Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #105: Best Workout, Northern Lights 3, Snowpocalypse, etc.

1. I ended up being right. Where I am on Cape Cod got between 3-4” of heavy wet snow that was like cement. I didn’t feel like going to the gym, so I took this as an opportunity to burn some calories by shoveling the driveway. I made sure to turn on my Fitbit for a workout before starting. It turns out shoveling the snow was my best workout all week. I burned 440 calories in 40 minutes while shoveling. I was totally wiped out after. In all honesty, I probably didn’t need to shovel. It got up to 36 degrees, and the sun poked out, so we got a bit of melting. Still, I loved being able to get a great cardio and strength workout without having to go to the gym.


2. For the third time in 15 months, I was able to see and photograph the Aurora Borealis on Cape Cod. It started off cloudy. I wasn’t feeling good about seeing anything, so I decided to go out early, about an hour after sunset. Checking the radar, I saw clouds moving east, so I drove west. I got to Barnstable and found a great location called Scudder’s Landing. What made it great, besides the fact that nobody else was there, was the fact that there was no lighting to ruin the photos. I immediately got several amazing photos and was able to get creative with the shots since there was nobody around.

I will never get tired of this.

3. Since I was already out and about for the Northern Lights, I mapped out a few locations I wanted to shoot. One was the popular Sandwich Boardwalk. I hadn’t been there in several years, since a disastrous first date that we will move on from. I got there, and it was dark and cold, but the wind had picked up. I was using my selfie stick as a tripod, which works great when there is little to no wind. In the breeze, though, it made it almost impossible to get any good photos that weren’t blurry. I did my best. The highlight, or lowlight, was a group of several people who sounded like they were around 60. As I was staging photos, I could hear one of the men whining about the temperature and asking why they ‘don’t have Northern Lights in the summer.’ I would have mentioned that the Aurora happens all the time regardless of the season, but this guy sounded like he has enough trouble with 2+2 being 4, so I packed up my gear and moved to another location.

More muted colors at the boardwalk.

4. When is the right time to take down your Christmas decorations? I know some people have everything down by sunset on Christmas Day. Then others keep everything up until their tree begins to decompose. We are currently a month out from Christmas, and my decorations are still up. I don’t plan on having people over to judge me if my decorations stay up well into February, but there has to be a cutoff date, right? I mean, I don’t want to be tripping over Christmas stuff when putting my A/C unit in. Then again, my Halloween pumpkin is still going strong 3 months after I got it, so I might not have the best judgment when it comes to moving on. By the way, the pumpkin will likely survive well into spring and then be destroyed in spectacular fashion. Stay tuned for that.


5. In classic fashion, it is time for another New England winter storm in time for the weekend. I say ‘classic fashion’ because, as of several days out, it was reported that we on Cape Cod could get anywhere from a few inches to well over a foot. Not only that, but depending on where you went for your forecast, the amounts shifted drastically. The Accuweather app said 3-6”, which is no big deal. Weather Underground said 12”, which is a much different story. The snow won’t hit us until this blog has been posted, so I guess this is an unintentional teaser for next week’s blog. How much snow will we get, and how many calories will I burn shoveling? Stay tuned.


6. I’ve been through tons of major snowstorms in my life growing up in New England. One thing I’ve never understood is the ‘essentials’ that people are supposed to get at the store in anticipation. Bread I get, but eggs and milk? If power goes out, what the hell is the point of having eggs? You gonna eat them raw like Rocky did? Anytime I anticipate being stuck inside for an extended period, I look at getting water, bread, peanut butter, and jelly, maybe single-serve protein shakes. Things that don’t need power to be consumed. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me. How many of you out there rush to the store for eggs before a snowstorm? I have never done it and am pretty sure I never will.


7. Maybe I’m now officially the old man, but I feel like a big reason why people seem disconnected these days is the fact that everyone wears headphones everywhere they go. I see way too many people inside stores with earbuds in. It’s your life, do what you want, but the fact that people go out into public and just have others tuned out is kind of stupid. What if some sweet old lady needed help getting something off a shelf, but you don’t hear because you can’t disconnect from your headphones for two friggin’ seconds? This week, I saw a scummy-looking kid walking down the aisles at a supermarket, earbuds in, singing a foul-mouthed song. There could be little kids around, and they have to hear that crap from some dirtbag? Like I said, maybe I’m the old man now, but it’s just a bad sign of society. Oh, and it’s not all young people, I see people older than me doing the same thing, so it’s everybody.


8. It’s amazing the things you remember from your childhood. There are certain phrases, lyrics, or orders of words that are embedded in your brain. Sometimes you have no idea what they are, what they mean, or even how they got there. Quick story time. I have a vague memory from the bygone days of the mid-1980s. It revolves around two children’s songs back to back, Bingo and Little Dutch Girl. One I know, the other song I have no idea how I know. For some reason, when I think of Bingo, Little Dutch Girl follows close behind. I figured it had to be from a commercial I had seen when I was a kid. While stuck inside during the winter storm, I decided to do a little internet detective work. I quite literally typed in ‘Bingo, Little Dutch Girl, children’s songs, commercial.’ Lo and behold, I found the answer to my 40-year-old earworm. It is an album called Children’s Favorites, released in 1978 and recorded by some group called The Jingleheimers. I found the commercial, and when I watched it felt like an old door was being unlocked in my memory. No, I’m not going to order that album for my collection, although it says there’s an 8-track which might be cool. I do enjoy the fact that even all of these years later, I can solve mysteries that my memory has been hiding for 40 years.




9. When I am not at my day job, on the clock getting paid, I do not think about it. I have many other projects that take up much of my free time. I am also not a paramedic, or some other job where I am on call sometimes 24/7. That means if I am not inside the walls of my job, therefore not getting paid by it, I don’t want to be sent work-related messages. It’s a boundary I need to set and enforce in 2026. Seriously, my free time is mine, not an opportunity to have some unimportant work stuff sent to me.


10. We had the coldest day in a few years this week. The wind chill was down around -15 on Cape Cod, and even lower off-Cape. I stayed inside as long as possible. Eventually, I got the courage to venture out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. The wind died out, and so the 16 degrees felt downright balmy compared to what I was expecting. I went on the hunt for slush waves, which happen at the ocean when it’s been particularly cold. Sadly, I guess it hadn’t been cold long enough because the ocean was just as it always was. I was actually a bit disappointed. Then I saw that the temperatures are going to be at or below freezing for the next few weeks. I feel like I’ll have slush wave overload by the time February is over.


11. The flakes started flying by 10am on Sunday as the biggest snowstorm in 4 years hit New England. It was too cold to go for a morning walk before the snow started, so I hit the gym. Unfortunately for me, so did everyone else within a 10-mile radius. The gym was set to close at 11am, so everyone got in their workouts. It was so cold, about 20 degrees, that I wore track pants to the gym instead of shorts. That’s a rarer occurrence than seeing a four-leaf clover. 


12. The New England Patriots are going back to the Super Bowl for the first time since 2018. They beat the Denver Broncos in a wild AFC Championship Game 10-7. Drake Maye actually did something Tom Brady never did, and that was win a playoff game in Denver. The weather was crazy. Sunny to start and then a blizzard by the end. The snow was so bad that the announcers weren’t even sure where the ball was on the field. The Patriots’ white uniforms might have actually helped them since Jarrett Stidham, Denver’s quarterback (their backup), threw an interception late, and who knows if he could even see the defense. Now we wait to see if it’s the Los Angeles Rams or the Seattle Seahawks. Ironically, the Patriots have beaten both teams in the Super Bowl, so either team would be looking for some revenge. Either way, this feels like the beginning of another long run of high-level play from the Patriots after a few years of retooling.




13. I’m finishing this blog at 7pm on Sunday night so I can get it up for my usual Monday morning. As we speak, there is likely about 8-9” of snow on the ground. I was out helping do a little preventative maintenance shoveling at 5pm, and we had close to 6” then. Luckily, it was light and fluffy, but I still burned 100 calories in 15 minutes of shoveling. Cape Cod is supposed to get a mix with rain overnight, meaning the snow will get heavy and wet. Shoveling will be a load of fun on my back. I have already been given a snow day at work since I have a sedan with front-wheel drive. I love my car, but it doesn’t do well in more than 3” of snow. 53 more days until spring.