Crosswalks to Nowhere

Over the years, I've made an observation about the music they play at my health club.

Depending on the time of day and where in the gym you're working out, you'll hear a different music stream running. For example, the locker rooms always seem to have the Soccer-Mom music channel on: you know, "Sunny Came Home," "Chariot," and Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry." The Heavy-Plate-Lifting area, home of the more hard-core weight training, always has heavier fare by bands like Staind and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The main workout area, though, has different music depending on the time of day.

All that said, I've come to the realization that Saturday and Sunday mornings have been designated "Old Fogey Classic Rock Time." In other words, I think they're gearing towards my demographic.

The song list of the average Saturday morning goes as follows:

The Who - "Baba O'Riley" or "Squeeze Box"
George Thorogood - "Move it on Over"
Foreigner - "Cold As Ice"
Rolling Stones - "Street Fighting Man"
Led Zeppelin - "Immigrant Song"
Doors - "LA Woman"
ZZ Top - "Sharp Dressed Man"
Cream - "Badge" and in fact anything Clapton did between 1969-1975
Doobie Brothers - 'Long Train Runnin''
Phil Collins - 'In the Air Tonight'
Jimi Hendrix - "Fire" or "Foxy Lady"

In other words, the music they play is so familiar to me that it's almost like listening to Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, or, dare I say it, Roger Whittaker. In fact, I may go so far as to submit that Classic Rock is to my generation what "Beautiful Music" was to my parents': something so innocuous that you don't even realize it's there.

I have to tell you, though, it's not at all motivating to be doing chest presses while listening to "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd.

The funny thing, though, is that my kids know a lot of these songs thanks to Guitar Hero. So these songs are already reeeeeeeaallly familiar to them, too.

Maybe the answer is to bring my iPod to the gym. If I'm gonna listen to music that was recorded more than 20 years ago, I'd rather it be something like "Generals and Majors."

Even though it's early February, we've already registered for two events that mark the beginning of summer-- Bike The Drive in Chicago on May 24 and The Miller Lite Ride for the Arts in Milwaukee two weeks later, on June 7.

These are both awesome events-- I've done Bike the Drive every year since its inception, and last year was our first time at the Miller Lite Ride.

Bike the Drive features the annual closing of Lake Shore Drive so you can ride your bike along the lakefront from The Museum of Science and Industry all the way north to Bryn Mawr Avenue. The Miller Lite ride starts in downtown Milwaukee, runs south through several neighborhoods, and then back up to end at the Summerfest grounds.

If it stays nice here for the next day or so I may just get one of the bikes out for a quick spin.

Managing your identity on the internet is a tricky thing.

In the old days, I picked a nickname and used it on various bulletin boards and forums. I used the same one for years on AIM, Yahoo Messenger, etc. The idea was that a certain level of anonymity was desirable as you're talking about the latest XTC reissue CD or how much memory you could put on that Asus motherboard you just bought.

As social networking became more popular and-- dare I say it-- useful, it became okay to be out there with more of your "real" identity. Sites like LinkedIn and Plaxo allow you to create a professional profile with your resume, etc., which could potentially help in networking.

Then you have Facebook and MySpace, which are more for goofing around. My wife and kids are on Facebook, so I decided I'd take the plunge and create an account. I decided that this would be my "personal" social media site, while LinkedIn would be my "professional" place, and I've been very careful not to mix the two.

Well, that lasted for only so long. Soon, coworkers began to mention their Facebook pages and I started to connect with them in limited numbers. And for the first few months, everything was pretty cool: the updates I saw from my coworkers consisted of the standard mundane stuff about going to the zoo with the kids or hanging out watching a movie at home. Occasionally there would be a note about "working until 5 today on an upgrade, but then it's off to the casino." All normal stuff.

The other day, a line was crossed. This past Sunday, a coworker who's a bit of a workaholic posted the fact that he was having a problem with a database server at the office, and gave the name of the server. The problem here is that this particular system is under my team's direction-- so in other words, I learned of a problem at my office through Facebook.

I checked my work email and sure enough, there was a problem. I got my team engaged and resolved the issue. I'm sure this individual wasn't trying to reach out to me in a backhanded way, but I felt that my personal space had somehow been violated.

So for the very first time, I "un-friended" someone on Facebook. I'm not sure if he even noticed.

As the lines between the personal and professional lives become increasingly blurred, I feel it's critically important to maintain that balance, especially online. I don't have any of my personal stuff on LinkedIn, and I never talk about my work on Facebook (or, until now, in this blog).

I may end up dropping the Facebook thing altogether, but then my online friends won't be able to see what I'm making for breakfast on Saturday mornings.

Then again, they could just follow me on Twitter.

Remember a few years ago when I talked about Pączkis? (Or again the following year?)

Well, that was part of a tradition that has continued to this day. My now-former-officemate Glenn picked up a couple dozen pączkis at Calumet Bakery in Lansing, IL and did a drive-by with a raspberry one for me while he was on the way to his work.

When I got back to my office, someone had brought in FOUR King Cakes from Bennison's in Evanston, and moments later another coworker brought in four dozen pączkis from Dinkel's in Chicago. Couple that with a cup of Seattle's Best and we're talking serious sugar crash by late morning.

The sugar bombs in the photo above came from the Rolling Meadows Meijer store. Thankfully, Lisa took those to her office today.

And just like five years ago today, I'm sitting here writing this when I should be at the gym.

Happy Mardi Gras!