Rearrange my brain and reORGANize my organs

This "new" year really isn't doing it for me. So far, I've been working way too much, not hanging out with friends and haven't been around any women that I'd like to be around in about 2 or 3 weeks... HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So starting today, I'm going to enjoy this year more. A friend told me (and should keep telling me until it sinks in) to "be more chill." In an attempt to be more chill, I grew a beard for about 2 and a half weeks. I had fun with facial hair on my face. I felt like I was hiding from the rest of the world. (Admittedly, a girl, a very pretty girl, told me how much she enjoys men with facial hair, so I figured it couldn't hurt to grow a beard. After all, there must be more than one pretty girl in New York who likes facial hair on a guy..... Right?) ..................So I shaved a few days ago and it felt good to be back to "my old self". Exercise in being more chill #1: slight success.

I'm going to hang out with some friends tonight in the East Village tonight to this place for dinner. The last few times I found myself in the East Village were alot of fun and though I'm not surrounding myself with the same company as of late, the neighborhood is still the same, right? (Will I ever make it here.......? Man, that's a downer.)

So that's the plan, at least for today. Though I have Monday off as it's Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I'm headed to work to finish up several projects and data requests to prepare for the national sales conference my company is having next week. (I get to stand up and present for a while about online media research.... sweet). As I'm sure next week will be filled with late late nights out networking and early morning breakfast conferences, I probably won't post on this for a while. For those of you who read my blog on a regular basis, you're probably already used to me ignoring this thing for days, weeks on end. But I promise to have some good stories to share at the end of next week. Hang in there, it'll be worth it.

Sowing Season

The title of this post refers to this band and their latest release. I've been a fan for years; still deciding about the new release.

I feel the title is also appropriate as this weekend was rather spring-like (that's when you sow seeds, right?....) in New York. Of course, I wasn't here to enjoy the weekend. I was upstate visiting family I had missed over the holidays. I'm always happy to spend time outside the city, especially when some sort of family is involved. But can't we do these things on cold weekends? The temperature apparently made it up to 72 fantastic degrees on Saturday. Some friends even spoke of friends of theirs heading to the shore for the day. Imagine: heading to the beach in January in New York.

I think all this "false" weather is great, but I have a real distaste for cold. This probably has something to do with going to college in Binghamton, where the temperature rarely rises above freezing during January and February and it snows every night. Some of you are probably wishing it would snow any day now, and hard so that Manhattan grinds to a halt. Snow days are great when you're still getting an education. Snow days are horrendous when you're trying to get to work because you work in private industry and NOTHING ever shuts that industry down (even a transit strike) and you're slipping and sliding through slush (snow doesn't last long in Manhattan; conversion to slush is nearly instantaneous) just to get to the subway which is probably running slow for no reason other than, well, it's snowing. You can see how this all goes downhill quickly. And on top of the snow/slush nightmare, IT'S COLD!

So I say, bring on the unseasonably warm temperatures for as long as possible. Perhaps when this all ends, it will be April, and then we'll just be saying "it's seasonably warm". Works for me.

The New Year

Not to sound overly "emo" or "pessimistic New Yorker", but so far, this is the new year. (Those of you who've read anything from earlier in 2006 know that I blog about Death Cab too much.)

Point being, I really don't feel any different. Let's examine the last 48 hours or so:

1) Spent the day in bed Saturday sick/hungover.......the entire day
2) Woke up too early on Sunday, partly as a product of spending Saturday in and out of consciousness.
3) Breakfast from this place (they deliver; minimum delivery charge = $3.75)
4) Called Trevor to firm up plans to meet at Jules' new place (both good friends from high school; Jules just moved in with his girlfriend on the Upper East Side.)
5) Lugged bottle of wine (it's not really "lugging" as it's just a bottle of wine, but I felt awkward carting it uptown in a Target bag) to Jules' new pad and helped move furniture (thankfully, he was moving exactly one block further downtown).
6) Hung out with Trevor, Jules, Monica (Jules' girlfriend), Alissa (who, though she refuses to admit it, attempted to burn me with a hot glue gun in 8th grade "Technology" class) and some others, notably Frank.
7) Headed to Williamsburg to see Your 33 Black Angels, the band that my friend Tim from high school started a while back. (Tim passed in early 2006... we miss you, man.)
8) Wandered home on the L train around 3 am. Made it to my apartment soaked and sober (rain on New Years Eve?) by 3:30 am.
9) Woke around 10 am today. Ended up going to the office for a few hours as I'd neglected a few projects last week what with all the people being gone and the distractions.
10) Met up with a friend for dinner and some horrendous TV.

I think we all like to believe there will be some earth-shattering change in our lives or that with the new year, somehow, "things" will be different. I've given up on this concept. Time is irrelevant to how "things" go in your life. They either happen, or they don't, and reasons abound for both paths. So, while I welcome a return to a normal work pattern and a more regular gym pattern, I see nor feel no discernible difference in 2007 from 2006. Perhaps it's all just a mental construct in order to get ourselves together, resolved to make changes and do "things" differently.... I'm not buying it anymore.

Happy Holidays.... or Merry Christmas... or just enjoy the day off

So the holidays are here.... Great. Tomorrow, I'm flying here to see my grandparents. I have to say, I'm looking forward to getting out of the city for a while. The last time I left, I went to D.C. for the day and was sick the entire time. I'll be out of town until Wednesday, a significant amount of time away from work and this city. But I have to say, I'm just not in the holiday spirit this year.

It always happens to me every year: Christmas sort of sneaks up on me while I'm not looking and by the time I take notice, it's a new year and new projects at work and the cycle starts all over again. One of my favorite things about Christmas used to be cutting down a REAL Christmas tree every year. Not only would I NEVER allow a fake tree in the house, I also had to make sure we cut it down fresh.

UPDATE: I'm back from the grandparents'. I like how earlier (last week) I commented that I wanted to get out of the city for a while. Put it this way: I should have stayed in the city. Between airport delays, grumpy family members, and the non-stop eating that apparently happens everywhere but New York, I'm not exactly pleased with the trip. Plus you always hear about "Christmas in New York", but who really stays here for the actual holiday? Most people are gone until after New Years; I'm sitting in my mostly empty office this week wondering why I'm not off.

Time for a change

I really couldn't stand my layout anymore, so i changed it to this. I'm into it; it's green, it's serene, and (one more thing that rhymes with green.... think, dammit) it's...... mean? Whatever, hope you like this layout. This will have to suffice until I can get my "good friend Frank" to cave and design something really cool for me.

"Noonan" syndrome

Before you all go ahead and accuse me of making this one up, or tell me that "Yeah, I've heard of Noonan syndrome... it's when you get black-out drunk.", there is in fact a Noonan syndrome. And apparently, it's quite debilitating.

Noonan syndrome is a genetic disorder that effects the growth of body parts in children. Symptoms include "webbing of the neck" as well as "different shapes of the chest".

I'm not quite sure (that's not true, I just found out: Jacqueline Noonan.. helps if you read the Wikipedia entry) how my last name became synonymous with some horrible, debilitating disease (and I'm sure that one of you out there will spend more time researching this than I did on Friday afternoon). Apparently, 1 in every 2,500 kids will be born with NS, or Noonan syndrome.

I think after reading about Noonan syndrome, I'd much rather prefer the disease to be "ability to become black-out drunk" rather than what it is now. Then again, neither of those are really that great. I think I'll discover Paul Noonan syndrome, where an individual is incredibly handsome, smart, funny, and above all, has a good heart..... Think it will catch on?

Weekend Update

This is what I did last night and these are the people I met.

So I'm 25 now

And I guess I'm supposed to grow up at some point.

I can rent a car now. I can still legally drink. What else comes with 25? A co-worker informed me that this is the last year that "you can still act like a jackass and get drunk a lot." Apparently, at 26, you start realizing that you're getting old and need to "settle down" and find the right girl. Does that mean my tastes in women is going to completely change next year? Have I been looking for the "wrong" girl? I suppose that as you get older, the need to settle down becomes stronger. Just not at the top of my list right now, though, spending some more time with the fairer sex would be a start.

So far, 25 has brought the following with it:
1) raging hangover
2) the flu (still planning on going out tonight, though)
3) freezing cold
4) rapid depletion of my bank account

Oh, and, only 5 more years until I'm 30. I should have appreciated 24 more when it was still around.

There's no title that fits this

I was walking through the HEET turnstile last night in the Times Square station heading home. This lady was headed out of the subway up to the street. I figured she'd wait as I had this expression on my face that probably said "You better wait or I'll hurt you". Instead of waiting, she grabs one of the bars on the turnstile (mind you, I'm speaking of the ones that are floor to ceiling height and are not "jumpable), attempts to walk through the turnstile ON THE OTHER SIDE as I walk through entering the subway. Stop and think about this for a minute. She tried to walk through the side that has corresponding, parallel bars which prevent people from going through the turnstile on that side. (Picture for reference.)


See those things on the left? The prohibitive bars that if you try to walk into, will stop you, dead in your tracks? So as I'm walking through, she attempts her magic, only to get her hand pinched in between the two sets of bars, to which she exclaims "ow, damn, oh.... you can't go that way". No, no you can't go that way, moron. There are large metal bars that, short of having "You can't go this way" printed on them, pretty much SCREAM out, "You can't go this way."

Are you new to life?

I really hate to do this....

... but this is going to be a post about things I HATE!.

1) attitude from co-workers (none of those who read this, don' t worry).
2) other people doing my job (relax people, I do, in fact, know what I'm doing).
3) the fact that it has yet to get above 40 degrees today.
4) the complete lack of room in my freezer (you'd think with 3 guys living in one apartment, we'd have no food at all, ever.... not so in the BPC).
5) people who follow up on tasks (not just at work) just so they can say "well, I followed up, so that's that...". Work still continues regardless of your ability to "follow up" which basically consists of annoying the crap out of the person actually doing the project (again, not work specific).
6) this haircut I got today from this place. (don't let the French name fool you; I look like a 10 year old boy now).

Alright, enough of that. Some cool things going on:

7) anything that has to do with this blog or any of these blogs.
8) taking a co-worker/friend's name that ends in "ey" and making it end in "ette" (for instance, someone named "Audrey" would become "Audrette")
9) meeting new people, in general.
10) 7 days smoke free!
11) going to the gym tonight to work out aggression from #'s 1-6 above.
12) headed to Outer Banks for Christmas to see my grandparents (not sure if this is good or bad, but good for now.)


Anyway, just as many good things as bad. Hopefully this week gets a little better.

All-consuming panic

I don't know what my deal is these past few days. Being awake at 5 a.m. on a Saturday is probably a good indicator of what I feel like right now. I wound up having one of these types of Fridays again. Let's recap the past 24 hours, just in case you weren't bored enough.

-went to work where I spent entirely too much time writing a survey for this page (please take the survey) and then battling with a designer to get the thing to launch "on activity" as a pop-under (only in IE; Firefox displays it as a pop-up). spent some time in an interesting conversation at work throughout the day (clearly much better than exercising my java script skills) with a friend.

-in the middle of all that above, we had somewhat of an impromptu pizza party at work where everyone had to go around and introduce themselves, state their position, how long they've been with the company, where they were prior to this place, where they were born, and what song they would sing if they were playing "I'm going to kill you unless you sing karaoke". (for what it's worth, I would sing this.)

-went home at 5:45 after getting the pop-under and cookie to work after 5 hours of screwing around with the thing and ordered some Chinese food. (seeing as I'm broke and it was time to pay the rent yesterday, I stayed in, watched a movie/passed out around 10:30, which is why I'm up now, at 5:11 a.m.)

Back to the title of the post. I'm not sure what the hell is going on, but as I woke up a few minutes ago, I had this feeling of sheer terror running through me. I think it might have something to do with the cheap Chinese food I ate last night, but I'm really having a hard time sleeping lately. I woke up yesterday morning to find I had removed my shirt, for some reason, in my sleep. That's clearly no reason to panic but strange crap is going on when I shut down. On more than several occasions, I've had that falling dream, when you wake up as you hit the ground and you feel like you just plummeted several hundred feet only to land on your mattress.

I keep getting the feeling that I'm being haunted. Not in the creepy ghost way (man, that would freak me out) but in the "remember when" way. Like "remember when you lived in Brooklyn and hated it because your apartment was a shit-hole?" to which I follow with "and now you miss it because you live in a soul-less neighborhood in Manhattan"? Or "remember when your company paid for 100 people to go to Puerto Rico for a week and get wasted and how much simpler your life was then"? (no need to follow up on that one).

Point is, through all this rambling muck, I've got to snap out of this funk. I'll be turning 25 soon, I suppose that has me down a bit. But it's not like I can help turning 25. Plus, as people keep telling me when I tell them I'm going to be 25, it's not like I'm turning 40. You're still young, Noonan, start acting like it! (that's the point in the post where I resort to talking to myself as an authority figure..... ). Now I think I'll try and get some sleep... or I'll stay up and panic some more.

The Art of Blogging

Before I start my comment for the day, I have to let you all know that I've been "spotted" on Technorati. I have to say, I was quite proud to claim "Noonan" as my own, and I thank my friends for their linking that more than likely put me on Technorati.

Back to the post at hand. My recent foray back into blogging has lead me to the conclusion that these posts take time to craft (as well they should). This one saves drafts, even saves them for another day. I agree with the process she's got going on here, but I find myself impatient. I think this has a lot to do with how and where I post. I'm currently sitting in my cube at work, waiting to go to a meeting which probably won't have much to do with me and thus feel rushed to get this thing done before the meeting begins. Other posts are done from home, thus allowing me the time to sit there for 2 or 3 hours and think about what I should write, how I should write it, if I should stop writing, etc.

Maybe there's something to be said for publishing on the fly. Perhaps it's like free-association blogging. The first thing that pops into my head is what you'll all be reading (all 5 of you who come here... that includes people from work).

List of what's going on right now:
1) dinner party at my place last night; by all accounts, a bust
2) meeting upstairs in 30; get ready
3) thinking about going to the gym after work
4) wishing there was more to eat in my apartment other than peanut butter and jelly
5) realizing it's Thursday already
6) getting ready for my weekend

Have you ever noticed...

...how much I suck at posting on this thing on a consistent basis?

...how when you're waiting to cross the street in Midtown, and have a red light, those coming from your left/right will walk right into you as if you don't exist as they have a white walk light?

...how you can talk to someone for a few hours and have it feel like 10 minutes?

...how meetings get called at work, and the substantive conclusion of the meeting is that you'll meet again in a week to see how much more you've accomplished since this initial meeting, which, in effect, is keeping you from finishing a project?

...how, sometimes, if you leave something you "must do' for a week or so, it suddenly is forgotten about by the person who said "you must do this"?

...how hard it is to keep a list like this going, but you're committed to keeping it going, so you'll write an item that speaks to the fact that you're making a list on your blog?

...how people FIGHT on a subway for a seat, when in reality, they're getting off at the next stop which is no more than 5 minutes away?

...how friends/acquaintances/more than friends can turn into haunting memories within 6 months of meeting them?

...how much these guys rock?

...how great this bar is?

...how I keep playing the guitar with no hopes of getting any better but keep doing it because I enjoy living in some sort of alter reality where I can play the guitar?

...how what people write is a great way to pass the time?

...how long that took me to link?

...how every word in the item above the one before this is a link?

...how big of a freaking nerd I am for doing that?

...how tough it is to actually ask a girl out on a date in New York?

...how you can completely dive in at work and not come up for air for a solid week?

...that it's time for this list to end?

Some holiday comments and a general note

Thanksgiving was a good time this year. I stayed with my father as my mom was out of town (parents are divorced.) We did the whole "deep fry your turkey" thing, which turned out great. It's pretty healthy for you as all the fat melts away and it tastes great. Best part is that it only took about an hour and 15 minutes to cook the bird. Just enough time for me to down about 5 beers with my dad and grandfather outside. 3 generations of Noonan men, bonding over a turkey in a bucket of oil. Class act, indeed.

I came back to the city on Friday, partly because I was bored at home, but mostly because I had things to do. The rest of the weekend was good. I went to two concerts and had a nice time not being at work.

I started reading my archives tonight, looking back on what I've ranted on and on about since April. One particular quote from this post:

"You have the friends you do at present for a reason: they're accessible, they don't suck that much (most of the time), or you're hooking up with one of them and she's hot."

Yeah, I thought it was pretty good then too.

Anyway, I know I don't post nearly as much as this one does nor do I have as much to say as she does (yes, Audrey, I linked to you twice), but I enjoy this collection of thoughts I've managed to keep. Not 7 months ago, I started this thing thinking I'd probably only post once or twice. But, turns out, I've posted quite a bit and it's all good stuff. Best part is remembering the day you wrote it or even the reason why you wrote the post. So read my archives, if you're bored or if you're really interested in what I'm all about.

5 or 6

A few hours ago, I started watching this (I'm still watching it) and this memory came over me out of the blue. The memory is from when I was quite young, perhaps around 5 or 6 years old, on my way to school, which I absolutely hated. I used to beg my mom not to take me everyday. I hated walking in; I hated the first hour everyday. I remember what the house looks like across from my school. It had this weird red fence that used to piss me off; I definitely remember being pissed off at that fence.

One day I went to school and I remember being pretty happy. The weekend prior to this day, my mom bought me a new pair of sneakers. I thought they were the coolest sneakers and remember when I got them, I ran around in the mall, reporting back to my mom that "these ones run and jump really good, mom. thanks for buying them for me." Looking back, I remember thinking that it was the shoes that made me run and jump "really good" and couldn't possibly have anything to do with the person (me) wearing the shoes.

Anyway, for some reason, this memory came flying back into my head and I got very nostalgic for these sneakers. I find as I get older, I try sometimes to remember/revert back to when I was younger. Point is, I just spent about 2 hours on the Internet searching for these sneakers. At this point, they're "classics". Have a look: Reebok's. This version is not quite as I remember, but is pretty damn close. The pair I had when i was 5 or 6 were all canvas but the color schemes/design is pretty similar to this pair at JC Penney (honestly, I couldn't find them anywhere else).

This entire search makes me think back to the simpler days, when I was 5 or 6, and had sneakers that "ran and jumped" really good. The mall where my mom got these shoes no longer exists. It's too bad, really; there was an Orange Julius at this mall that had really good hot dogs and I guess you'd call it orange juice. (Their site now insists they offer smoothies and other crap, but back in 1986, smoothies didn't exist, shithead.) I'm not sure if it's completely ridiculous to buy a pair of shoes that remind of when you were 6 but I sure as hell would rather be reminded of when I was 6 than reminding myself that I'm almost 25.

What's this guy's problem?

I'm going to have a hard time properly masking the true identity of this individual but I'm pretty much being forced to rant about him because he's pissing me off. Everyday, this guy (I won't say "at work" but you get the idea) gets on the phone, on speaker, and basically screams at the top of his lungs at people. He's not mad at all; he's just weird.

And he'll do things like "hey John, you on the call? John? JOHN?!?!?" and then you'll hear John respond "Yeah, I'm here...." just waiting for this guy to stop yelling. Here are a few reasons why this annoys the piss out of me:

1) I have NOTHING to do with what this person does all day, either on the phone or off.
2) I want NOTHING to do with what they do, yet I overhear these calls everyday, so I could at any point in time, jump on this project like I was part of it since day one. (I even here about cost implications, etc. which just shouldn't be broadcast around an office.... or where ever it is I'm talking about).
3) I can't function on what I need to do. I'm in media research. I don't spend the entire day on the phone. I spend most of my day looking at numbers and interpreting them for people who can't be bothered looking at numbers. So this phone call going on in the background just screws up my flow, so to speak.

I'm not saying this person is a bad person; I'd surely hope he's not as he sits 15 feet from me. But I could do without the personal/private and/or business phone calls going on.... SEE, RIGHT THERE, the noise from the call just completely made me lose my train of thought....

Well, there ya go...

My attempt to post on this thing regularly has clearly failed. Last week, my site meter report told me that 8 people had visited this page in a week. "Well, there ya go...", everyone lost interest. Whatever, your loss.... because I'm posting now, and you're probably going to miss out on it... sucker.

What's going on lately? Oh, right, Halloween. I'm not bitter about this "holiday" at all. Don't get me wrong: I love an excuse to be someone you're not as much as the next guy. Maybe I lost that creative spirit somewhere along the way. Maybe it's a holiday for children, and not 24 year old guys. I remember as a kid, I was a vampire a lot.... I wore this Frankenstein mask a few years in a row too (didn't fit me the last year; had to pull it over my over-sized head). The last few years of college, I "dressed up" as a "preppy" white guy.... The joke there was that I guess I always dressed like that.... Yeah, it got a few chuckles, that was about it.

So this year, I'm doing the same thing as last year: nothing. Given that I live in Battery Park City, where there are more strollers than people who can actually walk on their own, there was a sign-up sheet in my building for "trick-or-treat friendly" apartments. You better believe neither one of my roommates signed us up for that duty. I gladly joined them in the ranks of "trick-or-treat UN-friendly" people. I'm not some guy who hates kids. I think little kids are great.... for other people. They smile and do "cute" things all the time, and that's great, and hell, sometimes I even smile watching these displays. But the thing about little kids is that right after they smile or laugh or do something cool, they SCREAM AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS on a crowded subway when I left my iPod at home and can't drown the little bastard out. Not related to Halloween at all.... oh well.

Anyway, for everyone going out this year for Halloween, I hope you enjoy yourselves. I've heard that ending up in the East Village, alone, and pissed is not the way to go..... (It's really amazing how my brain only functions in 2-hour time frames...) So if you avoid the pit of the East Village, manage to surround yourself with a friend or two (hell, just walk close to someone on the sidewalk), and are not really freaking mad about something, you too shall have a good time.... Or so it's been said.

Google Acquires YouTube; Noonan's still middle-class

I'm in a suit today. No, not a lawsuit, though that might be more exciting than wearing this tie all day. I'm headed to a meeting downtown, at the new Google office building, and I specify "building" as I won't actually be meeting in the Google office. But I plan to stop by and eat their food.

I think they could probably spare it at this point given the monumental deal that went through yesterday, where Google formally acquired YouTube. I believe the total price came out to be $1.65 billion. Wrapping my mind around this figure gives me a bit of a headache. I don't know much about M&A deals, but my thoughts would lead me to believe a company would have to show some type of profit before being acquired, letting the potential acquire-er know that there's money to be made. These days, it seems like any start-up who gets enough PR buzz around them shows potential. Admittedly, there is great potential for Google to monetize YouTube with pre-roll video ads, where a 15-30 second ad would run prior to the video. So I wouldn't say that the deal is a bust by any means.

So I think if Google can afford YouTube at $1.65 billion, then I'm sure they won't miss a) any food I happen to grab 0n my way out or b) one of those neat scooters they have to transport themselves down the long halls in this new office.

Lazy Fridays

Keeping with my theme of writing about nothing, I decided to post about my Friday night routine. I thought this was purely a Brooklyn thing, but the routine stuck with me during my move to Manhattan. Here goes:

1) Get off train and walk to pizza place.
2) Get two slices to go.
3) Head to the elevator in my building thinking "I'm looking forward to staying in tonight."
4) Watch several saved shows on my DVR that I missed during the week (Cable is a virtue.)
5) Head to my bed for a "nap."
6) Wake up around 10:30 thinking "crap, I can't go to bed yet."
7) Feel bad about staying in on a Friday.
8) Wake up entirely too early on Saturday morning and do something like "Go to the gym" or "Get an early start to the day". (NOT a Saturday thing to do)

So you can see how tomorrow will go already. Great day at work. Oh, and I'm getting a Blackberry for work so I can be in touch ALL THE TIME. Surprisingly, I asked for the thing, not to be "cool" because those aren't cool anymore. I have this problem where I like my job and I want to be available for trouble-shooting, research requests, etc. I'm looking forward to my new connectivity. Who knows, maybe blogger will roll-out a Blackberry version.

Actually Using the NYSC Membership

Today marks a turning point, which I may or may not have blogged about in the past, where I get up early and go to the gym. I spend probably more than I'd like to admit on a gym membership every month and by the end of the month, I can count on two hands how many times I actually went to the gym. Clearly, it looks like a waste of time.

I decided last night to get more serious about the gym, losing weight, feeling better about myself, etc. So this morning I got up at 5:45 and headed over to the Battery Park City NYSC. This outpost usually isn't too crowded. It's not, however, the typical NYSC, crawling with young professionals just trying to squeeze in 30 minutes of cardio before a 12 hour work day. The BPC location is usually filled with middle-aged folks trying to get in shape or the occasional "I live in Jersey and commute in early to get my workout done before work" person. I did my 25 minutes on the elliptical and then some "vertical presses", "overhead presses" and this other thing that supposedly works your back. I have to say, I'm feeling the burn. Let's hope I can make this a pretty regular routine.

The only aspect that I don't enjoy about the BPC NYSC (acronyms are great) is the commuting individual who treats the gym as his/her own home gym. There's a pretty set standard at the New York Sports Club concerning the amount of time you're permitted on a cardio device (treadmill, elliptical, etc.) when others are waiting. These select few feel it is there duty to make someone wait longer than the posted 30 minute courtesy time on the device. I'm not sure why it is that only the commuters don't really understand the concept, but needless to say, it's getting annoying. I had to wait about 10 minutes today for an elliptical as they were full when I arrived. The one person who should have been done long before the others was easily a commuter as he had his gym bag next to him on the ground (stuffed full with some suit more than likely). Most normal people go to the gym first, then return home to shower, then head to work. (Okay, maybe that's not fair, but I think that's what you should do.) So after shooting a few looks like "Hey man, someone's waiting", the woman next to him finally looked over at me, smiled, and said "Don't worry, I'm almost done." Once she left, I got started and didn't hesitate to turn my head 90 degrees to the left to make sure commuter-jackass was aware of my presence. My look conveyed something along the lines of "Yeah, I'm the guy who was waiting, jerk."

Although I seem to have had a hard time at first, I look forward to maintaining this routine, regardless of the other "users" who might arrive early and throw their weight around (pun intended).