Random randomness

[Archinerd]

Here on our campus during the summer months we have communal bicycles that we can take from building to building. Nice service to have, we have a big campus and it keeps people from hopping into their cars when they have an in-face meeting in one of the other buildings.

But what gets me is the clown that rides a bike out to his car in the parking lot. I always park out in the far parking lot for my building, it's maybe 100, 150 yards. And every night, when I walk to my car, I see a bike standing in the parking lot, between the cars, where some lazy ass decided to leave it after riding from the building to his car. I was trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt...maybe he worked in South plaza, and was dropped off there every morning, and rode one of the bikes from there. That I could almost see, that's about a half mile walk. But the other day I finally saw this person riding from our building out the the lot. Didn't see his face, just his back, and he was gone by the time I got there.

I have no idea why this annoys me to the level that it does, but it just pisses me off.

Thanks. Needed to get that off my chest. Carry on.

The floor's lava, you touched it! You're dead!

[LordMortis]

stuff

I try and don't always succeed not to get worked up over self important people. I do wonder if they are oblivious or generally miserable and what happens when they get shut down. I find it hard to believe people like that have it together enough to be happy at life. Maybe that's just my frame of reference.

[GreenGoo]

Here on our campus during the summer months we have communal bicycles that we can take from building to building. Nice service to have, we have a big campus and it keeps people from hopping into their cars when they have an in-face meeting in one of the other buildings.

But what gets me is the clown that rides a bike out to his car in the parking lot. I always park out in the far parking lot for my building, it's maybe 100, 150 yards. And every night, when I walk to my car, I see a bike standing in the parking lot, between the cars, where some lazy ass decided to leave it after riding from the building to his car. I was trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt...maybe he worked in South plaza, and was dropped off there every morning, and rode one of the bikes from there. That I could almost see, that's about a half mile walk. But the other day I finally saw this person riding from our building out the the lot. Didn't see his face, just his back, and he was gone by the time I got there.

I have no idea why this annoys me to the level that it does, but it just pisses me off.

Thanks. Needed to get that off my chest. Carry on.

The floor's lava, you touched it! You're dead!

If the bike is there when he arrives in the morning and he rides it back to the communal pool/building/whatever, it's not too bad. I mean, it's not really in the spirit of the service and it takes 1 bike out of the pool while he's at home, but it's not too terrible.

Still ideologically annoying though.

[hentzau]

Usually not the case. Usually the bike is still there when I come in in the morning (and will start my morning off with a reminder of how much that annoys me.)

[Smoove_B]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

[hepcat]

So what you're saying, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, is that if I come visit you and Seppe at your offices, I get a free bike?

[hentzau]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

[hentzau]

So what you're saying, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, is that if I come visit you and Seppe at your offices, I get a free bike?

If you can get it past Barney Fife manning the gates, it's all yours.

[Z-Corn]

If you ever get the hankering for the illusive McRib, go to Meijer and get OnCor's BBQ Rib like product. You get a bazillion of those things for like two bucks on sale. Way more than your stomach will ever process without a full on rebellion.

Let Kenji show you how to make a Ribby McRibface!

[Holman]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

Maybe the Guy knows about the bike truck and just assumes that it exists precisely to recover bikes from the parking lot? If the truck is making the rounds anyway, is there a reason not to leave a bike where it will be picked up?

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

[coopasonic]

Here on our campus during the summer months we have communal bicycles that we can take from building to building.

Now you've got me concerned what is going to happen when the cold months come here. We just got bikes in the spring this year... people will be upset if they disappear for the winter. Of course our winter is nothing compared to your winter so maybe ours will stay. I on;y use the bikes when I need to cross the campus in a hurry. Walking is better exercise and keeps me away from a computer for a longer time.

[hentzau]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

Maybe the Guy knows about the bike truck and just assumes that it exists precisely to recover bikes from the parking lot? If the truck is making the rounds anyway, is there a reason not to leave a bike where it will be picked up?

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

Sure, I rationally get that it's fine to do what he's doing. But my monkey brain doesn't get that. Like Uber. No reason why I should, but I dislike Uber drivers.

[Smoove_B]

Sure, I rationally get that it's fine to do what he's doing. But my monkey brain doesn't get that. Like Uber. No reason why I should, but I dislike Uber drivers.

Monkey play in the jungle, robot work in the factory - they will have a giant rumble.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Sure, I rationally get that it's fine to do what he's doing. But my monkey brain doesn't get that. Like Uber. No reason why I should, but I dislike Uber drivers.

"People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them."

"There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."

-- Epictetus

[Rip]

I don't understand why you aren't happy that you have a bike waiting on you to ride from the parking lot to the building every morning?

[LordMortis]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

Maybe the Guy knows about the bike truck and just assumes that it exists precisely to recover bikes from the parking lot? If the truck is making the rounds anyway, is there a reason not to leave a bike where it will be picked up?

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

Sure, I rationally get that it's fine to do what he's doing. But my monkey brain doesn't get that. Like Uber. No reason why I should, but I dislike Uber drivers.

It fine like it's fine that people leave shopping carts out instead of taking the time to push them to the coral. Someone gets paid to go out and collect them but that's not the way things are supposed to be done.

That said, unless you want to confront every self important you see or there is a reason this should make a difference, try to put your self in a spake where you let it bother you as much as you'd let an errant shopping cart in a parking lot bother you... Which is to say only when you have to get our of you damned car to move the damned thing so you can park...

[gilraen]

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

Sure, I rationally get that it's fine to do what he's doing. But my monkey brain doesn't get that. Like Uber. No reason why I should, but I dislike Uber drivers.

It's not necessarily fine in a practical sense. If the wind picks up and knocks it over, and someone hits it with their car - they may raise a stink about it, and the company will start cutting down on how/where the bikes are available, because it's cheaper for them to take the perk away than to deal with someone's insurance claim. Not to mention that they won't spend the money to replace the destroyed bike. Now imagine that there's more than one person doing it on a regular basis... (you only see the guy that works in your building...who's to say that there aren't more losers in other buildings doing this).

[Holman]

Something a propos I wonder about:

Lots of cities (including mine) now have rent-a-bike setups where you pay to unlock a bike from a rack and then lock it into another rack near your destination. (The bikes are GPS tagged, and you've supplied a credit card or whatever, so you can't easily steal them.)

Since there's always going to be noise in the system, you won't have a perfect return flow of the bikes. Maybe there are several days when it's sunny in the morning but rainy in the afternoon, so lots of people ride bikes into Center City but choose not to ride them back to the train station at the end of the day. You're going to end up with biked unevenly distributed.

How does the company manage this? Do they run a midnight shuttle all over town to redistribute the bikes to optimum morning locations?

[tjg_marantz]

Yes

[ImLawBoy]

Something a propos I wonder about:

Lots of cities (including mine) now have rent-a-bike setups where you pay to unlock a bike from a rack and then lock it into another rack near your destination. (The bikes are GPS tagged, and you've supplied a credit card or whatever, so you can't easily steal them.)

Since there's always going to be noise in the system, you won't have a perfect return flow of the bikes. Maybe there are several days when it's sunny in the morning but rainy in the afternoon, so lots of people ride bikes into Center City but choose not to ride them back to the train station at the end of the day. You're going to end up with biked unevenly distributed.

How does the company manage this? Do they run a midnight shuttle all over town to redistribute the bikes to optimum morning locations?

I've seen vans that look like they could be Divvy (our rent-a-bike provider) bike carriers driving around Chicago, so I'm guessing they keep an eye on things (probably via GPS), and then they redistribute as needed.

[Anonymous Bosch]

I've seen vans that look like they could be Divvy (our rent-a-bike provider) bike carriers driving around Chicago, so I'm guessing they keep an eye on things (probably via GPS), and then they redistribute as needed.

When I were a lad, this was British slang for being stupid, as in "Don't be divvy!"

To quote Urban Dictionary:

Div
Actually originates from prison slang in the UK. A job often given to the lowest inmates was to put cardboard dividers into boxes. Someone given this job was a 'divider' or a 'div'. Now used as an insult to those who display stupidity.

'Oh you fucking div, you broke my ribs!"

[Holman]

I've seen vans that look like they could be Divvy (our rent-a-bike provider) bike carriers driving around Chicago, so I'm guessing they keep an eye on things (probably via GPS), and then they redistribute as needed.

When I were a lad, this was British slang for being stupid, as in "Don't be divvy!"

To quote Urban Dictionary:

Div
Actually originates from prison slang in the UK. A job often given to the lowest inmates was to put cardboard dividers into boxes. Someone given this job was a 'divider' or a 'div'. Now used as an insult to those who display stupidity.

'Oh you fucking div, you broke my ribs!"

That's so uninterestingly literal. Doesn't all the cool British slang develop through three or four layers of rhyming and punning and street poetry?

[Anonymous Bosch]

I've seen vans that look like they could be Divvy (our rent-a-bike provider) bike carriers driving around Chicago, so I'm guessing they keep an eye on things (probably via GPS), and then they redistribute as needed.

When I were a lad, this was British slang for being stupid, as in "Don't be divvy!"

To quote Urban Dictionary:

Div
Actually originates from prison slang in the UK. A job often given to the lowest inmates was to put cardboard dividers into boxes. Someone given this job was a 'divider' or a 'div'. Now used as an insult to those who display stupidity.

'Oh you fucking div, you broke my ribs!"

That's so uninterestingly literal. Doesn't all the cool British slang develop through three or four layers of rhyming and punning and street poetry?

True, but that's just part of the fun. Sometimes there's a more pedestrian literal origin, others it may sound more like indecipherable gibberish to the uninitiated, e.g.:

"It nearly knocked me off me plates -- he was wearing a syrup! So I ran up the apples, got straight on the dog to me trouble, and said I couldn't believe me mincers!"

[Kraken]

How does the company manage this? Do they run a midnight shuttle all over town to redistribute the bikes to optimum morning locations?

Self-riding bikes.

[GreenGoo]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

Maybe the Guy knows about the bike truck and just assumes that it exists precisely to recover bikes from the parking lot? If the truck is making the rounds anyway, is there a reason not to leave a bike where it will be picked up?

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

I now understand why people just drop their litter in the street.

edit: Crap, LM beat me to it.

[Scuzz]

So what you're saying, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, is that if I come visit you and Seppe at your offices, I get a free bike?

Some charity here thought putting bicycles at bus stops would encourage people to ride the bikes instead of the bus. Then they would drop the bikes off at some place where somebody else could use them. I don't think it took very long before all the bikes were unaccounted for.

[Holman]

Isn't there a security patrol at your facility? Why aren't they picking up random bikes during an after-hours site inspection?

I have seen a truck go driving by with bikes loaded in the back. My assumption was that they were re-distributing bikes amongst the campuses. But I'm sure that they are rounding up other wayward bikes as well.

Maybe the Guy knows about the bike truck and just assumes that it exists precisely to recover bikes from the parking lot? If the truck is making the rounds anyway, is there a reason not to leave a bike where it will be picked up?

He might understand what he's doing as the way it's supposed to work. If I were setting up the system, I would expect to find lots of bikes in the parking lot for precisely this reason.

I now understand why people just drop their litter in the street.

But if there's a built-in service that picks up the bikes, isn't it more like dropping your litter in a trash can?

[hepcat]

I'm freakin' livid right now.

So I'm at the gym working out. As I've always done, I use my phone as my mp3 player. I frequently look at it between sets as I change music, check who the artist of a song is, and read any emails/texts.

I'm about ready for my last workout when one of the gym workers corners me, introduces himself and then politely asks me to step into his office. I figure it's an LA Fitness' semi annual "hey, let's sign you up for a personal training session at 75 bucks an hour!' talk. But then he tells me, "We've received a couple of complaints about you today."

I'm going back over my time thinking of what it could be. Did I drop a weight? Did I put the 25 pound dumbbell back in the 20 pound spot?

I ask him what about and he tells me to wait for his manager, who's on her way.

She steps into the office after a second and then slightly closes the door.

"We've received two complaints back to back that you're filming people working out. We have a policy against..."

"WHAT!?!" I practically screamed.

"Sir, we have a policy against filming people working out in the gym and I just wanted to let you know that..."

I pushed my phone into her hands, while basically yelling, "You go through that phone right now and you find one shred of evidence that I'm filming people here! I use the phone to listen to music and read emails while I'm working out, so of course I bloody well look at it a lot! But I AM NOT FILMING ANYTHING!"

For some reason, the thought of people thinking I was some middle aged pervert filming girls at a gym was pushing all my buttons. I could tell the manager and her sidekick were in an awkward position. I just kept pushing my phone into her hands and demanding that she go through it. She kept pushing it back, realizing that anyone who was guilty of filming people at a gym would most likely not insist that someone take their phone and search it. But I was beyond angry at this point.

They kept apologizing and they told me they'd talk to the people who had complained and explain that I was just listening to music and reading emails on my phone. But I kept demanding that they take my phone to these people and let THEM search the goddamn thing for anything incriminating.

I eventually calmed down enough to accept their apology, and they pleaded with me not to let this ruin my experience with their establishment, but how could it not? Now I'm thinking of quitting the damn thing, even though it's just down the street from my place and very convenient.

But god damn it, the thought that two people accused me of essentially being a pervert is really sticking in my craw.

[Holman]

Gah! That's got to feel awful. So sorry it happened to you.

I use my iPad to listen to music at the gym, and I'm always super careful to avoid giving any appearance of pointing it at people.

What's weird, though, is that literally everyone else in the room has some sort of phone in their hand or on the machine in front of them. EVERYONE looks like they could be filming.

[hepcat]

I've been in and out of gyms for over 30 years (not that my physique is any evidence), and I've never once had this happen to me. And as you said, there are PLENTY of people looking at their damn phones at gyms.

The part that gets me is that TWO people complained. I could view one as a mistake, but two???

[gilraen]

The part that gets me is that TWO people complained. I could view one as a mistake, but two???

They could have been two people that were at the gym together. One of them got this stupid idea in his/her head (or just disliked something about hepcat for some reason), told the other person, and asked that the other person also go and complain to make it sound more "credible".

[Holman]

I've been in and out of gyms for over 30 years (not that my physique is any evidence), and I've never once had this happen to me. And as you said, there are PLENTY of people looking at their damn phones at gyms.

The part that gets me is that TWO people complained. I could view one as a mistake, but two???

I would guess that the two were together. One person had the wrong impression about you, and the other went along.

Listen, I have to ask this: were you wearing pants?

[hepcat]

I'm now more angry at those two jerks. Why should I let those asshats ruin it for me?

And I will not stop using my phone as my mp3 player. So screw them.

Listen, I have to ask this: were you wearing pants?

A speedo with a target painted on the front is still pants, damn it!

[Anonymous Bosch]

One wonders if either of the two patrons were as freakishly ripped as Carrot Top...

[hepcat]

Careful...or I will resurrect him.

Ooh...Lucifer season 2 premiere is on Hulu. That may cheer me up.

[Daehawk]

Wasn't the nude Bea Arthur tattoo?

[hepcat]

My hairline hides the naughty bits...although as I get older, more of her is being revealed. Some guys get a snake on their face, I got a Bea.

[Smoove_B]

That's really weird, though with that recent case of the woman that took a picture of another woman to post to social media and make hurtful comments, maybe people are being extra observant. I'm just surprised an iDevice in a gym isn't common enough that people are thinking you're creeping. I mean, a Polaroid? Sure. Please tell me you have a fat white headband on and leg warmers? Because that's how I imagine this all going down.

But seriously, I'd probably consider writing a letter and sending it certified to the manager of the gym to recap your conversation and understanding. Nothing crazy or detailed, but given how crazy things are I'd probably want there to be a written record and proof of a discussion and the outcome.

[Blackhawk]

I don't think I'd blame the gym. Chances are that, once the complaint was made, their hands were tied and they had to approach you. Once they were convinced you were in the right (or terrified of you), they backed off and apologized. That's about as little as they are probably allowed to do.

The two who complained, though. I don't know whether it's shitty that they found offense so easily or just sad that people have gotten so paranoid.

[hepcat]

I suspect this is an example of ageism. I'm 50 and folks my age are definitely in the minority at that gym. So some young morons see a middle aged guy and immediately assumes the worst instead of using their damn brain and realizing the phone is pointed at the damn floor while I'm looking at it.

But like I said, I'm not going to let them ruin it for me. Screw them for trying to make me look or feel bad.

I don't want to pursue this with the gym staff any further as it would look a little too "the lady doth protest too much". And I think their hands were tied, as Blackhawk said. They were very nice about the whole thing and apologized profusely to me after they realized I was innocent.

But I feel like showing up tomorrow with one of those giant cameras they use for movies. Then yelling "WHAT?" whenever someone looks at me.