1. It’s a shock to the system when you realize that what used to work no longer works. No cryptic post here this refers to fitness. Now in my late 40s, I am struggling with weight loss. My brain remembers running loads of miles as the way I dropped over 40 pounds. However, this was also now over 13 years ago. My body can’t handle that sort of load. Also, my metabolism is naturally slowing. This is a bad combo when I add that I constantly crave bad foods. That means that if I want to get back close to my peak physical condition I am going to have to try new things like, ugh, eating way more healthy.
2. We had a rare occurrence this week. We felt an earthquake on Cape Cod. The epicenter was just off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It registered at a 3.8. Typically we get small shakes roughly every 5 years. Those usually average about 3.0. This was a good deal more intense. For me where I was I thought a large truck was going by. I was sitting by a window and could see that in the time surrounding the rumbling that no vehicles were in the area. It didn’t register until I started seeing people posting about the quake a few minutes later. Pretty wild.
3. My new phone has something called an ‘action button.’ It is a side button you can program to do a specific task with one click. For example, you can have it where it automatically takes a photo or video. I did something wrong and it ended up getting stuck while the camera was open. What did this mean? Well, I was trying to shoot a very specific slow-motion video. By the time I got the thing shut off, I had about 40 different 2 or 3-second video clips many of which were me getting increasingly angry at what was happening. Thankfully it is all set now, and even more thankfully I deleted all of those foolish videos.
4. It was a chilly sunset at Taylor-Bray Farm. There is a very cute Scottish Highland Cow named Spaghetti there. He is shaggy with pretty good-sized horns. I got him to come over near the fence as I filmed him. Granted he was more interested in the employee that was getting ready to feed him but that’s beside the point. I ended up in total with nearly 3 minutes of video of this cow and the only time I paused recording was the one time he mooed. Otherwise, he just stared like he was on something. Dang it cow, I just wanted cute moo sounds. Fine, at least the donkeys yelled.
A typical Scottish Highland Cow
5. I saw 2 of the strangest cars within seconds of each other in the same parking lot. One was parked next to me at the gym. It was strange because it was as filled with stuff as you could get in a normal-sized sedan. I don’t know if the person who owned it was living in their car, moving, or just was a hoarder who had a new haul. I don’t even know how they fit in the driver’s seat or drove without being pulled over because there is no way they could see out the back window. The other one from a distance looked like a cow dressed up as a car. When I got closer it was just that the white paint had been stripped away in lots of round patches exposing black underneath. The owner should just finish it off and get some bull horns, or a stuffed cow head for his hood ornament.
6. I ordered myself a new pair of running shoes online. Instead of getting the Brooks Ghost, which I’ve been wearing pretty faithfully since 2012, I switched to the Brooks Adrenaline. This wasn’t a random switch though. The original shoe I ran in was the Adrenaline. They are a stability shoe, typically for those with flatter feet. I did a foot scan a few years ago and my arches are far flatter after thousands of miles of running. I finally decided to try the stability shoes again to see if maybe they’d help me get back to running. Wrong. I mostly walked and even that had my feet hurting as much as they used to when I was marathon training. So I ended up returning them and getting a new pair of my usual Ghosts. At least I tried right?
7. Sometimes timing is everything. It was a very rainy day. I just happened to be heading down to the basement to put my laundry in the dryer. It was on my way past a window that I spotted an Amazon truck with its sliding side door wide open in front of the house. I waited for a driver to bring whatever package they had to the front door. Instead, I spotted the guy walking across the front yard coming from the side of the house. Rather than placing the package on the front step, the guy put it on the back deck. On one hand, it was out of sight of potential thieves which was good. On the other hand, if I hadn’t seen him the package would have sat out in the rain for hours at least. So I’m conflicted, but it all ended up being fine only because of my good timing.
8. An amazing gift arrived this week. It was a 91-year-old menu from a former Cape Cod restaurant known as The Bellows. It existed in Falmouth and was owned by a woman named Thekla Hedlund. I had written an article about it many years ago. It’s an amazing gift if you’re a lover of history. A woman saw the article recently because the website that I wrote for paid me once and then recycles my work with a fresh date on it. Yeah, they suck. Anyway, she sent me the menu that her grandmother had kept. This menu is a fascinating look into the popular foods and the prices from the Great Depression. I was very grateful and sent the woman a copy of my Hotels and Motels book as it has a chapter on The Bellows inside of it.
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| A really cool gift. |
9. I am trying to do some more creative work in terms of photography in 2025. I have a new phone with a bunch of fun features for the camera. I also have some props like crystals, a selfie stick, a gimbal, and a battery-powered spinning colorful ball. All of these things would certainly make for unique photos and videos. The only trouble is that it can take time and effort to set up these unique shots. I don’t mind it, unless it is cold and windy which it has been since it’s winter. I still want to work on it, but it might be more of a spring project.
10. Cuteness Alert: I walked out on the Bass Hole boardwalk in Yarmouth Port. I was shooting a video and getting a couple of photos. I was all the way at the end packing up my gear since it was cold. A mother was coming down the boardwalk with her 2 kids. 1 was probably 6 or 7 and the other was probably 2. She was the cuteness. As I was walking back she was talking and she suddenly noticed me. She yelled to her mom ‘oh no there’s a person coming!.’ It was so adorable but I only said ‘hi’ as I walked by when I actually wanted to tell her how adorable she was.
The Bass Hole Boardwalk
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