Iron rails & iron weights

Saturday, May 31, 2008
7:50:00 PM EDT
A couple lucky breaks

No Medford for me today, as I was able to go in a bit later than usual and drove to Ronkonkoma to catch the 7:32.  Getting to the station took a bit longer than expected due to heavy traffic, and I had to park quite a ways from the platform.  What this all meant is that I just barely was able to scurry onto the last car just as the door-closing beeps were sounding.  The car was quite crowded, as were the next few, so I had to Baby Elephant Walk three or four cars before finding a seat. I thought I was in for a very long ride when a man taking the next seat squashed right into me at Deer Park and actually said "excuse me."  That's a favorite trick of elephantine SCA's, flop into someone by squeezing into a too-small space, and think it's okay just because they add a wholly insincere "excuse me."  Today, however, was different, as the man (while suit-attired) was not particularly large and did not infringe on my space once he was seated. He apparently had lost his balance a little while taking the seat and bumped into me.  Wow, I was so relieved, like the soldier in combat who hears a bullet whizz by a few inches from his head.  It was an easy ride to Penn, during which I knocked off a couple more chapters of The Aspern Papers, and my good luck carried over to the subway because I only waited a couple of minutes for a 1 train to Houston Street and actually found a seat right away.

I walked to Penn after work and got the 5:41 to Ronkonkoma.  There were some track-change announcements being made, but the 5:41 was on its usual Track 19.  What was not usual was the lack of crowding.  Barely half the seats were occupied in the car where I rode, toward the middle of the consist.  Even better, the seat next to me stayed blessedly vacant for the whole trip.  Yep, as vile as the LIRR usually is, it sometimes is tolerable, and on a Friday afternoon that's especially good.

Gym: I tried using the speed bag, but it wasn't inflated enough to work very well.  According to another person in the boxing area, the pin on the gym's air pump was broken, so until they get around to acquiring another one it'll be no speed bag for anyone.  However the rest of the session went well, two miles running on the treadmill at 6.0 mph and then 20 minutes on the stationary cycle at 18.3 mph.


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