Parking lots, heuristics, and a corgi in a box.
My partner and I have been going rock climbing every weekend for the past few months.
(Okay, technically we're going bouldering, not rock climbing -- bouldering means no rope or harness, but using the word 'boulder' as a verb seems weird to me, and usually when you tell someone *Oh yeah, we like to go bouldering* they give you a weird glance and then you have to explain further and I'm always worried that I'll mess up the terminology. But I digress!)
We go to Seattle Bouldering Project, which is a terrific institution. We're by no means very good climbers (or even particularly good climbers) but we've been going there long enough to know the hang of things.
(No pun intended.)
(Okay, pun intended.)
We've noticed that since the new year, SBP has been particularly busy. No matter when we go -- 8am, 10am, 4pm, whatever -- the parking lot is overflowing with cars, to the point where you usually have to park a couple buildings away or do the dreaded car stalker thing where you slowly follow someone leaving the gym until they get to the car.
This can be a pretty good bellwether for how busy the gym is, and roughly how unpleasant the outing will be: more people means more time waiting for routes -- means more chaos.
What we've noticed a couple times, though, is that even when the parking lot is packed the actual bouldering part of the gym is fine: there are a bunch of people in the building but they're not all doing the same thing I am.
SBP has a lot of stuff that isn't specifically about bouldering -- there are yoga sessions, a full basement gym, event space for birthday parties, a cafe, etc etc. I don't do these things: I am a simple man whose only goal is to hang from weird grips like I'm eight years old. But others do, and they take up space in the parking lot even if they don't take up space on the walls.
So sometimes a full parking lot means that it's going to be a crowded day in the gym; sometimes it means that there's a birthday party, or there's a particularly popular yoga class.
Anyway, I've been thinking a lot lately about heuristics. And now I'm worrying about what parking lots I've been looking at wrong this entire time.
Other fun stuff
(Okay, technically we're going bouldering, not rock climbing -- bouldering means no rope or harness, but using the word 'boulder' as a verb seems weird to me, and usually when you tell someone *Oh yeah, we like to go bouldering* they give you a weird glance and then you have to explain further and I'm always worried that I'll mess up the terminology. But I digress!)
We go to Seattle Bouldering Project, which is a terrific institution. We're by no means very good climbers (or even particularly good climbers) but we've been going there long enough to know the hang of things.
(No pun intended.)
(Okay, pun intended.)
We've noticed that since the new year, SBP has been particularly busy. No matter when we go -- 8am, 10am, 4pm, whatever -- the parking lot is overflowing with cars, to the point where you usually have to park a couple buildings away or do the dreaded car stalker thing where you slowly follow someone leaving the gym until they get to the car.
This can be a pretty good bellwether for how busy the gym is, and roughly how unpleasant the outing will be: more people means more time waiting for routes -- means more chaos.
What we've noticed a couple times, though, is that even when the parking lot is packed the actual bouldering part of the gym is fine: there are a bunch of people in the building but they're not all doing the same thing I am.
SBP has a lot of stuff that isn't specifically about bouldering -- there are yoga sessions, a full basement gym, event space for birthday parties, a cafe, etc etc. I don't do these things: I am a simple man whose only goal is to hang from weird grips like I'm eight years old. But others do, and they take up space in the parking lot even if they don't take up space on the walls.
So sometimes a full parking lot means that it's going to be a crowded day in the gym; sometimes it means that there's a birthday party, or there's a particularly popular yoga class.
Anyway, I've been thinking a lot lately about heuristics. And now I'm worrying about what parking lots I've been looking at wrong this entire time.
Other fun stuff
- I wrote up February's update for Village Blacksmith.
- The three things I really liked this week.
- A corgi in a box.
Happy Sunday. I hope you read an article that you've had bookmarked forever, but never had the time to actually read.