Sunday

Still Winter here.

The room was full at spin class this morning. A fairly diverse group. Young, old, male and female. I finally counted bikes. There's 30 in the room, although all 30 are rarely in operating order. Two were down today.

With the SpinNazi vocalizing most of the hour, you don't have lots of time to fall into deep thoughts like you do on the road in the Summer, but I do have a few items of interest pop into the brain in those rare moments of grinding. Today it was the realization that those out-of-service bikes represent the basic fact of life that a good portion of our population can be characterized as "Fixers". A place like a Gold's Gym location must have a Maintenance Man. All that equipment. All that usage. Things break down. Somebody has to fix them.

Some Fixers are self evident: car repairmen, dentists, plumbers, orthopaedists, and the list goes on. Kids under, say, age 15, and the elderly who have become dependent, are generally not Fixers. They are mostly Users. Users are not evil. They just use stuff, and it breaks after a while.

Of course, all Fixers are also Users. Some are able to fix their own stuff some of the time (think car repairs), while others need to use a different Fixer for a fix that they might normally do for another User (think a doctor with a broken arm). All Users end up calling a Fixer for at least a few things.

In our service economy, everyone depends on the IT Fixers. In India, the Philippines, or rarely, down the street. And we are definitely all IT Users.

There are a few actual Producers out there. Can you say OEM? (Look it up!) These people too are also Users. Those who write code for Microsoft are also Fixers.

I'm thinking that this topic has legs. I'm going to think a little more about it this week.

Switching gears...

My pal Bill stopped by this evening to borrow my extra office key. He had left his at the office and the building was locked by others before his return. Anyway, I shared with him my story about my keys being stashed in the Buick, and he insisted on taking a look at the problem. I mean, he wouldn't leave! So I pull the Buick out of the garage, get out, he steps to the driver's side, pushes the electric seat button all the way to the full forward position, opens the back door, and picks the keys off of the floor. No exaggeration. A Fool lives here.

And finally, for those out there looking for a taste of Summer, pitchers and catchers report in three weeks or so.

Spin at 0545. Getting an early start on what will be a great week. Make it so.

BCOT