Yoga, Morse Code, and that Damn Song!

After an extended break I'm back to doing yoga 3 or 4 times a week.  I roll out for the 6 am class at Capital Fitness, grab a coffee on my way back from Pinkus Mcbride and by 7:15 I'm drinking it while catching up on the webs.

I really enjoy yoga.  It gives me an hour to center myself and pretty much changes my attitude for the day.  I can tell when I've been away from it.  It's hard to get other tech guys to try it out but luckily I know a few who have and they've become converts as well.

Last Monday I got up, got all my stuff together and headed out the door at 5:50 A.M.  It takes me 5 minutes to walk to the studio so my timing was perfect. I got down to the elevators and after pushing the button I heard it.  There was a faint electronic sound coming from somewhere that was going "Beep beep beep, beeeeeep beeeeeep beeeeep, beep beep beep".  3 short beeps, 3 long beeps, and then 3 short beeps.  Now maybe it's because I'm old or was a boy scout, but I recognized that immediately as SOS, the international Morse code cry for help.

I tried to track the source but couldn't get a bead on where it was coming from.  At the same time another tenant came out in scrubs obviously headed off to his job at a hospital somewhere.  I asked him if he heard the beeping and he said "Yeah it's been doing that for a while."  I said "Well that's Morse code for SOS" and he responded, "Whoa you're right, you should call our landlord or 911 or something."  He then jumped in the elevator and took off.

Now there is no way I'm making it to yoga.  There are people out there who will roll into yoga class late.  I'm not one of them.  It's just too disruptive and not good manners. I'm thinking calling 911 is not a great idea. The only solution is to call my landlord.

Our landlord is a pretty cool guy and he lives right above us in our building.  This is great since when something is wrong in the building it's typically fixed immediately.  I happen to have his cell phone so I decided it was time to wake him up.  I went back to our apartment and gave him a ring.  After a sleepy "Hello" I explained what was up and I'm pretty sure he was thinking "WTF, why are you calling me about this" but he agreed to meet me at the elevators in a couple minutes.

After hearing the beeping from the air vent he agreed that something was up.  We headed down a floor and couldn't hear anything, so we went back up a couple floors where the sound was loudly emitting from a service closet.  After unlocking it the cause was pretty apparent.  The drain for the building's air conditioner was clogged and water was pooling in the closet.  My landlord had put a moisture meter in the room for this very occurrence and it was sending out the "SOS" message over and over.

I was a little pissed at this point.  Wouldn't an annoying electronic "whoop whoop", or siren, or anything other than "SOS" have been just as effective?  Perhaps not as it probably wouldn't have stopped me in my tracks on the way to yoga if it had been anything else. But still......

Later in the day I sent him an email apologizing for getting him out of bed at 6 A.M. but that it would make a good blog post. His response was

"I was almost up anyway and better safe than sorry.  
You're right--you are likely the only person who knows the SOS sequence. 
Please be sure to list how quickly McBride responded too."

So if you're ever looking for an apartment know that McBride Companies has awesome response time to apartment issues, even if they have annoying Flash Music on their website. Seriously go listen to it.

Thursday morning I went off for my usual 6 am Yoga class.  Before the class got rolling our instructor Erin said we'd be working on opening up for Hanumanasana, also known as the splits, not exactly my forte. She also said she had put together an inspirational playlist for the day.

Now  if you asked me to name what tranquil yoga song we'd be starting off with I can guarantee you that my first 10,000 guesses would not be the song that haunts my life, Europe's Final Countdown.  If you remember, it was only a few months ago I last ran into this song outside my bedroom window.  When it came on I pretty much lost it. I was laughing so hard I couldn't even pay attention to what was going on.

As a bonus here's a couple of pretty decent yoga type tunes relating to the Monkey God,  Hanuman. One is by MC Yogi and the other one by Wah.

Namaste!