Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #88: Simpsons Podcast, Dr. Dolittle, Unique Gifts, etc.

1. I am beyond excited for the launch of the new podcast, Simpsons Declassified. It’s cohosted by Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart Simpson. It’s only just begun, and I believe it will be along the same lines as Office Ladies, where they will be reviewing every episode with lots of behind-the-scenes info. I have been a huge Simpsons fan since Season 2. The show incredibly started when I was in 6th grade, and I am very much no longer of school age. Now I won’t lie, the show is still going nearly 40 years later, and I believe it hasn’t been very good in about 10 years, but that’s beside the point. It had nearly 20 seasons of some of the best television ever, so getting to go on deep dives of these classic episodes is going to be the type of Gen-X nostalgia that I’m used to dishing out in my own podcast. I highly recommend it to any Simpsons fan.


2. One new title I can add to my list is that of film location scout. No, I didn’t apply anywhere. I actually got lucky. The director of the film where I made my acting debut in March is down on Cape Cod to shoot another film later in October. To my surprise, he is planning to set up shop in the same town as me. This gives me a major home-field advantage. I offered to help him find locations for his film. So far, I have sent him sets of Google Maps links of possible spots, including wooded areas and beaches. I don’t know if I’d be good at this type of job or if it only works if the film crew comes to Cape Cod. If they asked me for locations in Southern Wyoming, I’d be kind of screwed.


3. I believe the term ‘fake it until you make it’ can be useful. It’s useful if you eventually end up, you know, making it. In looking for funding for the short film that is to be my directorial debut, my crew and I have reached out to a few local chambers of commerce and historical societies. We thought we had a good connection with one local chamber, which I won’t name, and you’ll soon see why. The lady in charge offered to do promotional work, including sending out links to the fundraiser I’d made in their newsletter to what she said was upward of 3,000 people. I should have known it was BS when it took her 10 days to respond to an email. It turns out that the vast, vast majority of emails for the newsletter to go to were fake or dead. In reality, the newsletter probably went to closer to 300 people rather than 3,000. Oh, it gets better. This lady has now been fired for gross incompetence. This included not paying bills. She was ordered to not leave the premises before she gave them all of the passwords and vital info that she had changed as well as filling the people in on any other screw ups she had made. Luckily, the interim head of the chamber is way more competent, and things seem to be progressing well for our film. Still, 4 months is a quick turnaround to go from being hired as the head of a chamber to being fired for gross incompetence. It must be close to a record.


4. Maybe animals just trust me, but I have noticed on a couple of occasions this week, when animals should be running away, they really don’t. First, there was a rabbit in the front yard when I got home from work. It was eating some clover. As I came up the walkway, it definitely froze and watched me. I’m sure if I had lunged at it, the rabbit would have fled. Instead, it flinched a bit but then went back to eating its clover. I did say hello to it. On the bike trail this week it happened twice. One day, a little dark gray mouse was wandering in the grass along the trail as I was walking by. It should have fled deeper into the brush, but it just meandered along like it couldn’t have cared less. That, or it was just depressed and wanted me to stomp it. Lastly, there was a chipmunk that crossed in front of me on the bike trail. Instead of diving down into its hole, it kind of sat in front of it, looking at me. Then once it slid down the hole, it popped its head back out and looked again. I’m not saying I want to be like Dr. Dolittle though. The last thing I need is to go outside and have coyotes and owls gather around me looking for advice. It’s like when Homer Simpson befriended animals, and they were in the shower with him.

5. It was a speechless and grateful moment when a day this week turned out to be the best single day for downloads ever for my podcast in its nearly 5 years. Not only was it the best day, it was more than 3x the previous best day. It was also more than double the best week ever. I have worked so hard on all of my creative work, whether podcasts, books, or YouTube videos, so when something I do catches on with an audience, even if it’s briefly, it’s humbling. I do wish I knew what caused these spikes in viewership so I could better capitalize on them. Still, I know these types of ‘big win’ days can be few and far between, so I do my best to appreciate them and the viewers/listeners who make it possible. Thank you.


6. While in the supermarket this week I went down the soup aisle looking for something for dinner. I came upon the Progresso soups. It was here that I saw something odd: 2 cans of the exact same soup, right next to each other, and yet one soup had fewer calories. This isn’t like the greedy ‘shrinkflation’ that Doritos did. Their small bags of chips suddenly had fewer calories, but only because they were giving you less. Not a lower cost, just fewer chips for the same price. Jerks. No, the soup was exactly the same but somehow one was 10 calories less. Oh, don’t worry, I have the evidence. And yes, I bought the one with fewer calories.



7. I am a very sentimental person. I tend to keep things that most might toss out if they mean something to me. I have loads of cards I’ve been given over the years. These mean a lot more as I have several from my grandparents who are all no longer here. That being said, I do think my youngest niece, Sylvie, takes advantage of my sentimentality. I have little heart stickers she gave me that have been stuck to my car’s dashboard for nearly 2 years. I have on my desk a tiny little jar of what looks like dried neon green paint. Now, to top it off I have a single blade of grass in my car’s center console. Sylvie handed it to me and demanded that I keep it. Obviously, I could just lie and say I kept it, but she’s way too smart and would probably demand to see it. Not sure how long this blade of grass will survive, but it’s sitting in that center console as we speak.


8. What is it about the specific day and time that I record my podcast weekly that seems to attract every single large, loud truck possible? I swear that it’s only when my mic is on that every few seconds, huge delivery trucks, loud construction trucks, and every jerk with a super bass-filled stereo goes passing by. Once I finish recording? It goes back to normal. A loud vehicle goes by every once in a while, but it’s mainly regular cars, and spaced out enough that there are actually nice moments of silence. Then I get to hear the endless parade of blue jays yelling at each other.


9. While in the freezer section of the supermarket, I had a fun encounter with a little old man. Now, when I say ‘little’ I mean it. He made me look like Shaq, and I am all of 5’8”. Anyway, he casually walked up to me and asked what was for dinner. I said I honestly had no idea. Shopping while hungry is a problem I always have. The old man started raving about these black bean burgers. He gave me a rundown of how to cook them right, all while showing me the box of them he was getting. I didn’t have interest in veggie burgers, but I did take a walk over to where they were as he was leaving, just to make him feel good. I did try to avoid him during the rest of my time there, in case he checked my cart and didn’t see any veggie burgers.


10. When it comes to eating healthy, I have been having a rough go of it for the last few years. I tend to use food, specifically bad-for-you foods, as a reward for getting through whatever challenges there are in daily life. I try, keyword ‘try’ to track my food on MyFitnessPal. This means sometimes logging my breakfast but no other meals, just to keep my consecutive days streak going. The irony is that a lot of my need for ‘rewards’ comes from not being able to fully pursue my goals in creative fields. Why this is ironic is that working at a typical day job are the days when it’s easiest to stay way under my calorie goal. When I work at home on my various creative projects, those are the days when my diet goes off the rails. So as much as I want to have a job in some sort of creative field: writing, podcasting, film, etc, I am also terrified of how out of control my weight would get. It’s like the whole monkey’s paw thing.

Me, the day after I become self-employed

11. I have to say, if you think that spray painting someone else’s property with hate-filled garbage, or your stupid loser nickname, makes some kind of statement, you’re right, it does. That statement is: I am scum and was raised by idiots. Here’s a better idea. Take the money you spent on spray paint, assuming you actually bought it and didn’t just steal it, and buy a big, thick, hardcover book and bash yourself over the head with it because there’s no hope for people like that. Yes, I did see way too many spray-painted spots on a walk this week, and yes, it did really piss me off.

Provincetown's Forgotten Maritime Disaster - Cape Cod History

In the courtyard of a beautiful but unassuming church on the East End of Commercial Street in Provincetown, there stands a wooden cross. For a church, this is hardly a surprise. That is, until one approaches the cross and finds two plaques, one on either side.

On the side of the cross facing the church is a square plaque that reads: ‘In Memory of the Officers and Crew of the Submarine S-4. Sunk Off Wood End. Dec. 17, 1927.’ On the side facing Commercial Street is a much larger rectangular plaque. Here one finds the names of all of the men lost. There are forty of them. This is the story of the USS S-4, a deeply tragic and also mostly forgotten disaster.

Despite seeming like a 20th-century invention, the history of the submarine dates back to the late 1500s. It was in 1578 that English mathematician William Bourne first conceived the idea of an undersea vessel. It would, however, take more than forty years to put that idea into action. Dutch inventor Cornelis Drebbel is credited with the physical invention of the submarine. He was able to dive underneath England’s River Thames in 1620.

Over the ensuing three centuries, the submarine as a military vessel would grow and evolve. American colonist David Bushnell created a submarine affectionately known as the ‘Turtle’ in 1775. With hand-cranked propellers, it was meant to be used as a weapon against the British during the Revolutionary War. It was a failure.

In 1800, American inventor Robert Fulton designed his Nautilus submarine. It was seen as more modern, coming equipped with adjustable dive planes and a dual-propulsion system. The H.L. Hunley, a Confederate sub, sank the USS Housatonic during the American Civil War in 1864. It wasn’t until World War I that the submarine became a more common piece of equipment, particularly by the Germans with their U-boats.

The 1920s submarines were far advanced than those of the preceding century. Though not without their own operational difficulties, the U.S. Navy’s S-Class vessels represented the first properly functioning designs. S-4 was a diesel-electric submarine commissioned in 1919. The 231-foot-long steel behemoth was one of fifty-one such ‘Sugar’ boats built between 1918 and 1925. Eight years passed with little fanfare or issue with the S-4. That all changed on the afternoon of December 17, 1927.

The USS S-4(Public Domain)

On December 15th, the S-4 had been refitted at the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Navy Yard. After that, it headed for Cape Cod, captained by R.K. Jones. The S-4 was to be engaged in standard speed and maneuverability trials off the tip of Provincetown near Wood End Lighthouse. During the early afternoon of December 17th, while the S-4, with forty men aboard, was performing submerged runs. Up on the surface, a different sort of patrol was happening.

The 1920s were smack dab in the middle of the Prohibition Era in the United States. Provincetown, with its mass of challenging dunes at Race Point, was a haven for illegal alcohol smuggling. The Coast Guard had dispatched a 740-ton destroyer, USCGC Paulding (CG-17), captained by Lieutenant Commander John S. Baylis, to conduct rum patrols around the tip of Cape Cod.

Baylis had just investigated one schooner off Wood End and was headed back into Provincetown Harbor. In the days before radar and sonar, it was incredibly difficult for a ship to know the position of a submarine. What happened next was catastrophic.

The Paulding in 1918(Public Domain)

At about 3:37pm, while the S-4 was surfacing from a submerged run, the Paulding, which was steaming nearby, struck the sub at a speed of 18 knots. Accounts describe the telescope of the S-4 surfacing near the Paulding’s bow, less than seventy-five yards away. Ensign P. Miller, the man on watch for the Paulding, thought it was a fish stick, the marker fishermen use for their nets.

The destroyer collided with the submarine’s hull, punching holes that quickly flooded compartments. The S-4 rolled over and sank bow first within minutes to the bottom, roughly 130 feet down, less than a mile off Wood End.

The Paulding stopped and launched a lifeboat, but there were no men to be found. They all had gone down in the submarine. The ship next dropped a buoy to mark where the S-4 had gone down. To save itself from also sinking, the Coast Guard vessel had to run itself aground at Long Point with a gaping wound.

Immediately, the Coast Guard and Navy dispatched vessels, divers, and salvage specialists. Captain Adolphus Andrews, commander of the Submarine Base in New London, Connecticut, was ordered to send all available vessels to the site. Word reached President Calvin Coolidge, who expressed regret and intense anxiety over the disaster.

Divers reached the hull and established that many of the crew had moved into dry compartments. It was only a slight hope, since sealed compartments could mean survivors if rescuers could keep them supplied with air and prevent flooding.

Communication was established with men trapped in the forward torpedo room by divers and the surface commanders. The men inside replied with a series of taps on the hull, demonstrating that at least six were known to be alive there in the hours after the sinking. Time was of the essence as some of the naval officers gave the crew roughly three days to survive under the water. It was seen as a 1000-1 shot, but it was enough of a chance for the rescuers.

Unfortunately, winter storms, rough seas, strong currents, and the limited depth technology of the era repeatedly hampered rescue operations. Teams attempted to rig air hoses and pumps to the submarine and to use divers to keep lines attached and to feed air into compartments. The weather and wreckage complexity repeatedly forced pauses in the operation. Over several days, rescuers worked frantically; the men in the torpedo room continued to send taps and other signals for some period.

Ultimately, after days of fits and starts in deteriorating conditions, those survivors succumbed before divers could effectively extract them. In the end, all forty on board died. Those aboard the S-4 included officers, enlisted men, a Naval officer, and a civilian. It was noted afterward that the thirty-two men found in the engine room had likely died within hours of the collision due to either drowning or asphyxiation, thanks to carbon dioxide.

The story of the horrific collision and the loss of all on board the S-4 was nationwide news. It stunned locals who could see the buoys that had been left on the surface above the location of the doomed vessel by the submarine tender Wandank. In the end, those buoys would be used for the salvage mission.

Secretary of the Navy Curtis D. Wilbur (2nd from left) during salvage work of S-4 in March 1928. Captain Ernest King and Lieutenant Henry Hartley in charge of the salvage operation, are first and second from right, while Rear Admiral Philip Andrews (left) looks on.(Public Domain)

Despite the massive loss of life on the S-4, the vessel was not a total loss. An experienced salvage force was sent to Cape Cod. This included Captain Ernest J. King, Commander Edward Ellsberg, other senior Navy and Coast Guard officers, and local crews from Provincetown.

Over the winter and into early 1928, divers and salvage crews worked to attach lifting pontoons and cables. After months of difficult work, a successful raising and tow to the Boston Navy Yard occurred in March 1928. S-4 was later repaired and returned to service as a test and training vessel before final decommissioning in the 1930s.

The S-4 being towed to Boston Navy Yard.(Public Domain)

In the end, though it was an accident, there was blame to be placed. Lieutenant Walter J. MacGregor, commanding officer in the Naval Militia, placed the blame on Prohibition. He said in an interview in the immediate aftermath that the vessels out searching for rum runners go where they please, while the submarines stick to very specific routes. The crew of the Paulding was not blamed for the accident. It was however used as a battle cry for those looking for the repeal of Prohibition. This ended up happening in December 1933.

One of the most important legacies of the S-4 tragedy was pressure to improve submarine escape and rescue capability. The limits of the 1920s response, weather-vulnerable diving operations, no standardized submarine rescue chamber, and primitive escape equipment for individual submariners became painfully obvious. The loss of S-4, which came after an earlier disaster involving the S-51 submarine in 1925, pushed submarine professionals and the Navy bureaucracy to accelerate research into reliable rescue tools.

Two major innovations that came soon after the S-4 disaster were first the creation of the Momsen ‘lung.’ These were individual escape breathing devices. The other innovation was the McCann Submarine Rescue Chamber. This was a chamber that could be lowered to a distressed submarine in up to 850 feet of water. The chamber later proved its worth in the 1939 rescue of 33 men from USS Squalus, the first large-scale successful deep submarine rescue.

Beyond equipment, the S-4 tragedy contributed to procedural and cultural changes: improved training, standardized rescue ships and teams, new communications/telephone buoys and mating procedures, better watertight doors and bulkhead designs, and even hazard pay reforms for submariners, all measures aimed at reducing the chance that a similar accident would end in total loss.

Cape Cod paid homage to those lost on the S-4. On the tenth anniversary of the disaster, December 17, 1937, services were held at the Church of St. Mary of the Harbor. After the services, the pastor, Reverend Robert Wood Nicholson, dedicated a timber cross adorned with a pair of plaques commemorating those lives lost. It was fitting that the cross was fashioned from wood salvaged from another shipwreck off Cape Cod.

It has been nearly a century since forty men lost their lives in a horrific but seemingly unavoidable accident off Provincetown. The wooden cross, standing in the courtyard of the Church of St. Mary of the Harbor, is the only reminder of the tragedy that happened just offshore.

Cape Cod, especially the Atlantic Ocean side from Eastham to Provincetown, has a legacy of being a haven for shipwrecks. Sadly, many of those wrecks, and the people who went down on them, become lost to time. Such is the same fate of the forty men lost on the submarine S-4. If one is taking a stroll down Commercial Street, stop into the courtyard and pay respects to those lives lost in Provincetown’s forgotten maritime disaster.

Those lost aboard the S-4

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 213: 1980s Home Workout Videos, Forgotten 1970s Cereals, 1980s Celebrity Crushes, The Hobbit(9-24-2025)

 

*Donate on GoFundMe to help me direct my first short film!*

The home workout craze of the 1980s. Some forgotten cereals from the 1970s. Top celebrity crushes of the 80s.

Fall is officially here but the Gen-X nostalgia remains the same. Episode 213 is a loaded show.

It kicks off with a fall back into fitness. The 1980s were a perfect storm of the rise of VCRs and cable television. This culminated in a tidal wave of fitness shows. These were on TV early in the morning, or could be bought on VHS at local stores. We look back at the home fitness craze and some of the classic workout tapes and shows from the 80s. 

Not all cereals can dominate breakfast like Rice Krispies or Frosted Flakes. Some of them come in with a roar and quickly fall off the map. We go back in the day to look at some forgotten 1970s cereals. This includes several wacky mascots that need to be seen to be believed.

This week's Top 5 scours the walls of 1980s high school students to find out the biggest celebrity crushes of the decade. Whose poster did you have?

There is, of course, a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking at the original publishing of the classic book The Hobbit.

You can support my work by becoming a member on Patreon. Or you can Buy Me A Coffee!

Helpful Links from this Episode

• Searching For the Lady of the Dunes True Crime Book
• Cape Cod Beyond the Beach Photography Book
• In My Footsteps: A Cape Cod Travel Guide(2nd Edition)
• Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
• DJ Williams Music
• KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
• Christopher Setterlund.com
• Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
• Subscribe on YouTube!
• Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
• Webcam Weekly Wrapup Podcast
• CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
• Mr. Breakfast

Listen to Episode 212 here

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #87: Dumpster Transformer, Memory Full, Surreal Validation, etc.

1. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I’m not a fan of people who have Bluetooth headphones hooked up to their phone and then walk around loudly talking. It is one of the most obnoxious things possible. The only thing that makes these types of events worse is when the person talking loudly has a voice that makes your ears bleed. I heard this woman shouting in the aisles of a supermarket, having a conversation. Her voice was one of those nasally, ditsy, Valley Girl voices. Then I saw her and she looked like a Transformer but instead of being some kind of cool machine, she was a dirty old dumpster that also became a human. I couldn’t unsee, or unhear, that.


2. This week, I got an email reminder that my Audible subscription was renewing in a few days. That sounds like a mundane line until I tell you that I totally had no idea I was paying for an Audible subscription. I had likely been getting these payment reminders all along, but the one thing I wasn’t paying was attention. It turns out that what I thought was a free-tier membership, where I got 1 free credit toward an audiobook per month, was actually $14.95 per month. Oh, and it gets better, or worse for me, as this membership has been going on for nearly 2 years. You can do the math. I immediately canceled the membership so I’m in the clear now, but man, that was like a long, drawn-out setup for a joke that wasn’t funny. Oh well, at least I can keep the audiobooks that I got when I thought I was on a free tier. Wicked smart.


3. Getting older means things that were simple when you were younger can now turn into secret injuries. Several weeks ago, I was walking the beach at low tide with some friends. Not wanting to get my shoes wet, I jumped over a little inlet of water still flowing out. I cleared it and felt accomplished, but knew I’d landed a bit awkwardly on my left leg. Flash forward to this week and my hips and lower back were hurting. While getting adjusted by my boss, I mentioned an exercise I did this week that might have caused the pain. He said the issue was likely something from a little while back and we’d just reached the tipping point. That’s when it clicked. Jumping that little stream turned into me needing my left hip to get adjusted. The problem is my mind still thinks I’m 17, or 27, or 37. I feel like I need to forget everything I knew about fitness and diet, while we’re at it, and learn all new stuff. Or just buy clothes made of bubble wrap so I can safely navigate through life.


4. Speaking of getting older. There are times I feel like I have reached the tipping point with the amount of knowledge my brain can hold. I feel at times like a pitcher filling with water, and now any new info is just water flowing out of the pitcher into the sink. Where I notice it the most is at my training job. I have worked with enough different people there that I now can’t remember every detail about each client. This means equipment they might have at home, specific exercises that we have or haven’t done, things like that. On the other hand, I can still remember in great detail a lot of random music and pop culture items from the 1980s and 1990s. So maybe at this point in life, my brain is prioritizing certain knowledge and memories over others. Yes, that random nugget of wisdom about a random song in 1987 gets saved, but whether a client has an injury doesn’t. I’m kidding, by the way, I would remember injuries, just not my own, as seen in the last post.


5. I am used to there being some sort of ambient noise when I record my podcasts. When the weather is nice I have my window open, which is only a few feet from my desk, where I record. Countless vehicles are going by, and way too many large trucks for the road I live on. This week took the cake as far as noises I will need to edit out of the final product. There was a steady barrage of angry blue jays squawking at each other in the trees just outside. It got so bad that I had to mention it on the show in case people hear them, and I can’t edit them all out. The only way I got them to briefly stop was to find hawk calls on YouTube and play them out my window. Sadly, that only got them to go away for a few minutes before it was angry blue jay party time again. Foolish birds.

6. It’s a strange feeling that the Boston Red Sox are likely going to make the playoffs for the first time since 2021 but I really have no interest in it. In fact, this year feels like the least interest I’ve had in sports in general in my lifetime. I’m not sure why that is. It may be because I am always so busy with work that I just don’t have time to become invested in sports. With the Red Sox, I’ve been off the bandwagon with them ever since they traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers after the 2019 season. The Bruins, I have no interest in, as I really don’t watch hockey. The Patriots have struggled since Tom Brady left, but I do keep my eyes on them from afar. I think the local team I’ve been most invested in over the last 5 years is the Celtics. Basketball was a sport I played growing up in school, so that makes sense. Part of it is that for nearly 20 years, New England had a string of champions, and now all of the teams are mediocre so I feel like I was spoiled for all of those years. It’s kind of like the 1990s all over again, except I’m way past high school age.


7. Provincetown is the only place on Cape Cod where, when I go there, I feel like a tourist. Maybe it’s because it’s an hour drive so I don’t get out there more than a few times a year? I was up there for a wedding this past weekend and took more photos of the scenery than of the event itself. I love my time in Ptown. It’s sort of like visiting Nantucket but without having to get on a boat. It’s interesting how I think of distance. Like I said, it’s an hour to drive to Provincetown, but I’m still on Cape Cod. In less than an hour in the other direction, I can drive to Plymouth, Bridgewater, Fall River, and nearly to Scituate and the Rhode Island border. Yet, all of those places feel so much farther away when I think about it.

Commercial Street, Provincetown

8. Speaking of that wedding, it was for the son of the Lady of the Dunes and his longtime girlfriend. It felt like the cherry on top, completing my story arc in a wild true crime story. The ceremony was at a church at one end of the narrow, busy Commercial Street, and the reception was at a resort hotel on the other end. Lucky for me, the hotel was right next to a parking lot. On a Saturday afternoon, even on the last weekend of summer, that lot was packed. I felt like I was going to end up having to park a few extra hundred yards away, which would mean I’d need to rush to walk to the reception, which was nearly a mile away. I still drove all the way to the end of the parking lot, which was next to the hotel. I was pleasantly surprised to find one open spot right on the road. It was as if I was meant to be there. Oh, and at the end of my time there, when I went to pay to leave, it turned out I had been parked for 2 hours and 56 minutes. Another 4 minutes would have cost me an extra $3. I guess you could say everything was coming up Milhouse, if you get that Simpsons reference.


9. Beyond the parking victory, the wedding was a validating yet surreal experience. I grew up with the mystery of the Lady of the Dunes. It was a story I knew well. If you had told me when I was young that someday the Lady would be identified, I’d have said that’s great, she and her family deserve the closure. If you had told me that I’d be involved in the case in a small way, I’d have said that sounds like it could be a possibility. If you would have told me that I’d be involved in the resolution of the case, her identity as Ruth Marie Terry, oh and that she had a son, oh and you will meet him, get to know him, he will invite you to his wedding, and tell you that your book about his mother’s case was very meaningful and important to the case’s resolution? (Catches breath) I’d have said it sounds like something I’d have written, but was highly unlikely. Yet there I was, sitting among family and friends, at a small, intimate wedding. It was in the front of my mind the entire time I was there, just how surreal and yet fulfilling and validating the experience was.

The church where the wedding ceremony was held.

10. The only downside to the wedding day in Provincetown was my Fitbit being skimpy on calories burned. I don’t know why but I thought that walking 4 miles throughout the afternoon would have earned me a few hundred extra calories burned for food. Nope, not a single one. I love my Fitbit Charge 6, but at times it feels inconsistent. It will register steps when I am sitting and moving my arm, yet its distance calculator will typically be less than what my running app will say if they are both going at once. It does a lot of calorie calculating based on heart rate. I figured I’d have gotten my heart rate up, especially when hustling a mile to get to the wedding ceremony. Oh well, even if the Fitbit didn’t give them to me, I know I burned enough calories to earn that pumpkin cake square. Yes, that was what I wanted to use the extra calories on.


11. For me, I don’t understand how in this day and age people walk on regular roads with their dogs off leash. I saw two on a walk this week. One got leashed once the owner saw me coming, which I appreciated. The other was actually off-leash while its owner was walking along with another dog that was leashed. I have no idea. When it comes to unleashed dogs, first off, you don’t know if someone is going to be driving poorly, and your dog could wander into the road and get hit. Secondly, there is the fact that your dog could get spooked, or just be a menace, and go running after a person, or someone on a bike. Unleashed dogs are every bit as dangerous as distracted drivers. They’re both unpredictable. I’ve had several experiences on bike trails on a run or ride, and some idiot has their dog unleashed, and it either jumps at me or wanders in front of me. I like dogs, I don’t love dogs. But of course, I’ve said it before in this blog, many dog owners are simply selfish and entitled, and believe your world revolves around their dog.

Florida Living: 20 Years Later

My 20s were spent searching. I was searching for love, searching for adventure, searching for my future. I was in my 20s from 1997 to 2007, during which time I moved seven times and switched jobs five times. When you’re younger, risks don’t seem as risky, for lack of a better term.

I had moved to Las Vegas in 2000 and returned to Cape Cod early in 2001. It was a significant shift in my life, one that I felt I needed to undertake. It didn’t work out. When I returned to Cape Cod, I found myself falling back into the same rut that had made me want to move away in the first place. Severe bouts of depression overwhelmed me. These were alleviated thanks to a fluke meeting with a girl who would change my life more than almost anyone ever. It also didn’t work out.

I moved to Florida in September 2005. This was a reaction to the ending of that relationship. The original plan was to move to New Orleans in the summer of 2005. I was so positive that the girl who owned my heart was the one that I went all in. I had apartments lined up to look at. I even had a potential job, it was at an art gallery. I forget the name, but I was so confident that I’d be living there soon that I began sending feelers out as far as meeting. I can’t remember what my job was supposed to be. Maybe a greeter of some sort?

Lake Ponchartrain, just outside of New Orleans, where I had hoped to move.

When my reason for moving to New Orleans was taken away, I was torn. My mind was still set on moving away from Cape Cod, much like I had done 5 years earlier when I moved to Vegas. I felt like I was again stagnating and needed a change. Being in my 20s, I was going for the biggest change possible. Switching jobs or changing hair color or clothing styles just wouldn’t cut it. I thought my destiny was going to be moving to New Orleans and further developing a serious relationship. With that off the table, my backup plan was Florida.

My initial plan was to stay with my cousin Tracey and her then-boyfriend in Delray Beach, which is just south of West Palm Beach on the east coast. I was lucky to have a support system where I could move to a far-off place and still feel safe. A more feasible option that came up was for me to move further south to Fort Lauderdale and move in with another cousin and her boyfriend. I don’t think I had any concrete plans besides driving down to Florida and sort of just letting the chips fall where they may. That was my first mistake.

It was like deja vu as I gave my notice at the same restaurant I had been working at when I left for Vegas. Returning to that job, although the people I worked with were great, was probably a big reason why I felt stagnant. I packed up my blue Saturn Ion. The back seat, trunk, and passenger seat were nearly spilling over with everything I owned. I left Cape Cod and headed 1,500 miles south down I-95 toward Florida right after Labor Day.

The same model of the car I drove to Florida and back.

The drive down I-95 was pretty standard most of the time. New York City was a pain-filled with traffic. I went through or got close to Philly, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. There was no way I was going to make 1,500 miles in one shot, so I needed to stay overnight somewhere. I believe it was somewhere in southern Virginia. The main thing I remember about stopping for the night was the fact that my car was overflowing with all of my possessions. I brought in what I could, but most of my stuff had to stay in my car. I was so relieved when I woke up and found my car hadn’t been ransacked.

It was while stopping for gas in the middle of nowhere in Virginia that I had a nice heart-stopping moment. I went to pre-pay for the gas with my credit card at the pump. In those days, I think you could still pump and pay after, but since I was in a totally unfamiliar area, I wanted to keep my interactions with strangers to a minimum.

I didn’t end up getting to pay at the pump, though, as nature intervened. It turned out that there was a black widow spider that had built a web around the credit card slot. I guess not many people stop there for gas. Needless to say, I went inside and paid. They didn’t seem to care about the spider. I guess they were just used to things like that. I mean, the gas station did look like a place where horror movies took place after dark.

Not what you want to see at a gas pump.

A fun event happened when driving through North Carolina. I came up on road work and must not have been paying that close of attention. I ended up having to slam on my brakes. I owned and still own a soft green 8# medicine ball, which was packed for my drive south. When I slammed on the brakes, that ball came flying forward from the backseat. It hit my gear shift and forced my car into park. I almost got whiplash from that stupid ball. Luckily, I was almost stopped, so slamming the car into park didn’t do any damage.

In Georgia, I remember getting my Saturn up to 105mph. Those were small and light sedans, so getting up that fast was a risk. I don’t think I saw a cop for 1,000 miles, which got my bravery up and gave me a bit of a lead foot. I was hopeful of making it to Fort Lauderdale by the end of the day, but I guess I didn’t fully understand geography.

Only when I crossed into Florida did I realize how big the state was. I went through Jacksonville and can still remember Gwen Stefani’s song Luxurious playing on my iPod at that time. I can see the overpasses on the highway as if it were happening now. It’s funny how songs can bring back certain memories.

I stopped in St. Augustine to call my cousin Tracey to tell her I had crossed into Florida. She laughed and said it was still about 4 hours to her house in Delray. It was closer to 5 hours to Fort Lauderdale. It was probably mid to late afternoon by then, so I bit the bullet and ended up staying the night in St. Augustine. It was another night of worrying about my belongings. I covered the fully loaded backseat of my car with a blanket, like that would stop thieves. Looking back, I also kick myself for not stopping at St. Augustine Lighthouse. I am a huge lighthouse fan and have planned many road trips based around visiting certain ones. I actually had 2 chances to stop there and missed out. Now granted, there was no GPS then, and I only had a flip phone, so I likely would have gotten lost trying to find it. Still, it might have been the only chance I’ll ever get.

I arrived in Delray Beach first and spent some time with Tracey. I felt at home there, but also knew that I had said I’d be moving into the apartment in Fort Lauderdale. The fact that I didn’t go immediately to Lauderdale should have been another sign.

I had fun getting acclimated to Florida. I drove the A1A highway just like in Ice Ice Baby which, for some reason, I found thrilling. After a day or two, I eventually made it down to my destination. Fort Lauderdale was a beautiful city, but I didn’t feel as at home as I did in Delray. I chalked it up to needing to get used to my new surroundings.

One thing I wasn’t expecting was my morning wake-up call in Lauderdale. It consisted of a flock of wild parakeets that lived in a tree right outside my bedroom window. Once the sun came up, it was like being in a pet store with squawks nonstop. Yes, I was living in the apartment with my cousin and her boyfriend, but I felt as if I was totally on my own. After having a large support system on Cape Cod, it was shock to my system to feel so alone.

A Monk's Parakeet, my morning wake-up call.

My cousin Tracey’s boyfriend came down to Lauderdale one day, and he and I went with my other cousin to wander Las Olas Blvd and do a little day drinking. Las Olas is the main road that is filled with shops, bars, and restaurants. I couldn’t get over how hot and humid it was, but hey, it was southern Florida. It would be over 90 degrees and 90% humidity every day. It was almost like clockwork that you could predict that in mid-afternoon, it would quickly cloud up and there would be a round of heavy thunderstorms. Just as quickly, it would get sunny again. Then the humidity would become unbearable. It was like the worst of Cape Cod’s summer weather, but it was an everyday thing.

Florida was supposed to be a new chapter of my life, but I started off by treating it like an extended vacation. I remember having to call my old job asking for my last paycheck to be sent to me. Sure, I was looking for a job, but it was almost like I had no sense of urgency. It literally was like I just up and moved without any real plans of what to do.

Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale

The one job story I have is that I applied to a company that specialized in newborn photos. So you’d go to a new parent’s house and take photos of the parents and the baby, and they would hopefully buy a package of the photos. You might need to do some high-pressure sales, though.

I forget the name of the company, but I remember driving to meet the guy at the office, not far from my apartment in Fort Lauderdale. The guy looked a lot like Larry Fine from the Three Stooges, if you need a reference. We drove to one potential job location in Miami. It’s ironic that I have a lot of issues with trusting people, and have had for most of my life. Yet I jumped into this stranger's car, in a strange place, and drove to an unknown location without a second thought.

I remember going through Alligator Alley in the Everglades and seeing gators on the side of the road and people jogging in the same vicinity, and being surprised that I didn’t see someone get killed. It was the only time I ever went to Miami. I just remember not feeling comfortable with the way the guy was trying to pressure a new mother into buying an expensive photo package. We stood in the living room of this young mother’s house while she was tending to her newborn. I was just watching. Larry Fine kept pushing until she finally agreed to one of the cheapest photo packages. I knew that it wasn’t going to be a fit for me. I am not a good salesman because I empathize too much with people when it comes to money issues. So that job never happened.

My potential boss.

I believe that my moving to Florida was snakebit from the beginning. It was, after all, a fallback plan from what I had really wanted to do, which was to move to New Orleans. I think that’s why I wasn’t heavy into the job search. More proof that it was snakebit came about a month into my time there when Hurricane Wilma struck. It was a Category 3, bigger than any storm I’d ever been through.

As the storm was getting closer, my cousin Tracey offered to let me drive up to Delray and stay with her. I wasn’t really happy in Fort Lauderdale anyway, so I jumped at the chance. Tracey was and is like an older sister, so I felt more secure being under the same roof as her.

I liked Delray Beach. Not far from where I was on Linton Blvd, there was a strip mall that had 4 fast-food places in the same parking lot. I would go and weave my way through all 4, getting things from KFC, Wendy’s, Taco Bell, and Arby’s. That’s not the only reason why I liked Delray; it was just a nice, unhealthy bonus.


I also got to try a new energy drink they were selling called Celsius. Today it’s everywhere but ironically, it was founded in Delray in 2005, so I was on the ground floor. This was back when Celsius was in glass bottles.

The big thing I loved about Tracey’s house was that it was on the Intracoastal Canal. Every house on her street and the neighboring streets had docks, and most had boats. She had a grapefruit tree and a pool that was shaped like a bean. It was also crazy to see all of the lizards that would be running around. Think about having squirrels in your yard, now replace them with lizards. They were harmless, all of them probably 6-8 inches long, but still a wild scene.

I would take my little iPod shuffle, grab a few beers, and go sit out at the dock for sunset and after, and just love life. It was weird, but the Boz Scaggs song Lowdown seemed to always play during my sunset drinking times. It was like my unofficial drinking song. Every time I hear that song to this day I can picture that dock and those purple and orange sunsets. 

I remember there being a party one night, and this was where I learned about the wacky effects of combining alcohol and caffeine. There were small kiddie pools with alcohol in one and Red Bull in the other. I enjoyed a good mix of both. Luckily, I didn’t make any poor decisions while under the influence. Again, I was not taking life in Florida very seriously.

My favorite seat

So, back to the hurricane. Wilma roared through. We taped up the sliding glass door, and almost immediately lost power. Everyone within 50 miles lost power. Luckily, Tracey’s house was not damaged, but there was significant damage to the neighbors' houses. The worst thing that happened to Tracey’s was all of the grapefruits being knocked out of her tree. It was a wild scene tossing more than a dozen of them into the ocean. It looked like one of those rubber duck races.

I remember having to pick up and move a pretty big tree with Tracey’s boyfriend. I swear there was a photo of me pressing another smaller log overhead. The worst damage I saw was an auto dealership that had been completely pancaked. It had been an all-glass showcase, and I think it was a luxury car brand. So it was possibly over a million dollars worth of cars crushed by this storm. The big thing was that we realized that there was no telling when power would be back on. Luckily, Tracey had a generator, but it needed gas.

There was a major gas shortage thanks to the storm. Every station within 50 miles was either empty or had really long lines with no guarantees that there would be gas when you got to a pump. I believe that we ended up driving nearly 100 miles north before we finally found a gas station that we could get into.

They were limiting people to no more than $20 max on gas. Tracey was smart and slipped the guy some money to let us fill up the car and the tanks for the generator. I’ll never forget watching the pump going so slow as if it was almost out of gas and seeing a line of cars behind us. We got our fill, and we got the hell out of there fast.

The drive back south consisted of copious amounts of fumes in the car from the gas cans, and me getting car sick and having to jump out in some rural area to puke behind what I think was an abandoned barn. I didn’t go inside to check. I do remember Tracey falling asleep in the backseat close to the gas cans, and her boyfriend wanting me to wake her up just to make sure she was alright.

We might have spent another day or two back at the house in Delray. Not wanting to just hang out and waste the generator’s power, we all ended up making the trip north to Orlando, where a friend of Tracey’s had power. They offered us a place to stay for a few days. That was another unique experience. We packed up what we needed and made the trip nearly 200 miles north to Orlando.

First off, Tracey’s friend liked being naked a lot. It was not ‘good naked’ like on Seinfeld. This friend was very nice, but no model, so I was not enjoying it. It was like a Monkey's Paw situation. I slept on the couch in the living room, and I’d have a moment where this woman would stroll in totally naked. It sounds like the start of some erotic movie, but sadly, it was not. I’d end up rolling over to face the couch.

On the other hand, where we were staying was within walking distance of Universal Studios, and it was the week of Halloween. There was a costume contest with the winner getting $5,000. I was all in on that. I got dressed up as a geisha girl. I had a blue dress, a white painted face, red lips, and some sort of hat. This was all stuff readily available where we were staying. I didn’t go to some Halloween store to buy a blue dress.

At Universal for Halloween, they had people dressed as zombies and crazies with chainsaws that would chase you. I was in line with my other cousin getting something to eat, and a chainsaw guy came up behind us and revved the engine. I’ll never forget that I turned around and said ‘what’s up?’ He let out a scream when he saw that it was a guy dressed as a geisha. I should have gotten the prize right there but sadly, I didn’t win. The couple we were staying with did win third prize dressed as convicts with striped uniforms.

After Orlando, after power was back on in Delray, and things were pretty back to normal, it really hit me that I wasn’t feeling life in Florida. I didn’t even bother going back down to Fort Lauderdale. All of my job interviews had gone up in smoke due to the hurricane. I was blowing through my savings just trying to get my bearings.

Plus, I was in a bad place mentally over my recent breakup. Only looking back in hindsight, do I realize just how badly I was doing mentally after that. I had moved to Florida to escape my emotions. It’s as if I felt as though this major change would throw me off so much that I’d forget about old what’s her name. That was not the case.

There were some great sunsets there.

Still, there I was, far from home. I didn’t want to fail and go back to Cape Cod, much like I had done when in Vegas. I also didn’t want to fail in Florida and be left with no way back. I felt like it was a choose-your-own-adventure book, and I wasn’t willing to take my finger off the previous page to fully cement my decision.

I celebrated my 28th birthday at a gentleman's club. It was a first and to this point only experience in such a place. Everything for me was comped, which made it a very fun and unique celebration. This included a private dance in the champagne room with a girl who looked so much like my recent ex that it really messed with my head. Don’t get me wrong, lap dances from a hot stripper were great, but it highlighted the fact that I felt lost inside. I needed to go back to Cape Cod.

Less than two weeks after my birthday, I had a sort of ‘tearing the Band-Aid off’ moment. I just said to Tracey that I felt like it wasn’t working for me there and that I was going home imminently. She said, rightfully so, that I hadn’t given it a full chance. My mind was made up, though.

I have been someone who has always had trouble asking for help from others. I’d almost rather suffer than feel like I owe someone. What I mean is that if I had remained in Florida, I’d have likely needed to borrow some money to make ends meet until I found a decent-paying job. I hated that idea. Ironically, what lay ahead of me was driving 1,500 miles back up the East Coast to Cape Cod, where I’d also have no money and no job.

I made a final drive to Fort Lauderdale to pack up the rest of what I had brought with me to Florida. Luckily, I hadn’t signed any sort of lease on the apartment where I had originally planned to stay. I basically was able to slide in and then get out with an Irish Goodbye. My cousin, who was living in that apartment, wasn’t happy that I was leaving, but I was long past the point of no return.

The trip back to Cape Cod was far more eventful than the trip down. I stopped overnight in North Carolina. The next morning, I packed up and headed for the highway. Before I had even made it to full speed on the entrance ramp, I was met with the flashing lights of a police car.

I was ticketed for speeding, which I probably was, but I was not even on the highway yet, so how fast was I really going? I was told that due to my rate of speed, I needed to be in the Johnston County court in Smithfield, North Carolina, the following Monday. I explained that I was in the midst of driving from Florida to Cape Cod and didn’t have the money to pay for a hotel room and any other amenities for a few days.

The cop didn’t care. What he did say was that if I couldn’t appear in court, I would have to hire an attorney to appear on my behalf. I ended up having to call a North Carolina lawyer to pay them to appear in court for me as soon as I returned to Cape Cod. It was Everett Law Firm, which got off on the right foot by misspelling my last name in their email.

The form I had to fill out and return, including what I had to pay the lawyer.

I succeeded in getting the ticket cost lowered somewhat, but it was offset by what I had to pay the lawyer. It was a ridiculous set of circumstances, but I used it as a life lesson. In fact, for more than a decade, I was subscribed to that particular law office’s newsletter. The funny part was that not long after I unsubscribed, I got a speeding ticket when driving in Maine.

My time in Florida lasted a little more than 2 months. Was it a failure? Overall, yes, but with a caveat. If the hurricane hadn’t hit, I think that I would have had a better chance for success. It went from being a new chapter of my life to a sort of reality game show where we traveled hours for gas, dressed up for costume contests, and celebrated in strip clubs.

Do I regret it? Not at all. Over the ensuing years, I learned a lot about myself thanks to that time in Florida. I learned about the differences between calculated risks and running from problems. Plus, it did end up being a sort of adventure movie that I was able to experience with little damage done. Well, except for that speeding ticket.

Interestingly, though, since I left Las Vegas, I have always had a desire to return there, maybe not to live but at least to visit. I have never had a desire to ever go back to Florida, which makes me wish my cousin Tracey lived somewhere else. I am not sure why I have the desire to return to one place but not the other. I have family in both, and both experiences ended with me failing and having to move back to Cape Cod.

Upon returning to Cape Cod, I felt like I was drifting again, but in familiar waters at least. I didn’t have time to be picky about a job since I was broke. I ended up working in the dairy section of a Stop & Shop for a few months. This was fine. It was low-key, not great pay, but simple.

In a serendipitous moment, my old boss at the restaurant I had left when going to Florida happened to pass through the dairy section. She said I should go back and work at the restaurant again, and so I did. This time, I was so appreciative of the opportunity that I stayed way longer than I should have out of loyalty and respect. I will admit though, I often wonder what my life would have looked like if I had politely declined to go back. That’s another in a long line of ‘what if’s’ in my life.

There was however, one major positive that came from my time in Florida. It is one that is still large in my life and includes what you are reading. While sitting on my laptop in my bedroom at the apartment in Fort Lauderdale, I happened upon a screenplay writing contest.

It was through a company called Withoutabox, no, I didn’t forget the spaces. They partnered with a lot of major film festivals at the time. I had almost exclusively written poetry up to that point, so crafting a screenplay was uncharted waters.

The Withoutabox website as it appeared in 2005

I wrote something for it, but didn’t win. I can’t remember if they contacted me to tell me, or if I just figured it out when I didn’t hear anything after a few months. Regardless, I was so happy with that screenplay that I decided to turn it into my first short story, which I ended up calling Eight Hours. Basically, that story was a kind of fictionalized version of the recent breakup that had prompted my move to Florida in the first place.

That short story started me down a different writing path. The poetry started fading away and was replaced by short stories, children’s books, and novels. I would end up uploading more than a dozen of my works onto the brand new Amazon Kindle store between 2007 and 2010. All of my writing, the ebooks, blogs, and eventually 9 going on 10 published books, stem from that contest in Florida. 

Everything I’ve done creatively since then, with videos, podcasts, and film, all go back to my time in Florida. So, for as disappointed as I was that I bailed on it pretty quickly, I feel like all of my major accomplishments professionally got their start during that brief time when I called Florida home. For that reason, I can never say that my time there was a failure.