Only in America

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On 4-Feb-2004, "mark" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Didn't you post something yesterday about your wife needing a car to travel .75 mile to the gym?

I use a gym which is in the grounds of an estate. It amuses me to see members struggling to park,
on a bend, as close to the entrance to the gym as possible. There is a large carpark about 40
feet away.

The gym is 7 miles from my house and even the staff are impressed that I cycle there. I don't tell
them that I have often gone the long way round and tripled the mileage.

--
replace deadspam with btinternet to reply Tom Anderson Leighton Buzzard England
 
On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 03:46:14 GMT, "mark" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>"[Not Responding]" wrote ...
>> Get fit the American way...
>>
>>
>> http://www.646industries.com/mt/beyond_s/archives/000070.html
>
>Didn't you post something yesterday about your wife needing a car to travel .75 mile to the gym?

True; I did post something along those lines but it's something I live with rather than defend!
Secondly, I don't recall using the word 'need' at all:)
 
"mark" <[email protected]> writes:

>"[Not Responding]" wrote ...
>> Get fit the American way...

>> http://www.646industries.com/mt/beyond_s/archives/000070.html

>Didn't you post something yesterday about your wife needing a car to travel .75 mile to the gym?

On my first visit to the US the conference was held in a hotel, and the recommended residence was a
hotel in the adjacent block. Being a poor British academic I stayed in a cheap flea pit about 4
miles away, and being a curious sightseer I walked to the conference hotel, arriving early.

I met some other early arrivers. They had been taking their morning fitness exercise. This consisted
of dressing up in running gear, driving one block from the residence hotel to the conference hotel,
parking, running round the conference block, having a shower, changing into their conference
clothes. This wasn't an isolated person, there were several folk who independently all did this.

They were awed to discover I had walked *4* *miles*, and clearly considered that such a feat of
endurance required a degree of fitness well beyond their meagre accomplishments.
--
Chris Malcolm [email protected] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
 
"Chris Malcolm" wrote
> On my first visit to the US the conference was held in a hotel, and the recommended residence was
> a hotel in the adjacent block. Being a poor British academic I stayed in a cheap flea pit about 4
> miles away, and being a curious sightseer I walked to the conference hotel, arriving early.
>
> I met some other early arrivers. They had been taking their morning fitness exercise. This
> consisted of dressing up in running gear, driving one block from the residence hotel to the
> conference hotel, parking, running round the conference block, having a shower, changing into
> their conference clothes. This wasn't an isolated person, there were several folk who
> independently all did this.
>
> They were awed to discover I had walked *4* *miles*, and clearly considered that such a feat of
> endurance required a degree of fitness well beyond their meagre accomplishments.
> --
> Chris Malcolm

I thought academic conferences were held at ski resorts?

The visitors from the UK that I encounter in my part of the US seem to span the same range of
fitness as Americans, be they academic conference-goers or anyone else. Cycling, walking, or
(horrors!) dr*v*ng past the nearest major US university, I see plenty of students, faculty, and
staff out running who look quite capable of covering *4* *miles* or more without too much
difficulty.

I find it odd that people on this NG so often describe Americans as an obese, car dependent lot,
when your own postings so often suggest that the UK is hell-bent on following the US down the
same path.
--
mark
 
On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:47:23 GMT, mark <[email protected]> wrote:

> I thought academic conferences were held at ski resorts?

Only the winter ones. The summer ones are usually at beach resorts ;-)

> The visitors from the UK that I encounter in my part of the US seem to span the same range of
> fitness as Americans, be they academic conference-goers or anyone else. Cycling, walking, or
> (horrors!) dr*v*ng past the nearest major US university, I see plenty of students, faculty, and
> staff out running who look quite capable of covering *4* *miles* or more without too much
> difficulty.
>
> I find it odd that people on this NG so often describe Americans as an obese, car dependent lot,
> when your own postings so often suggest that the UK is hell-bent on following the US down the
> same path.

Precisely, we're following. And, we have to have a nation to compare ouselves favouably to.

Colin
--
 
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