Moon over My Hammies
Nov. 27th, 2008 04:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAs anyone can tell from driving around Western New York, whilst having their vision blocked by the humongo billboards-on-wheels parked practically IN the entrances to the BAC's parking lots, my gym's location is having a GRAND REOPENING SPECIAL!!!!! HURRY FINAL DAYS!!!!!, as it's been saying for a month.
The "grandness" is about as relative as the "reopening" part. What really happened was Phase One, where they finally gave the wymyns a well-designed locker room on the ground floor, rather then stuffing them upstairs in a converted janitor's closet. (I know from this because after building theirs, they made us use their old one while renovating ours.) The billboards came out when the ribbon got cut on the downstairs reno's, but plans were still laid in to convert the old locker room space upstairs into a huuuuuge new resistance floor.
Uh huh.
Over a month ago, the 30-plus machines, yoga balls, free weights and whatnots all got crammed into an area once holding 15-odd machines, so they could knock down walls and such. At times, members could warm up their muscles merely by leaning into the member on the adjacent machine less than a foot away. Finally, the walls and ceiling were done, and all that remained was to put in the new carpet last Friday.
Would you believe.... this past Monday?
How about midnight Thanksgiving Eve leaving no time to re-install the original 30 pieces of equipment, much less any new ones?
Yep, that's a beautiful damn carpet. It certainly isn't contaminated by the presence of many machines. At least a third of my regulars were gone, nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, or so I thought, several of the more popular ones have redundancies on the floor; there are multiple stations for chest press (one of them, admittedly, still wrapped in yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape), various arm thingies, and, to my current dismay, gizmos for leg curls and extensions.
They LOOKED like my usual devices. I ADJUSTED them like my usual devices. I even did the same number of sets on each with roughly the same weight (multiples of 15 rather than the 20-pound installments on the missing machines). Through all that and cardio, no problem. Through washing the kitchen floor at home, no problem. Through cleaning Ebony's paws at the back door to prevent more floor-washing, no problem.
Then the other dog came in from outside. She moves more slowly and sometimes risks getting her tail stuck in the closing door. I reached to grab it with one hand while still restraining her muddiness with the other.
Problem.
My hamstrings let out screams of terror not often heard in these parts. Even the kid came out from the land of Teenage Catatonia to find out what had happened. As she took over towel duty, I started to stand. More problem.
A hot bath later (and no trips to the back door since), it all seems better, but damn. I hate to think what would have happened if they were demolishing rather than reopening the place.
----
One hour to Charlie. (And to my wife, who's putting in a full daytime shift at the new place today, along with full ones the next two days.) Stuffed shells, leftover turkey, and our usual biryani await. Happy hangovers to all of you:)
The "grandness" is about as relative as the "reopening" part. What really happened was Phase One, where they finally gave the wymyns a well-designed locker room on the ground floor, rather then stuffing them upstairs in a converted janitor's closet. (I know from this because after building theirs, they made us use their old one while renovating ours.) The billboards came out when the ribbon got cut on the downstairs reno's, but plans were still laid in to convert the old locker room space upstairs into a huuuuuge new resistance floor.
Uh huh.
Over a month ago, the 30-plus machines, yoga balls, free weights and whatnots all got crammed into an area once holding 15-odd machines, so they could knock down walls and such. At times, members could warm up their muscles merely by leaning into the member on the adjacent machine less than a foot away. Finally, the walls and ceiling were done, and all that remained was to put in the new carpet last Friday.
Would you believe.... this past Monday?
How about midnight Thanksgiving Eve leaving no time to re-install the original 30 pieces of equipment, much less any new ones?
Yep, that's a beautiful damn carpet. It certainly isn't contaminated by the presence of many machines. At least a third of my regulars were gone, nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, or so I thought, several of the more popular ones have redundancies on the floor; there are multiple stations for chest press (one of them, admittedly, still wrapped in yellow POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS tape), various arm thingies, and, to my current dismay, gizmos for leg curls and extensions.
They LOOKED like my usual devices. I ADJUSTED them like my usual devices. I even did the same number of sets on each with roughly the same weight (multiples of 15 rather than the 20-pound installments on the missing machines). Through all that and cardio, no problem. Through washing the kitchen floor at home, no problem. Through cleaning Ebony's paws at the back door to prevent more floor-washing, no problem.
Then the other dog came in from outside. She moves more slowly and sometimes risks getting her tail stuck in the closing door. I reached to grab it with one hand while still restraining her muddiness with the other.
Problem.
My hamstrings let out screams of terror not often heard in these parts. Even the kid came out from the land of Teenage Catatonia to find out what had happened. As she took over towel duty, I started to stand. More problem.
A hot bath later (and no trips to the back door since), it all seems better, but damn. I hate to think what would have happened if they were demolishing rather than reopening the place.
----
One hour to Charlie. (And to my wife, who's putting in a full daytime shift at the new place today, along with full ones the next two days.) Stuffed shells, leftover turkey, and our usual biryani await. Happy hangovers to all of you:)