The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good : My mom had the cardiac catheterization done, and everything went well.
The Bad (but not so bad): She does have some blockage in her arteries, but she won't need really bypass surgery, or an angioplasty, just drugs. She said she's also going to work harder at keeping her blood pressure down, and will try to lose some weight. Good for mom.
I just noticed I look just like my mom in the picture to the left. Same facial expression and everything... Not a bad thing, just an observation.
The Ugly: Speaking of weight loss and exercise (okay, I didn't talk about exercise yet, but I saw a theme and I ran with it), I noticed some very interesting dynamics in the Nautilus Room at the Y yesterday. There appears to be a self segregation between the men and the women. If there are more men in the weight room, the women all go do the cardio machines, and vice versa. I never really noticed this until yesterday when I was doing the Nautilus machines and there were two men (among many men, mostly regulars) there who were grunting really loudly. Loud enough for me to crank up the iPod (Grateful Dead, "Tennessee Jed" to start). It was distracting. I just wanted to yell "get a freakin' room!" So you can imagine what it sounded like, if you're not one to hang out in fitness centers. The husband tells me this is a fairly common thing, and on the list of rules in the free weight room it says something like "No Loud Grunting". I also looked around to see if there was anyone else with a visible WTF or amused look on his face. Nope, just me, and I was the only woman there. Then I looked into the cardio room, and there was not a single man in there. I wasn't about to change my workout and join the herd, so I just tried to ignore the grunters, and then did a quickie cardio. (Later that night I had a funny dream about self segregation, which would only really be funny to someone else in the dream, so I won't share. Sorry.)
I am now fascinated with this phenomenon. I've never really heard women grunt like that while working out. I don't grunt loudly while working out, even when I up my weight level. I made crazy primal grunty sounds when I was giving birth to my kids, but can we really equate birthing a baby to lifting weights? I'm not convinced that the workout grunting is necessary. Amusing and somewhat disturbing, perhaps, but not necessary. There's a time and place for grunting, and working out in a public place may not be it. I don't think my being the only woman in the weight room had any impact on the volume or frequency of the grunting, as no other men joined in. Now that would have been really odd and distrubing. I would have gone to the cardio room, and joined the ladies if I suddenly found myself in a room full of loudly grunting, sweaty, middle aged (and a few adolescent) men. I shudder to think.

Anyone out there, please share. What's the workout grunt all about?
Here's more information about No Grunting Policies in gyms. I really feel bad for the guy who was kicked out of the gym for grunting. OTOH, the sign said "No Grunting".