I've been listening to techno music while working for about the past 3 weeks.  Something about the way it drones on and on helps me focus =P  What's sad though is that I'm starting to recognize a couple of the songs.  Like the one that goes like this:

"Bmm Bmm Bmm Bmm  *woooooosh*   tshhhhhh  *synth* Bmm Bmm Bmm Bmm". 

Or the other one that's like this:

"Bmm Bmm Bmm Bmm tshhhhhhh  *synth*   *silence*  Bmm Bmm Bmm Bmm".

Lets see what's playing right now...

Bmm Snare Bmm Snare Bmm Snare Bmm Snare tshhhhhhhhhhh *sounds* Bmm Snare Bmm Snare.   And so on.

I just bought an elliptical and it arrived today.  Everything up to today was easy.

3 PM.  Gigantic semi shows up with my exercise machine.  It was going to be curbside delivery, which was fine because I was just gonna take it up piece by piece.  All I wanted was for the people from the truck to move it into the lobby area of my apartment building.  Just so it wouldn't have to sit outside.  Out of the truck steps one guy.  Just one guy.  One guy and his hand truck.

He proceeds to slowly drag the 320 pound box to the back of the truck.  Then he slowly slides it off the back onto the ground.  I tried to stop it from slamming against the ground too much, but there is only so much I could do.  Out comes the hand truck.  He wheels it to the front stairs of my building where he then lets me sign the delivery paper and he's on his way.  The box at this point has chunks ripped out of it in several places and some tears, but whatever, I was gonna open it all up anyway.

I slowly moved every piece I could to my apartment lobby so that the huge box and all of its contents wouldn't have to sit outside anymore.  After a while, the only thing left in the box was the base.  One huge solid piece of a base.  Couldn't be disassembled any further.  About 6 feet long and maybe 200 some pounds.  Totally impossible for me to ever move by myself.  All along I assumed that the base itself would come in pieces, being that I had to assemble the whole machine.  But I was wrong.  That's a good thing and a bad thing though.  Good because it's probably a lot more solid that a machine whose base you have to assemble.  Bad because I was the only person around available to move it.  It was also an extra big problem because if I couldn't find anyone to help me with the move tonight, it would possibly have to sit outside overnight.  I didn't like that very much.

I abandoned my fancy workout equipment outside so I could try to find anyone that could possibly help move it.  After frantically calling a bunch of numbers, I eventually got a hold of this one mover who was pretty much on his way home.  I explained the stupid situation I got myself in.  He wasn't gonna stop by because it sounded a little tough, but he lived only 10 blocks away, so he said he would take a look.

My savior arrives.  He takes a look at everything and says that it's totally doable.  He was a really nice guy, in a New York kind of way.  From there, we get everything ready for the walk up my two flights of stairs and proceed with the moving.  And that was it.  It was done. 

He never quoted me for a price and I never asked because I didn't care how much it was going to cost, I just needed that machine to be inside my apartment and not outside my building's front door.  As he's packing up, he says "Give me whatever you think is fair." which totally surprised me.  I gave him my money, he said thanks, and we both went on our way.

Now I gotta put the stupid thing together =P

So I was on the train this morning coming into work and a man got on with a digital camera.  Before he got on the train, he was taking pictures of what seemed to be everything in the station.  On the train, he also was taking pictures of the display and I guess the ceiling and the pole.  I kinda rolled my eyes because I don't like it when tourists take pictures of the inside of a subway car when it's really busy.  Not for me to judge though, that's why I only kinda rolled my eyes =P

Anyway, I was fine with him taking pictures.  But then this woman drinking a coffee goes up to him and asks "What are you taking pictures for?".  I couldn't quite hear the man's response, but I kept picking up pieces of what the woman was saying.  "something something something, be careful with taking pictures".  "something something cops".  "something something problem with terrorism in the city".  "something something something watch out".  She seemed kinda bothered when she was saying this, but never rasing her voice really.

I can say that has never crossed my mind.  Maybe I'm too trusting of people?  To me, he just seemed like your average tourist.  Some part of me thinks that the woman was being a little too helpful when she didnt need to be.  But I can also she how she maybe just wanted to help to make sure he didn't get in trouble.  I don't know, was it because he wasn't white?  I have no clue.  Just thought I would write about it.