1. Sometimes you just get lucky. No, I didn’t win the lottery, but it did feel like I got away with something. When at the supermarket, I was in the a la carte section looking for something quick and easy for dinner. I am a fan of scalloped potatoes. I saw a couple of containers of them and went to grab one. The first was about $4.75 and had probably 12 ounces of food in the container. Then I looked at the other and had to do a double-take. It had about the same amount of potatoes but was priced at 12 cents. No, that’s not a misprint. Someone labeled the potatoes as 12 cents. Even though it was their mistake, I still hit the self-checkout like I had a box of cookies jammed up into my shirt. Once I was out the door, I was thrilled. Dinner was extremely cheap, lucky me. Of course I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t skeptical of the discount. I did wait a few hours, half-expecting to get some sort of food poisoning. Nope, just some rogue employee or complete fool giving me the best deal in a while.
2. One thing I enjoy about Facebook is the daily memories collection. Having been on the site since 2007, I have 18 years worth of posts, photos, etc. Sometimes they can be embarrassing or annoying, like when I’d share cryptic posts about someone I was interested in. I am noticing recently just how much my life revolved around the game FarmVille in 2009. Nearly every day in my memories, there is a blank status update from 2009 that says FarmVille. I don’t feel too bad, though, because at its peak in 2010 it had over 34 million active daily users. If you don’t know or don’t remember FarmVille, you’re in luck. FarmVille is still around online and you can go play now. However, as much as I’d be interested in dropping by to plant a few new crops, I worry that it would become an obsession again. I don’t know if I have time currently for another part-time job of being an online farmer again.
3. I have a client I train at my day job who is notorious for late cancellations or switching their appointment times quite often. They got so bad at late cancellations that they finally had to start being charged a fee for the inconvenience. The late cancellations stopped, and the incessant switching of their appointment times began. This week was perhaps the worst of them all. This client was supposed to be in to train on Thursday afternoon. They called and asked to switch to Wednesday afternoon. I figured that was fine; it worked out with my schedule as it would allow me to start my vacation a little early. Within an hour of the change that they asked for, they then canceled the changed appointment. I was dumbstruck. I made it a point to have our office manager not offer the old time slot to this client. No way I was giving up a few extra hours of vacation for someone who might end up canceling again anyway.
4. The last day at work before my vacation started was like the last day of school before summer. It was only fitting that the day began with something wacky. I enter through a side door that goes through the gym. I tend to go in and set my first workout up before even getting to my desk. On this day, I was walking and thought I saw a leaf on the floor, as they can get tracked in from outside. Only when the ‘leaf’ moved did I realize it wasn’t a leaf. Upon further inspection, I found it was a tiny ‘peeper’ frog. It was about the size of a quarter. How did it get in the gym? No idea but I had a helluva time wrangling it to get it out. I had to chase it around with a paper cup in one hand and a paper towel in the other. Eventually, I caught it. Luckily, out behind our parking lot is a swampy area. This is where I chose to let it go. I even got a video of it.
5. Only when I started my vacation this week did I realize just how much of a creature of habit I am. I have a routine on Fridays which consists of doing laundry and recording the next episode of my podcast. With 11 straight days and 15 out of 17 days off, I have almost unlimited time to do things. Still, my intention was to do my typical Friday routine. That was until I realized I was on vacation and then I basically wiped the slate clean. I still did end up doing my laundry on Friday though. Oh well, I still need a little structure.
6. The biggest news of the week, and maybe the year, is my first attempt at filmmaking. I am partnering with my friend, producer Frank Durant, on a short Cape Cod film, When Henry Met Henry. It will be a fictional meeting between iconic authors Henry David Thoreau and Henry Beston set on the beach on Cape Cod. I am going to be either a director or producer; we’ll see. We are crowdfunding much of the film. In one afternoon, I created a landing page for the film, a short video detailing what we are doing, and got the GoFundMe up and running. The crowdfunding will run through October 11th, with the film being shot later that month. We hope for it to be done in early 2026. Obviously, much more to come on this front.
7. I learned the hard way that there is a limit to how many electrical items can be running at once in my apartment. I was using my convection oven and got impatient. I decided to use my microwave to heat something up at the same time. This, coupled with a light and a fan going proceeded to blow the fuse. It was funny, not anything serious. The reason was that it took several minutes for everything running to blow the fuse so I thought I was in the clear. Nope, bam out goes everything. Needless to say, I will practice more patience when cooking.
8. Since the weather turned a bit cooler and less humid, to where I could take my A/C out, I briefly forgot that it was still the tourist summer season. I found this out when I took a leisurely drive on Route 6A, which is typically less busy than many other roads during the summer. If what I saw was still ‘less busy,’ I shudder to think of how slammed Route 28 was. Sorry for the specific road names for anyone not from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Either way, the drive was worth it to snag the buy one, get one for $1 deal on weed seltzers at my favorite dispensary. For that deal, I took the pain of crazy traffic.
9. I am closing in on 50. I am trying my best to age with dignity. This means not going overboard with anti-aging creams or hair dyes. The same cannot be said for one guy at my gym. He has to be mid-60s and he is fighting Father Time with all he has. For many months, this guy had a fully gray buzz cut. He’s one of those ‘alpha’ hardos. It’s pretty funny to see this guy now dating a woman 25 years younger than him and also with a pretty bad dye job. I mean honestly, his hair looks like cream soda now. I guess to him it’s better to cling to straws of your distant past than it is to have some pride. Well, he’s a hardo, so he probably thinks he looks amazing.
10. As I just said, I am closing in on 50. Well, in a little over 2 years, but still it gets closer every day. So I was surprised when I somehow managed to tackle a double workout day, aka 'two-a-days' in sports. Every now and then, when I was younger, I’d work out in the morning and again in the evening. It was rare and usually just so I could brag that I did it. This week, the timing was perfect. One of my oldest friends was down on the Cape with his family and to my pleasant surprise, he wanted to get together for a long walk. Not that I didn’t believe him, but I decided to hedge my bets and go to the gym in the morning. I only did strength training. Then, around 4pm I met up with him and his wife, and we did a 4-mile walk. Now granted, I’ve burned more calories on one long walk this year than I did in both workouts on this day, but that’s beside the point. I turned back the clock briefly, but as I write this, I am waiting to see how my body feels the next day.
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