I ain’t switchin’!

—Canandaigua’s YMCA has at least three entrances, maybe four.
My use of that YMCA goes back to before my wife died, and that was nine years ago.
Back then was before that YMCA expanded into a large abandoned Post-Office facility next-door.
So my wife and I probably used what used to be the main entrance then, the one facing out front.
That entrance was since converted into a semi-locked fire-exit.
Out back is the rear entrance. It’s locked but would unlock with your YMCA key-tag.
There also is parking back there, so I switched to out back. When or how I don’t remember.
Then I was advised to switch to aquatic balance-training in that YMCA’s swimming-pool.
I previously worked out in their exercise-gym — their so-called “Wellness-Center.” It has exercise machines and weight training.
With expansion into that abandoned Post-Office facility, that YMCA gained a new main entrance and lobby. It’s adjacent to a new swimming-pool.
A previous swimming-pool was retired and abandoned. The new pool is in a different location.
That new main entrance is on a side-street. It has a giant staircase I call “Jacob’s-Ladder.”
I used to be able to climb that staircase two steps at a time, but no longer. I still can climb it one step at a time. I’m not using the adjacent geezer-ramp yet.
With COVID-19, the rear entrance was decommissioned. In fact the entire YMCA was closed for months.
It reopened in August (I think), but per COVID-19 you hafta sign-up in advance to attend, then members check in with a temperature-check in the lobby.
The rear entrance could only be used if you called the lobby on your phone. Someone would come and let you in.
Use of that YMCA is way down. Prior to COVID-19 we averaged 20-25 per class in aquatic balance-training.
Now we’re down to three or four for one 45-minute class per week. It used to be two classes per week.
As more people get vaccinated against COVID-19, protocols at that YMCA are being eased. I still sign up for that swimming-pool in advance.
That YMCA will go back to key-tag checkin, although they’ll still wanna take your temperature.
Supposedly key-tag checkin will enable YMCA members to go back to using that back door. Which means I could go back to using that rear parking-lot and rear door.
But I don’t know that I wanna.
I’ve gotten used to using “Jacob’s-Ladder,” and parking my car out front.
By doing so I see if my lifeguard friend’s car is in the parking-lot. If it is:“GOODIE! She’s here, and I LIKE IT! We can talk!”
70 years late I’m talking to a female. (“Gasp!) And not only that, she’s an attractive female. (“Double-gasp!”)
“No pretty female will ever talk to you, Bobby! You are disgusting and Of-the-Devil!”
I ain’t switchin’!

• The story of Jacob’s Ladder refers to the vivid, prophetic dream in which Jacob sees a ladder stretching from Heaven to earth. The dream not only represented the connection between God and man; it also affirmed Jacob as the father of God’s chosen people, the Israelites. (Genesis 28:12, King James Version).
• My wife told me she once heard a Bible-beater tell her: “If the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me!”

“Feeble” versus “not feeble”

“Here I am again,” I say to lifeguards at the Canandaigua YMCA pool.
“Another feeble attempt to stave off aging.
I know I’m not supposed to say ‘feeble,’ but as long as I stagger in that pool, I feel my attempts are ‘feeble.’”
For perhaps the past six months I have been doing aquatic therapy in the Canandaigua YMCA pool, attempting to improve my balance, which is dreadful.
I had a stroke 24 years ago, and have been unable to balance on one foot since. I also can’t do the closed-eye model-walk with hands out front.
Don’t know as the stroke is why, since I got back to running, bicycle and motorcycle.
I was told bicycle and motorcycle are miraculous, but they both have giant spinning gyroscopes called wheels. Get above 5 mph and they balance themselves.
But things seem to have deteriorated recently. I fell hard on ice a couple years ago, and more-or-less never recovered.
We X-rayed my knees, and determined my left knee was bone-on-bone. I was advised knee-replacement.
At least a year of hobbling passed waiting to replace my knee.
That was finally done two years ago, but balance problems persisted, or even worsened. Occasionally I fell.
Now, perhaps because of aquacise, I no longer fall as much. But I feel that’s paying maximum attention to where I step — avoiding roots, rocks, and pavement edges that could trip me.
I still lose my balance = start toppling over. I can usually catch it. I also usually catch stumbles.
People tell me I walk much better. Maybe so, but I still start toppling, and can’t balance on one foot.
I have been diagnosed with “neuropathy,” wasting away of nerves to my feet. I still feel pain if I stand on something painful. But supposedly neuropathy is why my balance is bad.
Yet I keep hammering at it. Don’t know as I’ll ever be able to model-walk, or stand on one foot.
All I know is I feel fairly confident walking on dreadful footing, e.g. walking my dog at the park, or chasing trains — where rock-ballast awaits.
I can avoid falling, but feel that’s paying attention to footing.

Return to the YMCA

The other day (Tuesday, March 1st, 2016) I went to the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym for the first time in slightly over two months.
I like to work out, and used to do it two or three times per week.
I haven’t been able to do it since my left knee was changed; I now have a metal knee. Say that to the Transportation Security Administration at an airport and they go ballistic. “You in deep trouble, boyeh!” Aging geezer arrested for bomb in leg.
When I walked in I noticed good old Michele Andrews, the morning exercise-coach. She knows me.
“Boo,” I said to her. “What am I gonna find different about this place since I last was here?”
She started leading me around; she’s a really nice person.
“All the machines in our exercise-circuit are new,” she said; “but only a different make.”
“I’m only interested in three,” I said; “the leg-press, a calf-crunch, and a recumbent bicycle, and it looks like the recumbents are same as before.”
“They are,” she said; “but the leg-press is different.”
She led me to the new leg-press.
“Let me show you,” she said.
I got on, and we fiddled various adjustments.
We cranked it to the lowest weight-setting.
“Don’t overdo it,” she said. “You guys just outta surgery have to be careful, even though you’re walking pretty good.”
“That’s what they all tell me, but I feel wobbly,” I said.
We went over to the calf-crunch, an entirely different machine. “Our old machine was sitting,” she said. “This one you lie face-down to do your calf-crunches.”
I tried it. Body-location has to be just so. “Not as easy as the old machine,” I said.
Years ago I called Michele “Amazon-Lady,” but not to her face. She’s very muscular, and does body-building. She walks like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But I haven’t called her that for some time. She’s a really nice person. Although that may be because she has to be, although I doubt it.
I was told she used the be fat. But she sure ain’t now.
“Be careful,” she said. “No higher than the lowest weight-setting.”
Which is what I did. At my rehab I use a higher weight-setting, but I couldn’t at the YMCA.
At the rehab I also do the leg-press with only my surgical leg.
But that seemed impossible at the YMCA. I couldn’t halve the weight.
All machines are different.
Another thing we do at the rehab is balance-training, mainly to offset my feeling wobbly.
They have a four-inch foam pad, and I try to stand on it with one foot.
They don’t have those pads at the YMCA, but they do have a partially inflated half-ball.
We got out the rehab’s half-ball, but “Don’t try only one leg on that thing,” they said. “Only on the floor.”
Which is what I did at the YMCA, and no half-ball at all.
What I forgot was step-ups. Six inches at the rehab, and I coulda done ‘em at the YMCA. I used to, and they have the same step pads.
The step-ups make a difference. There is a giant staircase outside up to the YMCA. I call it “Jacob’s Ladder.”
I started doing step-ups about a year ago, and discovered doing them made it easier to climb Jacob’s Ladder.
What I could also do was the recumbent bicycle, which my rehab does as warmup. Ten minutes at a modicum of resistance.
Tain’t much, but it loosens up my surgical knee.
I did it twice at the YMCA; once as warmup, then as cool-down after exercising.
I probably will try to get my rehab to allow that cool-down after my next rehab session. I seem to recover better having done it.
The Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym is lined with mirrors.
So I can view myself working-out.
I’m on the recumbent. I glanced to my right, and there I was, a bloated old geezer with lily-white hair.
I’m told I look better than years ago when I was heavier.
But what I see is depressing.

Is it any wonder I don’t watch TV?

The other day (Tuesday, November 26th, 2013), at the Canandaigua YMCA, I was unable to use the bathroom I usually use before working-out.
So I went down to the new Mens locker-room — I use the old Boys locker-room (converted to a Mens locker-room), since it’s nearer the Exercise-Gym. The YMCA now has two locker-rooms per sex.
As I walked into the locker-room some shrill lady was on the small wall-mounted TV screeching “all men are bums equating emotion with sex.”
Nothing like a sweeping generalization!
Um, I humblee disagree.
Admitted, I’ve met a few men obsessed with sex.
But after 69 years on this planet I’ve concluded they are a tiny minority.
Hardly any man I’ve met meets this lady’s noisy assertion.
Thinking about the men I know right now, I wouldn’t call any of them sex-fiends.
Not a one of them fits this lady’s claim.
I found myself thinking it’s too bad this lady never encountered a good one.
Maybe she’s dealt with Rush Limbaugh and his 89 bazilyun cases of Viagra©.
Maybe Rick Wakeman should have named his album “Six Wives of Rush Limbaugh.”
More-than-likely how could anyone stand her? I know I couldn’t.
“Oh for Heaven sake!” I muttered as I walked under the TV.
“Will someone please smack that lady and tell her to siddown,” I thought. “Chain her to a chair; put a gag on her.” —I covered my ears.
Is this what TV has come to?
Shrieking sycophants trumpeting off-the-wall blustering?
The Internet is far more interesting than droll Dr. Phil, Montel gesticulating, or Oprah.
I bet Fred Friendly would watch the Internet.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)

I can be as much an ass-hole as you!

A few months ago I asked a trainer at the Canandaigua YMCA if he could suggest anything for an old geezer (me) trying to stay in shape.
He stiffed me.
“I’m with a client,” he snapped.
“Sorry I asked,” I thought, so I continued working out myself.
I later asked good old Michelle, another YMCA training-coach, who supervises the Exercise-Gym in mornings.
I know Michelle. I used to call her “Amazon-Lady” because she’s muscle-bound and keeps to herself. She seemed kind of sullen.
I don’t call her “Amazon-Lady” any more. She’s really nice.
She couldn’t suggest anything, so I continued doing what I’ve been doing, which to her was good.
About a week ago I went into the stretching-area of the Exercise-Gym to do my stretches.
That trainer-guy was in there with a client, and had large rubber-band training-aids with him. They were about eight feet long.
I looked around, and there was no place to put my stretching mat.
I grabbed the training-aids to move them.
“You can’t have that!” the trainer snapped. “Only YMCA trainers can touch them.”
I backed off, circled around, and got a stretching mat.
“Okay, where do I put this?” I shouted at the trainer.
“Sorry dude,” I thought to myself. “I drove city bus so have plenty of experience with ass-holes. I can be as much an ass-hole as you!”
“Put it anywhere you want,” he said, cowed.
“I was gonna put it there,” I snapped, pointing at the training-aids.
He moved the training-aids.
“Yeah, guess what, dude,” I thought. “Ya stiffed me again. Ya got my Irish up.”
Since my wife died, I’ve become more tolerant of people.
They mean well, but they put their foot in their mouth.
I think the dude recognized he had crossed me up, but he wouldn’t apologize.
I considered saying something to him, but didn’t.
Why bother, when all I may encounter is him being more of an ass-hole?
After all, he got my Irish up.

• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about two-three hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles east. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.)
• RE: “old geezer.....” —I’m 69.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability. I recovered fairly well.
• My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her dearly.

Queen of the Exercise-Gym

Michelle.

Michelle Andrews is the Queen of the Exercise-Gym at the YMCA in nearby Canandaigua.
The so-called “Wellness Center,” where I go at least twice a week, hopefully three times, to do workouts that last two to three hours.
Two extended cardiovascular workouts per visit, plus strength and balance training.
I consider balance training most successful. My balance is sloppy, probably because I had a stroke long ago.
Once while chasing trains in Altoona, PA (“al-TUNE-uh;” as in the name “Al”), I felt like I was gonna fall off an embankment.
So I started doing balance training at the Canandaigua YMCA, standing no hands on a partially deflated rubber half-ball about two feet in diameter.
The tendency is to fall off, but I got so I could do it.
And in so doing my forays up embankments were no longer frightening.
The cardiovascular training is to keep the old ticker working despite age 67. —Plus keep up with our high-energy dog.
Strength training is essentially the leg-press, to make it so I can continue to climb stairs and get up without difficulty.
By doing all this my blood-pressure was managed and made nominal without medication. —It never was that high anyway.
It proved an assertion by a long-ago Physical Therapist, that the key to managing blood-pressure without medication was to get into shape.
I agreed — I used to run footraces.
When I first started going there, which was before they did a major remodeling with new equipment, I noticed a rather husky-looking lady striding the Exercise-Gym.
We called her “Amazon-lady.” (That’s Michelle.)
She was a YMCA employee, and apparently has supervised the Exercise-Gym for years. —She’s a personal-trainer.
I no longer call her “Amazon-lady.”
When they got the new equipment, mainly a Cybex strength-training circuit, I asked her a question, and she suggested a complete orientation.
We set a date and a time.
Her orientation was about an hour explaining and setting-up the entire circuit, about 20 machines.
You are essentially pulling weights.
I had to give up that circuit to save time, but I no longer make fun of Michelle.
She has her feet squarely on the ground.
Personal-trainers have come-and-gone in that Exercise-Gym, but Michelle remains.
When people ask me questions, I refer them to Michelle.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.
• I am a railfan, and have been since age-two.
• Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s six, and is our sixth Irish-Setter. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. By getting a rescue-dog, we avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad.)

La-dee-dah!

Yesterday (Monday, December 6, 2010) I got a “progress-report” from the SilverSneakers® program.
SilverSneakers® is nationwide, I guess, a program for oldsters like me to stay in shape.
My health-insurance pays my membership at the Canandaigua YMCA through the SilverSneakers program. —Where I work out in their Exercise-Gym (“Wellness Center”).
“Congratulations,” it said. “You made 12 visits to participating locations (the YMCA) in July of 2010, as opposed to the national average of 7.64 visits per male participant in SilverSneakers.
And eight in August versus 7.87, and nine in September versus 7.52.”
Uh-DUH! Yeah, and it wasn’t intentional.
I wasn’t trying to score points.
I was able to hit the YMCA 12 times in July, eight in August, and nine in September.
I’m one of the regulars.
There were probably medical appointments and/or trips in August and September that made more frequent visits impossible.
I try to do the YMCA Exercise-Gym three days per week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Each workout is about three hours; about 1&1/2-to-two on cardiovascular machines, and the rest on other machines, weights, and stretching.
I consider it my endeavor to stay alive.
What the “progress-report” doesn’t detail is the excess poundage I’ve lost — and my improved balance.
I can still run, albeit very slowly.
What I say is my knees still let me.
The Canandaigua YMCA has a giant outside staircase out front, about 20-25 steps climbing perhaps 15 feet.
I ascend those steps two at a time.
“How come you’re doing that?” people ask. “That’s a workout before you even got here.”
“Because I still can,” I answer.
“If I quit trying, I’d get so I couldn’t.”

• RE: “Oldsters like me......” —I’m 66.
• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away.

Silver Sneakers pedometer

The week including Labor Day (last week) is always maintenance week at the Canandaigua YMCA.
The Canandaigua YMCA is closed all week for maintenance.
Which means a vacation for me from working out.
Unless I wanna drive all the way to Geneva. PASS!
I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, 2-3 days per week.
I do it mainly to keep the old ticker going; cardio machines, and also strength and balance training.
I’m 66.
It seems a challenge sometimes, but my blood-pressure is down without medication, and I’m slowly losing weight.
The cardio machines are over 900 calories. I figure 1,000 calories per session.
I also had a stroke a while ago (1993). It compromised my balance.
My balance seems improved since I began the balance-training.
Working out also kills time; about 3-4 hours per session.
So here I was not working out for a week.
—The usual surfeit of grocery visits and errands, which normally get hooked to working out.
I had to go to the Canandaigua Wegmans, a drag without a trip in the same direction, e.g. the Canandaigua YMCA. We live in West Bloomfield.
But now it’s back to the old grind.
The torrent of all-important errands and medical appointments hooked to working out, and walking our dog, and mowing our HUGE lawn.
Everything has to be wedged in.
We have to keep a schedule.
And mowing lawn is weather-dependent, as is walking our dog.
It’s madness and exasperating, but I’m probably in better shape than most my age.
So yesterday (Monday, September 13, 2010) I was given a pedometer as I walked into the YMCA.
I scanned in at the front desk like I usually do.
“Robert?” a voice said.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A gift for being one of the first 50 Seniors here today.”

• My health-insurance pays my YMCA membership; it’s called “Silver Sneakers.”
• “Canandaigua” (“cannon-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 15 miles away. The city of Geneva is about 20 miles further east. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)
• “Wegmans” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at. They have a store in Canandaigua.
• “Robert” is of course me, Robert Hughes.

Three things:

—1) “Do you actually own a Ferrari, or is that just a tee-shirt?” asked a guy in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercize-Gym the other day (Monday, October 19, 2009).
I was pumping away on the Precor® AMT, a sort of semi-elliptical exercise machine.
And I was wearing my red Ferrari tee-shirt. It has a tiny yellow Ferrari shield emblazoned on the left-front.
“It’s just a tee-shirt,” I said. “I don’t own one.
Although I will admit that when I was in college long ago I dreamed of some day owning a Ferrari.
The dream withered,” I said.
“For all intents a car is just a means to get from Point A to Point B. For that, ya don’t need a Ferrari.”
“Plus they’re a bear to maintain,” the guy said.
“Not only that, ya can’t stretch ‘em out,” I said.
“It’s illegal, and traffic won’t let you.”
He walked to another exercise machine.
“I will tell you a story though.
The other morning I’m at the intersection of County Road 14 and State Route 64 in Ionia (‘eye-OWN-ya’), about to turn onto 64.
About seven supercars blasted past, southbound, all in a row, all doing about 80 mph. A ‘Vette, a Porsche (“POOR-sha”), a Mustang GT500, a Dodge Viper, and at least one Ferrari, I think the F430.
That’s not seven, but they were moving too fast.
To my mind, the car that stood out was the Ferrari; everything else was a compromise.
The Mustang GT500 has a great motor, but its rear-axle is a log.
The Viper and ‘Vette are better cars, but their motors aren’t double overhead cam. The ‘Vette is engineered extremely well, but the Viper excels on the size of its motor. Make it big enough, and ya got a supercar. —It’s kind of the same way with the ‘Vette.
The Porsche is nice, but the motor is in the wrong place.
It’s out behind the rear axle, where it can throw off the weight balance.
The Porsche Boxter is better. It’s mid-engined, with the motor ahead of the rear wheels.
You can engineer to offset rearward weight bias, but the motor, fabulous as it is, is still in the wrong place.
A Porsche is a great car, but essentially a souped-up Volkswagen Beetle.
The only car without compromise was the Ferrari.
Every car was lustable, but I’d want the Ferrari most.
But then, where do I put the groceries? Where do I put my dog?
Better yet, where do I wring it out?

—2) My Facebook® had an ad for Microsoft Windows 7 off to the side.
It had a short video; I clicked it.
Essense of video: shake the window ya want on your ‘pyooter (I suppose with your mouse), and it becomes the only window ya see.
Zippity-do!
What’s so special about that?
Um, this is progress?
Okay, I hit the “maximize window” button on my MAC, and it becomes the only window I see (Hello) — plus it fills the whole screen. (I don’t think Windows-7 is doing that.)
Sorry Gates, but I’m drivin’ OS-X, and as I’ve said to other PC users, once ya drive OS-X ya can’t switch.
Gates and his lackeys try to keep up, but Apple looks better.
Sometimes my MAC drives me crazy (like find a file, for example), but Windows is droll by comparison (and I’ve used Windows).
Beyond that, over six years of OS-X use I’ve never had my rig crash. I’ve had stuff freeze, but I can “force-quit” without bringing down my whole machine.

—3) “This catalog is printed on paper that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council,” and “We use eco-friendly vegetable inks!”
“WHAT?” I ask.
This is the Heifer Project’s one-and-only Christmas catalog; a worthy effort, and one I will support.
But do they need to say that?
Will it enhance my “giving experience?”

• “Ionia” is a tiny village, in the town of West Bloomfield, near where we live, about three miles away. (We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western N.Y., southeast of Rochester.)
• A “Mustang GT500” is a special Mustang that gets 500 horsepower, on pump gas, no less. —It has a mechanically supercharged V8 motor.
• Most Porsches have the engine in the rear, like a Volkswagen Beetle. But it’s a much more powerful engine, usually six cylinders as opposed to four in the Beetle. Locating the engine there is like locating a heavy dumbbell weight behind the rear wheels. It throws off the car’s weight balance.
• The Corvette, Viper, Mustang, and Ferrari are essentially mid-engine too, except the engine is in front of the driver. In the Boxter it is behind the driver; the common definition for “mid-engine.”
• “‘Pyooter” is computer.
• “Gates” is Bill Gates, the head-honcho of Microsoft. My ‘pyooter (“rig”) is an Apple Macintosh. “OS-X” is its operating system, Apple Computer’s tenth operating system.

“Free, with minimal annual purchase......”

Yesterday (Monday, October 12, 2009) I’m quietly cranking away on the arm-bicycle in the Exercise Gym at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA.
An ad appears on one of the three silent wall-mounted plasma-babies I face.
An ad from Time Warner about its RoadRunner cable Internet service.
Something about $29.95 per month with Powerboost®, with free self-install.
“What?” I asked. I almost stopped cranking.
Sorry I’m an old geezer, but I just can’t make sense of logic like that.
Do they normally charge for a self-install?
Is this Dubya-speak resurfacing? Use the word “free” in front of anything, and whatever follows is thereby free?
I can hear it now: “Free; only $9.95. Have your Visa or MasterCard ready.”
A few weeks ago I was looking for a place in cyberspace to store my image files.
“Free, with minimal annual purchase,” it said.
Lost. I can’t make sense of that.
Is this what language and communication are coming to?
Content is not as important as the buzz-words?
And there’s old Limberger, the Oxycontin® king, railing loudly about el-cheapo fabrication and slander, and his comments being taken out of context.

• An “arm-bicycle” is an exercise machine whereby you hand-crank a loaded crank-wheel to burn calories.
• “Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”
• “Dubya” is George W. Bush, our previous president; proclaimed by my siblings as “the greatest president of all time.”
• “Limberger” is Rush Limbaugh. I call him that because I think he stinks.

Joel wins one!

Welcome, Canandaiguans, to your fantastical new YMCA.
Well, it is pretty nice.
And it’s still downtown, not far out along Eastern Blvd.
They replaced their pool, and significantly expanded.
I’ve been a member almost three years, and only use their exercise gym; a struggle to get back in shape despite advancing age.
I don’t play basketball, racquetball, or swim.
A while ago they significantly reconfigured their exercise gym, and installed new equipment.
Gone were the old Nautilus machines; replaced by a new Cybex® strength-training circuit.
They still have weight-training, but no longer in its own room.
They also have old cardio machines; treadmills, step-climbers, ellipticals, and bicycle-trainers.
But they added new cardio machines with video-terminals; watch the Woopster bellowing on “The View” while working out.
I had to give up on the treadmills. Ramped up enough to get my heart-rate up was killing my back. And it was hold on for dear life!
But they also installed new Precor “AMT” trainers, a semi-elliptical that gets my heart-rate up without killing me.
I’m usually there about three hours per visit, and burn about 1,000 calories
They were going to close their old locker rooms, which were a bit aged, and open new locker rooms.
This precipitated a firestorm. The previous locker rooms separated by age as well as sex; one for adults, and one for younger people and children. Total four.
Joel Freedman, a YMCA member, circulated a petition to keep the old locker rooms open, or at least separate facilities for adults.
But the “Y” stood fast. The old locker rooms weren’t handicap compliant, plus they needed the space.
So, I visit the “Y” about two weeks ago to work out. Old locker rooms closed; “please use new locker rooms.”
This was at least a month after the new pool opened. The new locker rooms were where the old pool was.
—A) Sauna? Who needs a sauna?
The new locker rooms are a sauna.
They sure aren’t on the HVAC the huge Atwater St. atrium is on.
—B) They seem quite a bit smaller than the old locker rooms, which were small, but overkill on locker quantity.
I never had trouble finding an open locker in the old locker rooms.
But —C) Visit YMCA yesterday (Monday, July 27, 2009) and go directly to new locker rooms.
Try at least 10 lockers before finding an empty one.
A guy came in, and I wished him “Good Luck.
All them lockers are occupied,” I said as he started banging doors.
He finally walked out; he had tried about 20 lockers.
None had actual locks on them; just dissheveled clothes piled at the bottom.
I bring along my own padlock.
Workout finished, I dressed back into street clothes, and noticed a paper sign on the door of the locker room as I walked out.
“We’re open to your suggestions,” it said. “We realize the new locker rooms are quite a bit smaller than we expected.
Meantime you can go back to using the old locker rooms until we get this resolved — unless you’re a pool-user. N.Y. state law requires that.”
WHOA! Freedman wins one!

• “Eastern Blvd.” is a large main highway out of Canandaigua to the east. Many big-box shopping facilities were built along Eastern Blvd. to get out of downtown; as was a new post-office. —It presumes continued auto use.
• The Canandaigua YMCA has a huge new entrance atrium on “Atwater St.,” a side-street.
• “Joel Freedman” is a local activist, retired from the Canandaigua Veterans Administration. He usually finds himself tilting at windmills.
• “HVAC” is heating-ventilation-air conditioning.

Wiscoy

The reservoir formed by the damming of Wiscoy Creek. (Screenshot of a Google satellite-view.)

Years ago, Spring of 1966, while I was a senior at Houghton, I was introduced to a bucolic rural location by my wife-to-be.
The name of this place was Wiscoy (“wiss-KOY”) Creek, a few miles northeast of Fillmore, which was a few miles north of Houghton.
She wasn’t my wife yet.
We’d pile into my car (“the Beast”) and roar up to Wiscoy Creek. It was a place to escape Houghton; let it all hang out — shorts, etc.
It was she that introduced me to this place; I had never even known of it.
My favored rural hangout was under the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad trestle east of Fillmore. A train might cross it, and I’m a railfan.
That railroad has since been abandoned, and the trestle removed.
Wiscoy Creek fed the Genesee River, and was a narrow gorge through the western hills of the vast Genesee Valley.
A flood-control dam had been installed upstream.
The local power-company had installed a generation system to generate electricity from the outflow from the dam.
A large wooden pipe, known as “the flume,” four to six feet in diameter, had been installed down the gorge from the dam to the generating station — at least a mile or so.
We’d hike atop that pipe to the dam.
Since it was wood, it had numerous leaks: high narrow fountains of misty spray 90° from the pipe-casing.
The drill was to avoid the leaks, yet not fall off the pipe, which wasn’t too hard.
A few years ago I went back up the road we had traveled, but found nothing; not even a dam.
Apparently I hadn’t gone far enough.
Yesterday (Friday, March 13, 2009), at the YMCA, the guy from Fillmore was in the Mens Locker-Room when I arrived.
“Aren’t you the guy from Fillmore?” I asked. —He knew me, and was trying to make conversation.
“Yes,” and then a long confused silence followed.
“Actually from Wiscoy,” he finally said.
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Seems to me there was a dam there, but I couldn’t find it a few years ago.”
“Actually there are three,” he said. “One holds back Rushford Lake.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I water-skied that.”
“A second is at Mills-Mills; and the third dams Wiscoy Creek.
All are flood-control dams, but the power-company put in generating stations to generate electricity from the outflows.
Rochester Gas & Electric bought that power-company, and the generating-stations become them, although all have since been abandoned,” he said.
“So that dam at Wiscoy Creek still exists,” I said.
“Yep, ya can buy it of ya want. It’s for sale,”
“I’m gonna go back and find that sucker. I bet I can find it on my Google satellite-views,” I said.

My wife of 41+ years is “Linda.”

“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I graduated as a Ne’er-do-Well, without their blessing. Houghton is an evangelical liberal-arts college. (At that time the college would not allow shorts or sleeveless dresses.)

“The Beast” was my first car, a 1958 Triumph TR3 sportscar. It was very fast.

The “Erie-Lackawanna Railroad” was a merger of the Erie and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western railroads in 1960. The line east of Fillmore was a way to bypass all the Erie’s grades west of Hornell. It was abandoned when the railroad became no longer through to Chicago.

The “Genesee River” is a river that flows north across NY state and empties into Lake Ontario at Rochester. Its valley was the nation’s first breadbasket, mainly because of the Erie Canal (and a feeder canal down the valley).

“Rochester Gas & Electric” is the power-utility based in Rochester.

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

Cybex® machines

Yesterday (Monday, March 9, 2009) I had an interesting discussion with a YMCA exercise coach about use of the machines in the Cybex® circuit. There are 14 machines in the circuit.
Amazon-Lady was the YMCA employee that showed me how to use ‘em some time ago, but we didn’t discuss the philosophy of ‘em.
What I’ve been doing is 100+ reps per each machine in sets of 10 reps per set.
What’s called “multiple sets.”
Exercise-coach was doing “the circuit;” one set per machine of 12-15 reps, enough to tire out his muscles. Although he was pulling much more weight than I do.
“So how many are you doing anyway?” he asked.
“Oh, 10 sets of 10 reps each, usually totaling 100+ reps.”
“And your philosophy behind this is......”
“No ‘philosophy,’ just what I can do,” I answered.
“That many reps is endurance-training,” he said; “not strength-training, the whole idea behind these machines.
These machines are much better than weight-training. They target a specific muscle-group, and work that,” he said.
“The way to build strength is one set of 12-15 reps at a weight that tires ya out at the end.”
“So what you’re saying is pull more weight, which is what I was thinking of doing anyway,” I said.
I thereafter doubled the weight on the chest-press machine, and started maxxing out at 12+ reps.
“That’s also making maximum use of your time,” he added.
“Sure,” I said. “100 reps per machine is about 15 minutes per machine. Your way is 2-3 minutes per machine, making the full circuit possible.
15 minutes per machine is one-third the circuit per session.”
The only ones I’m not inclined to listen to are blowhards.

The “Cybex® machines” are a circuit of 14 weight-training machines, that use pulleys and cams to lift weight. They are more precise than lifting free-weights.

I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA.

Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We (my wife and I) call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound. (Actually she’s a nice person.)

RE: “The only ones I’m not inclined to listen to are blowhards......” —Like my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. —His idea of exercise is to flap his jaw.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow......”

I’m at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA to work out in the exercise gym.
It’s Monday, March 9, 2009.
I’m in the john-booth of the Mens Locker-Room, in preparation to go downstairs to the exercise gym.
Adjacent to the john-booth is a small sink and mirror.
An older gentleman, probably in his 70s, is shaving.
Suddenly, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow......”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” I think. “The poor guy’s cellphone is ringing.”
Sure enough, “Hullo......”
“Oh hi Margaret. No, I’m at the YMCA and I just came outta the shower. Can ya call back in about 15 minutes?”
I step outta the john, and say “If there’s one thing I hate about cellphones, it’s how they always fire off when you’re in the bathroom. One time I’m in Porta-John, and my cellphone fires off.”
“Yep; maybe I shoulda told her I was buck-naked.”
“That’s the future,” I said. “Camera-phones are coming.”

For Peg, to counter Frama-lama-ding-dong

At the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA: (First time in a week [Monday, January 12, 2009] — Linda worked every day last week, so I stayed home with the dog; since the YMCA, etc. takes about five+ hours.)

—1) The following conversation ensues.........
I’m on the arm-bicycle, and a young bloated tart is on an elliptical two positions away.
Young Studley walks up and gets himself in her face.
“I see ya have a new beau,” he says.
“Yes, I do,” tart chirps.
“Is this guy permanent?” he asks.
“Never in a million years!” she says.
“Well, it can only get worse, or better,” he says.
“Doncha mean worse?” she says.
“Well, time to go home, and fix lunch for ‘the wife.’”
(Get that everyone? “The wife.”)
I don’t get it, people.
41 years and I don’t consider her “the wife.”
—Nor would have I married some overly made-up floozie!

—2) “Circuit-man” is there......... (Tremble.)
The YMCA has about 20 Cybex so-called “strength-training” machines.
They are arrayed in a “circuit;” that is, one machine after another.
There are no circuit numbers, like there were on the old Nautilus circuit, but you’re supposed to follow the circuit.
Except most times the machines are occupied, so ya use one that isn’t.
(We used to do that with the Nautilus machines.)
The end result is jumping all over, machine-to-machine — so much for the circuit.
Well, this old geezer is there I call “circuit-man.” He does maybe 10 reps (a minute) on a single machine, and then harasses the guy on the next machine, who’s doing maybe 100 reps (10 minutes).
“I’m doing the circuit!” he bellows. “Are you?”
Like step aside! Hup-hup!
“Well,” I said; “I’d do the circuit but I had to do it in reverse. Someone was on the first machine, so I used another.”
Sorry, Boobie; but I ain’t gettin’ off. Ya can’t use that circuit-jazz on me, not when the real issue is that you’re only doing a minute per machine.
I made him jump over me — he used the next machine, which I had began on, so wasn’t advancing to.
And off he went, a minute per machine.
Soon he was behind me on about the sixth machine past me in order, and some poor schmuck was using it.
“Are ya doing the circuit?” he bellowed.
Poor schmuck got off: “no problem.”
That’s what I did the first time, but no longer.
(A Dubya-button was on “Circuit-Man’s” shorts.)

“Peg” is my baby sister Peggy. She’s 17 years younger than me, and the last sibling. She lives in Lynchburg, Va. with her husband Paul Broda and three sons. (The oldest is in college.) —She works at Frama-Tome (which I call Frama-lama-ding-dong), which has an Internet filter that won’t allow access to a site linked to our family-site. (She’s fiddling our family-site on her [the company’s] computer; although on her lunch-hour.)

I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA. (The YMCA is about four hours; attach other errands, and it becomes five+.)

“Linda” is my wife of 41 years. Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

Our current dog is “Scarlett;” a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s three-plus, and is our sixth Irish-Setter.

An “arm-bicycle” is essentially an exercise machine for cycling your arms. An “elliptical” is a machine that mainly cycles your legs, but not a treadmill. (It can include arm-cranks.)

“Nautilus” was another manufacturer of exercise machines, but the YMCA replaced all its Nautilus machines with Cybex when it upgraded its exercise-gym.

“Dubya” is George W. Bush, our current president; proclaimed by my siblings as “the greatest president of all time.” —I perceive Dubya-supporters as rather pushy.

Overheard at the YMCA......

“Whatcha shoulda done is give her a dozen red roses.”
“Oh come-on, Charlie. I’m 82 years old.”
“We’re way beyond that.”

I work out at the Canandaigua YMCA’s exercise-gym.

snippets

One of the consummate joys of working out at the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA is that I get to hear amazing snippets from the infamous “Marcy, it’s everywhere” file.

FOR EXAMPLE
—1) The exercise-gym at the YMCA plays a boombox tuned to WDVI (“The Drive”), 100.5 FM, although it’s probably an HD feed.
“And now, presenting the lineup for S&S Limousine. First we have the Chargers and Chrysler 300s!”
“Next we have the magnificent land-yacht that holds 36 people! Granite floors, and lap-of-luxury seating!”
“36? Izzat all?” I thought to myself. I drove buses that seated 53; but they weren’t the lap-of-luxury.
The seats were green fiberglass-reinforced plastic, and hard.
And the floor was rubber on plywood. And if the frame warped or broke, the floor warped with it. We had one bus where the floor looked like ocean waves.
I think a so-called “soft-seater” held 49; and ya had to watch out getting up because a luggage-rack was right over your head.
Our buses were 40-feet long with a 33-foot wheelbase. Our bus-routes had to accommodate a mighty swing.
“30-foot wheelbase,” it crowed.
For cryin’ out loud; try to drive anywhere with that sucker.
My father died in ‘94, and our family got chauffeured to the cemetery in a stretch-Lincoln owned by the funeral-home.
Despite my recent stroke, I rode shotgun beside the stretch driver.
The turn into the cemetery was a sharp hairpin.
“NO WAY are we gonna make that turn,” I said. —The stretch had at least a 20-foot wheelbase; perhaps more.
“We’ll be all over the grass.” (It was raining.) “The rear will clip the hairpin, and the front will swing out,” I said. (Old bus-driver waazoo.)
When our niece got married they hired a stretch-limo. Thankfully I never saw it. I don’t know as the groom did either, as he was rather soused.
Almost killed his best man.
Same guy that carves the Thanksgiving turkey with a chainsaw.

—2) I’m walking down the main drag in front of the YMCA, shortly after exiting.
A 200-pound bespectacled Harley-momma is walking toward me from the other direction.
All-of-a-sudden: “Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dah-Dah! Dat-da-da-Dahhhhhhhh.”
A “Ride of the Valkyries” ringtone.
(If my cellphone ever did that, I’d stomp it.)
Harley-momma unholsters her cellphone. “I can’t believe you were such a rat to put that thing away before ya took me for a ride!” she screamed.
“Okay,” I thought to myself. “Put away for future reference. I don’t believe the stuff I hear.”
All I could think was I sure am glad I’m not married to such a person.

—3) This isn’t so much a snippet as a traffic-incident; the sort of thing that rarely happens, but when it does, I can write it up, causing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
I drive out of the YMCA parking-lot, west on Park Ave., under the twin railroad bridges, and then south toward the parking-lot of the West Ave. Shopping-Plaza. (I wrote this plaza up earlier.)
Granny blue-hair is ahead of me in a silver Subaru Forester.
We enter the parking-lot, and Granny sweeps far to the right, clear into the parking area.
I angle left to pass Granny, but then Granny makes a sudden sweeping move to the left, right in front of me, unsignaled of course, intent on parking in the handicap-slot of the Medicine-Shoppe Pharmacy to our left.
Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph I could avoid her without drama; just a slight tap of the brakes.
She never demonstrated any knowledge that I was behind her. And sure used enough swing to make her turn — enough for a semi.
As they used to say at the bus-company pertaining to the driving of others: “EXPECT ANYTHING!”
No sign of a Dubya-sticker, but “Don’t blame me; I voted for Big Mac and the ‘Cuda.”

“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. —Once Marcy asked where I got so much insane material. “Marcy, it’s everywhere,” I responded. (The “Ne’er-do-Wells” are an e-mail list of everyone I e-mail my stuff to.)

For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.

RE: “Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.....” —My siblings all noisily insist I’m an accident waiting to happen; since I can write up each (and rare) traffic-incident.

RE: “Since I wasn’t charging at 15-20 mph......” —My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, insists you can — and should — do 15-20 mph in a parking-lot, which I say is too fast. He once dropped his motorcycle on top of himself in a parking lot when doing 15-20 mph toward an oncoming car. He broke many bones.

“Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right. “Big Mac and the ‘Cuda” are John McCain and Sarah Palin.

To get from the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA......

....to mighty Weggers.

I must negotiate the parking-lot of the West Ave. Shopping Plaza.
The West Ave. Shopping Plaza is about 40-50 years old, and was probably one of the first shopping plazas in Canandaigua.
A few stores are left, but many are unoccupied. Stores have moved to other plazas, or even built by themselves; e.g. Weggers.
There is a Dollar General in there, plus the Medicine-Shoppe Pharmacy, where we used to get chemo for Killian.
We’d get it ourselves, to avoid the extravagant cost if the vet had got it.
They’d call in the prescription, and we’d go get it before taking Killian to the vet. Killian was along. —That pharmacy was about 20 miles from the vet.
I’d park in that plaza if the YMCA lot was full; but doing so meant a hike of about 3/4 mile.
Lately I’ve been able to park in the YMCA lot.
To get to Weggers, I pull out of the YMCA lot west onto Park Ave., which is one-way away from the main drag.
I go down Park Ave., under the twin railroad bridges of the old Auburn, written up previously on this blog (March 16, 2007), and now operated by Finger Lakes Railway.
The first bridge is devoid of tracks; probably the first route of the Auburn through Canandaigua. But apparently New York Central rerouted the Auburn through Canandaigua, to open out the sharp curve, requiring the second bridge.
The first bridge is on ancient stone abutments, and the second on concrete.
After the bridges, Park Ave. turns north, but a driveway comes off south toward the West Ave. Shopping Plaza. It’s a back entrance, and threads an opening between stores, which are laid out in an “L,” with an opening at the apex.
I cross the parking-lot parallel to the part the Medicine-Shoppe is in, toward West Ave., which takes me downtown, and eventually to Weggers.

—1) Threading between the arms of the “L,” I come to a stop-sign at the entrance to the parking-lot.
Granny and GrandPop are angling on foot toward the stop-sign, GrandPop with a walker equipped with an oxygen-kit.
Seeing them coming, I stop to allow them across; there’s a stop-sign anyway.
But GrandPop waves me on. They are intent on accessing the sidewalk on the bottom arm of the “L;” probably headed to Dollar General. Granny has a prescription from Medicine-Shoppe.
Seeing the wave, I advance, but then GrandPop looks angry that I looked at my right-side before going (they’re on my left).
It’s the old bus-driver waazoo; just because somebody waved ya on doesn’t mean they have all their marbles.
It’s “Joe-the-Plumber.” “Joe-the-Plumber, unlicensed” is embroidered on the back of his iridescent-black Vietnam-vet jacket. “Common-Sense Plumbing; licensing is for wusses.”
“That Obama is gonna reverse my tax-cut that allowed me to make a killing,” he shouts as I pass.
A “Don’t blame me; I voted for Big Mac and the ‘Cuda” sticker is on the front of his walker, below the oxygen-tank.

—2) I advance along the edge of the parking-lot, in front of Medicine-Shoppe, doing about 5-10 mph.
I notice a white Cadillac driven by Granny blue-wig driving right toward me, on the wrong side of the road; but since I ain’t doing 15-20 mph, I can avoid a HUGE wipeout with broken bones, a trip to the hospital, and enough pins to set off the security alarms at Logan Airport.
I zag to the left, avoiding Granny; who is appalled (gaping mouth) that I didn’t screech to a stop and allow her to access the Medicine-Shoppe’s Handicap-slot, unsignaled of course (no handicap tag either).
After all, she was driving a Cadillac. (Probably voted for Dubya too; although I didn’t see a sticker — she was coming toward me.)

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

“Killian” was our previous dog, a rescue Irish-Setter. He died of cancer.

The “Auburn”-Road was the first railroad across the state into Rochester. It took a rather circuitous route, and is now partly abandoned. A more direct railroad was built east from Rochester to Syracuse, so the Auburn (via Auburn) became a detour bypass. The direct route became the mainline of the New York Central Railroad, but NYC also owned the Auburn. (The direct route is now CSX Transportation.) The Auburn served many small farming communities (including Canandaigua), but became moribund. What remains is now operated by independent shortline Finger Lakes Railway, but the line into Rochester is gone.

“New York Central” Railroad is long out of business. It merged with Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years.

RE: “It’s the old bus-driver waazoo.......” —For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY. You had to watch out for the other guy.

My all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, claims I’m utterly reprehensible for not doing 15-20 mph in a parking-lot. Yet it was he that wiped out his motorcycle, and broke many bones — 15-20 mph in a parking-lot.

RE: “Enough pins to set off the security alarms at Logan Airport........” —Because of his accidents my brother carries “enough pins to set off the security alarms at Logan Airport.”

A “Dubya-sticker” is a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper-sticker. All insane traffic-moves seem to involve Bush-supporters. They seem to think they have the right.

utter insanity

(Have I ever left the vaunted Canandaigua YMCA without some piece of utter insanity to report?)

I am quietly blasting away on the sand-trainer.
Amazon-lady is striding around in the background: hee-ya! hee-ya! —She’s a really nice lady; I asked if her son was in an apartment at RIT that requires bus-use to get to class — nada.
The wall-mounted plasma-baby that’s usually tuned to the Weather-Channel, is instead tuned to the local NBC affiliate, WHEC Channel-10 in Rochester.
I guess it was the “Today” show, but maybe not.
Two female talking-heads were fulminating about anything-and-everything, obviously inspired by “The View.”
They were in a ground-floor studio, surrounded by glass, so that spectators could look in.
Apparently there was a monitor outside, projecting the air-feed, so that they could wave and see themselves on nationwide TV. (Memories of our feeble attempts with the mighty-Curve web-cam — although I did get Jack to see me, and got showered with a torrent of loving put-downs.)
First they interviewed a buxom Nat King Cole’s daughter displaying acres of cleavage.
Pity; the camera was cutting it off. Gotta educate them camera-operators. Hottiness is in; look at Sarah.
Then they moved on to a lithesome lassie intent on showing us how to get sexy skin from our refrigerator.
They wandered over to a pretty girl; and “You need a strawberry smoothie facial-mask.” (She didn’t need anything; and was probably over 30.)
89 bazilyun strawberries were chopped up in a blender, leaving pulpy red mush.
The advisor-lady thereupon dabbed some of this red mush on pretty-girl’s face.
I’m sorry, but it looked like garbage. Pretty-girl couldn’t help giggling.
Next was crushed pineapple and pomegranate.
“My first thought was granny’s oatmeal,” the hostess said.
Another pretty girl gets daubed with mush.
I’m sorry, but she looks like a veteran of Honor-Court after Initiation at Houghton; people swimming in chocolate Jell-o pudding, etc.
On to pretty-girl number-three.
“What we have here is a bowl of mashed pumpkin-rind.”
More dabbing of garbage on a pretty girl’s cheeks.
The camera zooms in on the pretty-girl’s face. I’m sorry, but it looks like she fell in the mud on “Wipe-Out.”

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

The “sand-trainer” is a semi-elliptical exercise-machine that duplicates running in sand.

Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound.

“RIT” is nearby Rochester Institute of Technology, a college.

“Plasma-babies” are what my loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston calls all high-definition wide/flat-screen TVs. Other technologies beside plasma are available, but he calls them all “plasma-babies.”

The “mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child — so I’ve been there hundreds of times.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.

“Jack” is my all-knowing, blowhard brother-from-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say. (He was in Boston at the time, and me at Horseshoe Curve, but he could view me on his computer via the web-cam.)

RE: “Hottiness is in; look at Sarah.....” —A loud famblee argument has surfaced about “hottie.” I follow the old definition where “hottie” equaled a slut. But all my Christian-zealot relatives loudly declare that “hottie” has become a symbol of Christian virtue and attractiveness. “Sarah” is Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

RE: “Honor-Court after Initiation at Houghton.....” —“Houghton” is Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. At the beginning of the fall term, the sophomores “initiate” the freshman, and then an “Honor-Court” is held to punish the sophomores. Punishment is usually very messy.

“Wipe-Out” is the ABC-TV program Wipe-Out.

Moxie

Yesterday morning (Friday, July 18, 2008), at the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym, I am quietly cranking away on the arm bicycle.
Right next to me are what I call the sand-trainers, the fabulous new exercise machines that mimic running in sand. There are only two.
The sand machines are sort of an elliptical, in that they require back-and-forth leg motion.
But they ain’t following a track, like a normal elliptical.
You can also use them as a step-machine if you want; that is, up-and-down vertical motion.
Or you can do what most do, which is what I do: back-and-forth combined with up-and-down.
You can vary the step resistance. I run it at about five; Amazon-Lady runs it at twelve or so.
Back-and-forth combined with up-and-down mimics running in sand.
There also are arm-levers connected to the foot-levers, allowing arm-swing to coordinate with leg motion, like running.
In my experience you can tug on the arm-levers to increase leg motion.
There also is a meter that indicates stride-length.
Up-and-down (the step-action) is nothing.
I try to keep it in jogging range, and mostly can.
Whatever; this trainer gets my heart-rate higher than anything else.
The target heart-rate for someone my age is 126 beats per minute. At first this machine was getting that, but now that I’ve used it some, I get 113-116.
An older gentleman mounts a sand-trainer: “Guess I gotta try this thing,” he says.
“Now what?” he says. He’s cranking it back-and-forth.
“Push ‘Quick-Start’ or ‘Program,’” an adjacent lady says.
“I do that, and it’s still going back-and-forth,” the old man says. “I can’t get it to do what you were doing.”
Around-and-around they went. “Try ‘Manual,’” the lady says.
But back-and-forth it still goes. “I can’t get this thing to do like everyone else.”
Finally, after about five minutes of diplomatically keeping my mouth shut: “Step up-and-down and it’ll do that,” I say. “It cycles the way ya tell it.”
Back-and-forth it continues. “What button do I push?”
“No buttons,” I say. “Step up-and-down and it’ll do that.”
“I give up,” he says. “Guess I gotta use something else. I never can figure out these new gizmos.”
“Worked for me!” the lady says.

It seems to me all in my family would have never given up that easily.
We’da kept pumping until we figured the sucker out.
That’s how I figured it out. Nobody showed me.

I could tell stories, perhaps my best example being about —1) Excel.
I don’t have a manual — I’ve had to figure it out by trial-and-error.
Excel has a chart-function, that automatically updates as you add to your spreadsheet.
I was using it to keep track of my running times. It would automatically update a chart displaying the ups-and-downs of my running-times.
So I decided to try the same for our car mileages, which I keep track of with each gas fill-up.
I set up a spreadsheet with -a) rows for both our two cars, and -b) each purchase would be a column.
Inadvertantly, each purchase column would be one or the other car; and I noticed my chart wasn’t doing connecting lines. All it was doing was single-point values for each gas-purchase per column.
My running-time chart connects all the point-values with lines — I can follow the ups-and-downs looking at the line.
So where are my lines on my mileage chart?
Then I made a trip to Altoona, Pennsylvania in our minivan, and that required two consecutive gas-purchases. That means side-by-side columns for the minivan-row in my mileage spreadsheet.
VIOLA; a line connected the two.
So I surmised the reason my mileage-chart lacked lines, was because it couldn’t chart across an empty cell.
Perhaps the way to get lines was to do separate spreadsheets for each car, so consecutive purchase-columns could be side-by-side.
Worked, of course.
The unmoxied person woulda thrown up their hands and given up. But not this kid.
WHOA! I got a line here. There must be a reason.
Cranka-cranka; smoke from ears. Trial-and-error. He surmises a solution and it works.

Next example: —2) Our swingset; which is a bear to assemble. It’s heavy, and twists beams out of alignment.
-a) It has a cushion-set that can be installed either rightly or upside-down. After assembling it wrongly at first, I ain’t doin’ that again. I’m markin’ the top.
-b) There’s gotta be some way of jiggin’ this thing so it doesn’t twist out of alignment. Lessee; jig everything with C-clamps and plywood, and perhaps it won’t be as troublesome next time.
A moxie-person does that. It’s called “guile-and-cunning.”

—3) My sister in south Floridy gets misled by a newspaper article into thinking all analog TVs will need conversion to successfully process the new digital signal after the transition next February.
Immediately begins a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth among her siblings about how supposedly this only effects TVs using the antenna signal, not those that get their feed from cable or a satellite-dish.
Instead of throwing up her hands, my sister dials up the cable-company, to see if all those in her condo-building need conversion. They all have cable-connections.
Am I the least bit surprised?
NO! Like me she figures things out.
That newspaper-article had led her astray.

—4) My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say, observes a stray roll of duct-tape in a water-filled nuclear reactor vessel. It can’t be in there; and has to be extracted.
He has two options: -1) empty the vessel, so he can extract the errant roll; or -2) fish the roll out.
Option-1 is of course very costly.
So what does he do here? Fish the roll out, or throw up his hands?
Cranka-cranka. Whirr...... Smoke from ears.
He fashions an extracting-hook, probably from a coat-hanger, installs some wadded-up duct-tape on the end, and fishes the errant roll out.
Hellooooooo. “Why thank ya, Mr. Hughes.”

—5) In 1993, my brother-from-Boston and I videotaped an excursion railroad steam-locomotive in West Virginia. I noted recently I wanted to put that video on You-Tube. My brother suggested his son could do it.
NOTHING DOING! The Keed wants to figure out how to do it himself. No cheap-shots.

It’s called “moxie,” chillen. Guile-and-cunning.
Some have it; that old guy at the Y didn’t.

I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA exercise-gym.

Amazon-Lady is a YMCA-employee. We call her that because she is extremely muscle-bound.

The trip to Altoona is about 250 miles. Our gas-tank was half-empty when I started — gas is cheaper in Pennsylvania. Altoona is the location of Horseshoe Curve, by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.)

“My sister in south Floridy” is my sister Betty (Elizabeth). She’s second after me, 62 (I’m the oldest at 64). She lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“My all-knowing, blowhard brother-in-Boston, the macho ad-hominem king, who noisily badmouths everything I do or say,” is “Jack Hughes.”