When the gym chain's one club moved down the block into its much fancier digs the group fitness schedule edged and elbowed. There are new instructors and the departed, times altered; Wednesday I attended an indoor cycling class which, wonder of wonders, has the same teacher and same time on the hour. The one I usually attend a few hours earlier is in a location getting ready for a workover; the cycle room is a small place with no AC and fans which seem allergic to air. A long-time instructor has given up the class; I appreciate the new person but decided I'd spend time on housework before the noon class.

Inherited from Mom: didn't get as much done as hoped. At GF class, the teacher is one who seems to get a lot of subbing and classes but told us she couldn't figure the microphone today. Now we go back to the dawn of the 1980's when at my first aerobics class, at a junior college leased location, used a little record player. On went the eras: cassettes, discs, iPods and now at this showcase location on 07/10 what appears to be a computer terminal atop the volume controls and mike input.

The music is all accessed this way and what a device to maintain the strict corporate play list. Not that this teacher's tastes would be stunted; she's always played that hip hoppy chug which makes me long for the days when music for an indoor cycling class could potentially go from Percy Faith to Return To Forever.

Well, she was stunted: her password didn't work. A front desk person used hers---and claimed to have used a trick to do this. Other things were as per usual. Other times she's talked about standoffs with her daughter and a son in his smoky room. Today it was a wedding she was going to attend and she decided to lose ten pounds very quickly, on juice and will power. Night one, she couldn't sleep for hunger and went to the kitchen.

I went out to grab a few paper towels for cleaning up after class and returned to a climax of her deciding to throw some ground beef into whatever dish was shoving her off Will Power Road.

Then class went on as usual.

Meanwhile outside we were in the middle of a few days, and much the same as I type this, of a high overcast of sea foam studded with strands of kelp and the occasional flying fish. From me, fourth grade poetry. From the Van Nuys Airport's multi-million dollar automated weather observation system, the kid who forgot the assignment. Hour after hour: "Clear".

Really??? Not what I see. And tropical clouds of any elevation are of definite interest to pilots, usually accompanied by turbulence and other goodies. It seems aviation safety has made the news a bit of late.

Later in the day I hit pay dirt: scattered at 9,000, overcast at 15,000. But the observations drifted back to standard political reassurance.

Right now, breaking up at seven into a few fissures of blue but still a solid layer above. Mechanical voice: "Clear."

Digital technology, seeming to bland out a lot when it could be providing more, favoring details more germane to Face-book than, whether one believes or not, the Face of God.