1. There are loads of famous quotes about chasing your dreams. The gist of them all is to keep pursuing them if you truly want them. My dream has been the same, to become successful in a field using creativity rather than simple manual labor. It has evolved over time. Writing, content creation, and photography are all a part of my dream. Now it has evolved into acting, whether on camera or voice acting. To do it though, you need to audition or at least apply for potential roles. Maybe you get the part, maybe you don’t, but you definitely won’t if you don’t apply. It’s better to apply, get a part, and have to figure out how to make it fit into your schedule, rather than worry about how it will fit into your schedule and not even bothering to try.
2. It is mating season for animals. Knowing this made a lot of things from the past weekend make sense. On a run I came across 3 turkeys standing in the road. The male had his tail feathers spread wide while a pair of females gawked at him. The funniest one though was running past an osprey nest on a pole. I found it odd that 1 osprey was seated in the nest and another flew down and literally landed standing on the other’s back. I thought it was weird until someone at work mentioned it being mating season. Suddenly, that awkward landing by the osprey made sense. They just needed some romantic music.
3. The older I get, the more I find myself living by the credo ‘say yes to whatever and figure it out later.’ Meaning if an opportunity you want comes along you accept it and figure out how to do it, or fit it into your life later. Being that I am trying to get some more acting gigs I have recently put that credo into action. I auditioned for a role in a movie set to film beginning at the end of May. If I get it I might need to put in for serious time off from work on relatively short notice. However, you never know what opportunity might be the one that changes your life. It’s a risk that needs to be taken sometimes. We’ll see what the results are.
4. Creating an audition tape is a unique experience. For the film I mentioned above I had to give some basic info about myself and also answer questions specific to the role I am trying out for. I was pleasantly surprised at how smoothly the recording went. Granted, I was able to edit out some long pauses and looking at the questions on my phone but that’s beside the point. Recording tons of videos and podcasts along with doing lots of speaking events, has made public speaking, or at least describing myself to strangers, much easier. I’m not saying that it means I nailed the audition and should get a call back soon. I’m just saying that I’m a way better public speaker than the shy, nervous, introvert I was growing up could ever have imagined.
5. I was at the grocery store one night this week. It was a standard trip until I got the self-checkout. It was then that I realized I’d left my wallet in the car. Part of me wished that I had actually loaded my debit card into my Apple Wallet after months of deliberating. Sadly I had to alert an employee. I had to let them know I was running to my car to get my wallet and that I wasn’t just ditching a full bag of groceries like some loser. After I paid and was leaving I thanked the employee for understanding. Their reaction was one that felt like they wanted to laugh but didn’t want to get in trouble. I still haven’t set up my Apple Wallet by the way.
6. In more money fun I mentioned a while back that I paid off a credit card I had maxed out years ago. I got it when I was desperate for extra money and it has an extraordinary interest rate. I wanted to keep the account open as it’s supposedly better for your credit score. However after getting slapped with a $99 annual fee I decided enough was enough. I have no intention of ever using the card again so I reached out to cancel the account permanently. I’m all for keeping my credit score up but I’m not willing to just throw money at this company like an idiot. I did that for years just paying the card off.
7. Located within sight of the parking lot at Chatham’s Lighthouse Beach is a rustic shack that you’d think has been there forever. The Occupy Chatham shack is 1/3 mile hike across the sand. It’s only been there since 2015. It’s a fun photo op, especially when the weather is good. I went this week with my buddy Steve and even though it was cloudy there were still great photos to be had. One photo op I passed on though was the litany of dead eiders on the way out. We counted 3 of the black and white ducks dead on the walk. I’m sure if we’d have kept walking we’d have found more but that was enough sadness for a quick trip.
8. From the ‘Almost Disaster’ files: I switched car insurance a few months ago. I ended up saving about $400 a year on the new policy. Afterward, I had gotten several letters from the former insurance company. I piled them and some other junk mail on a shelf. The time came when I needed to get rid of all of that junk. I started tearing up all of the letters. The ones from my old insurance company were all about life insurance, or so I thought. So I’m ripping these all to shreds but the final one I had a little trouble tearing. Luckily I pulled the contents out to see what it was and to my surprise there was a reimbursement check. It wasn’t a ton, like $50, but still I almost ripped up free money.
9. I typically don’t have any trouble sleeping. However every so often, maybe once every other month, I have a night where I wake up and am instantly wide awake. This happened this week and it was even less fun because I had an early wake up for a photo trip I was going on. The irony was that my mind was wide awake as I started seeing the potential photos I could take the next morning. It took a good hour but finally I did fall back to sleep.
10. Speaking of that photo trip. I joined my buddy Steve as he went to begin opening up his family’s cottage on the Gurnet which is a private seaside peninsula that is in the towns of Duxbury and Plymouth in Massachusetts. I love going there because there is a historic lighthouse that I can get up close photos of. On this trip there was a man and a woman doing some sort of cleaning inside the lighthouse. The front door was open and everything. I hung around a bit trying to be out of the way but polite. My thought was if I was there long enough and was friendly, they might ask me if I wanted to check out the interior of the lighthouse. Sadly this didn’t happen, but the photos were still great.
11. A favorite part of these Gurnet trips is stopping at Gunther Tooties for a tasty bagel and flavored cream cheese. There are six locations in the southeastern part of Massachusetts. I lean toward the sweet flavors like cinnamon, French toast, and honey cream cheese. They do, however, have more savory offerings. If you enjoy bagels and cream cheese, definitely check them out.
12. From the ‘Of Course’ files. Steve and I went on a quest to get out to this recreation area in a village named Humarock. It’s a part of Scituate. Anyway, there is a cool tower out there that I believe is one of the observation towers built during World War II. It seemed like everything was good to go as we followed the GPS out to the recreation area. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Yes, there was a recreation area. The problem was that it was on Air Force property and gated. No chance of sneaking in for a few photos of the tower unless I wanted to be immediately cuffed and hauled away.
13. We headed out to get some photos of the newly renovated Scituate Lighthouse. Many years ago I had walked to the end of the nearby breakwater, scaled a tower, and taken a great panoramic photo of the lighthouse and coastline. My mind was set on doing that again. We walked all the way out and I got to the tower. About halfway up the ladder, I froze. Suddenly, the tower felt like it was 100 feet tall. The howling wind didn’t help my confidence. I climbed down and then felt ashamed so I started climbing again. A second time I got halfway up and froze. I don’t know if my brain sensed trouble could be ahead if I kept climbing but this time I climbed back down and gave up. Better to get a photo safely from the ground than get blown off the top of the tower.
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