treadmill interface. This isn’t the elliptical interface.”
Sounds like one of them dreaded “human performance events,” which to me are much like “engineer muck-ups.”
The other techy looks and says “Sorry, Luke. There were four packages in the shop, and I grabbed the two on top.”
So not an engineer muck-up. It takes a bull-headed Git-R-Done engineer to disable two backup systems against company policy, and thereby bring down the entire Floridy power-grid.
DON’T TOUCH THE CONTROLS, JACK!

—2) In search of the elusive Colgate Luminous

After the YMCA I went to Tops to look for Ben & Fat Jerry chocolate ice-cream. Tops and Weggers are both in Canandaigua, but far apart. It’s either-or; they’re in different directions.
I could go to Tops because I had hit Weggers yesterday (Sunday, March 2, 2008).
So I wander all over in search of dental-stuff, since I don’t know the store.
I finally had to ask, despite my tendency to avoid conversation because of the likelihood of my speech-center going wonky — it has.
After two people I get directed to the dental display. 89 bazilyun kinds of Colgate toothpaste, but no “Luminous.”
Sorry, I don’t want something that bursts in my mouth, or confetti (???????? — how ya supposed to brush your teeth with a mouth full of confetti?).
But they did have Ben & Fat Jerry chocolate ice-cream.

MARCY, IT’S EVERYWHERE!

My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston (“Jack) was trained as an engineer, and noisily claims superiority. I majored in History, so am therefore vastly inferior. The power outage in Floridy was caused by a single engineer disabling two backup systems against company policy, to repair something. My brother, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, labeled it a “human performance event.” ‘Nuf said.

RE: “Don’t touch the controls, Jack!” —My brother-in-Boston is a manager at an electrical power generation station.

“Ben & Fat Jerry” is Ben & Jerry.

“Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua. A competing supermarket is Tops, a chain based in Buffalo. They also have a store in Canandaigua.

RE: “My speech-center going wonky......” —I had a stroke October 26, 1993. It slightly effected my speech, which sometimes locks and/or stutters.

“Marcy” is my number-one ne’er-do-well — she was the first I was e-mailing stuff to. Marcy and I worked in adjacent cubicles at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired. A picture of her is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-Do-Wells. Marcy married Bryan Mahoney (ex-reporter from the Messenger newspaper), and together they live near Boston. (Both Marcy and Mahoney keep blogs.) —Marcy asked me once where I got so much insane material.